Chương 51: 1-50 A cold shock

The good news was, as far as Josef was concerned, that the impact hadn't turned him into paste on the spot. He could tell by the inordinate amount of pain he was currently going through. It was bad enough that after regaining his freedom of movement, when the boss separated its appendages once more, he dropped on the floor like a sack of potatoes. Wallowing in his misery, he tried to figure out how to fix the damage before the next one came, knowing full well that there was no chance he would make it in time.

He could only hope that the creature would ignore a downed target in favor of the moving ones. Quickly he placed a fresh instance of Regeneration on himself, using almost a third of his entire mana to help his body deal with whatever it would do about a bruise the size of a grown man. Getting a feeling of his limbs, he noticed with a desperate kind of happiness how his legs hadn't broken from the strike. Neither did his spine, as the continued pain reminded him, though his right arm wasn't quite so fortunate.

He had used it to hold up the staff like a makeshift spear, hoping to absorb some of the force from the attack by wedging it between both limbs. Where that thing had ended up, he couldn't tell, and he wasn't about to look for it either. He had more important things to do, like guiding his Greater Heal through his legs and back. Right now, he would have to be quick enough to get back in action before the next wide swipe came, or pray he wasn't in the path of the attack.

Josef still couldn't believe he had been caught off guard with his pants down like that. Dodging the blow with his Blink would have been an easy matter, if only he had enough time to prepare the spell. There was something ironic about magic named after something so fast and intuitive to be that cumbersome to use. Fixing that was a project for another time, though. Before he could put his barely recovered body to the test, though, something grabbed him by his leg and abruptly dragged him across the ground.

It was only when a heavy impact sent him skidding across the stone that he realized he had barely escaped the fate of turning into a pancake. Turning to look at his saviour, he sent Pretzel his most heartfelt thanks through their link. He would have also followed it up with words, but as he tried, he learned that his jaw hadn't survived the entire ordeal in one piece, either. Breathing as a whole was a bit difficult in the moment, as the force of that blow had badly bludgeoned his face.

It was fortunate that he didn't have a nose as long as an elf, or it would have surely sunk into his head like a nail. Finally, there was proof he had the superior nasal configuration after all. Redirecting the focus of his magic towards his face and nose, with the intent to breathe and speak freely once more, he shakily got up from the ground and noted the ongoing fight.

Everything was a little blurry, courtesy of the trauma his brain had just endured, but he was quick to spot Linda, who was keeping watch of him from across the room, an expression that was probably worry etched on her face. Apparently, she had ditched her helmet at some point. Maybe she wanted to have an easier time tracking the boss? It couldn't have been easy to see in that metal bucket, and keeping track of both limbs turned out to be paramount in this fight.

At least she was unharmed, as far as he could tell, which was good, because there was no way he could reach her quickly if she went down as well.

"I'm fine!" He rasped, making it unclear whether his voice would even reach her. So he added a thumbs up, just to be sure. Hastily looking away, she shouted, "Your health was none of my concern!" Immediately after, she returned to carving up the closest piece of sickly green goo. Suppressing a painful chuckle, he spotted something from the corner of his eye, a piece of metal halfway stuck inside of the monster's nearby limb. So that's where his staff had ended up!

Going by the bent shape the formerly straight rod had taken on, he was quite happy about having used it as a buffer against the impact. Quickly yanking at the deformed weapon, he was surprised when it slid free with little effort. Weighing the frosty staff in his healthy hand, he stashed it once more, after he successfully checked whether it could still convert his mana. It could.

Going by the smooth, frozen hole left where it had been stuck, it became clear that it would not only affect his own deliberately offered energy, but also the one that made up this elemental. They might not have Zippa on hand, but maybe this staff could fill the gap in their combat variety. It was then that Josef noticed something Linda had missed because of her hasty dismissal. Both of the limbs were on the ground, the one he had just been dragged away from still in the same spot.

If he understood the monsters' tells correctly, that meant they were in for another swipe. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"Watch out! Swipe!" he warned her, not a second too soon. This time the shortest path between the appendages was going to hit only her, and she had her back turned to the limb that had just begun moving. In an athletic display that belied the weight of the armor she was wearing, Linda cleared the attack not by going around, but over it.

Taking off with a powerful jump, she got most of the way up the limb before digging her heels into the creature's arm and executing a somersault that left her standing on top of the appendage that had just rushed in to crush her.

"Awesome!" he cheered at her. Even though she didn't grace him with a response, the way she quickly looked over before stopping herself made it clear to him that she appreciated the compliment. He definitely had to revise his earlier opinion of the noble lady. As long as the target was big enough to not miss every swing, she was surprisingly good at fighting. Meanwhile, he had made an idiot of himself by getting surprised.

