When Tara returned to the others, they all looked very worried. She smiled at them and gestured for all of them to sit. It was dark out now and Stevens had brought some wood from the destroyed part of the forest so they could have a fire. He used some basic, non-skill fire magic to get it lit and they sat in a circle around it.
"I know we are all worried about him, but we have to trust him. None of us can help, this is as much about his plan and saving lives as it is about proving to himself that he has the power required to accomplish something like this. There are only two more waves, then probably a boss, and the boss might not even spawn down here." Tara explained, doing her best to ease their minds.
"You are ok with him getting himself killed?" Bethany said angrily. "I don't care about the people he is saving, I care about him being alive after this."
"We need to stop him," Cory said, and everyone looked at him with surprise since he didn't speak up much. "I get that he is trying to do the right thing, but if you're dead, you can't make up for mistakes."
"I do not think we can change his mind on this," Stevens said.
"We need to stay away until it's done," Audrey said with full confidence. "He has the power to finish this, we would only hurt his focus."
Tara narrowed her eyes at her, this girl was smart and was already piecing together things from this secret of his that she learned. This was going to get dangerous, but she wouldn't do anything about it until the event was over and she could convince him that this needed to be addressed. For a brief moment, she thought about what kind of person she was becoming, so willing to kill, but then she focused her mind on the night in the creek and how amazing Eli and her felt together and resolved herself. She would kill for him, she would kill anyone for him.
Eli was meditating, focusing on magic regeneration and healing. Emptying his life node and circulating it helped him recover faster and he felt that he would be in physical fighting shape in time. But he wasn't sure if he would be able to refill his magic in time and with his life node empty he wouldn't have his avatar to help until the wave after this one. He needed to fight smarter, to move around more and be less predictable, but with more explosive power, ending fights earlier. The only solution he came up with was to focus on magic, use magic to increase his body's strength and agility, it used way less magic than a skill, but he didn't know how his body would react. He would also focus on his magic senses more since the darkness would make it harder to see them coming.
The plan was full of problems and issues but he was going to push through them and make it work, just as he got this all sorted in his head he could hear the next wave coming, his magic was over 90%, but it wasn't full so he would have to use as little as possible. He closed his eyes as he heard the first monsters approaching and instead just felt them, then he passed the smallest amount of magic into his body, mostly focusing on his muscles. When the monsters arrived he moved faster than he had before and with more force. The swings of his cudgel were devastating even without using smash. As long as he could plant his feet on the ground he could change directions quickly and be on the next monster before it had the chance to react.
This was going well, until he realized that he was burning through magic faster than he wanted to, so he shut off the magic to his body and immediately fell over. He turned it back on but to a lesser extent than before. Using magic sense instead of his eyes was working well, but he had overdone it at the start and his body felt like it was ripping itself apart. With the lower levels he wasn't hurting himself anymore but it wasn't as dominating as before. His whole body felt like it was disintegrating. His body level wasn't high enough to keep up and it was breaking down, he needed a minute to rest his body so he could get a handle on what was happening.
At first he thought he could run into the forest and creating distance would give him time, but that would just put the others in danger. So he started backing up towards them at double the pace as the last wave, it was the only way he could think of that would help. And it was working, his body was recovering faster, so he decided to dash back to where he had started. This gathered up a lot of monsters at once so he jumped high into the air and with a bit of magic in his body and a bit extra on his smash skill he threw his cudgel into the ground.
The nearby monsters were crushed into paste almost instantly, the ones further away were sent flying, some died when they hit the ground and some got up and limped back toward him. Now he could slow down for a bit and recover. By the time he finished this wave he felt wrung dry, and he just lay there. The pain had been pushed aside by his focus on combat but now there was nothing to do but lay there and feel it all. Every cell felt like it had exploded or was about to explode, once the pain eased up some, he was able to concentrate again and he checked himself out. He finished off the remaining monsters using as little magic as possible.
It seemed that he was close to a body rank up, it felt like it did before, his extended use of magic while pushing his body to its limits really did some work on getting him this far. He thought he had finished that quickly so he stayed laying there and pushed the first amount of magic into his body again and started going through combat balance movements with his cudgel. He pushed his body to move faster and harder than it wanted to for another seven or so minutes until it happened and he felt his body level and change. He fell back to the ground and started screaming as everything in his physical body broke, tore, and ripped, before reforming stronger.
