As Rethys approached the robed creature, he pulled back his fist and delivered a powerful punch to its head.
Before his fist could connect however, the creature extended its arm with surprising speed and blocked his attack, catching Rethys' fist in its skeletal grasp.
Regaining his footing, he jabbed at the creature's extended hand with the shock baton, only to see through the ether that the creature didn't even register the supposedly blinding pain that just ran through it.
'Of course it didn't work...' He sighed inwardly as he changed tactics.
Sending as much of his ether as he could through the hand gripping him, Rethys saw the creature convulse wildly before beginning to gather a massive amount of ether around itself.
Rapidly dashing backwards, he managed to retreat behind an overturned table just in time to not get caught in the large nova of Water magic the robed creature released. Waves of water appeared of nowhere and spread everywhere before another nova of Water ether shook the room, freezing all of the water seemingly instantly.
As the dust, or rather water vapor, settled, Rethys saw water and small icicles of every shape and size decorating every nook and cranny of the room. Some of these ice formations even stabbed into the stone walls of the room, showing dangerous strength and sharpness.
Looking at the robed creature with his magical senses through his cover, Rethys could notice another worrying detail besides the terrifying output it was capable of. That detail manifested in the ambient flows of ether around the creature moving towards it and seemingly joining it, intensifying the brightness of its soul in small but noticeable measures.
It was regenerating energy, meaning that it must have had an unbound core.
'That's just fantastic.' He sighed, seeing the creature recover its posture and cease its clumsy movements.
The robed creature seemed to have a great deal of intelligence left in it, despite the apparent great decay its soul had sustained. It regarded Rethys and his magic with generous wariness, and he could see its three eyes leering intensely at him, lathering him in their studying gaze.
It also seemed able to recover from Rethys' disorienting Origin magic, which made sense now that he thought of it.
Remembering the days of the expedition where the mages seemed able to endure and even recover from the origin elemental's debilitating effects, he noted that powerful enough mages could do the same to his magic as well.
'There has to be a method to it.' He concluded, resolving to further test this theory, even being willing to subject himself to his own element's effects.
Snapping out of his thoughts and back to the immediate threat, Rethys sidestepped frantically as the creature sent waves of water flowing through the ground before erupting upwards into icy spikes.
He wouldn't try and win against this creature in magic, after all, even if it was a decrepit old soul from Yvtar, it remained equivalent to a High Mage from his perspective. He had to deal a single killing blow to it, and not knowing much in particular of this type of creature, simply going for its head remained the best option.
He kept dodging the creature's attacks while trying to think of a way to break through, but none appeared. The hunchbacked robed creature seemed to have grown wary of him after his first attempt to physically attack it. It only bothered to occasionally cast a spell or lob sharp ice towards him when he was distant enough from it, otherwise focusing on hindering his advance.
Noting that the room around him was gradually becoming less traversable as water and ice filled it , Rethys abandoned his current tactic, instead infusing his body with his ether. He felt himself growing stronger and lighter, though could now tell that any spell he would try to cast would probably misfire.
'So much for the new spells.' He bemoaned inwardly.
He rather liked being able to cast such handy spells, it made him feel like a proper mage.
Propelling himself sideways to dodge a large spear of ice, Rethys dashed forwards again, closing the distance that now separated him from the robed creature. His greatly enhanced strength had him reaching the ice-wielding creature in a few strides, only occasionally having to block the sharp ice projectiles it flung at him with his bare hands or power through an obstacle lying in his path.
The sharp ice flew swiftly and with great strength, but it couldn't pierce Rethys' hardened flesh, only slightly cutting him as he swatted the smaller shots away from himself. And he continued to advance while staying mindful of the movements of ether in his surroundings, lest an icicle sprouted right underneath him and skewered him.
'Why couldn't it be another element...' He sighed inwardly.
He hated fighting material elements, as the effects they produced were only slightly weakened by his element's disruptive abilities.
From what he did know now, his magic was almost specialized at countering the other ethereal elements. He even already found out with Sevi's help that infusion magic imparted some of its aspects to its wearer, with his own magic bestowing upon him extreme resistance to any harmful and foreign magic.
But the material elements relied entirely on creating material, physical phenomena, which even the mighty Origin element could only somewhat wear down, not disable entirely.
And thus forced to weather the creature's relentless defense, Rethys pushed on.
'Maybe I could...' Rethys pondered.
He remembered his master's words of physical strength in mages, and that even though they were superior to ordinary humans in that regard, for most of them, their strength remained... fake.
Crashing through a wall of ice the creature conjured with his shoulder, he leaped forward, his hand reaching forwards in a punch towards the creature's dark hood.
Once again a pale hand extended outwards to block his attack, and knowing the creature's strength, this was bound to play out exactly as earlier. At the last moment however, Rethys changed his attack from a punch to a grab, interlocking his hand with the creature's in what can only be described as a deadly handshake.
