It has been more than an hour since the furious battle erupted in the ruined forest. The Adventurers fought fiercely, swinging their blades and casting spells with absolute, reckless aggression. But because they attacked with full strength, their Mana reserves dried up incredibly fast. They had already forced their stomachs to digest two or three vials of harsh Mana Potions. Acidic cramps twisted their guts, so a few fighters gagged between their heavy swings.
Their heavy barrage seemed to work at first. Thorne and the Mages released a devastating volley of fire and ice toward the Titan's upper body.
FWOOSH-BOOM! KRR-CRASH!
Thick smoke violently mixed with the toxic gray fog. Everyone expected for the bark to shatter. But when the dust finally settled, Nia gasped from the backline.
The Miasma-Titan had raised its two humongous arm logs to perfectly shield its body. The magical explosives only scorched the thick outer timber of the arms. Hitting the defensive logs caused significantly lower damage compared to striking the main body directly.
Down at the front, Kaelen and the melee fighters attacked wildly. They aimed for the exposed roots, but the Titan cleverly whipped its thorny vines to parry their glowing blades.
CLANG-SHHHK!
The heavy vines slapped the steel away.
Nia watched the futile clash from twenty-five meters away. She trembled.
Over the last thirteen days, the Titan never attempted to defend its body. It had simply relied on its hardened shell and instant regeneration. But now, it actively blocked their attacks.
A cold, heavy terror gripped Nia's chest.
If the monster keeps defending itself like this, we will completely run out of Mana Potions before we can even breach the inner core. We are in a truly desperate situation.
To make matters much worse, a sneak attack suddenly hit the backline.
RUMBLE-GRRR.
The crushed bedrock beneath the Healers and Mages began to shake violently. Thick, jagged roots burst right out of the dry ground without any warning.
CRAAACK!
Because the Titan had never used a subterranean attack before, a veteran Healer and a female Mage failed to dodge. Nia barely threw her body to the side at the last possible second. She hit the hard stones and quickly turned around.
SHLUCK-SQUELCH.
She stared in absolute horror. Two thick roots had pierced directly into her comrades' stomachs and pushed clean through their backs. The two women spat dark blood onto the dry earth. The roots lifted their broken bodies five meters into the air, then violently whipped sideways to throw them high into the cold sky.
It happened so fast that Nia's mind could not even comprehend the slaughter.
Thorne turned around and pointed his staff at the ground.
FWOOSH!
He cast a heavy wave of fire to burn the remaining subterranean roots to ash, wasting his precious Mana just to secure their footing. But the crisis refused to end there. Up at the frontline, a Thief cried out as a thorny vine slashed his side.
Then, the monster's left log-arm swept horizontally across the splintered trees.
BAAAM!
Two Tankers caught the impact, but the sheer force knocked them completely flat onto the ground. Kaelen and the surviving vanguard retreated frantically to evade a fresh flurry of poisoned thorns.
Nia looked up only to see another attack launching from above. The right log-arm was already descending from the clouds to crush the retreating fighters. At the exact same time, more roots started to crack through the dry soil around the backline.
At that exact moment, she realized something crucial. Fifteen minutes had passed since the last cleanse. The toxic gray fog was thickening into a suffocating black smog. The Adventurers needed a Flush spell right now, or the toxic gas would damage their lungs.
Nia froze. She did not know what to do first. The two Healers beside her just stood there in pure shock. Everything was happening at the exact same time.
The Healers had to mend the injured vanguard. They needed to catch the two women falling from the sky. They had to cast a Flush spell to save everyone's lungs. And they desperately needed to save themselves from the rising roots and the falling arm log.
The Healers needed to cast their standard Healing and Flush spells while dodging the right log-arm, the thorny vines, and the roots bursting from below the soil. Before Nia could even make her move, another attack was launched.
PSHHHH-HISS!
The Titan flared its yellow vents, spraying a massive wave of flesh-melting sludge across the entire battlefield. Nia froze, her mind completely overloaded as the absolute destruction unfolded right before her eyes.
