In the aftermath of the fight with the vorger, Jason and Sophie had no time to catch up with Neil and Jory. The flesh abomination lumbering in their direction posed a new, albeit very slowly approaching, problem. They stood together, watching as it didn’t so much walk in their direction as vaguely amble. It was basically a huge, vaguely spherical mound of muscle, skin and fat on four short, blobby legs. Scraps of clothing and pieces of armour could be seen wedged into fatty crevices where layers of flesh and skin had folded on top of themselves.

“Is it attacking us?” Neil asked.

“It will move sluggishly until it is engaged,” Shade said. The shadowy entity who governed the trials had chosen to make a reappearance. Also with them was Keane, the adventurer who had been travelling with Neil and Jory.

“So we could just leave?” Neil asked.

“Yes,” Shade said. “If you were alone, I would advise you to do so. Your collective capabilities should be sufficient to kill it, however, so I ask that you do. The soul within is trapped in excruciating pain, denied the release of death until its flesh prison is destroyed.”

“Is that one of the people that attacked us?” Jory asked.

“It was,” Shade said. “He did not flee as swiftly as his companions.”

“Forget it, then,” Neil said. “He had it coming.”

“No one has that coming,” Jason said.

“He was trying to kill us.”

“And if he’d still been fighting you when we arrived,” Jason said, “I’d help you kill him right back. But death is one thing and having your soul trapped in pain for eternity is another.”

“I agree,” Jory said firmly.

“Sophie, new guy,” Jason said. “What do you think?”

“Put him down,” Sophie said. “You were right about no one deserving that.”

“Am I the new guy?” Keane asked.

“Yeah,” Jason said, “but it’s three to one already. Your vote doesn’t matter any more, sorry.”

Jason looked at the hideous blob abomination. It had at least five times the amount of flesh a person would have.

“Shade, do you not have conservation of mass, here?”

“We do,” Shade said. “We also have magic, so the laws of physics are more like strong suggestions. It's best for everyone if you adhere to them, but if you are truly reluctant, there are  still modes of recourse.”

“You know about the laws of physics?” Jason asked.

“I have been a familiar many times, across many worlds. I know much.”

“You must be handy to have around,” Jason said. “And you’ve done a lot of familiaring, you say? I don’t suppose you’re looking for a new gig?”

“My time here ends when all the trials are passed. Pass the trials, gain the right essence ability and we’ll see.”

“Oh, nice,” Jason said. “What kind of awakening stone would that take?”

“All who survive this stage of the trials shall receive an awakening stone available nowhere else,” Shade said.

“Clive will be glad to hear that,” Jason said.

“Doesn’t he have his full set of abilities already?” Neil asked.

“Yeah, but you know what he’s like. Give him something new and he’s a kid at Christmas.”

“What's Christmas?”

“It’s a religious holiday that we appropriated to stimulate the economy once a year,” Jason said.

“That thing is getting closer,” Sophie said. “Slowly, but it’s getting closer. Shade, can you tell us again about the best way to fight it?”

“A flesh abomination will adapt to how you engage it. If you are fast it will become faster. Strong, and it will become tougher. Hide and its senses will improve. Attack from afar and it will develop ranged attacks. Its weakness is that it cannot be all things at once. If it becomes fast and flexible, it becomes vulnerable to cutting attacks. If it develops a chitinous exterior, it becomes inflexible and slow. I advise you to use Jason Asano's necrotic powers as the main source of damage. Whatever changes it makes, flesh is flesh, and flesh can die.”

Jason surveilled what was about to be their battleground. It was typical of what they had seen in the city; jungle filling the space between overgrown buildings. The broken stone road had soil and roots pushing up through the pavers, along with plants and full-blown trees. The footing was unsure and the terrain complex with plenty of shadows he could use.

“Alright,” he said. “Sophie, you start us off. Get it picking up the pace to chase you around so it’s nice and squishy. Then, Neil, you tie it up so I can introduce it to Colin. Sound good?”

“Works for me,” Sophie said.

“If it’s bronze rank, I won’t be able to hold it for longer than a few moments,” Neil said. “You’ll need to get your timing right.”

“Call it and I’ll be ready,” Jason said. “Jory, stick with Neil. New guy, put yourself between Jory, Neil and the bad guy.”

“Not a problem,” Keane said. “I’ve been doing it for days.”

