The valley shuddered as the Slime Octopus finally pulled itself into its true form. Its body swelled grotesquely until it towered like a mountain of living liquid. Dozens of writhing tentacles unfurled, each one thick enough to crush a fortress tower, each slick with corrosive slime that hissed as it dripped onto the ground. The air reeked of acid and brine.
Thales tightened his stance. He could no longer afford to glance at Phaser or Lucaren. He only heard the echoing cracks of battle behind him. His focus was locked on the monster standing between him and the clue of the Azure Sword.
The first tentacle lashed out. Thales raised a hand.
"Sword Summon, Scatter Formation."
In a flash, a dozen gigantic longswords six meters tall each burst into existence around him, orbiting in deadly arcs. The tentacle crashed down but the blades moved like extensions of his own limbs, slicing through the slimy mass. For a moment, the severed piece writhed, thrashing on the ground and melted into puddles of sludge.
But before he could enjoy the momentum, the swords he had just used began to melt as well. The slime was clinging to them, eating through steel like hot acid through parchment. In seconds, the brilliant longswords dissolved into useless globs. Thales clicked his tongue.
"As expected. Every tentacle forces weapon attrition. I'll need faster replacements."
Another three tentacles whipped toward him from different angles. Thales' footwork carried him back, but he wasn't retreating. He was weaving his movement between the blades he had left spinning in the air. One sword turned sideways and he stepped on it as if it were a solid platform, letting it fling him upward out of reach of a crushing strike.
From above, he pointed forward.
"Sword Summon, Colossus!"
The air vibrated as a massive greatsword twelve meters tall, materialized and dropped on the octopus' body. The impact shook the field with slime splattering like tidal waves. But almost instantly, the blade began to corrode, bubbling away into nothing.
The octopus barely seemed to notice.
Its tentacles flailed, striking at him from every direction now. Each strike came with enough force to crush the ground but Thales used his flying swords like stepping stones, sprinting across the air, bouncing from one blade to the next. Every move he made carried razor-thin margins. If he misjudged even one angle, even one sword's velocity, the tentacle would smash him into paste. A lesser fighter would have panicked. Thales only smirked under his breath.
"Good. You're forcing me to think. Let's test the upper limits, then. Sword Summon, Titanfall Barrage!"
Two dozens of gargantuan swords rained from the air, each about twelve meters tall, plummeting like meteors. Swords slammed into the slime beast one after another, each impact causing explosions of goo and shockwaves that tore rifts into the valley. Still, the octopus endured. Its flesh absorbed the strikes, melting blade after blade before any of them could pierce deep. The monster's shriek rattled the field as it countered, launching a wave of tentacles upward to swat the falling swords aside. The impact shattered the weapons before the corrosion could even begin. The shockwaves nearly blew Thales out of the air.
He gritted his teeth, anchoring his stance on another summoned blade.
"So brute force won't work."
With a wave of his hand, he shifted his strategy. Instead of hundreds of smaller blades, he began summoning fewer but larger. To him, he bigger the sword, the faster it manifested, and he knew he needed speed more than quantity. The ground erupted as a sword tore through the slime's lower body, splitting its mass in half. Yet even that sword began to bubble and decay the moment it sank too deep.
"Your body's an acid bath but you're still bound by volume. The more slime you use to resist me, the less you'll have to attack."
The octopus bellowed, launching six tentacles at once. Thales leapt, threading his way through their arcs with pinpoint timing. He used his blades like springs, each one vanishing the moment he was finished with it to conserve his Flux. He wasn't just dodging. He was herding the monster, controlling where its tentacles landed and forcing it to commit mass in the wrong places. The octopus smashed downward but Thales had already moved to its blind side, conjuring another giant sword mid-step and driving it into the beast's flank. He didn't linger. He was already gone, darting across a lattice of summoned blades as the slime mass tried to reclaim itself.
The whole valley turned into a dance of swords and slime. Thales' movements were razor-sharp, his flying weapons forming shifting pathways that let him sprint, climb, and weave through impossible gaps. Every blade was both weapon and foothold. Behind him, the echoes of Phaser's clash with Lucaren continued but Thales didn't dare look back. One glance could cost him everything.