KRRR-BOOM!
The next moment, Nia was lying flat on the crushed bedrock. Warm, sticky blood covered her face and her white robes. She slowly opened her eyes.
A sharp, high-pitched ringing echoed in her ears. Tinnitus completely drowned out the noise of the battlefield. The explosive roars and screams sounded incredibly muffled, like she was listening to them underwater.
She turned her head against the rough stones. Through her blurry vision, she saw the chaotic, bloody remains of the Adventurers. A few veterans were still standing while bleeding from deep cuts, but others lay on the ruined forest floor and desperately forced themselves to stand back up.
Nia lay flat on the crushed bedrock, so her vision was locked directly on the dark night sky. That was the only reason she noticed the threat first. Two massive arm logs were descending rapidly from the clouds, aiming to smash them all onto the ground.
A second later, the standing Adventurers noticed the falling timber too. The vanguard easily had enough time to dodge the strike, but a brutal reality anchored them to the spot.
Dozens of heavily injured and unconscious fighters were bleeding on the ground all around them. The standing Adventurers could not simply pick up the bodies and run. Hauling the dead weight would ruin their footwork, so they would inevitably get crushed anyway. They were also busy parrying a relentless flurry of thorny vines whipping at their ankles. They might manage to drag a few comrades to safety, though the vast majority would definitely be flattened into paste.
The melee fighters exchanged a single, silent look. They reached an obvious conclusion without saying a word. They stepped over the fallen and raised their weapons, entirely willing to use their own bodies as meat shields to protect the broken backline.
Nia looked at the descending timber again, and her eyes widened in sheer disbelief. The two arm logs were actively swelling. The bark cracked as thick, unnatural layers of fresh wood and sludge aggressively expanded the diameter of the limbs. The Titan had never done this over the last thirteen days. The sudden, violent growth instantly reminded Nia of her own Healer's Trick. The beast was dumping raw fuel into its arms to maximize the crushing weight.
The enlarged logs plummeted, while the thorny vines kept whipping from the flanks. The melee fighters frantically chopped the vines away, possessing zero time to think about their impending doom.
Thorne finally finished a desperate chant. He thrust his staff toward the sky, projecting a strong, curved magical barrier above their heads. The Tankers stepped forward and raised their heavy iron shields high. They stared up at the bloated, descending timber. The massive size increase meant the impact would be devastating. They had no choice but to brace for the hit, and they genuinely did not know if their bones could handle it. For all they knew, they were going to die the moment the wood touched their steel.
A suffocating hopelessness settled over the forest. The Adventurers gritted their teeth, entirely convinced these were their final moments.
Then Lumina stepped forward outside the barrier while the tip of her staff was glowing with yellow Aura.
She walked right past the braced Tankers, and she began to chant a spell Nia had never heard before. The atmosphere in the ruined forest violently shifted. The air grew incredibly thin. The Adventurers felt a terrifying density of magical energy pooling directly in front of the young girl. A brilliant white light flashed in the dark, casting harsh, long shadows across the trees. Everyone was entirely shocked by the raw power they felt, but they had absolutely no time to process it because the giant logs were still falling.
Out of the entire raid team, only Thorne understood the terrifying nature of the spell Lumina was preparing. It was a notoriously difficult cast that required an insane amount of Mana to burn. The old Mage felt deeply impressed and terrified all at once. He could not safely cast that specific magic despite his decades of experience, yet this kid had apparently mastered it at such a young age.
Thorne was the only one who understood the mechanics, but Chris reacted the most in his own mind. The Thief stared at her back and could barely believe his own eyes.
I heard she is only seventeen years old, Chris thought, his hands gripping his daggers tightly. To cast something with this much pressure at that age is just insane.
Down on the ground, Nia felt completely astonished by the heavy, suffocating energy radiating from that bright white light.
The enlarged log arms accelerated their descent.
"Radictus!" Lumina shouted.