Cage of Rathos (SSS)
Create an inescapable dome to trap your prey. The dome will last for up to one hour, but may be dissolved at will. Should your HP fall to zero while the cage is still active, you will be shielded and teleported out, with 1% of your MaxHP restored.
Cooldown(Cage): 3 days
Cooldown(Rescue): 30 days
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It took a lot more waiting than I thought, but when Gary finally returned to the fight, he wasn’t holding back anymore. Fully leveraging his flight advantage, as well as the ability to teleport, all while sending out a ridiculous number of devastating spells, made him an absolute monster to contend with. That was the side of him I wanted to see since the very beginning. The side of him that took out a tier twelve monster. With firepower like that, I wasn’t surprised he managed to do it.
I found myself on the back foot as soon as the first spell ripped through the air, trying to swat him out of the air with spells, which were easily dodged. His own spells threw up tons of debris that made it difficult to see and smell properly, yet he didn’t seem to be affected by this at all. The constant explosions drowned out any other sound, robbing me of yet another sense, leaving the mental communication with my pack as just about the only thing that still worked properly.
While surprised, the pack was ready for this. Everyone fell into their practiced roles, even though at the end of the day, it didn’t help much. The spells kept falling, pressuring us constantly and threatening to take another of our number. The situation was not irredeemable until Gary refocused all of his efforts on Green. Apparently, he noticed that Green was our healer and decided that he needed to go first. A sound decision, really, and I could not fault him for making it. I rewarded the decision by redoubling my efforts of attacking him as well, but the constant teleporting while he was surrounded by a shield made things hard for me.
I had yet to find a proper way to put pressure on Gary when Green ran out of MP to defend himself with. His death was almost instant, as all of Gary’s stronger spells focused him down with no way to escape. I could sense the profound feeling of loss reverberating through my link with the pack and scoffed. If any of the pack survived this fight, I would need to beat it into them to leave emotions off the battlefield. And just to prove my point, Gary exploited the momentary weakness to lead Pink into a trap, making short work of the now airborne wolf.
Within just a few seconds, I’d lost the arguably two most important packmates for this fight. With Green gone, so was the ability to cleanse Gary’s poison, and with Pink, the buff that would have severely blunted it. Things were not going according to plan, and I quickly went over the possible ways to get back on top when I thought of something terrible. If I were Gary, after having taken such a decisive step toward victory, I would go into hiding once more to top up my spent resources before attacking again. That was something I could not allow, which is why I activated the cage of rathos earlier than I wanted.
It was supposed to be the location for the final showdown. A trump card to use after whittling down Gary, preventing him from teleporting away and forcing him to face the music. Yet, he had forced my hand instead. I let out an annoyed growl, unhappy with the unfavorable situation. I was screwed either way. If I didn’t put up the cage, Gary would have gone into hiding again, restoring himself to top condition before coming back to pick off the rest of the pack, and then doing it again before facing me alone. On the other hand, I was now trapped in an enclosed space with one of the most poisonous beings this planet had ever seen, with no way to mitigate said poison.
My eyes flickered to Blue and Yellow, the pitiful rest of my pack. I could see it in their eyes, their posture, and the fact that they took an unconscious step back. Those two reeked of fear. I couldn’t entirely fault them for it, but I barked at them anyway, getting them back in line. At the end of the day, they were more scared of me than Gary, and that was how it was supposed to be. Inwardly, I couldn’t help but scoff. Both of them were almost useless in this situation and would most likely die soon. All I could hope was that they managed to do some damage before eating dirt.
Blue specialized in applying debuffs to the enemy, but did so with spell projectiles. Gary had been dodging almost everything sent his way, and what little managed to hit was faced with his seemingly inexhaustible shield. Yellow was in a similar boat. As the pack's spellcaster, he had to directly compete with Gary, who was leagues above Yellow in that regard. Concluding that these two wouldn’t be of much help, I effectively abandoned them then and there. They simply weren’t strong enough to compete on a stage like this, and even if I managed to win in the end, they’d end up dead long before Gary did. Instead of relying on pack tactics, it was time that I fully committed to fighting this battle one-on-one. As such, I retracted the active pack buffs I had going at the detriment to my own stats, immediately feeling the strength return to me.
Of course, Yellow and Blue also felt the change. They were decently smart and realized what this meant immediately. Hopefully, it would light a fire under their ass, and they would double their efforts to impress me.
And, if all else failed, I still had my trump card. Even if I’d rather not use it.
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Being caught in a seemingly inescapable dome wasn’t exactly a good thing, but it wasn’t the worst either. It merely moved the timetable forward. Not wasting any time, I got to testing whether my poison would finally stick. I used poison assassination on each of the wolves as a test and was happy to find that it didn’t disappear immediately. Emboldened by the success, I started charging a poison mist, while adding poison bombs and poison caltrops to my bombardment from above. I also deployed the poison domain to accelerate the wolves' demise.
