The monster’s next attack was another overhead strike with its left arm, and Kaldalis ducked to his right, moving outside of its shoulder. He immediately slammed the head of his glaive into the creature’s ribs, getting another sixteen damage in.

Kaldalis grimaced when he didn’t get the second stack of Gust. But there was no time for another attempt.

The monster’s next attack was a vicious right hook. It hit with much more physical force than the last punch he’d taken due to the whirling motion it made to turn to face him. The force would have thrown him off his feet if he didn’t have his tail to counterbalance.

Fortunately though, the extra force didn’t translate into more damage, and he only took the same two-hundred and eighty-three total damage.

No sooner had he taken the damage that a handful of potions crashed down around him. His hit points jumped back up to full near-instantly. Someone shouted about overhealing, but Kaldalis wasn’t at full so no one seemed to give it mind.

The giant kicked at him again, and this time Kaldalis was able to turn his face away to avoid getting dirt in his eyes. It meant that he was able to duck to the left as a straight punch shot out towards his head.

As soon as he was out of its path he slashed across the shimmering forearm, getting his damage in and landing a second stack of Gust.

Just one more and he could get his blast to knock the creature off-balance.

The next attack was almost blindingly fast for the creature’s size, its open palm slamming down on Kaldalis’s shoulder. He took the full brunt of the blow, and was sent staggering to the side. On instinct, he activated his Endure cooldown. It was lucky that he did; a second attack was incoming, and he was still staggering on a predictable trajectory, unable to scramble out of the way.

It was all he could do to hold up his glaive and force the gelatinous fist to impale itself in order to hit him.

The enemy apparently considered trading two-hundred and twenty-seven damage for Kaldalis’s paltry sixteen a good deal. He didn’t even get a stack of Gust.

Already off-balance, the punch took him from his feet and sent him hurtling backwards. He hit the ground on his back and slid at least two or three yards across the dirt. It hurt, but the shower of healing potions continued.

His health bar felt like a yo-yo with how it kept flying up and down.

When he came to a stop, he found himself at the feet of the circle of malum waiting on the edges of the fight. Despite their apparent deference towards the captain preventing them from joining the fight directly, it was apparently not enough to make them take no actions now. The nearest of them swept its fists down at him, and he rolled to the left to avoid the attack. He scrambled to his feet quickly to get back towards where the bigger monster’s authority would protect him from its side of the audience.

Fortunately, no such protection extended to the malum captain as another volley of arrows crashed down into the creature. From his current position, a few wayward shots hit the ground around him, and someone called an apology.

“Just don’t hit me,” he yelled up at the wall as he stepped back up to the shimmering giant. “No harm, no foul!”

The giant malum came in with another attack, and Kaldalis hopped the right to avoid what would have been a devastating uppercut. It was swinging again already with its left arm, but Kaldalis leaped forward, inside the range of the hook punch to drive his glaive’s blade into its belly with a vicious thrust. He got his sixteen damage, but more impactfully, he got a third stack of Gust, dealing the extra six damage and his desired blast of energy.

Myrin yelped as the blast sent the monster not just stumbling back, but falling over almost on top of her. Haldir was a bit more composed as he dodged aside, but still looked surprised at the sudden development. Despite the unexpected tumble, neither of them missed a beat, hacking away at the downed beast as it sat up and struggled to get back to its feet.

Kaldalis got another two hits in himself - along with another stack of Gust - on its way up before readying to handle the next volley of swings. But instead of coming up swinging, its gelatinous form started to undulate.

“Is everyone’s Flicker ready?” Kaldalis asked, momentarily panicked.

“Few seconds,” Balrim yelled back, his voice strained.

Kaldalis checked his own internal clock and felt that his was about the same. He hadn’t specifically counted out how long the shuddering animation lasted before the blast. He’d have to hope it was enough.

If it wasn’t, the attack would wipe out most of his hit points, and might one-shot everyone else.

