The Pinnacle Warrior

As the Boss crawled out of the lava, Astrid realized that she had no idea what its Great One given name would be, but she knew what she was going to call it. The lava turtle had jagged spines sticking out of its head, all pointing backward, with its arms covered in the same spiky scales. It pulled itself out of the lava, trailing the deadly liquid behind itself as its shell was hauled out into the air. When the monster pulled itself free from its home, magma continued flowing off of its back in between the segments of its shell for longer than Astrid thought it would be possible.

“Pull back until it’s no longer dropping the magma everywhere!” Astrid commanded as all five gave the monster a wide berth.

Unfortunately, the party learned, as they watched the boss seem to appraise them all, that it was producing the lava from within its shell. The cracks between the individual segments of its shell constantly glowed with the light of magma that seemed to flow inside its body, and a pool of the molten stone gathered underneath its feet. Standing at least three meters high where its front and back legs met with its shell, the turtle seemed to have had enough of looking at the Wanderers. Its head pulled back into its shell and snapped out with a deadly speed. Felix barely managed to get himself out of the way of the attack, but was knocked half a dozen meters away by the glancing blow.

Puffs of dusk steel mist went up around him as he tumbled away and scrambled to his feet, and Astrid could barely see that the spikes along the turtle’s head had expanded to make sure that the strike made contact. They started to retract as it continued to attack.

“I’m unwounded,” Felix reported as he got back onto his feet.

“Benedict, all in on Hasty Rebuke,” Astrid commanded. “We don’t know how durable this thing is, but for now, I wanna make sure we’re not getting hit.”

Benedict had pulled back on using as much of his mana as they’d approached the summit, but now was the time to push himself and spend more so he did as Astrid told him to. Almost like a burst of adrenaline, Astrid felt as Doubletalk and Silvertongue worked in tandem to layer Hasty Rebuke over her.

In front of them, the Boss’s feet moved even more slowly, but its eyes glimmered with intelligence and glared at Benedict. The large mouth, with what would almost look like a hooked beak at the front, opened and a bright glow flared and grew in that cavernous maw. Nobody needed to say anything as they all scattered in different directions. A jet of magma exploded out of its mouth and when it missed and hit the ground, the deadly liquid splashed everywhere in at least a ten meter radius.

Astrid raised her shield, pushing some of her mana into it to make sure that it was strong enough to withstand the magma as she closed in on the Boss.

“Testing Surge!”

She could feel that her party made sure they weren’t too close in response to the warning, and she didn’t hold back as she spent all the mana and stamina required for two uses of Gravity Surge in quick succession. It was, even after she’d gained these levels, a bit over half of her total mana to do so, but if she managed to get a massive blow in right at the beginning, it would be worth it. She thanked her lucky stars and the Duchess above for Immortal Warrior’s Body compounding with Restful Reverberations. She’d recovered back to full with a single charge of Body, so she had three remaining for this fight. She used one of them as the turtle thundered to the ground. The volcano shook as if from an earthshake, but nothing fell as Astrid darted forward and used Spectre Burst to make her opening attack against its head that stretched out on the ground.

Just before her blow landed, the head retracted into its shell faster than she could react. Her initial fear was that it somehow maintained such control over its body even after being slowed by Benedict and herself, but when she followed up and instead swung her hammer into the mostly exposed front leg, she realized that the Boss had some sort of Skill to protect itself. Deadly energy flowed into the monster and it roared in pain. Before Astrid could attempt to even express any excitement after that, the monster opened its mouth and shot out another jet of lava straight at her.

Fortunately, with a double layer of Hasty Rebuke, Astrid was able to move her shield in front of herself in time. She hadn’t expected the sheer mass of the breath, though, and instead of allowing flames to wash all around her like with the inferno wolves, she was blown back as Gravity Surge’s effect disappeared. Through her shield, she felt her left forearm beginning to heat up, even through her thick gambeson.

She hadn’t been knocked prone, so she wasn’t covered in lava, but Astrid watched as the massive lava turtle stepped back onto its feet and resumed the fight.

