Sworded Affair

Chapter 191 : Tank Swap

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 22 minutes.]

Emma frowned at the popup, now finally visible in a moment of calm. That was objectively a good thing, as the last thing she needed in the heat of combat was to have her field of view filled with status updates. Nonetheless, she wasn't sure what to think of this latest message. On the one hand, she didn't think they'd been fighting for over twenty minutes already, but without a precise countdown, she couldn't be entirely sure. Excitement did funny things to people's perception of time, and she couldn't be sure that this effect was entirely biological. Alternatively, she might indeed be correct, and the Time Eater was artificially accelerating the passage of time. Neither option boded well, all things considered, but there wasn't much that could be done about it, so she dismissed it to refocus on the fight.

Emma had been worried, being taken out of the action for even a bit, but her allies were holding strong, better than she'd expected. Mr. Fox now played frontline tank, his stolen golem seemingly unaffected by the increased gravity; he'd grabbed onto the Time Eater's outer ring, and was playing tug of war, trying to drag the boss down to the ground. He wasn't wholly successful in this, being outsized quite considerably, but it kept the boss' portal angled straight down, preventing any more suction attempts for the time being..

Saint, meanwhile, had wrapped her entire body inside an oversized log. Whilst it looked ridiculous, something about that setup was keeping her in the fight, despite cats not being known for enjoying high gravity. Only her head was visible from outside, directing the earthen spikes that continued to stab at the boss. Astrid, on the other hand, looked to be struggling; her left arm hung limp, the victim of a bad fall, and she was leaning heavily against her staff just to stay upright. As Emma watched, she took a deep breath, and clenched said staff hard enough to break it in two.

"Weapon for weapon, I sunder you!"

The sacrifice of her weapon was mirrored by the boss: a great, tearing crack breaking its ring in half. Its shape remained, held together by the force of the portal, but not unscathed, as power began to leak from the breach in the circle.

"I'm done," Astrid wheezed, slumping to the floor in the absence of physical support. "I'm out of mana, and out of tools; before I leave, tell me, where can I find you?"

"Oxford, in the camp beneath the big tower: you can't miss it!" Emma called out from her spot in the corner.

"Still close to Scholomance?" Astrid nodded weakly. "I can work with that."

Then, Eternal Wind flicked once, and she was gone, but her contribution to the cause remained. Mr. Fox had, until now, been unable to grapple the full bulk of the boss into submission, but now, with it split in two, he found enough strength in the stolen golem to force one half towards the ground. The moment its outer rim touched the floor, Saint yowled, and a massive hand of hardened earth reached up, dragging that half of the boss down, wedging it deep into the ground. That was when Emma finally spotted the Hydra again. Just the Hydra, for it had escaped its flower pot amidst the fracas, and apparently grown a third head in the process.

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It exhaled, much like Astrid had in her gambit, its breath settling heavily on the wounded boss, turning the trapped half-ring from stone to sickly green powder, one inch at a time. With each bit of chip damage being dealt, the containment around the portal weakened just a little more. This was good, Emma thought, because it showed they were making true progress. Moreover, the Time Eater had lost the ability to heal itself, as its portal spasmed randomly, shooting destructive bubbles of time out in either direction, but hitting nobody. The whole party had already learned, long before now, not to stand directly facing the portal. All in all, the fight had turned decisively with Astrid's last contribution. Even the battlefield's gravity had returned to normal, allowing her to leave the homunculus and Eternal Wind to their own devices, and jog back out to the main hall in full armour. She even had some hope that the fight was at last coming to an end: predictably, that's when it all went wrong again.

As the last dregs of the buried half-ring vanished in a haze of putrid green, the Time Eater's portal screamed. Not just an empty sound, caused by some peculiarity in the chamber's tortured spacetime, but a real, human-like scream.

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 20 minutes.

WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 19 minutes.

WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 18 minutes…]

Emma was sprinting by the second line, barreling forward into the portal at full pelt.

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 11 minutes.

Null Zone (Toggle: ON)]

Even with her quick reaction, it still cost her precious seconds to get close enough for her Null Zone to take effect, fighting back against the temporal manipulation with the only tool at her disposal. This was enough to stop the collapse of time, but the portal remained, as did the scream. Saint hissed, as her protective log decayed around her, orange sparks flying as she attempted to weave a counterspell. After a few, fraught seconds, the tips of her hair were beginning to dull, and the cat-turned-youkai gave it up as a bad job.

"Don't die!" Saint shouted, as a final encouragement, before she, too, cut off her link with Eternal Wind, and returned to Oxford.

Mr. Fox was the final member of the summoned party, his golem having ignored the entropic blast, like it had virtually everything else until now. That is, until he made direct contact with the portal, and it began to weld the golem together with the remaining half-ring, with the clear aim of restoration..

"Hell no!" Mr. Fox yelled, unstandable only due to Emma's translation. "I'm out as well, I can deny the bastard this much!"

Eternal Wind guttered out, as Mr. Fox departed without ceremony: taking his golem with him, as well as the remaining half-ring, by virtue of the two now being joined. Now, it was just Emma left standing, against the portal alone, now completely devoid of physical mass, and, dare she say, stable?

[Time Eater - Level 40

WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 7 minutes.]

It wasn't attacking any longer, but it was also invulnerable to damage, leaving Emma at a standstill.

"Now what?" Emma asked, staring at the boss, with minutes left on the clock.