The Colossus' arm came down. The impact struck where Dorian had been standing with something beyond sound, a sudden compression of force that seemed to flatten the world around it. Stone and soil detonated outward in a rippling shockwave. Trees tore free from the ground and tumbled end over end while survivors farther back were thrown from their feet despite the distance. Dorian Veilstepped at the last possible moment. Shadow caught him and pulled sideways, but not quickly enough. The edge of the blast reached him during the transition and ripped him back into reality before the movement completed. Dorian flew through the air, struck the ground shoulder-first, bounced, and skidded across broken earth.
Something cracked inside his chest. His lungs emptied on impact and refused to draw another breath for several terrifying seconds while pain exploded through his ribs. The Colossus' aura intensified, invisible pressure crushing against his skull until the battlefield tilted around him. Dorian forced himself upright anyway. He attacked because stopping meant allowing the thing to reach everyone behind him. Fang of the Eclipse and Mercy That Never Came flashed across bark, stone, and exposed bone as he carved shallow wounds wherever the creature's construction provided a seam. Shadow leaked through the cuts and spread like black veins across the Colossus' surface.
None of it mattered enough. It continued walking. Every exchange consumed more of Dorian than the last. Stamina disappeared in brutal chunks. Mana bled away through Veilstep, lightning, and Blackmark. The Colossus adjusted. Its attacks stopped trying to catch Dorian directly and began destroying the places he could escape to instead. Arms swept through entire sections of terrain. Roots burst from the ground. Stone erupted beneath his feet without warning and disrupted the timing of his movements. The creature was removing space from the battlefield until eventually there would be nowhere left to Veilstep. Dorian recognized the pattern half a second before it trapped him. That half second wasn't enough. He shifted toward shadow, but the Colossus' arm struck first and drove him into the ground beneath impossible weight.
Bones broke immediately. His right arm disappeared beneath stone and pressure, crushed so completely that pain lost shape and became white static across his entire nervous system. Dorian screamed as he twisted desperately beneath the limb. The Colossus shifted again. He pulled backward. Something tore. Dorian stumbled free and stared at the ruin of his shoulder. His arm remained beneath the Colossus, mangled beyond recognition. Blood poured from the wound in violent pulses. The pain struck a moment later, white-hot and total, climbing through his neck and spine until his knees folded beneath him. His vision narrowed. Consciousness began shutting down around the edges when the System forced itself into view.
[LIMB LOSS DETECTED]
[OUCH.]
[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY RECALCULATED: DECREASING]
Dorian barely processed the message. Blood loss was already pulling strength from his body. His heartbeat thundered against his ears while the Colossus turned toward him again. He knew with absolute certainty that another exchange would kill him. Dorian reached into the Vault of Unseen with his remaining hand and pulled out a healing potion. He tore the stopper free with his teeth and drank. The potion didn't simply close the wound. It rebuilt what was missing. Flesh erupted from the destroyed shoulder in a violent surge.
Bone extended outward with wet cracking sounds as an upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, and fingers reformed in seconds. Muscle wrapped around the structure. Blood vessels stitched themselves together. Nerves reconnected one screaming thread at a time. Dorian arched backward as agony overwhelmed him, teeth clenched hard enough that he tasted blood. He remained conscious through all of it. Barely. Another System pane flickered.
[REGENERATION EXCEEDS RECOMMENDED THRESHOLD]
FUTURE TRAUMA AMPLIFICATION LIKELY.
Dorian staggered upright while sweat poured down his face. The regenerated arm trembled violently, but it worked. He flexed his fingers and looked back at the Colossus. Strength wasn't enough. Speed had already failed. Precision meant nothing when every vulnerable seam only opened into another layer of stone, bone, or bark. His gaze settled on the creature's chest. The plating there differed from the rest of its body. It was denser and more deliberate, layers arranged around something central rather than grown randomly with the rest of its mass. A core. Protected because whatever existed beneath it actually mattered. Dorian stared through blood and haze until the choice became painfully simple. Break it or die trying. He charged. This time he stopped trying to ration himself. Mana ripped through his body in one uncontrolled surge. Lightning burst across his skin, jumping from shoulder to shoulder and spine to fingertips.
Veins glowed beneath the darkened flesh of his cursed arm like burning wires. His muscles spasmed under the current, locking and releasing in violent pulses while his nervous system struggled to survive the power moving through it. The Colossus' pressure intensified in response, pushing down harder as though the creature sensed that something had changed. The System immediately objected.
[MANA INSTABILITY CRITICAL]
NEUROLOGICAL DAMAGE IMMINENT.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: IMMEDIATE DISENGAGEMENT.
Dorian ignored it. He planted his feet and watched the Colossus approach. Its arm rose slowly overhead, carrying enough force to erase him if it landed cleanly. Dorian did not dodge. He waited. The arm came down and struck him. The world shattered. Ribs collapsed inward beneath the impact. Something ruptured inside his abdomen. Blood filled his mouth as pain detonated so violently that for one moment there was nothing else. Dorian nearly blacked out. Nearly. He held onto consciousness long enough to release everything he had built inside himself. The sky tore open. Lightning did not descend so much as arrive. A massive column ripped downward through the gray light and struck the Colossus directly in the chest.
The bolt screamed through the clearing. Energy exploded outward, vaporizing bark and blasting chunks of stone from the creature's torso. The deliberate armor around its core finally cracked. A spiderweb of glowing fractures spread across the plating while trapped electricity crawled through every opening. For the first time since entering the battlefield, the Colossus recoiled. Dorian saw it and moved before the thing could recover. Blackmark answered with everything he had left. Shadow erupted from his body and struck the fractured chest. It did not spread across the surface this time. Dorian forced it inside. Darkness poured between broken stone, slipped through seams in fused bone, and invaded spaces beneath the armor that had never been meant to hold it. His curse burned like fire across his shoulder and chest as he drove the shadows deeper toward whatever existed at the center. Dorian clenched his regenerated hand.
"Break." The shadows detonated. Blades of condensed darkness erupted inside the Colossus in every direction, tearing through fused torsos and splitting mineral growth from within. Stone burst outward. Bone shattered. Dead wood peeled away in enormous fragments. The core cracked. The Colossus screamed. The sound came from dozens of mouths at once, human voices layered over one another in an explosion of agony that shattered nearby branches and sent another shockwave through the clearing. Its pressure aura flickered and weakened. Gravity seemed to lurch back toward normal. The massive creature staggered for the first time. Dorian dropped to one knee.
His mana was gone. Completely. His muscles refused to cooperate, trembling uncontrollably beneath him while dark spots consumed the edges of his vision. Blood poured from his mouth and soaked the destroyed ground beneath his knees. He could barely breathe. The Colossus remained standing. Its chest had been split open and shadow leaked through fractures that no longer healed, but the monster was still alive. Dorian stared upward at it through blurred vision. Then he smiled. He lifted one shaking fist toward the sky. "NOW!" he screamed.