Jonathan stood, and headed to the door, with Arkanon following suit. He did not miss the sharp look the Uthraki gave him, and he remembered the mission he had been given. He had to practice his leadership skills.

  The wooden door, eaten away by age and neglect, creaked on its hinges as Jonathan swung it open. It matched the rest of the village, a sprawl of ruins and ancient wooden planks strewn everywhere. A pile of corpses lay at the edge of the village, in the process of being burned by Bordeg. The muscular Uthraki’s hands glowed with flame as he basted the corpses in the crackling heat of his element, turning them to ash.

  Jonathan and Arkanon followed Hansel, who led them towards the edge of the village. Jonathan swept his gaze across the land, looking for something that would explain such an interruption. “What did you want to show me?”

  “Look, lord. Over there.” Hansel pointed at the ground about a dozen miles away. Jonathan narrowed his gaze, his senses instantly picking out a slight ripple in the earth. It was traveling towards them.

  “Ah. Some kind of monster?” Jonathan asked.

  “That’s what I believe,” Hansel replied. “I’m not sure why it is so slow. Even something that large should be capable of far more speed at Tier 3, or maybe even Tier 4.”

  Jonathan sighed. “Alright. Arkanon, how about you go back and Tier up? I can deal with this myself.”

  The Uthraki nodded, and started back towards the center of the village. Jonathan thanked Hansel for telling him about the threat, and pushed stamina into his legs. Three mighty strides took him to about a mile’s distance from the ripple in the earth. Now that he was even closer, he could see an undulating current writhing through the ground. It was dozens of feet long, and Jonathan could see the outlines of spikes and spines running along its form. Somehow, it was able to merge with the soil without actually changing its composition.

  Jonathan waited a minute, surprised at just how slow the creature before him was. How could anything be so ponderous at the rank that it surely was?

  As it neared, Jonathan acted. He raised his gauntleted hands above his head, and brought them down,imbuing them with Maw of the Void. His raw strength split the ground beneath him, and then he channeled the Void into it. A wave of consumption traveled through the ground, hollowing out the earth beneath. With his recent insights into the nature of his element, his skill was even stronger than before.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  A single stomp collapsed the thin roof of rock still standing above the cavern he had carved. A roar erupted from the depths, and Jonathan felt a tremor as the monster was revealed.

  A long serpent of bone undulated as it rose out of the shattered earth, its form battered from the onslaught of the Void. Even spent against the Tier 4 rocks and soil, Maw of the Void had eaten away at almost half of its length. Only, as the earth continued to shake, Jonathan realized that the snake wasn’t the monster he would have to fight.

  An area of rock the size of a football field collapsed in on itself as a titan rose from the ground, made entirely out of bone. A skull replete with four massive horns and three eye sockets pushed its way out of the dirt, and its body quickly followed. Still gyrating on top of its head was the snake of bone that now looked like a mere worm next to the giant monster. Jonathan sent his stamina thundering through his muscles, and leaped backwards, his jump clearing miles in a single leap. Two arms the length of freight trains grabbed onto the earth, pulling the monster’s entire body out of the subterranean world of Cessation.

  In the very center of its ribcage, a crystal as large as a house spun, radiating a toxic green light. Threads of energy tied it to the rest of the body, each bone siphoning a portion of its might. Jonathan watched, dumbstruck, as the creature stood at its full height. It was over a mile tall, like a mountain of bone towering over the world. Jonathan scanned it before it moved, a sinking feeling in his gut.

  Ar’thrax

  Bone Titan

  Level 389

  Health: 856789/856789

  Jonathan found himself unconsciously shaking his head, and he backed away, before running towards the village. That was not a foe within his ability to defeat.

  “Ant,” a voice rumbled across the plain. “You attack me, and then run?”

  Jonathan ignored the monster, and sped across the plain, reaching the village in a matter of seconds.

  He snapped his fingers, the purple portal to his own realm appearing in the middle of the town. “Everyone, get in!” He roared.

  As all of his followers could see the massive monster looming over the horizon, they were remarkably swift in retreating. Arkanon had already finished choosing his class, and the massive Uthraki barreled out of the building he had been waiting in, a shower of splinters flying everywhere. A wave of conceptual energy washed over the village as Edgar buffed everyone there, their speeds shooting up, allowing even the slowest among them to reach the portal in time. One by one, they dove into the purple eye of the portal, vanishing out of sight.

  Jonathan waited until the last moment, and as the ground began to shake all around him, he leaped into the portal behind the others. A massive skeletal finger poked through the portal, and tried to crush him into the ground. He closed the portal a moment later, and the finger was sliced apart, the fifty foot long length of bone falling to the ground of the Oozing Bastion.

  “Gods!” Edgar exclaimed. “What was that thing?”

  “It looks like Cessation might not be as empty as we thought,” Jonathan replied. “I have no idea where that monster came from. It was just there. Likely, there are more of them.”