Chapter 229: Deciding Factor (2/2)

Lily gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over in the process. ”You're the coy.”

”...Come again?”

”She means decoy. We need someone to keep its attention off Mike for a little while. There's no one better suited for the job than you.” Sera answered.

”Are you kidding? That thing will murder me!”

”Only minute. Be fine.” Tal replied heartlessly.

Brenden looked at the other two, hoping to find some level of sympathy, or perhaps mercy in their gazes. Alas, there was none.

”...You're still angry at me for leaving, aren't you?” He found himself asking, already resigning himself to becoming bait.

Sera shook her head in an exaggerated manner, while asking him sarcastically, ”What? Do you think we're angry about the way you selfishly walked out on the group without saying anything, leaving us to wonder if you were dead in ditch somewhere? How could we be?”

He sighed, ”Whatever, lets just get this over with.”

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Mike jumped back desperately, narrowly avoiding the creature's meaty fist. It was starting to get faster and more accurate, and if not for some timely rank improvements to his own skills, it would have been very difficult to keep up with it. As it was, he would need to start enhancing his Agility in the near future, or risk a debilitating injury that would leave him vulnerable.

He'd nearly given up on actually killing the thing, since virtually all the methods he could use to attack it had proven largely ineffective. At this point, he could only hope that there was some kind of limit to its endurance.

[Alright, lets see how Ice Magic works on this thing.] He thought to himself while gathering his mana once more. With an effort of will, he directed it towards the creature, forcing the temperature of its tissue to drop rapidly.

Despite being a product of freecasting, he was rewarded for his efforts by a thick layer of frost that formed on the creature's skin, starting on its legs before spreading upwards. It began to slow, and eventually stopped moving entirely. Just to be on the safe side, he kept feeding mana to the spell until he was certain that it had affected the monster's entire body.

He took a moment to catch his breath as he watched the ice covered creature, wondering if this might have been the solution all along. From what little he recalled about biology, he was fairly certain that freezing live cells caused them to burst. Maybe all he needed to do was ensure that not a single cell survived.

He was still contemplating possible methods of doing just that, when the creature began to disintegrate. For a moment, he could only look on in confusion as the frozen beast was quickly reduced to a pile of icy dust.

[Did that do it? Is it finally dead?] He thought before he had a chance to stop himself. Cursing his uncontrollable tendency to raise flags, he was not surprised with the dust melted into a pool of liquid before rapidly returning to its bipedal shape.

He was resignedly preparing himself to start fighting it once more, when a brown blur swept past the partially reformed creature, severing its legs from its torso in the process. The blur stopped just long enough for him to recognize a transformed Brenden, before he lept back into the fight, cutting at the monster with his sword in a frenzied manner.

”Mike! Over here!” A voice called.

Sera was waving from behind a small mound of displaced dirt, beckoning him to come over. He could see Lily and Tal as well. The elf had her eyes closed, and it looked like she was concentrating on something. The other woman was watching the battle between Brenden and the monster with a concerning level of interest. Based on his previous experiences with her, Mike guessed that she would soon join the fight, regardless of whether or not it was a good idea.

Slightly annoyed at their presence here, he jogged over and hunkered down next to them.

”What are you doing?” He asked, a little more forcefully than he intended.

”We're here to help.” Sera answered simply, not taking her eyes off of the monster. ”You can't beat this thing with your usual methods.”

[Okay...fair point.]

”Are you saying that you can defeat it?”

She shook her head. ”I'm saying that, together, we can defeat it. Tal believes she has a method that can stop its regeneration long enough for us to target its core, but we'll need you provide a decent opportunity for her to make use of it.”

Mike felt a flutter of hope. ”What do you need me to do?”

”You can make sound with Air Magic, right?”

He nodded.

”How loud can you make it?”