(Third POV)
Paul's grip tightened around his sword, his knuckles white as he charged ahead.
Ghislaine was already ahead of him, moving with the lethal precision of a seasoned warrior.
The two of them sprinted across the battlefield, weaving through the smoldering wreckage left behind by the monster's devastating breath attack. Overhead, violet flames still flickered against the night sky, casting eerie shadows against the ruined city.
The three-headed beast turned its attention toward them, its middle head lowering to meet their charge. The monstrous horn atop its skull gleamed under the corrupted firelight, radiating an unnatural, menacing glow. With a guttural snarl, it lashed out—its massive claws tearing through the ground in a sweeping arc, sending shattered stone and debris flying.
Paul barely managed to dodge, rolling beneath the beast's attack before springing back to his feet. Ghislaine, faster and more experienced, leaped onto a fallen column and launched herself toward the creature. Her blade glowed with aura, and with a swift, controlled strike, she aimed directly for its eyes — a tried and true weak point for any living thing.
The monster reacted instantly. The right head lunged, its jaws snapping toward Ghislaine mid-air, forcing her to twist her body to avoid being bitten in half. Her sword glanced against the eye, piercing it — the beast shrieked, the eye rupturing in a spray of dark blood. But even before she landed, the viscous liquid began to swirl, the wound already sealing shut, a new eye forming beneath a layer of shimmering, raw flesh.
Paul took advantage of the distraction. He dashed forward, using the beast's massive forelimb as a stepping stone, and vaulted onto its shoulder. His short sword, imbued with aura, plunged at the joint where wing met body — hoping to cripple its limb.
His blade struck true. The wing jerked back, bone snapping with a sickening crack. The monster howled in pain, staggering — but even as violet blood poured from the ruined joint, the flesh writhed and convulsed, bones shifting back into place, tendons knitting together faster than any natural creature could manage.
"Damn it — it's already healing!" Paul growled through gritted teeth.
"Go for the throat!" Ghislaine called, already repositioning for another strike.
Roxy, now perched atop a pile of rubble, fired off another volley. She called out the name of her spell, speaking the incantation under her breath.
"[Earth Lance]!"
From the shattered ground, a single, massive spear of stone erupted, surging upward with violent force. It shot straight for the exposed underbelly — the thinner scales and more vulnerable flesh. But the monster's reflexes were monstrously quick. The lance grazed along the beast's side, tearing a shallow gash and sending shards of stone and splashes of dark blood into the air — but not delivering the killing blow Roxy had intended.
The beast shrieked in pain and fury, twisting away — but instead of retreating, it surged forward with unnatural speed, one of its massive clawed limbs lashing toward Roxy's perch.
"Roxy!" Paul shouted, horror tightening his throat.
Roxy's eyes widened, her chant faltering, too slow to dodge.
But before the claws could tear through her, Elinalise appeared in a flash of silver and green. She raised her shield, intercepting the monstrous strike. The sheer force of the blow sent her skidding back, boots grinding against broken stone, but she held firm.
"Not on my watch!" Elinalise snarled, angling the shield, redirecting the blow skyward. The beast's claws raked harmlessly against a toppled wall.
"Roxy — now!" Elinalise shouted.
Roxy, steadying herself, shifted her chant, her fingers sparking with condensed magic. She murmured the incantation quickly and precisely, finishing with a sharp call.
"[Explosion]!"
A sudden, explosive pulse of searing light and force burst before the monster's heads, a crackling explosion of fire and light. The creature recoiled, shrieking as the blinding burst staggered it, its heads writhing in disorientation.
The opportunity was instant.
Ruijerd saw the opening and surged forward. His spear aimed for the base of the middle head's skull — a direct, killing strike.
But the left head moved first, intercepting him with jagged teeth. Sparks flew as spear met fang, but Ruijerd was relentless. He twisted the weapon and drove the point into the creature's gaping maw, targeting the soft tissue inside. Blood sprayed, the beast flailed — yet already the torn flesh was knitting back together, threads of muscle weaving themselves whole within seconds as Ruijerd was leaping back.
Eris darted between the monster's limbs, her eyes scanning. She aimed for the joints next — the knee, the elbow, weak points in any opponent. Her sword struck, severing tendons, forcing one of its legs to collapse inward.
The monster stumbled, but the severed muscle writhed like a bundle of snakes, reattaching and rebuilding as though time itself was being undone.
Paul, seizing another chance, launched onto the beast's back. He drove both swords down into the spine, hoping it would disable it.
The monster shrieked, its whole body convulsing — for an instant, it froze, trembling violently. But even there, the flesh rebelled against death. The severed spine lashed together, the broken vertebrae grinding against the blades, pushing them out as bone and sinew rebuilt themselves.
"This is insane!" Paul shouted. "Every vital spot — it just grows back!"
"Then we keep trying!" Eris growled.
They worked together, shifting targets:— The eyes, ruptured and regrown.— The throat, stabbed through and resealed.— The base of the skull, pierced and reconstructed.— The heart, or where a heart should be, was punctured only to feel it split into two and regrow around the blade.— The knees and shoulders, slashed open but immediately reknitting.
Roxy's spells battered the creature with elemental force, frost, and fire alike, but no matter what they did, the monster's regeneration defied logic — not healing, but devouring the damage, using it as fuel to rebuild stronger.