'Every tentacle cut is temporary. Swords corrode within seconds. My only path is to over-saturate the reaction and force its body to burn itself faster than it can regenerate.'
He spread his arms wide, his Flux roaring like a storm.
"Then let's drown you in steel."
Above him, the sky of the Fluve Field filled with swords, all glowing with golden light. The Slime Octopus shrieked, its tentacles bristling defensively, but it was too late.
"Sword Summon, Endless Fall!"
The storm of swords descended in waves, each impact staggering the octopus. Each massive blade melted away but forced the slime to consume more and more of itself. For the first time, its movements slowed down. Its tentacles struck sluggishly under the crushing demand of corrosion. Thales landed on the hilt of a giant greatsword embedded in the beast's body. His grin was feral.
"That's it. Choke on my Flux, you bastard. The Azure Sword will be mine."
For a moment, the valley went quiet, unnaturally still. Then the monster's body burst outward.
A single titanic tentacle erupted from its core, larger than all the rest combined. It stretched into the sky like a pillar of apocalypse, blotting out what little light the dawn offered. The slime rippled with veins of molten green, and the stench of corrosive acid burned Thales' nostrils even at his distance. The tentacle slammed downward once, missing him deliberately as if to prove that with its next strike, there would be no escape.
The entire valley quaked. Rocks split. Miniature craters formed where the slime splashed.
Thales exhaled slowly, sweat dripping down his face. His body ached from constant Flux expenditure. His flying swords were nearly spent. His reserves felt dangerously shallow. Still, his voice was steady.
"I didn't want to use this yet…"
He flexed his burnt hand as he stood on his floating sword.
"…but I guess you leave me no choice."
He spread his arms wide. Flux surged out of him in golden streams, flooding the battlefield with oppressive energy. His eyes narrowed into a predator's glare.
"Sword Summon, Endless Drill."
Six monumental greatswords burst into the air around him, forming the points of a massive six-pointed star. The blades rotated slowly at first, their edges gleaming as if the very metal had been reforged in fire. They began to spin faster until the six-pointed star blurred into a golden cyclone. The air cracked. Pressure built. Rocks were lifted from the ground and disintegrated midair under the sheer centrifugal force. The tentacle descended, blotting out the horizon as it fell toward him like the wrath of the gods.
Thales raised a single hand toward the star-shaped vortex of blades.
The cyclone of swords shrieked, golden light condensing into a spiraling beam at its core. With a sound like the sky being torn apart, it unleashed a golden column of raw destruction.
The beam hit the massive tentacle head-on. For a second, nothing happened.
The tentacle instantly split apart like paper as molten slime scattered in every direction as the golden spiral tore through it. The beam didn't stop there. It ripped through the monster's core, tearing the octopus' central body apart. The slime convulsed violently, unable to regenerate under the overwhelming force.
The Slime Octopus exploded.
The shockwave rattled the valley, shattering stone pillars and sending rivers of acid slime cascading across the ground like molten lava.
Thales barely had time to react. He dismissed the last remnants of his summoned swords and flung himself backward, riding the fading platforms of his blades to escape the oncoming flood. But even his precision couldn't save him fully. A splash of the corrosive slime lashed across his shoulder mid-flight.
The pain was instant and brutal. His left shoulder seared as the acid hissed, his Flux crackling erratically from the disruption. He clenched his jaw, refusing to scream and forced himself to land in a controlled crash, rolling until his back slammed against a rock.
He hissed, clutching the burning wound, his breath ragged.
"Damn it… that's going to scar."
The valley fell silent once more. Where the monster had stood was now nothing but steaming craters and rivers of acidic runoff. Its titanic form had been obliterated, dissolved into mist and vapor. Yet amid the destruction, something glowed. A radiant blue light shimmered at the very center of the crater.
Thales pushed himself up, his vision swimming for a moment from the exertion. His legs wobbled but he forced them to obey. Each step forward left droplets of his blood sizzling where they fell into the acid-eaten earth. The glow only grew brighter as he drew closer, until it bathed his figure in ethereal light. It was unlike anything he'd seen before. It was the Azure Sword's resonance.
He stopped just before it, his right hand tightening over his seared shoulder.
"So this is it… the first clue to the location of the Azure Sword."