This process took another 10 minutes before the pain was gone, and he had 30ish minutes left to regenerate and prepare for the next wave, wave 11. When he opened his eyes he was in Tara's lap again and she was humming and stroking his hair. He stood and held her close to him, she seemed to be confused, noticing he was a bit taller and had more lean muscle than before. Tara ran her hands all over him feeling all the changes with a big smile on her face.
"You upgraded your body again," She said as she reached up to feel his shoulders. "Take off the mask I want to see"
Eli took it off and stored it in his inventory. Tara's eyes widened as she touched his face.
"You are even more handsome, one could even say ruggedly handsome," she said to him in a sweet soft voice. "Now stay alive so we can go on that honeymoon." She kissed him and walked back to the others.
He nodded and put the mask back on, he needed to focus up, his magic and body wouldn't be fully recovered for this next wave. But the worst part was that his mind was getting tired, he needed rest since his focus was slipping. So he decided to just calmly meditate and not focus on anything, he would end up starting off with less magic and his body in worse shape but he needed to give his mind a rest. For the first time in a while, Eli just sat there, watching his magic in motion and relaxing.
Before he knew it, the wave was starting and he heard roars in the distance. He stood and got ready to fight, putting a small amount of magic in his body and facing the closest approaching monster. It looked like this wave was special because all of the monsters he could see were the same and there were a lot fewer of them. They were ten foot tall werebears, like werewolves but with bears instead of wolves, they had black fur except a glowing red pattern on their head. Eli could sense it before they did it but they could breathe fire using the rune on their head.
Unlucky for them, Eli had experience with fire and theirs wasn't as hot as his volcano so it didn't even slow him down. This was actually easier than the wave before because their magic was their strength and it didn't do much to him. Their size made him have to move quickly and it took a few hits to bring them down but they were slow so he got through it with just a few scratches and his whole body covered in burns. Eli sat and focused on recovery, he was going to need it for whatever the finale of this event was going to be.
The others didn't come see him during his rest this time, they knew he was alive and that was enough. They all expected this last wave to be a zone boss type monster. This time, they guessed right, and Eli knew this because of what the system window said after he defeated the zone boss that used to live in his volcano. So when it was time and the last wave started, Eli was closer to the safe zone than where he had started for the previous waves. If it was going to be easy he wanted the others to help.
When he heard the familiar squawk of the ash vulture, he was confused, he thought they got a weaker monster. Or maybe this one was a weaker version, or a smaller version. When it got close enough to sense and even see the burning embers it left in its wake, he knew it was a weaker version of the same monster. Eli threw his cudgel at it as hard as he could, aiming for its wing. It wasn't a solid hit but it was enough for it to crash land near the edge of the safe zone. He ran up to it and broke its wing so it couldn't fly away and motioned for the others to join him.
They all ran towards him, the vulture was just as big as before but had to be in the mid level 40's so it would be good practice for them. Tara threw axes at its head while Stevens used his air skill to press it into the ground. Audrey got under its broken wing and was cutting at its foot so it wouldn't be able to move as much. Cory and Bethany worked on damaging the body. This was a boss monster so it had a lot of vitality and Eli knew this would take awhile so he jumped and landed on its other wing and using his foot, broke one of the bigger bones.
Tara stayed near the head, distracting it and avoiding its peck attacks. Eli stood off to the side trying to give them pointers, but wasn't really helping much. Then it unleashed its ash cloud move and Eli yelled for them to get back, he used an air detonation above it to clear most of it in seconds and everyone went back to work on it. Eventually, Tara got a hit on its eye and the monster pretty much had nothing left after that. Tara took the final swings on its neck to finish it off.
They were all sprawled out on the ground breathing heavily, clearly not used to fights that lasted that long where they had to do all the work. Eli clapped and gave them all words of encouragement, the only one who seemed to care was Audrey who beamed at him with a smile as he praised her. The rest were too tired to care at the moment. After ten more minutes, he could feel the magic in the air changing and the safe zone barrier reasserting itself on the safe area. He guessed what would happen next would be a whole cluster of system windows.