Explorer of Edregon

Trouble was an understatement, if the number of bodies scattered around the worst monster Vin had ever seen was any indication.

Drifting right in the center of the battlefield, steered clear of by monster and person alike, was a horrifying mass of black energy. Floating within the heart of the darkness was a bright white mask with two eye holes in some sort of terrifying mockery of a human face. The black energy swept down and out of the horrid mask, as though it were a person wearing a billowing robe of death. From his vantage point, Vin was able to see an overeager warrior ignore the Slayers' shouts of warning and rush the monster with their sword glowing, clearly intending to use some sort of skill.

The man's sword cut clean through the energy, doing absolutely nothing. In response, the darkness swept around the swordsman, swallowing him from view. When the shifting energy withdrew once more, the man was nothing more than a shriveled corpse, the life seemingly snatched from his very flesh.

The effect reminded Vin of his own Decay spell, which didn't exactly make him feel any better about attempting to fight the monster.

Neither did the brand new notification he'd never seen before.

New epic monster discovered! 10,000 exp gained.

"Epic monster?" he muttered, recoiling in shock at the System notification and the sheer amount of experience he'd just received. "What the hell is an epic monster?!"

"I've never seen one myself, but it's a unique category given to city killers I've read about in history books," Lumel said, her face paling all the further as she watched Alka and her Slayers try to keep the monster distracted. While none of them appeared capable of actually harming the living energy, they were just nimble enough to keep out of its reach. It seemed not even Alka wanted to test herself against the black mass, as she dodged around it alongside the others. "There were a few leviathans rumored to have been given the title of epic monster that lived deep within the oceans of my world. We were taught that was why our people constructed cities within the lakes in the first place, to try and escape their notice."

"City killers?" Vin repeated, glancing over his shoulder at Terra and all the innocent lives held within. If they didn't stop this new threat here and now, there wouldn't be any Earthers left to greet the fourth wave, and he had no doubt the thousand fresh-faced people would fall just as quickly. "How do we kill it?"

"I don't know," Lumel admitted, biting her lip as another one of Alka's Slayers barely managed to dip out of the way of a sweeping mass of black energy. "I hate the thought of you fighting something like that, but maybe if you get close enough you'll be able to figure out its weakness."

"Get back!" one of the ballista users screamed, before firing what had to be a five-foot-long bolt directly into the center of the monster. Shockingly, the Archer actually managed to hit the white mask dead on, snapping it in half and causing the monster to pause for a fraction of a second. Almost immediately, however, the mask reformed good as new, and the monster suddenly spun around, its billowing waves of black energy sweeping out far wider than before.

Luckily, Alka and her Slayers had trained for unexpected attacks like this, and they all managed to leap back in time, narrowly avoiding the surprise attack.

All but one.

"Tiffany!" the other Slayers cried, their eyes widening as the smallest of the Slayers moved just a fraction too slowly. She managed to get mostly out of the way of the attack as she threw herself backwards, but the black energy still swept through her body from the waist down. Tiffany cried out in pain, and the small Slayer crumpled like a doll as she hit the ground and rolled.

"Tall Phil, get her out of here!" Alka roared as she rushed toward the monster, trying and failing to distract it without actually touching it. Before Tall Phil could actually carry through with Alka's order, the monster moved to fully sweep over the fallen Slayer. Just before Tiffany vanished beneath the living darkness, Lumel vanished in a flash of purple.

Vin's breath caught in his chest as he watched the Dimensional Mage flash into existence mere feet away from the monster of death. In the split second before it could sweep over them both, Lumel grabbed Tiffany and disappeared with another flash of purple, vanishing right before the darkness took them.

Vin let out a sigh of relief as he watched Lumel narrowly get out of there alive. Before he could even try to come up with some way to fight it, Lumel suddenly flashed into existence by his side again, panting from the rapid casting of her mana-intensive spells.

"It's a dimensional monster!" she gasped, shaking her head as she greedily sucked in air. "I don't understand how… or what that means… but I definitely got the sense it wasn't fully in this dimension!"

"How do we fight something that's only partially here?!" Vin asked, wondering if he should go try and find Shia and ask for the tip of Dancing Leaf once more. Maybe the enchantment on the blade would actually work against this thing?