The monster howled in frustration, its three heads rearing back, unleashing a new surge of power.
"It's adapting!" Ghislaine cursed. "It's learning where we're aiming!"
The heads moved in unnatural unison now, guarding the previously targeted points.
"Paul!" Ghislaine's voice cut through — faint, distant.
He forced his body to move, recalling every strike they'd attempted, every failure.
They needed a way to overwhelm the regeneration — or bypass it entirely.
"Roxy!" Paul bellowed, his voice hoarse. "Hit it with everything! All at once — no chance to heal!"
If they couldn't outmatch its regeneration, they had to overwhelm it. The vital spots alone weren't enough — but all of them, together, maybe…
Paul's shout cut through the oppressive haze.
"Hit every vital point — all at once! It has to have a limit to how much it can heal from!"
Although a desperate and perhaps even misguided plan, no one protested, especially Ruijerd, who shared the same opinion as Paul.
So, they moved as one.
Ghislaine surged forward, her sword burning with aura, leaping onto the wreckage of a crumbled wall. She launched herself toward the right head's thick neck, her blade flashing toward its vulnerable joint.
Ruijerd was a step behind, spear in hand, aiming straight for the middle head's eye socket — the one weak point even its scales couldn't shield.
Eris darted beneath the beast's writhing limbs, carving savagely into the knee tendons of both legs, her sword flashing, severing muscle and sinew.
Paul gritted his teeth, charging from the flank, his longsword poised for the creature's ribcage, aiming for its heart, while his shortsword targeted the spine just above its pelvis — anywhere the beast might falter.
"Roxy, now!" he bellowed.
Roxy, standing tall atop a ruined archway, unleashed her magic with everything she had. She spoke the incantation clearly, her voice steady even in the chaos, and called out the spell's name.
"[Blizzard Storm]!"
A raging tempest of ice and razor-sharp shards spiraled down from the stormy skies she conjured, a howling blizzard crashing into the monster with devastating force. The storm hammered the creature's heads, limbs, torso, joints, throat, and wings all at once, coating its massive form in a lethal barrage of frost and cutting wind.
The synchronized assault worked, but only for a moment.
Violet blood sprayed in heavy gouts, hissing and steaming against the icy winds. Severed tendons writhed, but could not reconnect. One of its heads sagged lifelessly, half-severed by Ghislaine's blade. Ruijerd's spear buried deep into the middle head's eye, and for a heartbeat, Paul thought they had it.
But then—
A sudden, unnatural glow built in the creature's throats.
Paul's instincts screamed.
"Get back!"
The others reacted instantly, breaking formation and leaping clear. But what came wasn't fire yet again.
Instead, a dense, thick fog burst from the monster's mouths, billowing out with unnatural speed and force. It wasn't smoke from flames — this fog clung to the air, surging like a living entity, smothering the battlefield in seconds.
Paul barely managed to leap clear of the initial blast, but the fog was too fast. It swept over him, heavy and suffocating, wrapping the world in a crushing, colorless void.
He coughed, trying to shout, but the air felt thick, tainted.
And then… it hit him.
A strange, dizzying sensation crept up his spine. His limbs grew heavy. His heart pounded out of rhythm. His grip on his swords loosened. His mind, sharp just seconds ago, blurred like a smeared painting.
His thoughts splintered.
At first, it was small — a flicker of wrongness in his periphery. His sword's gleaming blade seemed to ripple, turning serpentine in his grasp. The ground beneath his boots felt too soft, too uneven, as though it shifted with every step.
Paul staggered. His breathing ragged, his vision swimming.
"Wh-what… the hell is this…?" he muttered.
He tried to use his detection ability — the sense he'd honed over the year, a pulse he could rely on when his eyes failed. Nothing. It was as though the very world had gone silent.
A cold, creeping realization struck him. It wasn't just fog. This was deliberate—a weapon.
The smoke was laced with something hallucinogenic, toxic. A drug in gas form — designed to disorient, to drown the mind in fevered visions and nausea. Each breath thickened the haze in his head, blurring the line between reality and nightmare.
He could barely hear his comrades anymore. Their voices were distant echoes, distorted like whispers underwater. Ghislaine's shout was a faint, unintelligible murmur. Roxy's magic pulses dimmed.
Shapes moved in the fog — some real, some not. The monster's silhouette shifted, massive and menacing, its heads writhing in the mist.
His pulse quickened. The world warped.
The fog twisted his vision, making his allies' faces melt into monstrous visages, their weapons turning into writhing snakes. Every instinct screamed, telling him to run, to strike, to retreat — but he fought against it, clinging to reason like a drowning man clutches driftwood.
He could hear claws scraping stone — the beast moving through the mist.
"Stay focused… stay…" Paul rasped, planting his feet, gripping his swords so hard his knuckles whitened. His head pounded. His stomach twisted. He felt like retching.
The synchronized attack had almost worked. Almost. But now the team was scattered, isolated, and their senses dulled.
The monster had adapted. Desperate. Clever. It wasn't just relying on brute force — it was hunting them now, breaking them apart through their minds.
Paul's breathing slowed. He forced his thoughts into a single thread. Find the others. Regroup. Resist the fog. If they didn't… The beast would pick them off, one by one.
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