The Knight Knew this was going to be hard, its punch connected but the being did not shift much, only a small dent was left on the coal, the Knight had thought was a head, merely fuel sores for the elemental head. Then Quake was gone too, the rumbling had ceased by now, crushed by a wondering kick. The only shaking left was when Mugaw moved. The Knight used its intangibility, from Holi, and got inside the monster's centre, then became solid, a cavern of flesh parted, not enough to kill the monster, it was even trying to suppress and crush the monster. Then the Knight let loose one of the followers trying to make it a vessel. Nothing happened. The Knight does not know the skill of this monster, but it knows that its soul is shunning out the foreign invaders. Meaning that it's one of those monster vessels that refuse to become husks for the Knights followers.
To buy more time the Knight told them to move the plan ahead. Now there was eight illusions of the Knight outside, each a few kilometres, this would have not phased Mugaw, if not for the fact that its senses were being tempered, and the other figures were gone through camouflage, hiding deeper in the illusions. They would hit the monster at a spot where the Knight illusion hit, and by tricking its senses it would think that the hits were more dangerous than intended. The Knight got outside after confirming that making this thing into a vessel might be impossible.
Then everything changed, the hits were hitting the soul of the monster too since they were using Sirus's ability to touch souls. The Knight had used Juval and the others to create a field big enough to make the monster unable to use its skill. Things were still the same though, it seems the monster still has not taken this seriously.
Then the Knight disabled the Juval skill since it made the others unable to make the illusions and teleport. Then the Knight used its mighty skill and battle monger to teleport and mangle the monster, it was simply too big for the Knight to leave any wounds enough on the monster. This was all still happening because Mugaw was still convinced its surrounded by giants of its calibre. The battle lasted like that for a month, gradually chipping away from the monster. Then as the disaster that it is, it started to ignore the slight stings from the attackers and sing widely. Probably a desperate gambit, but it paid off, its arms went through the giant figures, which did not dispel the illusion though as they were perfect, but its arm crushed the nearly indestructible and infinitely small adversary. The Knight felt the follower's soul enter the flesh meaning that Gyer was gone too, then illusions were gone too, its senses were still being fooled by Tyun though.
Mugaw was not struggling but it was getting annoyed by the callous pests. Then it did it, activating its skill. It could have won without it, but it was just not caring, the battle had been going on for months now.
'I get it now.'
Mugaw is a monster made up of multiple beings' soul; thus, its soul is so potent. Casting its skill, even though Holi is intangible, its soul was absorbed. Then the claws of the beast became a ghostly colour, then they flashed at Juval, but once half through him they solidified, crushing him outward, turning it into a pulp. Again, the follower had abandoned its vessel. Then it became apparent that the Knight would not be able to take it down. All the plans had been exhausted, this monster's size made it inexhaustible, but with its speed, strength, and now the ability to assimilate, and grow in size and property. The Knight also noticed that Mugaw might possess multiple skills of all the souls in it, thus explaining why the other monsters were avoiding it, not wanting to end up as part of it. The Knight did not want to feed it with its followers since Holi's soul had not returned, it could lose its followers. The Knight commanded them to teleport out so that a new plan could be made, since the Knight had lost its first follower, it had thought them immortal, since when their vessels were gone, they came back.
The thing is that Mugaw still was not being threatened by all this. The Knight knew this because assimilate might be the original skill, but it was not the only one, since by using Holi's skill it showed it could still do more. The Knight was about to teleport out but then it looked up and thought of something while looking at the huge amalgamation of souls within the monster. The Knight was strong, if Mugaw was smaller, the battle might have been different, but then the Knight forgot one of its best uses of smithing and soul crafting, because it had become complacent, and a little distracted by the prospect of creating armour for its army.
'That might work.'
The black feather swaying on the Knights helmet shattered. Then the Knight looked up and tried to pull the souls that have merged together to it. The Knight was not really trying to absorb the souls by borrowing the assimilate skill, it could not compete with Mugaw on its skill. Mugaw had made a mistake, because just like the Knights follower who wanted to come back, all those monsters in there might be still kicking, wishing to free themselves. The Knight might not be strong enough to take down Mugaw but cutting him to size, that it could try. All the Knight had to do was loosen the bars of their prison.
Nothing was happening.
Mugaw however could feel the string trying to impose itself. 'Time to teach some manners' is what that fire head figure must have expressed, but since it's a monster, it was probably just going mad with annoyance.
The Knight knew that this was not enough to beat a disaster monster, the bars were too thick, and the souls inside must have given up ages ago, seeing how futile it is to struggle, and resigned themselves to just become part of its power. You don't have to push a building over to watch it crumble, you just have to pull at the supports that have not yet settled. Just then the soul of Mugaw rippled. Its hand had stopped a couple of meters away from crushing the Knight into pulp in its palm. The Knight was using all its effort to pull at the seams, so it was completely still, teleporting at the last second was still possible, but then the Knight might not have gotten this chance again. Since a new soul had just been taken in, and it was still flailing around to free itself. This would have not been possible at any other time, but Mugaw had just taken in a follower, and when the bars shifted slightly, and the shallow bonding had not yet settled the follower skipped out and teleported to the skin of the Knight having been freed.