"I don't know, but I think Isolate Dimension might work on it," Lumel muttered, narrowing her eyes at the monster as she quickly thought it through. "If we can get a firm grip on the dimension it's actually inhabiting, and bring it forward into our own, we might be able to do lasting damage to it." Even after she said it, she paused, frowning as she realized the largest flaw with her plan. "But we can't actually touch the monster, which means Isolate Dimension won't work. If we can keep it busy for a few hours, I might be able to come up with a way to cast the spell from range!"

"Lumel, we don't have a few hours!" Vin said, wincing as the tired Slayers barely managed to dodge out of the way of the monster yet again. One of the nearby warriors had the clever idea to lob one of Myers' magical grenades into the heart of the black energy, but the purple explosion did absolutely nothing as far as Vin could tell. "We've been fighting for too long, everyone's stamina is running low! If we try and hold this thing off any longer, more people are going to make mistakes and end up dead. I have at least one idea I can try!"

"Okay, but don't do anything reckless," Lumel begged, giving him a quick hug.

"When do I ever?" Vin grinned, leaping off the wall and running toward the city-killing monster. "Alka! Need a hand?!"

"You have no idea!" Alka called back, trying for the umpteenth time to slice off a chunk of the black energy with her sword as she danced upon a razor's edge to keep the monster from touching her. "I sure could use some of that magical bullcrap you love surprising us with!"

"I'll do my best!" Vin laughed, stopping just shy of the monster and taking a deep breath. "Renewal!"

Vin flooded the concentrated beam of life magic with as much mana as the runic formation could hold as he directed it toward the black mass of death that was gradually getting closer to the town with every passing moment. After seeing how its mere touch seemed to mimic Decay, he'd been half hoping that life mana would work as something of an opposite force, allowing him to hurt it.

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Naturally, no such luck.

The monster didn't seem to even notice he was doing anything as it continued forward, and Vin was forced to drop the spell and leap back to dodge a billowing swipe from the darkness. He gulped as he glanced at the grass the energy had passed over, seeing little but dried, crushed stalks where green grass had once been.

"I hope you have a backup plan!" Alka called out, grabbing a warrior that had fallen earlier in battle and yanking them clear right before they could get swept over by the monster.

"I have a few!" Vin called back, already going to plan B. "Create Flame!" When his fire washed over the monster with no more noticeable change than the life mana, Vin clicked his tongue and began going down the list. Surely something he had would affect it.

Over the next few minutes, Vin tried practically every single spell in his arsenal. The monster looked kind of like a living shadow, but Light proved entirely ineffective. It turned stone to dust and ignored water entirely. It seemed to ignore gravity all together, as it slowly drifted closer to town, disregarding his increasingly desperate efforts to stop it. Vin even tried using Decay after he'd run out of other ideas, but death mana did nothing either.

"We need to evacuate the town!" Alka cried after Vin's Decay failed to do anything. "Otherwise it will float straight through the defenses, and the outer wall will turn into the sides of the world's largest coffin as it prevents everyone from fleeing!"

"We can't evacuate, monsters are still attacking!" Vin shouted back, risking a glance at the rest of the battlefield. At the very least, it was clear that the wave of monsters was finally reaching its end. There was still enough fighting going on, however, that if they tried to evacuate the town, he had no doubt that at least a good chunk of innocent lives would be lost. Not to mention the epic monster would simply chase after them, most likely all the way to the end of Edregon, if one even existed.

"Well in that case, if you have anything really stupid you haven't tried yet, now would be the time!" Alka demanded, sliding under a wave of the black energy and popping up beside him. "Come on, I know you, Vin. Don't act like you don't have some idiotic idea bouncing around up in there!"

"I have one," he admitted, jumping back with her as they narrowly dodged another swipe of the energy together. "But it's pretty reckless, even for me."

"Perfect," Alka said, her glowing eyes flaring in her form of a wide grin. "That usually means either we'll all die, or it's bound to work. What are you waiting for, let's do it!"

"Just be ready with that sword of yours," Vin said, taking a deep breath as he prepared himself for what might very well be certain death. Readying the runic formation in his mana, Vin waited until the next wave of black energy swept at them. Rather than fully leap out of the way, he dodged most of it, before plunging his golem arm into the energy and casting.

