Cough! Cough!
Elijah's throat and nostrils were feeling the harsh effects of the toxin-filled cavern. The time for messing around was over.
Large amounts of mana would be expended for curiosity alongside the risks he was already taking.
Elijah bolted around the curvature of the jagged stone outcropping and sent a huge wave of water — one unlike any other he has created, and could be considered a mini tsunami if it weren't for the fact that this wave of water was merely a blanket falling from mid-air. No current, just millions of water molecules stacked on top of each other.
The splash was chaotic, and drowned out the sounds of powerful spells being casted. Even with the difference in magical power, the spells did not push straight through the water, but were instead slowly dwindled into a spark of nothingness.
Elijah jumped on the opportunity of a lifetime. The heads of many kobolds and trap moles were cleanly cut off one after another. With a single flick of a wrist, destruction followed.
Knowing he had enough since the water was dissipating, Elijah took not just a step back, but changed his position to the broken plank of death.
The stench of blood mixed with the air, and even though Elijah had culled his enemies, he was not happy. This was a freebie, something handed to him on a silver platter. There was no sense of strength achieved, but rather a sense of how powerful his attacks could be when mana usage was thrown out the window.
However, Elijah had a feeling something wasn't right. A shadow was making its way through the parade of death. The fog had not just kobolds and moles, but also something far more murderous.
Quick was the first word that came to mind. An eerily familiar feeling came rearing its end inside of Elijah's soul.
Gorgon…
Suddenly, a small rock fell above Elijah's head. The moment he looked up, his knees buckled as an autonomous effort of fleeing occurred.
The bright purple eyes that seemed to glow in the absence of light hit his mind like a truck. The stone in the ceiling became cracked and indented at the action of releasing its catapult motion.
A simple yet horrifying scream came from Elijah's mouth.
"THIS IS NOT REAL!!!"
Pain struck the legs of Elijah. His body tumbled down the slope of the cavern, passing by a lopsided glowing orange mana core trying to be devoured by a couple trap moles. His fall was blunted by the small river flowing through the center.
The chain of events started with the gorgon crawling from a hole in the ceiling Elijah had not noticed before. The lack of glowing vines portrayed it as nothing more than a shadowed piece of stone.
With its familiar launch, the gorgon quickly caught up to the boy fleeing for his life. The long claws digged into the ankles of Elijah before the gorgon hit the sloped ceiling.
"Ahhhhhh! My legssss…"
"Come on! COME ON! MOVE!"
Elijah had no idea what had happened. The pain settled in with the slow rotation of his body, and when he saw the hairy and oversized limbs of the gorgon, he couldn't help but flinch.
The triangle-shaped teeth were dripping with saliva as its long and slitted pink tongue rimmed its deformed black lips.
Death was approaching.
With his previous shenanigans, he had expended seventy percent of his mana, which did not mean he had to conserve by any means, but instead use the biggest of anything he could imagine.
"IF YOU ARE GONNA KILL ME, YOU ARE COMING WITH!!"
Behind the menacing beast that was slumping its way closer and closer to the feeble Elijah was a wall of water at least ten feet thick. Its border squished and condensed itself against the confines of the declining cavern, and soon rammed into the back of the gorgon with gravity's help.
There was only one direction for the gorgon to travel.
Ordained by Elijah himself, the razor sharp teeth and claws opened its doors for human flesh. The water caught the gorgon by surprise, ending with the beast piercing the limbs and sides of Elijah's torso.
Luck had rained down from the heavens with a heavy clank and crack resounding within the chest of the beast. The knife that Elijah had pulled at the last minute had yielded him the destruction of its mana core, alongside its soul.
Slowly but surely, the ominous purple glow in its eye sockets disappeared.
Elijah was only thinking about the pain surging through his body without realizing the beast possessed a mana core.
Mana was everything, the ethereal string that would guarantee his life, but another crash occurred. Yet, the gorgon whose sole purpose was catapulting itself into a suicide mission held one, albeit, lobsided and deformed as a Catacomb beast naturally was.
Unfortunately, the black and veiny hand almost double the size of Elijah's head clawed against the tip of the stone plank, later revealing its body standing against the dim lights the sulfur and glowing vines created.
"One more…"
Rocks fell from the ceiling and slowly made their way to Elijah. Water began coursing through his flesh.