A stone had been removed then the Knight fled. It would wait then come back to chisel at the crack every time the feather repaired itself, then after a while the souls inside realised the growing gap, and then one, two, three, four… and so on. They poured out endlessly. The body of Mugaw was not shrinking, but the soul was, it could barely move the massive body. The only way out for the souls was for them to leave through the narrow crack, so all the thousands of souls just got put into the inventory as soon as they escaped, even the Knight could not handle them, so some would just dissipate after escaping. Then Mugaw was just left with its soul. The flame dimed and turned off. The body collapsed with a thunderous bang, which made some of the cave to cave in. Then the stomach was jerked, then torn, then a figure immerged from the centre in a fresh body. Seems like it made a smaller body, just standing at a hundred meters.
It was not done though, its new head lit up and then it activated its skill. The Knight could feel it taking the souls in the inventory by force.
It did not matter thought. This pulling for souls was not the battle the Knight was intending to win. The monster was still at a hundred meters. The Knight then teleported behind it from view. It was as a distracted warden trying to get its prisoners back. The Knight knew that, otherwise, it would have been harder to keep up with its speed. It was so fast and strong at that height, now imagine how mobile it was now.
So, the Knight was not going to take any chances, focusing the condensation of most of its soul into the fist, it coiled back, using teleport to make the hit more accurate, it struck it at the centre, punching a deep hole into where the soul was most concentrated. The Knight clenched its hand, grabbing onto the tremendously heavy soul, it was even searing hot, the Knight had never seen a soul resisting death before. The void grew darker, the soul conformed, and that is how it was taken by the Knight.
It turned its head slowly and looked down, it was a hundred metres in height after all, then the Knight felt its glare and looked up, a huge, wicked grin settled across its flaming face. The Knight was sure this monster still had a couple more tricks up its sleeves, maybe until the end it had not thought the Knight a threat, only a minor inconvenience, even up until the end. The Knight was sure that it was probably bored of this dungeon.
The Knight saw the rest of the souls trapped in the monster all dissipate, after all the Knight had not ended them. Only one soul stayed on the palm of the Knight, this soul was not made of the usual whisps odd light blue, this one was a dark blue with tints of red, the red faded away. Then something strange happened, the soul had a smile on its face, face?
You have slain the level 150 monster, Mugaw. Soul acquired. Store, or craft into … Soul is not malleable. Suggestion disposes of soul. Soul eradication?
"Mugaw is not dead. The body it was walking around in is gone, but the soul is still alive… was this thing really just waiting to be sent into my inventory to take the souls I've taken, would it?"
The Knight was disturbed from these thoughts, by what it heard next.
You have gained a follower.
"This bastard. Must really be afraid of eradication. I am not sure who you really are Mugaw, or what you want, but I won't let you have it. For now, just behave."
Mugaw is like the followers who are in a form that needs a vessel, and unlike the followers it does not have a slime existence plastered to the Knight, so the soul just became dimmer and attached itself to the feather. The feather was on fire but not burning.
'I guess it did an impression on you now did it.'
The Knight was so distracted by Mugaw's strange behaviour that it had not noticed what it had accomplished, with a month left to spare.
You have conquered the abysmal dungeon. Mission complete. Void contained in dungeon core is released.
The Knight had not seen it, a whole mass of void, laying after the monster's gigantic body, the huge one. It was in the form of a floating orb. More like a black sun that has its flames still burning at the edges, it had these thin black whisps that were leaking. Now that the dungeon had been conquered, they were increasing, turning into tendrils, then into streams, then rushing faster and faster, when it exploded it was like the dam walls collapsing, bringing with it a flash flood. It was now gushing out like a high tide of a tsunami. The dungeon was deep, but it reached the surface in mere minutes. The force keeping the Knight and others who entered in shattered, and then the void spread, covering the entire immediate area around the dungeon. Had this been a normal obsidian dungeon, the pool of darkness would have stopped there, but no. it kept rushing further and further outward. The nearest capital was within the safe zone of the collapse; they had built it far enough through the previous calculations of the first ever void spread from an abysmal dungeon, would not reach it. The void had consumed all the ruins, and ramshackle villages built nearby, and then the soldiers at the wall saw the rushing tide of the void. And sounded the horn. The whole thing was terrifying, since it was night fall.
It crept closer and closer, this spillage was so huge that even though there was an error zone for in case the calculations were wrong, it still crossed it and consumed half the city before coming to a halt. The Knight was oblivious to all of this though.
Now that it had conquered the dungeon, it had nothing to worry about. It released the condensed void that it had been suppressing for about a hundred and forty years, 'fitting'. The thing is that the Knight does not experience fatigue, but this had pushed its soul to its current limits, so after releasing this power, the soul relaxed and the void mixed with the new one, not quite merging. Then a flood of fatigue washed over the Knight, and it somehow almost felt human again, one who had not slept for a whole year. The Knight felt that its soul was creeping into slumber just as Mugaw had and was about to fall into slumber. Right before that the grain of darkness spoke.
You possess a void within. This makes you eligible to claim current void. Claim void?
The Knight was just too drowsy to hear anything, sleep was about to come for the first time in two hundred years, so it just said; "…Yes". Then the Knight felt a tide of something rush into its soul. Then it spread out again, now the void territory it possessed was fused with the new one.
Void territory has been increased. Evolution of dweller status… Reward has… granted. The… soul…
The Knight was already not hearing any of it, it was gone. Slumber had consumed it.