Shaman expertly wove between protrusions of coral, its host's four wings and bat-like tail allowing for surprisingly deft aerial movement. Due to that, floors flashed past in an instant. Nico, swinging like a ragdoll, suddenly was thrown up into the air, barely managing to land himself securely on the Monster's wide back before he tumbled down the entire tower to a miserable death.
He grimaced, slightly dizzy.
'Was that really necessary?'
Bounding upwards once more, this time using coral protrusions as springboards to propel higher, Shaman answered with an ecstatic caw.
Sighing, Nico's eyes narrowed. Vivid, distant light descended from above, the shadows twisting and writhing during its passage.
Nephis, beneath them, had already hidden herself in preparation.
Summoning his helmet back, Nico dug his gauntlets into the skin beneath the Monster's rotten feathers, reluctantly pressing his body as close to them as possible.
'So… pungent… Don't kill us both…'
Then, the light flashed past in an instant, harmlessly passing the pair and rocketing downward in an unnatural spiral.
The beam aimed for Nephis, crashed into the coral she was hidden behind, missed, and strangely bent like a homing missile to try and rebound towards her. Luckily, it slammed into the wall and dispersed into nothingness.
Up above, three more were already descending.
Half a second passed before they reached the pair, and Shaman's host twisted precisely into another dodge. Betraying its repulsive nature, Shaman almost made the Awakened Monster seem graceful.
Closing his eyes, Nico listened as the wind, the explosions, the scrapes of claws against coral, and the furious beats of wings blended into one discordant sound.
Minutes passed. Shaman continued weaving between projectiles, diving through cracks and hiding behind roots as more and more overwhelming attacks aimed to slay them. Several times the condensed sunrays had almost struck them, but through the Devil's expertise they never did, and eventually the top floor was in sight.
The Terror, furious, expelled dozens of beams at once. They shone like a vibrant sea of stars, crowding the entire hollow interior.
With far too many to evade, the wraith simply dove into the dark depths of the nearest level, and, with one violent motion, lunged upwards.
The coral ceiling cracked and groaned, shattering from the sheer force, and revealing the floor above.
Then, Shaman steadied itself and repeated the same action.
And then repeated, again and again, until suddenly they were blinded by another flash of light.
Springing off the airborne Shaman and landing onto the ground steadily, Nico dismissed the [Sacrificial Sight] and regained his normal sight.
What met him was a vast and grotesque chamber. Once, it had surely been beautiful, with tall arches and inscribed pillars, built for the Forgotten Shore's first true sacrifice — the human fulcrum of the Crimson Spire's power.
That power, undeniably, was souls — souls of the dead, extracted over centuries of ritualistic slaughter.
Eons in the future, the grand room was detestable, the entire ceiling and floor crusted over with layers upon layers of coral flesh. In fact, the entire tower was, as if the new master wished for its bleached splendor to be forever forgotten under a tide of blood.
As his eyes fell upon the abberation of sanity at the center, Nico felt himself whirl.
'So that's what you became…'
Once, the priestess was surely a single person. However, in the present it was an amalgamation of coral and assimilated flesh. A thousand screaming faces crowded its perverse mass, each one stitched into a grimace, destructive white light burning in their hollow mouths and eyes.
Madness, loss, and profanity radiated palpably as it unfurled multiple sets of messily conjoined limbs.
Nico brandished his glaive. Some part of him was stuck on the unstoppable deluge of emotions this one vast being emitted.
Anger, sorrow, regret, lunacy, wrath, and so much more he simply couldn't name.
Would that be him one day, if he couldn't control himself?
If he couldn't ebb the strengthening of his soul, and in turn his Attribute, then what might happen?
Would he lose his mind, becoming something completely unrecognizable as human?
No. He wouldn't let it happen.
Unlike this malformed being, it was in his very nature. Though he may be only one man, he was one with enough strength to bear the burdens of others and transform it into something better — something he wanted it to be.
Inhaling deeply, Nico focused on his soul essence. His control of the blood flowing around his body needed to be precise.
But, unexpectedly, he felt off.
'Wasn't that the wrong approach?'
During the battle, he had felt subtle progress when trying to improve his essence, but it had begun to stagnate. Awakened drew essence from their cores, and no matter how well he wielded his blood flow, it would quite up to that par.
'What am I missing?'
The Crimson Terror wasn't in the mood to wait around for him to prepare, though. Only a few seconds had passed, and now it realized the threat of the two intruders here was of more importance than the slowly approaching army down below.
One mouth on the giant creature unhinged even further, and a radiant beam of destructive light ejected moments later.
Exhaling, Nico rolled out of the way and sprang to his feet, beginning to close the distance between himself and the Terror.
'It's slower than it should be. I can feel the new core forming. We have probably five minutes at least.'
Dodging a quick succession of follow up attacks, Nico and Shaman circled towards the Terror, forming a tentative plan with their conjoined minds.
'Let's see how this works.'
Once the idea had been constructed, Shaman's beastly muscles taut, and it suddenly lunged upwards, broke through the roof, and disappeared out of view.
The Terror didn't waste any time wondering where it'd gone.
Nico grimaced as the split barrage of attacks all fell upon him in an instant. Destructive light scraped his armor, eviscerating entire sections and skimming the exposed flesh beneath.
Just that tiny brush rattled Nico's very core. If he took a direct hit, he would die. No question about it.
He gripped his glaive tightly.
Directly above the Terror, a deafening shockwave rattled the ceiling, reverberating dangerously. Moments later, a large crack snaked from the center like a wound, and after that, the entire section of the ceiling caved. Large chunks of coral debris rained down, and masked by the calamitous advent, Shaman managed to approach its opponent without worry.
Revealing itself from behind a chunk of falling rubble just as it crashed into the Terror's haunting visage, Shaman opened its wide wings and clawed.
Gnarled flesh reluctantly split. Several faces were destroyed.
However, the assault was merely a distraction. Disregarded, Nico was free to launch an attack during the brief opening. Straining as much essence as he could from his core — which wasn't all that much — he thrust toward the center of the unfathomable entity, slipped all three roots into the [Wrathful Crescent], and barely managed to sink his blade half a foot into the Terror, the weapon embedded and stuck before he jerked it free and dashed backwards.
'I'm too weak.'
Three elongated arms blurred towards him, stopping just short of his face.
Nico's spine tingled. That had been too close, and his attack hadn't even neared its cores.
Shrieking from a thousand mouths, the Fallen Terror charged several attacks in the blink of an eye, releasing a hundred annihilating rays in all directions. Caught off guard, Shaman desperately lurched backwards, losing a scattering of feathers and allowing two of its wings to be skewered. The separated beams continued past it, honeycombing the dome roof.
Observing the Devil's wounds in half a second, Nico determined the injury was not serious. Because of how swiftly the Terror fired it didn't have time to build their diameter, and the holes in Shaman's wings weren't particularly significant.
'Still, that soul damage might've reached it.'
For a brief moment, Nico realized that the two of them wouldn't be enough. Not by themselves. They could perhaps stall it long enough, but in the end, they would die trying to do any more than that.
It was a good thing the gateway wasn't up here. They didn't need to kill it after all.
But then, he felt righteous wrath, blazing determination, and a soul so white and hot it rivaled the fiery discus that scorched the entire Forgotten Shore. Out of the corner of his eye appeared a white armor with emboldened flames, stoking the power of the being that summoned them.
It seemed Nephis — Changing Star — was here to assist them, and she had every intention of making sure the Crimson Terror was vanquished.