“Everyone knows their job, then. Sophie, will you kick things off?”

Sophie flashed him a grin and dashed in the direction of the abomination. She leapt high into the air, kicking off the top of the misshapen lump of flesh before landing on the other side, hitting the ground at a run.

“Reckless,” Jason said, shaking his head.

“Then why are you grinning?” Neil asked.

“I have a soft spot for poor but flamboyant choices.”

The creature reacted quickly, it’s body rapidly morphing. It shrank, moving into the shape of a fleshy beetle with six legs and scurrying after Sophie. Growing out of its back were four, long, skinny arms. Lengthier than its entire body, the arms were articulated by multiple joints.

“That is very disturbing,” Jory said. “A giant flesh bug with four arms sticking out of it? I think the worst part is all those extra elbows.”

Sophie led the creature on a merry chase, running away and deflecting the long, grasping hands when they came close enough to grab at her. After its initial transformation, the changes in the creature had slowed but not stopped. As it chased after Sophie, it made incremental changes to its form to help in the pursuit. The body continued to shrink the legs changed shape to better handle Sophie’s speed and rapid shifts in direction. Its arms, which she continued knocking away, went from eerily human hands to long fingers with webbing stretched between them.

“Get ready to go,” Neil told Jason, who nodded.

Neil chanted a spell and the overgrown plant life started sprouting masses of vines, lashing out to wrap around the creature. It’s many arms and legs were bound up, along with its long body, completely arresting its movement. Jason emerged from a shadow, slicing the back of his hand with the razor hidden in a wristband for the purpose. From the wound, a pile of Colin spewed out onto the flesh abomination, the leeches immediately digging in with their horrifying rings of teeth.

System messages scrolled before Jason’s eyes in rapid succession, notifying him of the afflictions Team Colin was placing. Most were resisted but Jason’s familiar power was increasing, as was his resistance-penalising aura. He gleefully noted that as many as one in three afflictions were taking hold, which was better than previous bronze-rank encounters. With sheer numbers of Team Colin, the flesh monster was quickly loaded with afflictions.

Colin only had a few moments to lay in afflictions before the abomination altered its form, undertaking another massive, rapid transformation. Shifting from the horizontal alignment of a hexapod to an upright biped, four of the six legs shrank away while the remaining pair grew bulky and strong. Its body became larger and heavier, the fleshy exterior growing thick, tough skin with protrusions of razor-sharp bone poking through. The four arms grew shorter but more powerful, the webbed hands replaced with savage claws. The result was something like a hairless, four-armed gorilla, covered in elephant skin with bony blades growing out of its body.

The new skin was too much for the leeches to bite through. The blade-bones sliced through many of the vines and it pulled itself free of the rest brute strength. The vines tried to entangle it again but the creature powered free of their grasp, shedding leeches like droplets of water in the process.

During the transformation, Jason was not idle, taking the opportunity to lay in with his spells. They lacked immediate impact and were repeatedly resisted but were quick to cast. By the time the abomination broke free and resumed its angry pursuit of Sophie, Jason had afflicted it with his key powers.

The abomination was now loaded up with ongoing necrotic damage from Colin, plus bleeding and blood poison that would reapply the bleed effect every time it absorbed enough healing to end. This was important as the abomination had altered itself to accelerate healing in an attempt to adapt to Jason’s afflictions.

The other pillars holding up Jason’s house of affliction were the sin affliction, which increased all necrotic damage suffered and inexorable doom, which added to any affliction in place. The combination of leech necrotoxin and the necrosis-accelerating sin both increasing over time was a multiplicative escalation of the damage, while the bleeding and anticoagulant leech toxin kept the monstrosity’s regeneration in check.

The escalating effects of Jason’s afflictions had placed the abomination’s life on a clock. That left the question of how much damage the abomination could inflict before that clock ran out. In the immediacy, the creature’s inevitable demise was not apparent as the abomination thrashed at the leeches still falling off its body.

Jason retreated to the shadows and recalled the leeches, which started disappearing as they contacted the blood on the hand he lowered to receive them. They were quite spread out, however, and could only slowly make their way to his hidden position. The flesh monstrosity lacked the intelligence to follow their direction to Jason’s hidden location. His cloak melded him perfectly into the shadow, hiding him even from whatever senses the flesh monster relied on without eyes or ears.