“I’m not too sure what I can do to keep this thing’s attention without getting myself blasted by lava,” Felix shouted as he looked at the huge creature helplessly.

“I’ll frontline,” Astrid called back, hating the decision that she had to make. “I’ll try to keep its attention as best as I can, see if your blades will do anything to it! Skandr, status?”

“Another five seconds,” came the answer.

A length of time that was easy to buy against Bronze tier monsters might as well have been a full minute against this Boss. Compared to its head and neck, the turtle’s legs were slow, but Astrid guessed that it had nearly 200 Alacrity, probably closer to 100 with how much Hasty Rebuke slowed it. With that in mind, the only two dangerous things she had seen from the monster so far was the lava breath and its bite, and that was far from enough to make it a Boss of the Wandering Trials.

The turtle remained focused on Benedict, and its mouth began to glow again.

“Get behind me,” Astrid shouted as she rushed forward with every attribute of mana filling her body. With her current attributes, her pseudo Warrior’s Awakening had become more costly while also pushing her to what she estimated to be 120% of her regular limit. She threw herself at the ground in front of Benedict just in time to raise her shield, flooding her greaves with mana to weather the attack. Now prepared for the force behind it, Astrid wasn’t knocked away, and then the turtle charged. 

Astrid and Benedict immediately learned what another of the Boss’s skills were as it flashed forward. The mountaintop rumbled as lava dripped from its back and left a line of burning hazards behind itself. Astrid and Benedict both tried to get out of the way, but it came so fast that its shell smashed into Astrid and blew her into Benedict, throwing them both tumbling on the ground.

With her body currently fortified by mana, Astrid was fine, but Benedict’s head smashed painfully into Astrid’s pauldron, and Hasty Rebuke faded. The monster’s head snapped towards Benedict as Astrid roared and pushed even more Alacrity and Power-aligned mana into her legs as she threw her entire body at the side of the turtle’s head.

For the first time, she made contact with the head, and she allowed a fierce grin to spread across her face as her shield rang against the monster. Despite its head being at least a meter and a half wide and long, she was able to knock the attack wide. Its face carved a two meter long ditch in the stone as its bite was knocked off course. Stone flew everywhere as Astrid re-gathered herself and stood in front of Benedict once again.

On the side of the turtle, Felix stepped forward and used Tiger’s Pride to get the bonus to his physical attributes as he swung his axe between the thick, jagged scales of the beast’s arms. Astrid didn’t need Felix to tell her how well that went as his axe rebounded off of the stumpy leg. He pulled the weapon back to strike at the Boss again, but the turtle turned its attention towards him. 

Now that it was no longer impeded by Hasty Rebuke, the tortoise turned nearly as fast as Felix could himself to attack him. The Guardian threw himself further away, putting a foot in magma in his haste to escape. The turtle continued its attacks, but behind Astrid, Benedict resumed his multiple Skill efforts and Hasty Rebuke filled the air once more. Like that, Felix was able to avoid all threatening attacks and steer clear of putting his feet in any more magma puddles. Though he escaped the snapping jaws, his dodge took him closer to the lava pit. Astrid felt her heart rate accelerate even further at the thought of him being pulled or thrown into the molten stone, but she didn’t need to worry too much.

Felix had learned an agonizing lesson from nearly dying against the feathered serpents, and instead of continuing to attack, the only thing he focused on was getting further away from the situation. The turtle didn’t stop its pursuit, but the Wanderers took that second or two to get back into position as Muti finally made herself known.

She suddenly appeared, walking out of stealth as she raised her arms above her head and, with both hands on her shortsword’s haft, drew the first wound on the turtle. Under its shell, where the skin needed to be more mobile and flexible in order to allow the beast’s limbs to move, Muti cut a deep wound that began bleeding profusely. She hissed in pain as the blood sprayed out and coated her face.

“The blood is very hot!”

