Mash jumped pushing through the bubbles toward one of the people. He was strong enough now to start eliminating some of these people. The dragon would be hard to hurt, but that wasn’t true of all of them. The beastman was still missing his arm. Mash doubted that he would find amidst this mess. The elf wasn’t worth targeting, he honestly didn’t seem to be trying very hard. Mash charged toward the only remaining target.

The man who launched those invisible arrows of heat was the easiest one to track. He hardly seemed to have any defensive skills at all. His arrows were dangerous though, and he could fire them off with surprising frequency. Even Mash would need to focus to manage that much raw mana, or energy in his case. The heat man seemed to have no issues though. It was time to test how good the man’s defenses were.

Mash burst out of his cloud of bubbles, not too far from where the man was firing arrows. Mash could follow everyone with his domain, and this man didn’t seem to have much in the way of movement skills. As soon as he burst from the cloud, he lunged at the man. Thrusting his arm forward in a quick jab. The man turned a bow made of literal fire to parry his blow. Mash used his aura to suppress the magic as much as he could, and the bow fuzzed.

It felt hot against his skin, but his fist passed straight through the flames. It scorched his skin a little, but it did nothing to lessen the force of his punch. His first went into the man’s chest. It didn’t cave in on his ribs or stop at his spine. His arm passed through the center of the man’s body as though it were made of simple paper. The momentum carried Mash forward until the man’s chest struck Mash’s shoulder.

Surprise crossed the fiery man’s face, and Mash capitalized on the moment of confusion. His other hand shot forward and tore through the man in a similar way as the first. Then Mash pulled his arms apart and nearly tore the man in half. Black blood gushed from his body drenching Mash's hands and clothes. The man went limp as his head and the right side of his body were separated from his left shoulder and arm.

Mash pushed the undead man forward and turned to block an attack from Toroken. Another stream of jet-black sand cut through the air. Mash crossed his arms, and wood and stone began to encase them even before the sand struck. He thought that would be enough to stop the sand. That was a costly assumption. The sand rushed through his arms and chest, tearing a hole in him just below his heart. Mash gasped and ducked to the side. The stream of sand tore through his body as he moved, but Priscilla started healing him immediately.

Mash could transform, and improve his defenses with scales or something, but he didn’t want to. Each and every one of his transformations had limited his skills a little. That was a hidden cost of the forms that he had never realized. Now that he had, he was a little hesitant to just rely on the forms. This was his natural body, and he should start using it. One advantage of this body was the control it granted him.

Mash’s body was in its nature changeable, and Priscilla abused that fact to heal him. Rather than trying to restore the damage to his organs, Priscilla just recycled them. Pain lanced through his chest, as Priscilla destroyed and removed the damaged organs. It was like having a dozen heart attacks at the same time, and even Mash struggled with the pain. However, the pain didn’t last long, and Priscilla quickly began replacing the damaged parts of his body. She grew entirely new flesh and organs with ease, his body almost seemed eager to change.

Even as Mash healed, he turned toward the oncoming dragon. The archer wasn’t really dead, but he probably wouldn’t be able to do much in that state. Mash wasn’t exactly sure how to kill an undead without destroying their body completely.

Mash ignored the man for now and lifted a hand toward the dragon. His normal magic hadn’t done anything to the dragon, so it was time to test Toroken’s durability. Mash irresponsibly mixed a dangerous amount of magic, focusing it on the space just in front of Toroken. The dragon was over a hundred paces away, and it tried to get even closer. The space between them visibly warped. Then it fuzzed in a way that made Mash feel a little dizzy. Toroken ran into the warped space, and the magic did something. Mash was expecting an explosion followed by a consuming void like last time.

That didn’t happen. Instead, a multicolored burst of light erupted from where Toroken made contact. The slight expanded outwards and slammed into everything. A beam of pinkish blue light-struck Mash and pushed him into the ground. Mash tried to push it against it but failed. It was his magic, but he couldn’t stop it. The ground beneath him crunched as he pushed further and further into it. The light seeped around him and turned dirt and stone to dust.

[Dragon form now!]

Priscilla’s warning saved him more organ damage. Scales hardened his skin, and his bones became sturdier. It let his body withstand the force. It still hurt, and blood seeped from between his own scales as the pressure grew to be too much. The magic was doing this to him at a distance. Toroken faired worse.