“Pop it as fast as you can!” Kaldalis yelled. “And pray to whoever you want that it comes up in time!”

Kaldalis never considered himself religious. The only time he’d ever tried to appeal to a higher power for aid was when they were his DM and he was staring down the barrel of a save vs death.

Who would he pray to here? Nakala? Certainly not. He didn’t know anyone else on the dev team, though.

Maybe he could pray to Monsoon? Considering how much power they had over him already, he’d put more faith in them than they deserved.

He didn’t even know if there was an in-world religion. The lataxinan didn’t seem to worship anything; they put their faith in knowledge and research. Or, at least, if they worshiped anything they hadn’t had so much faith in it to put it in their libraries.

He might want to ask Haldir about it later, if the NPC got out of this alive. It was likely that he’d know something.

Instead, Kaldalis focused on the ability.

Mentally jamming on that button as fast as he could.

He imagined how it would look in a proper MMO. A little timer ticking down a couple of seconds, flashing wildly as he spammed clicking on it. He almost blurted out aloud “I can’t do that yet” a couple of times for effect.

Two seconds left.

The creature’s undulation grew faster and faster. He felt like his panic was making him oversensitive to the motion, and he was going to be sick from watching it. There was nothing else he could do, though.

He stabbed it in the thigh, and while he got a stack of Gust, it was only the fifth stack. The weight of his polearm meant he could never swing it a second time. He didn’t even know if the blast from the sixth stack would interrupt this attack.

One second left.

Myrin was screaming. It felt like it was from so far away even though he knew less than six feet separated them. The scream wasn’t fear, though, but ferocity. Through the semi-transparent legs between them, he could see her sweeping her giant blade into the creature’s back, almost standing on her toes to reach.

Haldir, beside her, had given up the attack, and had his shield raised. Kaldalis couldn’t see his face. Was he praying? Was he cursing? He couldn’t tell from here. Balrim was beyond that, and had backed up, pressing himself against the encampment’s large wooden door, as if he could outrange the blast if he made himself as flat as possible. He might have gotten more distance by backing up to the left or the right, into the corner, but that space held the other malum, who would pound him to a pulp in seconds.

The shuddering captain flung its arms upwards.

Kaia’s Flicker was ready.

Kaldalis entered the Paths Between Paths.

For a second it felt like the physical pressure of the blast had shoved him outside of reality, but he had avoided the damage. His friends were around him as well, none the worse for wear. Physically, at least. Haldir and Balrim still looked almost haunted by the ordeals they’d been through today. Myrin was rotating silently in place, her hands wrapped around the hilt of her greatsword as the momentum of her final attack kept spinning her around. But she had a big grin on her face. Apparently her final swing had landed before she’d blinked out.

She really was a simple person. He envied her for her ability to be completely satisfied with throwing big numbers at things.

Perhaps he should enlist her to help with his mission from Nakala to make the encampment into a proper town. A little more responsibility might drag her back down to earth with the rest of them.

Or maybe not.

Sometimes DPS players were just like that.

Kaldalis felt like whooping for joy that they’d made it. But he also wanted to keep the air in his lungs. There’d be time for celebration once the fight was done and the town was saved.

They all snapped back to reality to find the malum captain’s fist on a collision course with Kaldalis’s face. He barely had time to acknowledge the return to a plane with gravity before he ate the damage. It was only two-hundred and twenty-seven, thanks to his defensive cooldown still rolling, but it still hurt. It attacked again with a right cross, but Kaldalis wasn’t put off-balance enough to be struck by it, and he ducked under the blow, sweeping his blade back across into its shin for another sixteen damage.

A cheer went up from the wall, the assembled adventurers apparently surprised and elated to see them all alive. A potion tumbled out of the sky, topping Kaldalis off with a single heal. Shortly after came a hail of arrows, peppering the captain’s back and shoulders with another volley of attacks.

