A fraction of a second before I hit the water, I felt something catch me and halt my fall. I opened my eyes and realized that there was a pillar of fire holding me up.

¨What?¨ I mumbled. I looked around, searching for the creature who had created the pillar of fire. I heard a roar and saw Perezos

As we started executing our plan, I cast Dragon’s Blessing to give us both a 1-hour boost. Immediately, I felt stronger yet lighter. Then, according to plan, I covered my ears as Iris used her sonic roar, surprising Perezoso, who closed his eyes in annoyance. Using this diversion, Iris used her cloaking forcefield to hide us from the piercing glance of the leviathan.

When Perezoso opened his eyes again, we were not visible to his eyesight. He snorted and started blasting places randomly with his water beams. One of the water beams hit my arm, but luckily, it didn’t stop, as my arm was too small, and it kept going.

Normally, I would have felt a decent amount of pain from the impact, but due to the Dragon’s Blessing, my resilience was stronger, so it felt more like a punch than a super high pressurized beam of water.

Both Iris and I started sending flames at Perezoso. At first, Perezoso had no idea where we were, so the flames made him screech in pain. However, he tracked us down by looking at where the flames were coming from. He sent a water beam at us, but we were prepared. I made a shield of flames while Iris sent a stream of fireballs at the water beam. The fireballs made some of the water evaporate, so when it hit my shield, the steam was already weakened. My shield held, and I sent a giant plume of flames at Perezoso to distract him.

Iris used my distraction to get into close quarters with Perezoso. She raked her claws across Perezoso’s eyes, which were still partially shielded, but it gave me time to make a portal anchored to Iris’s back and Perezoso’s head.

Iris backed off and blew more fire at Perezoso, who was confused about where I was. He suddenly saw the flames coming at him and used his barriers to block the attack. “Ha! Your flames can do nothing against water and barriers!” Perezoso laughed.

Meanwhile, I was creeping along the front of his face. While he was still laughing, I dropped in front of his eyes. “Hi!” I exclaimed. He blinked. Then blinked again. While he was surprised, I pulled out Astrapi and fired a lot of lightning arrows down his throat. I then cast 5 consecutive Lightning Discharges down his gullet. The Lightning Discharges gave the lightning arrows a lot more charge and injured Perezoso a lot more, who was roaring in agony.

I pulled out my shuriken pouch and started flinging shurikens. 5 were flung at each eye, and I also used Shuriken Strike on his mouth, which was wide open due to his roaring. I quickly refastened the pouch and Astrapi. When the shurikens cut into his throat, he roared so loud that I had to jump into the water to try to muffle the sound.

Continuing the plan, I turned into a dragon and hovered alongside Iris. We started to flank Perezoso, and we split up so that Perezoso couldn’t attack both of us at the same time.

When Perezoso attacked Iris, she put up her forcefield while I breathed fire at him. Apparently, Perezoso saw Iris as the larger threat, so he never turned to me and just summoned a barrier to protect that side. Since Perezoso wasn’t looking at me, and the barrier stopped my flames from reaching him, I created a portal to Perezoso’s tail. I flew through, reverting to human form to conserve EP.

Running up Perezoso’s body, I spotted Iris breathing flames and Perezoso sending lazy water beams. It was clear that Perezoso was superior, albeit them being evenly matched currently. Perezoso was larger, stronger, in his home environment, had water that countered fire, and had greater endurance.

I knew that we had to finish him as soon as possible. Otherwise, we would lose for sure. It was all-or-nothing. I checked my EP. I had 380 EP left, so I had to make good use of it. I decided to stray off of Iris’s list and removed Forcefield from it and the remaining EP that was supposed to be used for shapeshifting. Instead, I was going to use Lightning Discharges to harm Perezoso as much as possible.

I jammed a Lightning Discharge between one of his scales. He howled in pain and turned back to look for me, but Iris immediately drew his attention again by attacking with a trident-shaped flame. Doing the math, I could cast 3 more Lightning Discharges and have 60 EP, which I would probably use for quick escapes of shapeshifting or summoning.

Focusing on a single point on Perezoso’s neck, I unleashed a blazing hot river of flames at a small area on Perezoso’s neck. He roared in pain, and when the flames cleared, I saw that the scales had been burned away. Perezoso started unleashing more powerful beams of water at Iris, and spikes started popping up randomly on his body.

Iris, have I, like, unleashed his berserker mode or something? I queried.

This is his True Form. It activates in different ways for different species. For leviathans, it happens when they’re about to die, and the purpose of their True Forms is to wreak as much havoc as possible before they breathe their final breath.

Curious. What is the True Form of mages and humans? I asked.

That is unknown. There is no record of any mages - Iris dodged a beam of water. or humans activating their True Form. Also, in your True Form, you lose control of your mind and complete your species’ True Form’s purpose until you die.

“Well,” I grunted, “Look on the bright side, that means he is almost dead!” Unslinging Astrapi, I started to count the number of elemental arrows I had fired today. Then, I subtracted that from 300 and got 250. I yelled, “250!” and fired a lightning arrow at the area where the scales had been burned away. 249 other arrows followed it, and they all buried themselves in the scaleless area. Perezoso was paralyzed for a couple of moments, and a couple of moments was what I needed. I screamed, “800!” and fired a normal arrow at the bare area. All 800 arrows sank into Perezoso’s skin. Then, I used Shuriken Strike with all of my remaining shurikens, which all sang through the air and cut into Perezoso’s skin. Then, as a finisher, I walked over to the area, burned it with fire.

As I was about to end Perezoso’s life with a quick stab with my staff, he quietly growled, “You have fought well, human. I hope that we may keep fighting in the afterlife when you fall…” A tear dropped from my face, and I subconsciously wiped it away.

“I am sorry,” I murmured as I raised Revanis and Kosmar above Perezoso’s neck… and brought them down.

Iris… we have had a great victory over a leviathan today… but was it worth it to remove such a magnificent creature from existence? I asked.

Mensal, your fight today was life or death. If you had not fought to defeat Perezoso, then you would have been the one that is removed from existence, along with the lives that you will save in the future. You have to survive for the world! Iris responded.

I finally felt at peace. I had survived a fight with one of the strongest monsters in the world. I knew that, although my potential was great, I had to keep getting stronger, as there was no way I could’ve survived a fight with the leviathan alone, let alone a fight with all of the metal monsters of the corrupt king with all of the demons of the demon king.