CLANG!
Meldov's axe, Fenpire, struck the Silver Hide Tumor's shoulder but glanced off the metallic spikes. He grunted as the monster backhanded him. He flew ten feet, struck a crumbling wall, and immediately sprang back to his feet with a blood-streaked grin.
"Is that all you got, you ugly bastard?" Meldov roared and charged again.
The lesser Tumors lay in heaps of twitching meat, dispatched by Hindar's precision. Now only the Silver Hide remained in this area. It was a fortress of grey flesh and silver quills. Meldov and Targellan bore the brunt of its fury. Their white vestments were torn and soaked in red, yet they held the line.
Targellan slammed the base of his cross into the pavement.
"Divine Standing!"
BOOM!
The monster's fist collided with the cross weapon but stopped dead. Targellan didn't budge an inch.
"Hindar! Support fire!" Targellan commanded.
From a distance, Hindar watched the battle through her glowing geometric pupils. She saw the trajectory of the monster's attacks before they happened and sidestepped a spike shot that would have skewered a lesser Priest.
"Don't order me around," she muttered, though she flicked her wrist.
SWISH! SWISH!
Three spectral kunai embedded themselves in the monster's knee joints.
"Maltese Shine!" Targellan shouted.
His cross pulsed with blinding holy radiation. The light washed over the Silver Hide Tumor. It didn't burn; it withered. The silver spikes turned black and brittle. The impenetrable grey hide softened like rotting fruit.
Hindar's eyes narrowed. The degradation of the armour revealed the energy signature beneath.
"I see it! The core is exposed on the right pectoral! Open it up!"
"With pleasure!" Targellan shouted.
He reversed his grip on the cross and thrust it forward like a spear. The weapon pierced the softened hide and pinned the monster to the earth.
"Graaaah!" The Tumor shrieked and thrashed.
"Meldov! Now!"
"Eat this! Fenpire Slash!"
Meldov vaulted over Targellan's shoulder. His axe glowed crimson as he brought it down in a vertical arc.
SPLAT!
The axe cleaved the chest cavity wide open. Dark ichor sprayed the air.
"Leith Blades!"
Hindar didn't miss. She fired a barrage of kunai directly into the open wound. The blades sought the pulsating core and shattered it.
CRACK!
The Silver Hide Tumor stiffened, then dissolved into a pile of smoking sludge.
"Finally," Meldov panted. He wiped sweat from his eyes. "That one was a sponge."
They turned their attention to the towering Sarx Effigy that loomed at the end of the street.
"Let's finish this," Targellan said.
They took a step forward.
"STOP!" Hindar screamed. "Get back!"
WHOOOOOOSH!
A shadow eclipsed the sun. A colossal blade of fused bone and meat swept across the street with the force of a hurricane. The Beast Tumor had swung its massive sword from blocks away to protect its power source.
RUMBLE!
The earth split. The street vanished. Where the road had been, a gorge twenty feet deep and fifty feet wide now separated the Apostles from the Effigy.
Meldov peered over the edge of the new canyon. He whistled.
"We almost died."
He looked up at the towering Beast Tumor in the distance. "I thought the Boss was supposed to keep that thing busy? If it keeps taking potshots at us, how are we supposed to reach the Effigy?"
Targellan frowned. "Maybe… maybe the Beast Tumor is too much for Provost Kirill to handle alone? It is an 8.0, after all."
Hindar clenched her fists. She felt a spike of worry in her chest, but she shook her head.
"Have faith," she snapped. "He is a Provost of the Single Digits. He doesn't lose."
"I'm just saying," Meldov shrugged. "We should worry about our own skins. Kirill can take care of himself. He's been killing monsters since before we were born."
As if summoned by his name, the Beast Tumor raised its arm to strike at the group again.
FLAP! FLAP! FLAP!
A wall of white birds materialized from thin air and blocked the monster's vision.
SLASH!
A blur dropped from the sky. Kirill's kusarigama severed the massive meat sword at the hilt. The bone blade tumbled into the ruins below with a heavy thud.
Kirill hovered in the air on his bird platform. He removed his mask and spat a wad of bloody saliva.
"Hey, ugly! Eyes on me!"
The Beast Tumor roared in frustration. Steam erupted from its pores as it turned its attention back to the tiny gnat that buzzed around its head.
It pulled its fist back and punched. The blow was slow, telegraphing its power. Kirill dodged it easily.
But the fist didn't retract.
SQUELCH!
The knuckles split open. Hundreds of elongated, serpentine arms shot out from the main limb. They writhed and snapped like vipers as they chased Kirill through the air.
"Persistent!"
Kirill spun in mid-air. His chain created a protective barrier of steel. He severed a dozen snake-arms, but more took their place.
"Scatter."
He spat a flock of birds. They collided with the mass of limbs and detonated.
BOOM! BOOM!
The explosion cleared the immediate threat, but Kirill sensed a shift in air pressure behind him.
The Beast Tumor's other hand had swung around in a wide arc. It wasn't a punch. It was an open palm, aiming to meet the first hand.
CLAP!
The two massive palms slammed together with Kirill in the middle.
The impact created a localized atmospheric quake. The shockwave distorted the air and blasted Kirill sideways like a ragdoll.
He tumbled through the sky. His vision swam.