The turtle withdrew its leg, which she dodged, as it snapped down towards the Ambusher. She was more than ready for the attempted counter, so she stepped under its shell and into a deeper patch of shadow cast by one of its legs. The magma in the volcano cast enough of a shadow for her to disappear with Shadow Leap and reappear above the turtle. Black mana swirled around her sword as she fell from the air and tried to lodge her blade between the segments of the shell. The tortoise didn’t seem to care about that, and turned its attention back to Astrid and Benedict instead.

“The lava is coming from it! The places between the shells are not soft.” As soon as Muti made that report, she jumped off of the shell and started making her way to the side while the turtle went to attack.

“Astrid, bring its head out,” Skandr commanded, and Astrid moved forward to try her best to do so. She stepped forward with her shield held high once again, but the monster seemed to think that she wasn’t much of a threat, instead continuing to focus on Benedict while it swiped one of its massive forelegs towards her in a casual attack. She batted the attack aside, only being able to maintain her position through the continuous supply of mana into her greaves.

The turtle’s head came down threateningly towards her as its jaw opened wide. There was no glow of it breathing lava, so Astrid kept on her toes while waiting to see where it would strike. Her constant expenditure of mana demanded that she spend her second to last charge of Body to recover her mana back above half. Only a split second passed before it snapped forward, and when it did, Astrid stepped to the side, but only enough to dodge the attack. Before it could retract its neck, she rushed towards its body. She knew she didn’t have much time to make her move and she was down to her last charge of Body, so she didn’t spend any additional resources as she swung her hammer down into the top of the turtle’s neck.

Several of the jagged spikes broke with the force of her blow, the splintering sound filling the air as Astrid jumped back. She was just in time as Skandr spread both hands to the side before throwing them upward. Two bolts of lightning, one the deep red of blood, and the other an electrical blue so bright it was nearly white. The two spells, or maybe it was a single spell, twisted together in a helix before smashing down on the mostly unarmored base of the turtle’s neck, right in front of where its shell protected the body.

Skandr sagged as the turtle fell to the ground, and Astrid didn’t hesitate to press the attack. The turtle’s head, even as it seemed to struggle with controlling itself, snapped it back into its shell with that same defensive Skill, so Astrid instead circled around to the side where she had a good access to flat shell.

In the wake of Skandr’s spell, all four of the turtle’s legs had gone limp, so Astrid stood beside the shell and raised her hammer. The first segment of the shell was about a meter and a half tall, the perfect height for her to smash down onto. She didn’t hesitate to begin attacking, and her hammer fell one, two, three times. On the third strike, the ringing sound of her hammer ceased, and instead, a loud crack filled the air. The segment of the shell cracked down the middle and fell away, exposing steaming red flesh. Before Astrid could even begin to express excitement, magma fountained out of the wound.

Much of the molten lava struck her chest, and she felt her breast and stomach begin to sear as the liquid solidified into stone. She cried out in pain as she dismissed her shield and swiped off as much of the lava as she could while retreating from the boss. Its body stopped twitching so much, but instead of standing, it remained with all four limbs and its head pulled into its shell. Then, instead of the constant but slow drain of magma creating superheated rock floor all around, the lava turtle erupted. From every one of the cracks in its shell, lava burst out until there was another pool, maybe ankle deep, of lava everywhere.

Then, the turtle boss stood back up, and its mouth glowed once more with lava. Until this point, Astrid had felt that everything was still pretty well under control, even if they hadn’t made any notable damage on the monster. Then, all of a sudden, the monster they were fighting changed from a turtle into a fortress. Its body continued to produce magma, creating an ever widening moat of sorts that they would have to jump to clear, while its head, instead of shooting jets of flames, started snapping out relatively small globules of molten stone.

The attacks flew through the air with a relentless speed and accuracy, at least three coming out every second.

“Do you have anything for all this lava?” Astrid asked Skandr as she protected Benedict.

“I’ve thought about doing some rain stuff, but I don’t have enough time to do the research for it!” He retorted. “Do you think I’ve had time to understand the difference between making a rain storm and lightning?”