"Isolate Dimension!" he cried, gasping at the pain he felt coming from his prosthetic limb as he managed to get an actual hold on the monster and prevent part of its strange, flowing form from continuing forward. Vin had never felt anything from his golem arm other than pressure, but now, it felt as though he'd dunked his entire arm into freezing water, and he could somehow feel his limb dying despite the fact that it wasn't even his own flesh and blood. "Alka, now!"

While he held a chunk of the monster still, he ignored the pain and focused on keeping his spell active. Just as Lumel had hypothesized, the monster was actually living in a separate dimension. But not just one, it felt like it was living in multiple other dimensions, all at the same time. It took every ounce of willpower he had, but Vin managed to isolate each and every one of the thin dimensions the monster occupied, bundling them all together like a wad of fabric in his fist. Not wasting any time, Alka lunged forward and carved through the black energy surrounding Vin's arm with her mithral-darthsteel blade.

For the first time since it had appeared, the monster paused in its slow approach of the town walls, coming to a complete stop and letting out a screech of pain that seemed to reverberate in Vin's very soul. Monster and person alike all froze in their respective battles as everyone across the entire battlefield became enthralled by the monster's cry.

Total Resistance increased to lvl 6! 1,200 exp gained.

Total Resistance increased to lvl 7! 1,400 exp gained.

Total Resistance increased to lvl 8! 1,600 exp gained.

Clutching his pounding temple, Vin snapped out of his stupor just in time to duck under a rapid wave of black energy aimed at his head. Alka seemed to be the only thing unfazed by the monster's cry, which was good, as she narrowly dodged another attack aimed at her.

"I think we made it mad!" she said, laughing as she danced back to his side. "Quick, do it again!"

The two of them worked in concert, Vin plunging his prosthetic hand into the floating mass of black energy and grabbing chunks of the monster with Isolate Dimension, forcing them into existence in a way that allowed Alka to slash through them with her blade. After each cut, the monster screeched again and tried to grab them, but thanks to Alka's golem body and Vin's Total Resistance, they managed to shrug off the eerie stunned effect that had frozen the entire rest of the battlefield. As they fought, Vin spared a glance around, and his eyes widened at the realization that not a single living thing had moved since he and Alka first managed to hurt this thing.

"I don't know what this thing is doing, but it's seriously bad news," Vin said, grabbing another chunk of black energy and letting Alka slice through it. The two of them had managed to carve through over half of the monster by now, and were quickly making their way to the floating mask that bobbed and stared at them as if thinking.

"No, you think?" Alka snorted, contorting herself in a way no human could ever hope to match in order to dodge another attack. "Come on, let's finish this."

Nodding, Vin put the rest of the battlefield aside for the moment, turning all his attention on the monster at hand. Strangely, after the first few times, he'd stopped experiencing that painful, freaky chill in his arm whenever he plunged it into the monster's billowing darkness. He didn't know if that was good or bad, but at the very least, it helped him keep his concentration better as they continued carving their way to the heart of the monster.

Finally, after what had to have been at least ten minutes of fighting, they were there. Leaping up, Vin snatched the mask in hand, feeling the white material try and slip away through the other dimensions before he locked it in place with Isolate Dimension. Not even waiting for Alka this time around, Vin flexed his golem arm, and with a flash of electric blue, he shattered the mask like it was made of glass. As the shattered pieces of the mask fell to the ground and seemed to evaporate before his very eyes, a new notification popped up.

New Title Unlocked! Epic Monster Slayer. Increased resistances against monsters and their unique attacks, scaling with the rating of the monster. Sense when and where epic monsters are going to attack.

Warning. You have filled 4 out of your 4 allotted title slots. Continue prestiging to unlock new slots.

The moment he shattered the mask, the remaining black energy all winked out as though it had never existed, and he nearly fell to the ground as he realized it was finally over.

Well, almost over.

"Nice work, beanstalk, but we're not done yet," Alka said, pointing at the surrounding battlefield. The monsters and warriors alike were all still standing there, frozen in place. Even the aerial monsters had crashed to the ground, and now laid there without so much as twitching. "I don't know how much longer that thing's screams are going to work, but now seems like an excellent time to run around and do a little culling."

"Yeah," Vin groaned, shaking out his prosthetic arm and frowning at the memory of that icy pain once more.

"If we hurry, maybe we can bring a close to this battle without any more people having to die."