"Guh…"
He managed to right himself and landed hard on a passing scripture bird. He wiped blood from his nose.
"That… did some damage."
He looked up. The Beast Tumor opened its chest mouth. Violet light gathered.
VZZZTT!
A beam of concentrated energy fired point-blank.
"Too late to dodge," Kirill realized.
He crossed his sickles. The chains glowed with white fire.
"Kusarigama: X-Slash!"
He swung both arms outward. An X-shaped wave of energy launched from his blades. It collided with the beam in a shower of sparks.
CRACKLE!
For a second, the attacks struggled for dominance. Then, Kirill's slash cut through the beam and struck the Beast Tumor's chest.
SPLAT!
The monster's torso was carved into four quadrants. It staggered back.
"Now's our chance!" Hindar shouted.
While the Beast Tumor regenerated, the trio of Apostles sprinted along the edge of the gorge and leaped across the rubble to reach the Sarx Effigy.
It stood before them; a grotesque totem of roots and flesh, pulsating with red veins and screaming faces.
"End it!" Targellan yelled.
"Maltese Shine: Purge!"
"Fenpire: Blood Cleave!"
"Leith Blades: Rain!"
The three attacks hit the Effigy simultaneously.
KABOOOOOM!
The tower of flesh couldn't withstand the combined might of the elite. It exploded into a million pieces of gore.
"We did it!" Meldov cheered. He raised his axe in victory.
The relief washed over them. The tether was cut. The Beast Tumor was vulnerable.
But Hindar froze. Her Visual Gospel remained active, and what she saw made her blood run cold.
She looked at the Beast Tumor. The chest wound healed rapidly. But the invisible core… it did not materialize. The vortex of energy remained, spinning in the void, still powered by an unseen source.
"How is this possible?" Hindar whispered. "It should have worked."
Meldov turned to her. "What's wrong? Why the long face?"
"The core…" Hindar pointed a trembling finger. "It's still hidden. The weakness wasn't revealed!"
"What?" Targellan yelled. "You said destroying the Effigy would fix it! We risked our necks for this!"
"Shut up! Let me think!" Hindar screamed, clutching her head.
The Beast Tumor finished regenerating. It noticed the destruction of the Effigy. It did not falter. It did not weaken. It simply roared and unleashed a shockwave that forced the Apostles to retreat to cover.
Once they were at a safe distance, Kirill's voice hit them from above.
"Hindar. Status. Why is that thing still standing? Why is the core still hidden?"
Hindar squeezed her eyes shut. Blood began to trickle from her tear ducts.
'I overlooked something. Think. Look deeper.'
She forced her Gospel to its limit. She scanned the area where the Effigy had stood. She traced the faintest wisp of energy that lingered in the crater.
It didn't stop at the surface. It went down. Deep down.
Her sight pierced the earth. Through rock, through soil, through the bedrock.
One kilometer beneath the city.
There, suspended in a cavern, hung a massive, inverted Sarx Effigy. It pulsed with a dark, rhythmic heartbeat.
"I found it," Hindar gasped. A smile touched her bloody lips.
"The real Effigy… it's underground. Approximately one kilometer straight down. The one on the surface was a decoy. A lightning rod to distract us."
"A decoy?" Kirill's voice was cold. "Clever."
"Hurry up and destroy it. Because the situation is taking a change for the worse."
"What do you mean, Boss?" Meldov asked.
Kirill stared at the Beast Tumor.
Above the monster's head, the air began to warp. A ring of light formed; fractured, glitching, but undeniable. A half-halo materialized, shimmering with an unholy brilliance.
'There is no doubt about it. The Possession Magnitude is rising toward the double digits. Once that halo fully manifests, I'm not confident I can solo it. Even with my Apostles, victory becomes improbable.'
Kirill recalled the ancient texts.
When the Possession Magnitude exceeds the single digits, the Tumor unlocks the divine power of Sarx. It manifests a Halo. It becomes a Dreadnought Tumor. It no longer requires a core to survive. It becomes an avatar of the dimension itself.Special means would have to be taken by a High Priest to seal it until they could eliminate it.
Kirill felt the pressure weigh on his shoulders. If that Halo completed its circle, Nesbeth would be erased from the map.
'I can't afford to hold back anymore. I must go all out.'
Kirill closed his eyes. When he opened them, the whites were gone, replaced by an abyss of black.
He opened his mouth slowly.
"Poulion Parakolosis: Abaddon."
CAW! CAW! CAW!
His jaw unhinged. A legion of birds poured out, but they were not the white doves of salvation. They were ravens of the apocalypse. Their feathers were blacker than night, etched with dark crimson inscriptions. Each bird possessed six red eyes, and each eye held dual pupils that spun with madness.
The flock swirled around Kirill and blotted out the sun.
The darkness consumed him. When the flock dispersed, the man was gone.
In his place hovered a nightmare.
A dark, tattered hoodie formed of shadows obscured his face, leaving only a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth visible. Six terrifying red eyes glowed from the depths of the hood. Massive wings, composed of writhing black scripture, unfurled from his back.
Kirill had become one with his Gospel. He had awakened his true form.
Abaddon.
He gripped his dual sickles. The chains rattled like the bones of the damned.
"Time to die," the nightmare whispered.