“Is… could that be its true form?” Raven asked, a slight trepidation edging her tone.
“Crap, I don’t know… if it is, then shouldn’t your boyfriend be finished with whatever he’s doing over there?”
Raven frowned slightly at Helena, but now was not the time. She fixed her gaze on the abomination before them.
Terence stood behind them, a pensive glare on the malevolent creature that loomed before them.
They still had the human minions to deal with, but this one posed a far greater threat than anything they had ever faced.
Helena felt a bead of sweat trickle down her spine, but she refused to allow fear to take root.
Digging her boots into the soil, she held the black rod horizontally before her, the tip aimed squarely at the beast’s chest.
“Keep the rest away from me,” she said lowly. “I’ll handle this.”
Raven gave a curt nod, spinning away to engage the horde once more with a whirlwind of steel.
Helena took a breath, steadying her hammering heartbeat as she poured all her focus into the creature before her.
It seemed to sense her intent, yellowed fangs gnashing as it tensed to strike.
Then, with an earth-shaking bellow, it charged, covering the distance between them in three enormous strides.
Helena waited, waited, the beast’s thunderous footfalls rapidly closing…then at the final instant, she moved.
With the agility Helena displayed against Raven’s attacks, it was unmistakable that she was a creature of immense speed, but what she had unleashed so far didn’t even come close to how swiftly she moved.
Her figure flickered in the blink of an eye and streaked along a linear path.
Helena’s form flowed around the creature’s attack with preternatural grace.
Its clawed fist swept past her with enough force to shear through solid oak, but she wasn’t there – she was stepping deftly aside, the black rod whirling in her hands.
As the beast’s lunge over-extended, leaving its chest and vulnerable underbelly exposed, Helena struck.
The rod was a streak of black sparks, slamming into the abomination’s ribs with a sound like a thunderclap.
A shockwave of force erupted outwards, shearing through trees in the rod’s wake as that barely contained power detonated like a bomb.
The beast was launched backward, its earth-shattering roar choked off in a spray of foul ichor.
It caromed off the ground hard enough to crater it, then again, smashing through the trunks of ancient oaks like they were blades of grass.
Helena stood her ground, heaving breaths as the forest settled once more into eerie silence, the thralls and the cohort momentarily stunned into stillness.
The beast stirred, hunks of its grotesque flesh sloughing off in ruin as it strained to rise.
A feral grin split Helena’s sweat-slicked face as she leveled the black rod once more.
“That’s all you’ve got?” she challenged, voice dripping with menace. “Come on, let’s go again.”
The beast responded with another bone-shaking bellow, its remaining eye blazing with incandescent fury.
It surged back to its feet, towering over Helena with such immensity it nearly blotted out the twin moons.
Then it charged again with enough force to shake the foundations of the world.
The ground quaked as the beast dashed forward, each thunderous footfall like a small earthquake.
Helena held her ground, black rod at the ready as she watched its gargantuan form bear down on her with unstoppable momentum.
At the last possible second, she moved.
Throwing herself into a diving roll, Helena narrowly avoided being crushed under one of the monster’s massive feet.
As she came up in a crouch, she lashed out with the rod, its tip slamming into the beast’s ankle with bone-jarring force.
Black tendrils of sparks lashed outwards, gnawing at flesh and sinew.
The creature stumbled, its earth-shaking roar now tinged with pain and fury.
It whipped around with surprising agility for something its size, a fist larger than Helena’s entire body scything through the air towards her with enough force to liquefy bone.
But she was already moving, ducking under the wild haymaker with inches to spare.
As the beast’s arm sailed overhead, Helena struck again, the black rod a blur of motion as she rained a series of punishing blows against its forearm and shoulder.
Each impact detonated like a grenade, shredding flesh and chipping away at the monster’s staggering bulk.
It reeled back with an ear-splitting bellow of rage and agony, ichor spraying from the ruin of its arm.
The Feral Sage didn’t let up, pressing the attack with a flurry of lightning-fast strikes, each landing with pinpoint accuracy on vital points – the knees, the elbows, the chest.
Wherever the rod struck, ruin followed, scouring away chunks of the beast’s mass in bursts of obliterating force.
Through it all, the horde hung back, temporarily cowed into stillness as if realizing this was a battle beyond their capacity.
Only Raven remained in constant motion, her blades weaving an impenetrable barrier that turned aside any thrall foolish enough to interfere.
The beast fought back with the fury of the damned, shrugging off grievous wounds that would drop anything else in an instant.
Claws raked towards Helena’s face, only to be deflected at the last instant by the crackling black rod.
It tried to bear her under with brute strength and unstoppable momentum, but she was always a step ahead, dodging and weaving around its ponderous attacks with the grace of a matador.
And all the while, she struck, struck, struck – a drumbeat of devastation laying waste to the monster’s form bit by agonizing bit.
Gore-slick craters pocked its flesh, chunks of meat and shattered bone littering the shuddering earth around them.
Yet still it kept coming, driven by a rage and pain that transcended the physical.
With a bellow that shook Helena’s very bones, it reared back, raising both ruined arms high in a final, desperate attack.
Helena could feel the power building, sensing the barely contained forces writhing within the beast’s burgeoning strike.
This was it – an attack powerful enough to level the entire forest if it connected.
She had one chance.
As the beast’s arms plunged downward with obliterating force, Helena moved.
Not away, but forward, darting into the very heart of the descending death blow.
The black rod became a flashing arc of annihilation, meeting the attack head on in a resounding collision that set Helena’s teeth rattling in her skull.
A shockwave detonated outwards with the fury of a bomb, flattening the surrounding trees and kicking up a maelstrom of debris.
Through the sudden storm of shredded bark and upended soil, Helena glimpsed the beast staggering, stunned by the recoil of its own overwhelming power being reflected back upon itself.
Then she struck again, and again, a merciless barrage of blows from every angle as she poured every ounce of her being into an unstoppable offensive.
The black rod became an extension of her will, shattering bone and pulping flesh with each thunderous impact that sent shockwaves rippling through the beast’s mountainous bulk.
Finally, with one last resounding strike that felt like it could shatter worlds, the beast crumpled, its knees shearing through the tortured earth as its mass crashed downwards in a plume of dust and ruin.
It hit the ground with an impact that made the forest shudder, already beginning to dissolve into a sticky miasma of rapidly decomposing matter.
Helena stood amidst the settling cloud, chest heaving.
The black rod had been driven a foot into the ground by the sheer force of her final blow, scorched earth radiating outwards from the point of impact.
Her muscles burned, tendons screaming in protest, but she drew herself upright through sheer willpower, refusing to show any outward signs of weakness or fatigue.
For it was not over… the cohort still had the thralls to deal with.
The fact that they could move was proof enough that this was not the true monster of the woods.
But it was astonishing.
Raven couldn’t even take her eyes off the Feral Sage.
‘She defeated it without using a single ability?’
Helena was carried throughout the battle by brute strength, speed and the power of her weapon.
She hadn’t even used any of her talent abilities. Not a single one!
Sage truly, were a different level of power forces.
