It clicked in Alex's mind as he watched the fight. The beast wasn’t using the water barrier to just lessen the impact of their blows. The barrier around it absorbing the kinetic energy of their strikes, then redirecting it to enhance its own attacks. It was similar to the fighting style that Beithin had used. But instead of directing it into the ground, the chimera was using it to power-up its strikes.
Like Alex did with [Flare] spell and his punches, it was transferring force from their own strike or spell and adding to its own. Every blow they landed was fueling the next counter attack, making it even stronger.
Before he could fully process the realization of this thing’s ability, Henry was slammed into the cavern wall by a tail slap, the impact amplified by multiple wind slashes Holly had sent at it just a second before.
The sound of a halberd meeting stone echoed through the cavern, and Alex’s stomach twisted in alarm as Henry slumped to the ground.
“Stop!” He shouted. “Pull back! It can redirect force from our attacks. We’re making it stronger!”
Garret staggered back with his shield still held high, his eyes widened as he realized the truth in Alex’s words. Water sloshed as the chimera shifted to follow them, its massive muscles tensing under its protective layer. Its dark eyes glimmered, as if it understood their fear.
Alex’s pulse hammered in his ears as he tried to think of a strategy to overcome this.
They had the brute strength to fight it, the skill, but now they couldn’t throw everything at it blindly. Every attack had to be timed and calculated. Too much force and they’d fuel the beast’s own attacks; too little and it would simply shrug off the hits and continue its rampage.
Alex shouted out commands to adjust their formation, signaling to everyone with sharp gestures as the team shifted in response.
“Holly, get Henry,” Alex said. She was already rushing towards him before he even finished the sentence. She picked up his large form, and his weapon, with surprising ease and reappeared behind Alex just as quickly.
Allie moved to Henry’s side without having to be asked. With a flash of yellow aether already jumping from her hand and into his body.
“Test blows?” Eric asked?
He nodded in response.
Eric gave the command, and everyone followed.
Instead of landing full-force strikes, they started to probe the beast carefully, hitting just enough to force the chimera to move and react, but not enough to give it a massive reserve of redirected power. Holly’s wind slashes skimmed its sides while Garret’s shield nudged claws away without full commitment. Peter and Lance sliced at angles that minimized the force behind their weapons. Even Tom-Tom took their lead, his rock-encased ladles found glancing strikes rather than direct hits.
For a moment, it seemed to work. The chimera swung and missed a claw, leaving it spinning briefly as the team pulled back to get ready to strike again, but the beast adapted faster than they’d hoped.
The creature settled its center of gravity, its muscles tensing and the water around its body rippling faster and faster. It undulated in synchronized waves. Now it wasn’t attacking immediately. Instead, it stayed in place with the shimmering liquid layer vibrating with potential energy.
Obby spoke up in his mind, “Look, meatboy! It’s keeping its water moving. The orbiting the water builds up momentum around itself and charges it up!”
Alex groaned internally as his eyes followed the pattern. Obby was right. As it turned out the boss didn’t need their attacks to generate force, it was doing that all its own.
“It’s just storing up energy and holding it,” he yelled over the momentary din. “It’s getting ready for a large attack!”
The team froze for a fraction of a second, understanding dawning on them. Every cycle the water orbited around the beast’s body built the reservoir of destructive force it was holding. Soon it would launch it at them with such strength that they would be crushed with no recourse.
Alex couldn't just wait for that to happen. He sprinted forward through the shallow water, the adrenaline in his system sharpening his movements. The chimera’s left claw glinted in the pale light, water swirling violently as energy coalesced around it. Once more it aimed at Garret who stood behind his shield.
His instinct took over as Alex dove in, positioning himself between the claw and his teammate. He planted his feet firmly in the shallow water. Both his hands glowed with aether as he braced for the force to be released, ready to absorb and deflect, or redirect it in whatever way he could.
Channeling every ounce of aether into an overcharged [Wave Shield] spell that he could, Alex prepared for the blow. Despite this, the chimera barely noticed him. The water surged forward, tearing through his shimmering arcane barrier like paper and ramming into his shoulder. Pain exploded across his body as he was hurled across the waterlogged floor, landing with a grunt against the back wall and sending water spraying in every direction.
The team reacted instantly. Garret pushed back with his shield, trying to hold the beast back from finishing Alex off. Henry—now back up thanks to Allie—and Lance scrambled to intercept the next strikes. Meanwhile Holly, Tom-Tom, and Eric launched attacks from every angle they could manage, but each blow was absorbed by the chimera’s watery armor, causing it to swirl even faster.
Allie appeared at Alex’s side before he could gather himself fully. She pressed a healing potion to his lips, forcing him to drink. He grimaced but pushed to his feet, legs trembling, shoulder screaming with pain as the potion’s warmth and restorative aether began knitting torn tissue back into place. Blood still seeped freely from a gaping wound along his right shoulder and torso, mixing with the pool underfoot. The bloody mixture bubbled and splattered in violent reactivity.
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Alex’s eyes narrowed as he noticed this, watching the way the water reacted to his blood.
The caustic aether… my wyrm-heart constitution. He realized.
The passive ability granted by his Wyrm-heart was finally kicking in, subtly altering the flow of energy in his blood which interacted with the water, and attacked it.
Seeing this, he understood something crucial. The boss’s stored energy, the defensive water layer and force-redirection, it was all aether energy. Thus it was still sensitive to his caustic blood. The forest biome’s hidden objective had already been completed and stripped the all chimeras of the aether signature mimicry skill that it had used to neutralize his constitution’s passive effect. That meant the skill could affect this boss beast.