As for my opponents, they stuck to their previous tactics. The smaller wolves kept flinging spells my way, although they seemed a bit frantic. Instead of the controlled, precisely aimed spells I had come to expect from them, it almost felt like they started imitating me by simply casting spell after spell with little rhyme or reason. It got harder to dodge, and I had to tank more and more spells with my shield, which was a bit annoying.
The bigger issue was Caedus. Compared to the smaller wolves, who’d seemingly gotten weaker somehow, this guy had gotten stronger and faster. He was constantly hounding me, even in the air. Nowhere was safe for me, and I had to constantly teleport around. Remembering my fight with the dragon, I switched to using void jumps as often as possible, lest the constant teleports drain my VMP too quickly. I didn’t always get the option, though, since Caedus was relentless. In an enclosed space like this, he was able to make full use of his movement skills to the point where it almost felt like he was teleporting around as well. Even though he was simply moving so fast, I had trouble keeping up with my eyes.
Thank fuck I had my void feelers backing me up, or I might have been crushed almost immediately.
While Caedus was hogging most of my attention, I didn’t neglect my own offense. My poison was stacking up nicely, and the constant barrage of void spells kept the wolves on their toes. I even took advantage of the closed space by using lava torrent every now and again. Just like back in the asphon arena, the hot lava served as a constant nuisance, and the longer things went on, the less space the wolves had to move around. Caedus didn’t seem to mind, but it was definitely a big issue for the blue and yellow ones.
It was an incredibly hectic fight, and I was burning through my void mana at an astonishing rate, mostly managing to preserve my regular MP. But the writing on the wall was clear, and after a while, the yellow wolf was down for the count. It wasn’t long after, that the blue one died as well, having lost its fighting spirit. It had been a hard fight, but finally, it was down to Caedus and me.
As soon as the last member of his pack died, Caedus backed off for a moment. I was just about to start shifting my focus to him when he spoke.
“So it’s come to this after all,” Caedus said, looking at the two dead wolves in various states of destruction. “I have to admit, I was expecting this, yet it still irks me.”
“Well, since you refused to even consider another option, I didn’t have much choice,” I replied in broken asphon. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry for killing them.”
“I do not care. They’ll be replaced, and my new pack will be stronger than my old one,” Caedus replied, not a shred of sadness in his voice. “What irks me isn’t their death, but rather that it has become clear that I can’t beat you without taking some rather… drastic measures.”
“What do you mean?” I was immediately on guard, making sure to put as much distance between him and me as I could. He had to be talking about some crazy skill, and I didn’t want to be anywhere close to whatever he had planned.
“I believe I am going to lose if we continue like this, so there’s no point,” Caedus barked, and the dome around us vanished as if it had never been there. “You have proven yourself a strong opponent, too strong, really. And that poison of yours is quite nasty. You’ve taken out Pink and Green, and without them, I’ll eventually succumb to it, even if we continue fighting. I do still have quite a few tricks up my sleeve, but I don’t think any of them will help. So, I’m thinking we skip right to the grand finale.”
“Right, I don’t like where this is going.”
I took advantage of the dome being gone and void jumped high above once more, immediately restarting my assault. I didn’t know what he was up to, but I wasn’t about to sit there and let him activate his trump card without at least attempting to stop it. Caedus wasn’t slow to react, using a skill that made him seemingly invulnerable for a short period of time, and apparently also rooted him to where he stood, judging by how the explosions didn’t affect him at all.
Through the thrown-up dust, I could see him lift his head to the sky with my void feelers, letting out a haunting howl. Even with my mind protection, I could feel myself being influenced by what I heard. The howl conveyed an ironclad resolution and absolute faith. And I couldn’t help but stop and stare, captivated by the sound. This was apparently not classified as an attack since my ears didn’t automatically seal themselves, and I felt like I didn’t even want to do so manually. There was something hauntingly beautiful about the etherally echoing howl, and disturbing that display of faith felt… wrong.
The feeling of fascination was gone in the next second, as I froze in fear. An oppressive aura blanketed the whole arena, and I was forced to the ground by an unknown power. I slammed into the ground, protected by my shield, and trained my eyes on the settling dust that contained Caedus. I broke out in a panicked sweat as my void feelers picked up some… thing that shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be allowed to exist in this place. A human stood next to Caedus, who was pressing himself into the dirt in a show of devotion.
It was a bald man who, for all intents and purposes, looked like the most average Joe I’d ever laid eyes on. Yet, there was unfathomable, barely restrained power contained inside of him. The entire arena was flooded by his presence, and all I could do was stare. There was no point in resisting. No point in even attempting to fight. Whoever that was felt like he could destroy the entire arena with a casual flick of his wrist. The dust finally settled, and the bald man turned his head to look at me, and I almost fainted. There was no hope.
I was a lamb to the slaughter.