“You know I know nothing about magic! Now, you can sass me about time when we have more of it! I’m kinda fighting a giant tortoise as it tries to bite me in the arse and none of us know how much time we have left to finish the damn fight!”

Astrid’s angry response somehow made Benedict laugh, his flute song shuddering as he continued to blow and dodge out of the way of attacks while he barely contained his giggles. Astrid groaned in anger as she pulled a head-sized stone from the ground and hurled it at the turtle’s head. It lowered its head to get its eye out of the way, and that fortunately briefly hindered its barrage of attacks. Muti then used another Shadow Leap to stand on its neck and start stabbing into the soft flesh under the shell where Skandr’s lightning had vaporized a large wound.

The turtle reacted much more violently, shaking its whole body with surprising speed as Muti threw herself clear of its snapping head.

“Skandr, enchant my hammer.”

The Wizard didn’t delay to send his mana coursing through the shallow lines he’d carved in her hammer’s head as Felix looked helplessly at the Boss. Another few seconds passed, more and more magma covering the top of the battlefield they stood in, and the party members had to leap from one small island to the next in an attempt to keep themselves from burning to death. Different from inside of the volcano, Astrid could feel the air thinning as more things burned, and her head pounded from the oxygen deprivation. She didn’t hesitate, even with all that, to step forward and, dancing from one foothold to the next, jumped into the air and onto the turtle’s back.

Very little mana remained to be used, and she begrudgingly spent her last charge of Body to get herself back up to about two fifths of her total mana. Then, she raised her hammer and smashed it down several times into one of the segments of the shell. The magma still flowed between the segments, but she had just enough of a good footing to crush the nearest segment with two enraged blows.

This time, she was prepared for the gout of magma that came out, and once its flow slowed and the turtle rose up and started to try to shake her free, Astrid slammed her hammer down again and finally dealt a serious wound to the beast. It shrieked in agony as her hammer crushed into its tender flesh, and it threw itself out of its hunkered down state. It snapped towards her, and she threw herself free, and as she fell through the air, she prepared herself for it to charge her.

It charged her party instead.

Whatever Skill made it faster on its feet let it rush forward, and Felix stood there with nothing he could feasibly do to protect the two backliners behind him. The Guardian didn’t seem to think before he spent mana to activate Immovable Stance, and then swung his axe down to catch the bottom of the blade on the turtle’s head as it tried to charge through them. Try as he might, the Bronze tier Skill failed to stop the Boss, though it did slow it enough for Skandr and Benedict to get clear. Skandr shouted in pain as his foot dipped in lava, but he didn’t focus on that. Instead, he jumped into the air, giving himself enough of a view to see where Astrid had created a weak point. 

Pure white lightning flew from his hands and smashed into the wound, and the turtle roared in pain, slowing as lightning introduced itself to its system again. Muti, from somewhere Astrid couldn’t see, stepped into a shadow and carved a massive hunk of flesh free from the turtle’s back before disappearing when the Boss turned to deal with her. Felix threw himself in the monster’s face, dodging an attack before he raised his axe and smashed it down into the wound on the turtle’s neck, but still it didn’t fall, though it stumbled.

“Just die!” Astrid shouted as she jumped back forward, forced to leap over five meters with every step to get to another safe foothold, but once she was close enough, she jumped into the air once more and, as she fell, she pushed the last of her mana into her hammer for a Spectre Burst. The turtle turned towards her, its mouth glowing with a thick gout of flame, but her hammer fell faster. Blood exploded from the wound as, after the hammer found the organs exposed by Muti’s attack, the deadly mana from Spectre Burst began to ravage the beast.

It stumbled and fell, dying, as Astrid felt the Wandering Trials recalling her from the fight. She wanted to curse their failure to slay the beast, but two flashing notifications made a wide grin cross her face.

Volcanic Dragon Turtle Boss slain. 4,800 experience gained, split among party.

Your party has delved the deepest of all those eligible to receive the boon of the Wandering Trials. Boon being selected.