A slow, grim smile crept across his face. This was their chance, one small edge in a fight which had otherwise seemed impossible. If he timed it right, used his blood to interact with the water shield, he could disrupt the chimera’s force absorption and catch it off guard.
Alex looked back at the beast.
“I got an idea!”
He took a deep breath. Feeling the water thrashing in the pool, the beast propelling its energy in spinning orbit, like a generating battery. For a moment, he had peace and calm. Then, he let the aether flow in his body accelerate, directing it all to his bones and into his marrow. The azure energy seeped inside his structure, burrowing deep, and began the active version of his caustic poison-blood passive for the very first time.
The sensation hit immediately: a rush of raw heat, surging up through his marrow and bones. It burned something hot and angry before being swallowed, and then was transformed by his Wyrm-heart constitution. The pain that it caused was noticeable, but bearable, like that of his martial art style.
He felt his bones squeeze inside his body and his veins tingled. Thick, almost viscous blood moved as it coursed into his torso and limbs. Every inch of his body felt saturated, alive with a richer, more potent vital essence than before.
He reach up to his shoulder and tightened his grip around his still healing wound and tore at it savagely with his fingers. It caused a torrent of blood to gush from his body and infuse the water around him, seeping into every shallow ripple of the cavern pool.
Despite his worsening wound, Alex felt his vision sharpen. As his blood tainted the depths of the pool—forcing his teammates to retreat backward—the aether ripples around the beast changed.
The water barrier quivered in response to his blood’s influence. Subtle distortions began seeping into the beast’s ability, burning it away slowly. I looked as though the creature didn’t yet notice the change had begun. As if it couldn’t feel the difference, it just continued to try building orbiting force.
The creature lunged at Henry again, its left claw swinging with terrifying speed, but Alex was faster. He shot forward, water splashing up to his knees, and planted himself directly between the claw and Henry, throwing out a [Flare] enhanced fist.
The moment the strike connected with the swirling water layer, the effect was immediate. The absorbed energy shuddered violently within the water, then erupted chaotically. Some of it dissipated harmlessly into the cavern, while some of it slammed against the chimera’s own body in a devastating backlash.
The beast whimpered as the redirected force bounced back in an uncontrollable wave against it’s hide. Its watery barrier flickered unevenly, faltering under the corrosive influence of Alex’s caustic aether-blood.
Garret barely managed to brace his shield as the chimera lashed out in anger. At this point, Garret seemed more worried about getting Alex’s blood on himself, than the chimera’s clawswipe.
Now that he was up close, the effect was noticeable. Within seconds, Alex’s blood began dismantling the chimera’s protection entirely. But Alex could feel the chimera’s attempts at overpowering his blood’s caustic effect. With every ripple, every oscillation in the water layer, Alex felt the beast’s intent and he knew what he had to do to stop it.
He still had a connection to his blood in the water, it was his aether after all, his body, a part of him.
He moved his hand and nudged the flow of caustic blood around him with his aether just enough to destabilize the stored momentum further. The instability initiated another explosive backlash against the beast.
The cavern trembled as the chimera slammed into the far wall, the stored energy exploding outward in sporadic bursts that rattled stone and sprayed water everywhere.
Alex smiled. His blood was still surging through the beast’s technique and beginning to burn into its body like liquid fire. He shouted to the team, “Now! Hit it, carefully, but hit it! Keep it off balance!”
Holly’s wind slashes picked up again, cutting through the shimmering remnants of the chimera’s barrier. Garret and Henry pressed with careful strikes of sword and halberd, and Tom-Tom landed savage blows with his rock-laden ladles. Even Eric managed to release a small, controlled bolt of lightning, the water conducting just enough without frying the party.
The tide of the fight had shifted drastically. The chimera’s clever force-absorption was still dangerous and powerful, but Alex had forced it to lose its perfect control. This was their opening to take it down for good.
Alex signaled, and the team moved as one. Holly’s wind slashes swiftly focused down into piercing blows that sliced its scales down to the bone, while Tom-Tom’s ladles smacked against joints and vulnerable spots. Garret’s sword hammered against a foreclaw and Henry’s halberd struck its flank. Lance added crushing force where he could, each sword strike timed carefully to avoid its whipping tail. Peter and Allie created bursts of laser-light and illusions, disorienting the massive predator and breaking its focus further.
Alex could see it faltering, energy flickering unpredictably in the water around it. Its massive jaw biting blindly, its claws missing swings that would have torn through any of them with ease.
“Now!” Alex shouted. “Hit it with everything!”
Wind, light, fire and stone rained down on the beast together.
The boss stumbled, its massive claws raking at the stone floor to maintain balance. Its eyes widened with fury and confusion.
Adrenaline and pain surged together in Alex’s veins, the deep rush of aether making his muscles twitch and strain. He pushed harder, letting the active blood-toxin pour every possible ounce of potency into his bloodstream, turning the cave itself into a boiling conduit of corrosive energy. Everyone else on the team had to retreat rapidly, each of them already earning smoking and blistering wounds from his blood as they too were exposed to it.
The chimera gave a final roar. Water and aether bubbled violently around it, with its scales cracking and claws splintering, until it stumbled forward. Then the creature faltered entirely, unable to recover from the combination of corrosive blood, and coordinated assault. The cavern shook one final time as it collapsed, then lay still, defeated.
Alex fell to one knee himself, gasping for air, while a bitter laugh tugged at his lips. They had done it.
But even in victory, the win felt hollow. The smell of copper and musk filled the cavern, everyone lingered, unsure where to step thanks to Alex’s blood covering the area. And Alex, feeling the pulse of power still thrumming through his veins, felt his his vision narrowing down…
...into blackness.