The abomination furiously stomped on leeches to little avail, as they had been quite scattered by the monster shaking them off. Unable to catch the elusive Sophie, it stopped. It's four arms and the bony protrusions retracted as its body returned to a more blob-like shape, while keeping the thick hide. Welt-like marks started appearing all over its surface, with tiny bone needles shooting out in every direction a moment later.

Keane used his shield to shelter Jory, Neil and himself. Neil had cast his giant’s might spell on Keane shortly after Sophie had begun combat and the shield-bearer was twice his normal size, as was the conjured shield in front of him. It was Sophie, Jason and Colin who should have taken the brunt of the attack, but Neil was on the ball, a bubble-like shield snapping up around Sophie. It only lasted a moment but a moment was all she needed to shift behind a tree with her mirage step power. The after-image left behind by her ability didn’t seem to fool the abomination’s eyeless, earless senses and it didn’t keep attacking her.

Jason’s hidden position meant Neil couldn’t see him to provide another shield, leaving Jason as the only person who didn’t avoid the attack. The needles that dug into him were light but they were also a bronze-rank attack. They pierced through his cloak and, in many places, the armour underneath. All Jason had time to do was turn his body away from the attack and shield his face before the needles struck, ducking behind a tree as more of the bone needles poured out of the abomination.

Team Colin took the worst of it, with only a fraction of the leech mass having returned to Jason before the rest were skewered with bone needles. Some, still clinging to the abomination, had been shot off by needles. Most were exposed on the ground and riddled with needles.

Generally, Jason didn’t have to worry about the welfare of team Colin. Very few monsters had the kind of area attacks that could pose a danger to the regenerating leech swarm. Jason had only absorbed a fraction of Colin’s full mass, which would take a day or two to replenish itself in the safety of Jason’s bloodstream.

As the accelerated healing Jason received from Colin was based on how much of the mass was currently residing in his blood, the effect would be significantly reduced until the leech swarm recovered. Fortunately, the healing they offered had grown stronger as Jason’s familiar power advanced, so what was a reduced effect now was similar to when he first obtained the ability.

While all the afflictions were locked in and its death was now inevitable, the abomination was, for the moment, still full of life. The necrosis was causing patches of blackened flesh to ooze blood but the monstrosity did not yet appear impeded. Of its opponents, Jason and Sophie were hidden and what remained of the leeches were dead. That left Keane, Neil and Jory to its attentions and there was no hiding Keane’s enlarged body. The abomination morphed again, bulking up and dropping to four powerful legs as a huge, bony spike emerged from the front. It now resembled a rhino whose entire head was a horn and it started charging directly at Keane.

It was building up speed quickly as it charged, but it was no match for Sophie who emerged from her hiding spot and raced ahead of it. Putting herself between the monster and the others, she was suddenly thrown violently sideways as Jason emerged from a nearby shadow, crash-tackling her out of the way, letting the monster pass.

“What are you doing?” Sophie yelled at him as he extricated herself from his rough embrace.

“Your ability can only stop so much, remember?” Jason yelled at her. “Trust your allies.”

Sophie glared at him, then down at the arm, remembering the broken mess it had been the last time an attack overwhelmed her defensive power. That had taken even her magic power the better part of a day to heal and the flesh monster’s charge would certainly have been more powerful.

Neil, Jory and Keane had been moving and fighting through the city together for several days. With monsters so thick on the ground, that was enough time and enough fights to find each other’s combat rhythms. It was an unusual mix, with no dedicated damage dealer, but Neil and Jory both had powerful buffs that could turn Keane into a walking fortress.

Already giant-sized from Neil's spell, Neil gave him another spell, bolster, that would enhance his next active essence ability use. Jory, meanwhile, had a cluster of small, clear orbs floating around him. Materials started floating out of his pockets and belts, floating in front of him. Trace elements mixed with a substance he conjured out of thin air, resulting in a small, red blob that one of the orbs floated over and absorbed. The orb them flew over to Keane, passing straight through his armour and being absorbed directly into his flesh.

Jory had three powers that were the basis for his effectiveness as a field alchemist. The orbs were an ability called eldritch eyes, which could deliver potions across a battlefield, to enemies and allies both. The orbs also allowed him to safely scout at a distance, a valuable support skill for any team.

