The Beast reeled as the fireball struck, the blast rolling across its body in a burst of heat and force. It reacted instantly, wings snapping forward and folding over itself, enclosing its form to smother the flames against its own armored hide. Fire licked and died beneath the layered membranes, smoke curling outward as the blaze was choked out.
The moment the wings opened—
Ercale was already there.
His fist drove straight into its face, lightning erupting on impact in a violent crack that snapped the Beast's head to the side and sent its entire body staggering backward across the ground.
It did not get the chance to recover.
Bram was behind it.
His blade moved in a clean, brutal arc, cutting through both wings at their base in a single motion. The severed limbs dropped away as the Beast lurched forward from the loss of balance.
"So how exactly do we bring the kid back?" Bram called out, already shifting his footing for the next exchange.
"We keep beating him till he comes back to his senses," Ercale replied without hesitation, his stance resetting as lightning crawled faintly along his arm. "If that doesn't work, a speech about friendship or some stupidity like that should bring him back."
The Beast moved before either of them could follow up.
It launched upward, its body coiling and then releasing in a sudden burst of motion. One claw came down toward Bram in a descending slash while both tails snapped forward toward Ercale, spearing in from opposing angles.
Bram met the strike head-on. His blade rose and caught the claws with a sharp burst of sparks, the impact driving him back several feet as his boots scraped against the ground to hold his position.
"Damn, that's strong," he muttered, adjusting his grip. "I guess that's the chi at work."
Ercale avoided the tails cleanly at first, shifting his body just enough for them to pass by, until one of them suddenly extended mid-thrust, its length snapping out farther than expected. He bent backward sharply to avoid it, his balance tipping to the edge as the tip passed just inches from his face.
"Yes, it is," Ercale answered as he recovered his footing, eyes narrowing. "And it's making minor changes to catch us off guard."
The Beast dropped back to the ground and turned toward him, its posture lowering as it prepared to sprint—
A barrage of fire cut it off.
Bolts slammed into it in rapid succession, each impact bursting against its body and forcing it back a step at a time. Clara stood at range, gripping a fire automatic crossbow she had created, the construct spitting out tightly packed shots of flame in a relentless stream.
The Beast raised its arms to shield itself.
They were blown apart.
Successive shots tore through its limbs and torso, chunks of its body ripping away under the relentless barrage.
"Is this helping?" Clara asked, uncertainty cutting through her focus as she kept firing.
Ercale did not answer in words.
"Blitzkrieg."
He vanished into motion, a streak of lightning cutting past the Beast. In an instant, he was across it, then through it, then around it, delivering dozens of rapid strikes that detonated in sharp bursts of electricity across its entire body. Each hit tore more from it until the Beast's form broke apart completely, reduced to scattered, sparking chunks.
Clara stopped firing immediately, her attacks ceasing as there was no longer a single target to hit.
For a fraction of a moment, there was nothing but scattered remains.
Then it started again.
Black tendrils shot out from each fragment, lashing across the space between them and binding piece to piece. The chunks were dragged together, reforming, reshaping, rebuilding—
—and the Beast stood whole again.
Prince Mark was already moving.
He drove forward and thrust his blade straight through its back, the weapon punching through its body and piercing its heart cleanly before exiting its chest. "Its body is softer than one would expect," he remarked, already releasing the weapon as he kicked off and leapt back to avoid the tails snapping toward him, leaving the blood-red blade lodged within it.
"Mana Blast!"
Samwell's voice cut through the air as a beam of pure purple mana slammed into the Beast before it could even react. The force of it engulfed the entire form, consuming it in a surge of energy.
"That's for stealing my family's ability, you abomination!" he shouted, pouring more power into the attack.
The Beast was reduced to ash.
Several people—Zee, Nori, Vilak, Clara, and even Mae—froze seeing this, their bodies going completely still as they stared at where the Beast had been, uncertainty gripping them at the sight of nothing but ash.
"X-Xain?" Zee called out, her voice uncertain, fragile, as she stared at the drifting remains, not knowing if his regeneration was going to save him from something like that.
Just then, the ashes began to move.
They swirled inward, drawn together by something unseen, gathering into a central mass before rapidly reconstructing into flesh, structure, form—
—and within seconds, the Beast stood there again, whole and intact.
"That… that is an absurd level of regeneration…" Annabel muttered, shock evident in her voice before she forced herself to refocus, beginning to prepare a spell.
Clara resumed firing immediately, streams of fire bolts slamming into the Beast once more, but this time it barely reacted. Its body shifted under the impacts, its surface hardening, adapting, reducing the effect of each hit as it turned its attention away from her.
Its gaze locked onto Samwell.
Its mouth opened.
Mana gathered within it, dark and volatile before it fired a beam of pure mana, black in color.
"You dare!?" Samwell snapped, thrusting his hand forward. "Mana Blast!"
His beam met the Beast's.
Purple collided with black, the two forces crashing together in a violent clash that distorted the air between them. The ground beneath their feet cracked under the pressure as both beams pushed against each other, but it was clear almost immediately which one held the advantage.
The Beast's beam began to press forward.
At the same time, its tails lifted, and its hands shifted, more energy gathering, more beams preparing to fire and overwhelm the clash entirely.
Before it could release them—
Ice formed.
A dome erupted around the Beast in an instant, sealing it within a thick, crystalline structure that cut off the beams mid-formation. Frost spread rapidly across its body as the interior temperature plummeted.
Inside the dome, the temperature dropped to....
Absolute Zero.