When they got out of this fight alive, he would have to apologize to her, even if the thought annoyed him. Until then, all that he could do was step things up. Which, as he thought about it, might just be the way to go about it, in a very literal way. As mushy as the creature's body was, he now understood that unlike the slime he had faced before, it was more than solid enough to touch with no danger of being submerged.

"Head for the main body!" he gesticulated toward the center mass, hoping she would catch his intention. Turning to Pretzel, he continued, "Try to get its attention and keep dodging." She hissed in acknowledgement as he extended some of his mana to her. His energy was getting a little low, though refilling it was probably the easiest part of this fight. Josef readied himself for teleportation, as he and his familiar split and charged in opposite directions.

Despite Pretzel's best effort at catching its attention with water bullets, the first strike once more came down on him. This time, however, he was more than prepared to dodge. There was no need for fancy maneuvering, with his speed recovered enough to clear the strike zone. Then, with an extension of his will, a line of mana shot across the room, all the way on top of the creature. A Blink later, he had reunited with Linda, who had run up a limb to make it to the main body.

"Do you have a plan?" she asked, though her words carried a barely concealed command. He shrugged.

"Kinda. Don't know if it'll work, though." With a little flourish, he pulled the mangled staff from his hoard and presented it to Linda, much to her confusion.

"And pray tell, what is that scrap supposed to accomplish?" Her eyebrows wrinkled as she looked the weapon over. Instead of trying to explain himself, Josef simply jabbed one end of the cold metal into the creature below him. Then, he sent his mana into the weapon with as much force as he could. Even though his gloves began to freeze over, most of the magical current made it through to the other side, bringing with it a cold that quickly spread around the perforated area.

"An elemental weakness." Linda exclaimed in surprise, before she schooled her expression once more.

"Well spotted, I admit." As Josef stepped back from the circular frozen area, almost two full meters in diameter, he took the staff with him. He maintained his best impression of someone who had clearly intended on abusing a weakness, instead of stumbling upon it by accident. Gesturing for the knight to take the stage, he crouched down and drained mana from the boss as fast as he could. He could sustain this as long as necessary, if he had to.

Once his companion was done smashing the frozen patch he had left on the creature, he went back to repeat his earlier action at the bottom of the indent they had now created. Josef noted with some elation that the rim of that crater was still covered in ice, and because of that, the sludge that made up the body had obvious trouble trying to fill it back in.

"Do you think it has some kind of core we could dig up to kill it?" he wondered out loud, finishing his next frozen batch. Linda huffed as she once again began swinging her greatsword.

"All magical creatures have some manner of vital organ that handles mana distribution." Going still in a moment of contemplation, she eventually continued, both in work and word.

"An elemental's core should be somewhere in the central body, though since it consists of the same element as the rest of the creature, it will be hard to spot and difficult to destroy."

"So we just have to keep freezing and breaking it until something gives. Got it." He smiled at her deadpan expression. They were able to take several more turns of digging into the creature before it finally had enough of the status quo and decided to deal with them.

"We need to get off!" Josef wasn't sure who had shouted first, but they were of the same mind as the body underneath them rocketed back and forth violently. Finally, it swung down forcefully, slamming into the ground with a catastrophic impact. Both of them had jumped off in time, as the consequences of not doing so were telegraphed enough to see from a mile away. It was a bit of a stretch with his sore legs, but he had cleared the distance to the closest walkway, landing shakily. No, that wasn't quite right.

It wasn't his legs that were shaking, but the ground underneath. With the startling realization that the stone beneath him was falling apart, Josef took off running and leaped across the chasm that separated his current platform from the neighbouring. Only then, with solid ground under his feet, did he turn around to take stock of the attack's outcome. An avalanche of sewage and gravel poured down the bowl that made up the middle of the room, as that entire section had broken apart completely.

He definitely couldn't afford to get anywhere near an impact like that, or no metal rods, and no amount of earth mana could save his ass from getting turned into a smear. Unfortunately, while he had cleared the crumbling section in time, the same wasn't true for Linda. He didn't know if she had even made the initial jump onto the walkway, though with her prior display, he wagered that she should have. No matter how it came to it, the result was clear and shocking right in front of his eyes.

She was sliding down the side of the bowl, futilely struggling as she tried to hold on to something, while the debris and sewage pushed her further and further down towards the filthy pond from which the elemental's body emerged. Josef had to pull her out, and he had to do it now.