His telekinetic power, potion mystic, allowed him to alter and combine ingredients without touching them, turning Jory into a walking alchemy workshop. It wasn’t an ability that replaced a real workshop for making proper potions, but for working on the fly it was perfect.

The reason Jory could throw out potions without exhausting his materials was the universal reagent ability. It conjured a versatile potion base he could use to make short-lived potions using only trace elements, letting him save materials compared to regular potion-making. These quick potions rapidly became inert if not used, but took only a fraction of the materials a regular version of the same potion would. This allowed Jory to massively output potions, a key element of both his clinic’s financial viability and his sustained effectiveness in the field.

So long as he didn’t overuse his material-hungry shape-changing power, he could carry enough materials for numerous encounters. With the versatility of his potions, Jory could be a makeshift healer, buffer, debuffer and even throw around some afflictions using poison and other noxious concoctions.

Between Jory and Neil’s buffs, Keane was as ready as he could be for the monstrosity bearing down on them. Just before it hit, Neil’s burst shield power bubbled into place around Keane. Keane used a power of his own that absorbed the force of an attack and turned it back on the attacker, which was boosted by Neil’s earlier use of the bolster power.

Not even the combination of buffs, Neil’s shield power and Keane’s enhanced ability were enough to fully withstand the raw force of the bronze-rank abomination’s attack. Neil’s shield popped as easily as the bubble it looked like, while the shield in Keane’s hands warped and shattered, the conjured object dissolving into nothing as it broke apart.

All their efforts in stacking defence were not in vain, however. Keane had leaned into the blow and while he was sent stumbling backwards, he stayed on his feet. The retaliatory force of Neil’s burst shield and Keane’s damage reflection power had blunted the abomination’s terrifying momentum. Attack and defence were both spent and for a brief, oddly still moment, Keane stood looking at the motionless monstrosity.

The moment passed, Keane conjuring a fresh shield as the monster started changing its form once more. Keane backed off, keeping himself between the abomination and the two supporters behind him as Sophie renewed the attack, opening with a wind blade before laying in with attacks. Her unarmed strike powers offered only limited damage but her two special attacks added damage to every strike. The nature of that damage was such that one type or the other would always be effective, regardless of her opponent’s protections.

With Sophie once again on the attack, the monster engaged her, shifting thick-legged quadruped with eight arms emerging from every side of its body. The arms were long and multi-jointed like they had seen before, but this time ended razor-sharp blades of bone. Sophie held her ground, a combination of stubbornness over Jason’s earlier intervention and a need to give the others time to reposition.

Bone blades lashed out at her but she dodged or deflected them with arms, legs, even her head. So long as she actively intercepted the attacks, her powers absorbed the damage. The monster might be bronze rank, but it could put only so much power into such rapid and multitudinous attacks.

With Sophie successfully fending it off, the abomination did what it always did, shifting its form to adapt. Its arms changed into tentacles, still sporting blades at the end. It reduced the power of each attack while making them more flexible and hard to predict.

Sophie countered by activating her between the raindrops ability, which enhanced her reflexes for a high mana cost. The result was that rather than defend less effectively, she handled the tentacles with more ease than she had the arms.

The mana consumption of the power was high but several mitigating factors allowed her to keep it up. One was the natural ability of the celestine race that reduced the mana cost of ongoing abilities. Another was Neil, using a replenish spell to restore her mana, and Jory, quick-brewing a mana potion and floated to her in an orb. Her confrontation has allowed them to regroup behind Keane, ready should it turn on them again.

Faced with a continued inability to harm Sophie, the abomination started shifting again, but the effects of Jason’s afflictions finally made themselves known. As it tried to change shape again, its skin cracked like a rotten egg, complete with hideous smell. Black fluid spilled out onto the ground, filling the air with the only smell any of them had encountered to rival rainbow smoke for sheer nauseating power. As the monstrosity collapsed, Sophie ran off to throw up, having caught the largest dose.

The abomination flopped wetly on the ground in a pool of its own blacked, runny flesh. It had adapted to the exponentially accelerating necrosis by isolating it, continuing the fight even as it grew inside like a hyper-accelerated cancer until there was nothing left to contain it. The group watched from afar, cloth held over their noses as what was a person, an hour ago, melted into a black, red and purple puddle.

“Thank you,” Shade said, once again appearing amongst them. “There are many that suffer so, in this place. I am grateful for any that you can put to rest.”