Mash could see the dragon with his domain. The dragon crumpled against five different streams of light that pressed his body together. Bones shattered, and blood leaked from between his dragon’s scales. It gushed from the dragon’s mouth and eyes, in a violent stream.

The elf formed a silver shield around him, but it did little to stop the light. The light pushed him along with his shield into the ground like it was doing to him. The archer’s already damaged body was squashed like a bug.

As soon as the light holding him down vanished, Mash lurched upward. His bones ached, and he released the dragon form to assume his natural state. His body morphed as he flew out of the hole the light had dug. The hole was enormous and deep digging deep into the ground. The magic had only lasted a few seconds, but it terraformed the island on an enormous scale. Holes the size of buildings ripped apart the island in many different places. Water from the oceans already started filling the new caverns.

Mash’s attention shifted rapidly. Toroken’s broken body was actually healing. The crumpled wings and bones were stretching. His cracked scales mended. Mash stared at the sight and saw the archer with his domain. He had been crushed like a bug, but even he was healing. His blood and organs were being pulled back into his body in a very disturbing sight. It almost looked like a sack that was slowly being filled. The silvery elf dug himself out of dirt and stone. He hadn’t taken any real damage from the attack. His magic had shielded him somehow. The beastman was nowhere to be found.

Mash turned to Toroken. He needed to trap the dragon now. Mash landed on the ground beside the dragon and molded wood and stone together to form a prison around the dragon. The dragon’s body had been squished, and Mash hoped it wouldn’t heal if it didn’t have the space to. His feet touched the ground, and stone and wood grew from around him to encase the dragon in a crude mold.

A shadow blurred across the ground, moving far faster than made sense. Mash’s left arm swung around to block the beastmen as he leaped from the shadow. To slow. How was he too slow? The beastmen had a skill to increase his speed, and he hadn’t used it yet! That thought annoyed Mash, though he knew why someone would do it. He had a few things hidden away too. The beastmen wove around Mash’s hand and plunged a knife into the side of Mash’s neck. It was a thin dagger the punctured through his throat. It went all the way through, the tip of the dagger appearing on the opposite side of his neck.

Mash’s throat filled with blood. He coughed, a burbling sound escaping his lips as blood poured out his mouth. The beastman tried to complete his strike. He tried to swing the blade to decapitate him, but Mash reacted. Mash touched the beastman’s chest and pushed hard. He extended his hand outward and pushed the beastman away. The beastman skidded across the stone. With his other arm, he yanked the dagger out of his chest and saw the familiar black blade from before.

Black lines spread from his neck and stopped him from healing the wound on his neck. It wouldn’t kill him. Honestly, decapitation might not do it. He wouldn’t permanently die ever again according to Luke, but Mash knew that he had suffered damage. A dragon’s tail swept through the wooden cage. Mash jumped dodging it narrowly. The tail left a groove in the dirt beneath him. A silvery beam of light tapered out as it struck his back. It lost most of its power and was little better than a light push when it struck.

Rather than land on the ground, Mash used wind magic to give himself solid footholds in the air. He hovered there for a moment as a black blur skidded across the ground. The beast slashed with two red daggers. Mash moved and caught the man’s hands. One of the daggers ran through Mash’s palm, but he caught the other arm at the wrist. Mash pulled and kicked the man in the chest. His arms broke and tore free as the beastman’s body fell backward. Red lines spread from his hand wrapping around his arm and immobilizing it.

It went numb and Mash felt a sharp pain every time he tried to move it. A thin arrow of superheated air burned through his side. It charred his skin, leaving a black trail through his clothes. Few things actually managed to tear his clothes, and he winced at the burn. This arrow had been the hottest one yet. Mash realized something as Toroken emerged from his half-formed cage. He couldn’t win.

These undead people were able to heal arbitrarily. Plus, they didn’t seem to use or require mana or stamina. Mash had taken damage, and those daggers were making it harder to heal or fight. Another arrow of heat seared through his right shoulder, not that it mattered with his numb arm. Mash let out a growl of pain, that didn’t quite sound right with blood in his throat. He had promised Luke that he wouldn’t use his aspects, but that was only because he thought he could win. His connection to his aspects never felt so powerful as they are now, and he tugged on one. He would end this fight, or at the very least change it.