The wounds were closed after the lackadaisical effort of pushing the heavy and abnormally shaped body off his chest. Elijah stood up with static shocks flipping different functional switches in his brain.
Conflicts made up the current dynamic of his body and mind, leading to spurts of pushes and collapses one after the other. It was almost as if his soul played a part in this awkward tragic play.
"MOVE! JUST MOVE FORWARD DAMMIT!!!"
With Elijah's fearlessness, he casted a portal that would lead directly into the side of the cavern at the exact moment the beast launched its body from a near point blank distance. It seemed like time slowed as Elijah saw the entire event play out.
The translucent and pearlescent rimmed portal materialized from a single dot in the space in front of him. What was definitely too late, was also a blessing. Just below the neck of the beast, the portal appeared and cut its body in half. One half splattered against the wall, while the other rammed into the chest of Elijah — completely shattering the arm held at the height of his chest.
Elijah was gone with the wind…
His body was sent flying with the head of the menacing gorgon unconsciously guiding him over the end of the declining river.
Rocks and dust flew behind the back of Elijah as he bursted through the wall of the vaginal shaped opening. While the breaking wall did absorb some of the impact, Elijah…
Was gone.
-{Outer West}-
"Dammit!! Rodrick!! Heat up the air in the surrounding area!!"
The cold and dark evening was littered with inches of snow falling to the barren ground. What was relatively harmless, became dangerous with the cold and harsh winds. Especially when the lack of visibility allowed a dangerous and horrific show of jump scares to litter the battlefield.
One by one, many of the judges used their affinities to combat the many ice bears they failed to see within the white blanket of snow. On top of this problem, goblins and several other elemental beasts were throwing every spell possible in random directions, sometimes killing their own kind.
However, the most problematic beast was something named by Amaris himself: "voidwalker". A sprawling and muscular body with barely visible glowing veins, squirming protrusions being regenerated off its shoulders, and the destructive and debilitating magic that consumed, destroyed, and decayed with a single touch caused great trouble to Amaris and a few other judges.
Amaris erected an iceberg in the middle of the sky that fell on its target like a meteor.
BOOM!
The impact created nothing more than a short-tempered blizzard, but later revealed a deep purple light growing within the point of impact.
"This thing is practically invincible! I just have to keep it occupied for now…" Amaris dodge a condensed beam of pure decaying energy, and slid through the path his ice created for him.
"I swear Rodrick, I will freeze you to death one day… traitor…"
BOOM!
Amaris unleashed yet another iceberg, but this time followed it up with a one-hundred foot long spear of ice that extended almost instantaneously into the voidwalker.
An incredible display of strength was being traded between beast and man. Rodrick, the Lava Judge, was supposed to be supporting Amaris while the other judges focused on the beasts nearby.
The goal was not to kill the voidwalker, but stall its attention with the destructive duo of opposing elements.
Deep below them, were a group of Hunter captains led by the famous Landon Ruby. The delegation and communication skills on top of his usage of fire magic brought him to the top of the guild before the age of 30, directly below Monroe Riskwell, the leader of the Hunter Guild and the self proclaimed "bomb" ever since the first sight of using the fire element as a combustive force.
A small divot was created in the earth unseen, and soon the fresh powder sitting on top caved in. Landon quickly peeked his head out, realizing the situation as well as his position. He could barely pinpoint Amaris fighting for his life against the unknown beast through the changing currents of the blizzard.
After stepping onto the snowy ground alongside the Judge of Air, Leah, a twenty foot-long spear of condensed bluefire materialized. Every second the spear rested within the confines of an ever-changing catapult formed of wind, white sparks of light erupted in the surroundings — signifying the effect the unfathomable temperature had on the environment.
ZHING!
A spear made from hell instantaneously pierced straight through the center of the beast's back. The sound of the wind splitting mimicked far more than the sound of a railgun, even causing the snow within a 50 foot radius to turn into a gradient of blue-to-red embers.
Amaris would've loved to call it effortless while watching the voidwalker slowly fade away into ash. However, it took three cyan core judges to kill it with the strategic element of a well-timed surprise attack.
"What does it take to reach the blue core stage?" He asked himself while twirling an icicle dagger between his fingers.