Then, as soon as he regained decent footing, and faster than the creature can react, he yanked as hard as he could.
The creature could exert great strength, but its physical might was only due to its superior magical prowess, and thus lacked any true foundation. Thus when Rethys pulled, the creature was pulled along, its terribly emaciated body lacking the weight to resist.
Violently slamming the creature into the ground and ice, he retreated quickly before it caught him in yet another wave of icy ether it emitted, freezing the whole of its surroundings and obscuring them in even more icy vapor.
'It worked.' He observed, making a note that he would also be vulnerable to this effect, though not to the same extent.
As the cold vapor settled and visibility returned to the large room, Rethys saw the unbound creature struggling to rise.
'Must've broken a few bones.' He concluded, rushing to push his advantage once he made sure the creature was not up to something.
Careful not to slide on the ice that covered the entire room at this point, he arrived as fast as he could to the robed creature and stomped hard on its head, crushing it like a melon and killing it on the spot.
His job wasn't done yet however, and reaching down towards the creature, he pulled back its torn and worn robes to reveal its warped, gangly form. It resembled a human but was extremely pale, extremely thin, and so tall that Rethys only managed to aim for its head due to its extremely hunched back posture.
Its body was also very unnatural, as despite its size, its body parts were not up to size, so to speak, instead being rather... increased in number.
'Just how many ribs does this thing has?' Rethys wondered as he beheld the creature's absurd anatomy.
Ignoring the revolting sight before him, he bent down and placed his hand where he presumed the creature's heart lay, and proceeded to begin exorcising its soul.
His attempt at releasing the creature from Yvtar however failed, with the creature's powerful soul somehow resisting the spell being cast towards it.
'You know, I'm trying to help you.' He grumbled as he tried again, only for this second attempt to result in a giant outwards burst of Water ether.
This one was no magic spell however, but rather a harmless release of raw ether that didn't produce any of the effects needed for the material element to function. Rethys simply waited for it to disperse into the environment before approaching the creature's dead body again.
What he found however, astounded him, as the creature appeared to have summoned all of its energy and wrapped it around its soul in the form of a protective barrier. Looking at the absurdly condensed shell of ether, Rethys sighed despondently, realizing that he would never be able to get through that kind of intensity with his spells.
'That's just great...' He sighed helplessly, it was the first time he had encountered a creature that directly protested against its own cleansing like this.
The creature would reanimate later, and though Rethys never saw the process himself, Sevi had told him not to try and stop the process. This implied a great deal of things, and none of them were good.
The first was that the robed creature might reanimate while Rethys was deeper inside this place, which would mean that he might get pincered. It would be especially dangerous if the creature possessed enough intelligence to follow him further inside once it was restored.
Perhaps its intelligence was such that it would learn from its fight with Rethys and react accordingly.
'I might be reaching here, but its possible.' He thought. 'But whatever, I need to move on.'
Before moving on however, he made sure to break all of the creature's limbs and cave in its torso, hoping it would give him more time before it rose back up.
With his opponent sufficiently dealt with, Rethys then moved on to checking his surroundings, making sure that none of the other creatures wandering this place were alerted to his presence. Once he was sure he was safe, he took to examining his own state, and things were not looking well at all. In fact, he was almost in a critical state.
The fight didn't last long at all, but still managed to exhaust him quite bit and drain most of his energy. He had also lost a lot of blood, as his body was covered in serious wounds, especially his arms, which as always sustained the heaviest injuries. His legs also took quite the beating, and his muscles were red all over from the extreme cold that the robed creature wielded against him.
For Rethys however, everything felt as it always did, that is to say, it didn't feel like anything. Everything felt cold indeed, but that was how he felt all the time, courtesy of his infusion magic doing... something to him. He had tried to get a good answer out of Sevi on how his misuse of it affected him, but all he got was that it was the simple result of him doing it wrong.
'It's fine, Sevi can heal me anyway.' He thought.
The damage and bleeding did weaken him, but the explosive strength provided by the surprisingly long-lasting enhancement of the talisman and his own infusion magic made sure that he could always perform well. Combined with his unimaginable pain tolerance, or rather tolerance for all kinds of sensations at this point, the only thing that could realistically stop him was death, such was the case even before his soul core evolution.
For him, all he had to was put in effort, and he couldn't deny having some pride in finally attaining some measure of strength.
'If only all of those street goons could see me now.' He suddenly pondered, thinking back to those who were stronger and bigger than him, and that pushed him away like they he was vermin.
For a moment, he relished in the fact that his current might would see them all effortlessly beaten.
He didn't know that his mage strength, when wielded against civilians, would turn them to red paste. And that if they could indeed see him now, they would run away at the sight of his ghastly visage.
But none of that would deter Rethys, even if he realized it, not that he could ever.