Nico muttered, his voice barely a whisper in the seething storm:
"Take the Beast's attention, Shaman."
Around nine remained in total, and while Nico was strong, he would not be capable of holding out against that many enemies until Shaman finished off the Demon. Instead, he would have to hold off the harrowing abomination, whatever it might be, until the Fallen Beast had slain its many opponents.
That, or he might have to kill it first and help Shaman instead. The Specter had taken a lot of damage to protect him.
'It would be preferable if it didn't come to that.'
Shaman responded to his call by doubling its efforts. It sensed the end and knew that conserving any strength would hinder rather than help. Its wings spliced the air, claws raked the ground, and beak released a spine-wracking scream. In response, more abominations were attracted, but not enough. Others were still pouring towards Nico.
Sensing the discrepancy, its flames changed the subtle enthrallment to a more insidious one. It was weaker but shifted the perception of his soul to its.
Leaning into his soul sense, Nico focused on the form of the Demon, then felt his body subtly shake as he realized its true enormity. It was colossal — seven meters in height.
After a split-second decision, he dismissed the [Glass Torch] and [Song of Steel], summoning the [Mourning Star] instead. Party tricks wouldn't be of use against a creature of that class. The charm could've been helpful, but without his old horn, and with the fact he'd been listening to its eerie ballad the entire battle, it would harm more than help against an opponent that much more powerful than him.
Since he had no need to fool the Demon, he would use his morning star and glaive to light the stage, or at least his immediate area. That and he needed a way to bring down whatever the hulking thing was made from; a Memory of the same rank and class that's only enchantment was an explosion would be ripe for the job.
With that in mind, Nico sprinted along the shore of the island, towards an area with more coral protrusions and cliffs.
He didn't get far, however, as suddenly, the immediate area in front of him exploded into a cloud of debris.
Skidding to a stop, he circled essence into the [Mourning Star], filling it up with as much essence as he could reliably pour. Warm light broke the shroud of darkness in the nearest dozen meters.
And there, at the edge of his vision, a towering behemoth scattered the cloud of dust.
It was… a human statue. Made up of the fractured chunks of gravestones, rotten timber, and eroded human bones, its body was both eerily long and tall, spine twisted into an arch as it sagged. Grave markers too worn to read jutted from its form, and its arms and legs ended with the assimilated fragments of dark marble for claws and hooves. Crowning the statue, it beheld him with a face hidden behind a funerary mask — twisted, demonic, carved the same material as its claws.
Framed around the broken plane, with the rumbling thunder and brief flashes of white above, black rain flowing down its body and the slope of the island toward the impending sea, it appeared a keeper of death — a warden who collected the bodies of the damned and implanted their names into its own like some morbid epitaph.
As Nico readied his weapons, a hiss escaped the Demon, the sound intermingling thousands of different voices into a haunted cry.
The whole world turned upside down. Nico's balance was thrown off kilter by the attack, and the figure seemed to blink from his vision.
Luckily, the sonic wave did nothing to impede his soul sense.
He barely managed to drop his glaive and use both hands to tightly grip his mace. Then, the ground in front of him shattered as a massive hoof landed on it, and a single claw raked long gashes into the ground, meeting his block with enough sheer force to throw him meters back into the air. Luckily, it also gave him enough distance to roll out of the way as the Demon's other hand swept sideway, skimming past him once he landed.
Staggering back, Nico attempted to begin circulating essence into the mace again. Only, he was forced to duck behind a coral mound the next instant when the Demon charged after him with unnatural swiftness.
The abomination merely plowed through it like all the others, though, and he was flung again, skidding off the stones and crashing into the murky waters. He barely managed to keep hold of his mace.
His vision tilted, husky voice drowned in the crashing waves and rain as salty water entered his lungs.
"Ah, shit…"
These types of enemies were the worst. One's that impeded his awareness, had overwhelming strength, and waited until he was at his weakest. Nico would be hard-pressed to fight this thing over Shaman's old body even if he was completely healed.
Sputtering, he stabilized himself with a hand and shot up, breaking the surface of the water and rising a few feet above it, gulping air.
'Alright. I think it's about time to cripple this thing.'
Then, time froze. Though Nico's soul sense had expanded, he somehow felt nothing and everything when a wet, slimy tendon brushed against his leg. It snaked around his ankle, and without realizing it, his face had contorted into an expression of horror — not from true fear, but reflex.
He had never met anything that could hide from him.
Instantly, he poured every ounce of essence he could funnel into the [Mourning Star] — inefficiency and exhaustion be damned. If he didn't funnel every single drop into this one attack, he might not even injure the creature at all.
The limb coiled up to his thigh with an uncanny speed and began dragging him down, its tentacle squeezing viciously. Nico's armor folded like paper beneath its grip, metal biting into his skin sharply.
Rising the Awakened Memory in a beacon of light, he swung down, implanting two soul roots into it just before it plunged into the black waters.
A miniature sun was born under the sea. The water boiled, then vaporized. The limb was incinerated. Nico's armor glowed bright orange.
And, engulfed completely in the viscous enchantment, he was spat from the sea, directly towards the Demon at the shore.