Kaldalis was about to strike again, hoping for his sixth Gust stack, when the beast broke from the fight.

Despite having seen the malum captain run before, he was still surprised by it, and it bowled him over as it ran for the exit to the killbox. Despite his best efforts, the giant’s passage spun him around and sent him to the ground on his face.

“Myrin!” Kaldalis shouted as he scrambled back to his feet, “don’t let it get away! Let’s finish the job!”

He didn’t have to tell her twice. In fact, he barely had to tell her once. She was already sprinting past him before he’d even gotten righted.

Myrin was faster than the monster, but the crowd of other malum that had been standing aside were now moving in on them, and with her out in front, she was in direct danger.

He couldn’t let her run into that mess alone.

Kaldalis activated his Jump cooldown and hurled himself into the air as soon as his feet were under him. He landed a few feet behind the charging Myrin. His second leap landed right behind the malum captain. The other malum were only a few feet away and charging at him, but he couldn’t spare time for them. Finishing off the captain needed to happen. They couldn’t afford to be building up another super boss.

The four-fingered syncoresi was more than enough.

His third leap landed on the creature’s back, and he drove the head of his glaive into the spot between where its shoulder blades would be, if it had shoulder blades. The blade sank into the gelatinous flesh a solid six inches, getting his sixteen damage in. He was about to rip the weapon out to strike again but the notification floated through his mind that he’d gotten his sixth stack of Gust. He braced himself for what was to come.

The extra twelve damage was nice, but the blast of energy was what he was really after. It hurled the fleeing captain straight down into the dirt, and Kaldalis found himself flailing through the air. The blast hadn’t pushed him back, but he’d been standing on the giant’s back.

He landed on the ground next to the monster, and raised his glaive to capitalize on the stun.

Myrin let loose a bellow of a battle cry as she reached the downed monster. Her greatsword carved up the side of the giant as she ran by. She slammed her weapon into its thigh, and dragged it up the creature’s side, ripping it back out at its armpit.

Kaldalis wanted to slam his glaive into the captain while it was down to add whatever damage he could, but the army of malum surrounding them were moving in behind Myrin. She only had eyes for the captain, leaving her back wide open to attack.

He leapt over the captain with another enormous jump and landed behind her. Kaldalis lashed out with his glaive to keep them off her back, establishing aggro on them, and interposing himself physically in front of any attacks coming for her.

Myrin was apparently afflicted with the common DPS player condition of critical tunnel vision. She didn’t even glance at Kaldalis as she raised her greatsword to slam it down into the captain’s neck. It only sank in a couple of inches, but a flare of flames from the attack told Kaldalis that it was a critical hit, and would add a ton of damage despite the shallow cut it left.

A hail of arrows fell around them, mostly landing on the captain as it struggled to get back up on its feet. From this distance the attacks were a little bit more spread out, and at least a third of the arrows hit dirt instead of the monster.

The creature got back upright and Kaldalis saw that it appeared to be done running. Instead of orienting on the exit to resume its flight, it turned towards Kaldalis, who was now being menaced from the other side by a handful of normal malum. He was wide open, and with Myrin right next to him, she was in the line of fire.

Myrin seemed to understand the severity of her situation, and let out a desperate scream as she swept her greatsword around again. It struck the giant malum’s shin, and for a moment, it only sank in about three inches.

And then it ripped straight through.

Myrin’s scream continued as she cleaved all the way through the malum’s leg. Her swing carried through into the other leg, and slashed through it as well. There was a weak rumbling noise from the beast’s chest before it disintegrated right in front of their eyes, going from a giant muscular humanoid looming over them to a water balloon splatter as it fell, slapping into the ground and splashing up in all directions.

As soon as it was down, the malum Kaldalis was keeping at bay broke and ran. There was a flash on the right side of his vision as the “Second Raid Panic” quest completed.

The siege was broken.

The defenses had held.

They’d done it.

Kaldalis nearly collapsed in exuberance.