Chapter 229: The Bone Titan
The Void Queen’s shield undulated with energy after the ethereal morning star smashed against the surface a second time. Ripples scattered all the way around the protective layer, blurring the inside while light was pushed to the edges. The pointed spikes of the mist-formed mace pinned the shield in place, concentrating the immense force of Coop’s attack, and threatened to puncture the shadowy magical defense.
The void energy flexed beneath the pressure, allowing the blunt-force of the mace to reach the edge of the shield, denting the surface, and transferring some of the energy into the injured undead Herald of Cosmos. The ripples on the shield were smoothed out by a single much larger wave that ran across the outer layer before scattering as it collided with itself on the back side of the Elite Void Queen.
The minion of the Lich struggled to escape after collapsing. Despite the protection of the shield, the pressure of Coop’s assault was too much for her to resist. Coop raised the morning star above his head, in a familiar motion that had universally foreshadowed an inescapable destruction.
Clouds of void mana wafted around the pair of combatants as the ethereal mace descended upon the Elite Void Queen and blasted even more energy out of the shield. The first droplets of rain trailed the meteoric strike, adding gentle taps to the enormous blow of the mace and further blurring the barrier. Coop welcomed the rain, glad to have it cleanse the stinking mushroom flesh that had splattered against his armor.
Streaks appeared in the clouds of dark green smoke that drifted across the top of the temple as the rain picked up. Rather than Fog of War, a mist of undead mana had coalesced, intensifying with each time Coop struck a shield or eradicated a minion, saturating the atmosphere. The Council of Cultists had expended significant energy in their battle, but in the end, they only empowered the Revenant.
Coop dismissed his ethereal morning star, resummoning it in favor of the much heavier version, with its density maximized, as the humidity finally broke into a proper shower. The impossibly dense, pressurized mace that he had first utilized against the Tidesinger’s water orbs within the Cathedral of Tides was making another appearance.
Coop’s arms were already braced behind his head as the heavy morning star manifested in his hands. Every muscle in his body worked, from his fingers to his forearms, through his shoulders, across his chest, down his torso, and into the sturdy base that his legs established as he dragged the weapon down. He grunted with effort, holding his breath, and the impossibly dense weapon plunged through the death mana and crashed into the void shield with a thump that reverberated all the way to the edges of the jungle beyond the settlement.
The shield held, but the Void Queen had no choice but to collapse beneath the weight of the blow, flattened against the bottom of the crater she now resided within.
Coop dismissed the mace, raised his empty arms back into the air, and resummoned the incredibly heavy version, not wasting time with the effort of lifting the manifestation a second time. It was faster to simply let the mists reform in the air than to fight gravity and perform an olympic lift to reload the immense mace. He intended to make the crater her final resting place.
The ethereal morning star descended upon the Void Queen with an inevitability that personified the Revenant’s default combat style. A second deep thump crossed the settlement and the shield finally snapped under the pressure. Like crushing a smoke-filled egg with a hammer, as soon as the shell broke, the undead Void Queen was no more.
Coop glowed as he whipped his head toward the Lich, receiving another three levels with the final individual victory. 12 total levels wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy him.
Chakyum paid him no mind, eyes fixed on the hazy death-tinged horizon as he floated a dozen feet in the air with a thousand shadowy hands lifting him with a squirming mass of fingers. The rain battered his shield while it cleansed the dark green and black tinged smoke from the small eruptions every time Coop tried to force his way through the minions.