Gunjo was dashing across the ocean, preying on the Umibozu, thinking, 'The stalker window told me to kill this bastard. What if I lose?'
A bunch of shadowy hands came from the mouth of the Umibozu, and Gunjo jumped over it, twisting in mid air as he slung his scythe around, slashing the shadow hands into pieces of ash.
"AGHHH!"
Gunjo sliced through a hand, kicked and leaped off another one, and started running on top of an arm, and began sliding down it. Shadow hands and arms were soaring above him, crashing down on him, but Gunjo lifted his scythe and spun it like a helicopter with both hands above him, shredding the hands. Then he jumped forward, twisting once again, thinking, '5 minutes in this form…is that enough time?! This beast…it knows what we're doing. We're attempting to strike when the tide gets low, but it's making it difficult for us because he's causing unnecessary splashes to keep us from seeing the tides rising and falling..smart bastard. It's crazy. Even though this was just supposed to be a regular fetch quest of elixir ingredients,
More shadow hands were coming, Gunjo looked up at them fast, but Yaien swooped in his in stew ball form, red and black inferno flames streaking across the air, lighting up the atmosphere.
"Y-Yaien?! Rat?!"
Yaien replied, "Shut up! I saved you!"
"Huh?! I had it!"
"Oh yeah? Think you're tough shit because you got some horn coming out of your right eye?!"
"Uh yeah?"
"I'll kill this thing first!"
"Remember to strike at low tides!"
"Yeah! Don't you forget either!"
"Shut up! I won't!"
Yaien thought, 'But it's hard getting through those hands…it's keeping us back pretty damn good. If I don't make it past this beast, I won't be able to live peacefully after all. Me or my kin. We got this! We got a weirdo skeleton, a former demon king brat, and a sensitive bipolar human with a katana. And a witch back at the cave.'
Yamato, crackling through air at light speed, was slicing through multiple large shadow arms and hands, spinning and blasting off of the air as he performed a drill like move forward, shredding downward on the Umibozu.
The Umibozu looked up at him, and opened its mouth wide. And inside of its mouth, we're over 50 dark clones of him, all with ash gray skin and black hair and glowing red eyes, and they all were holding katanas.
Yamato gritted his teeth saying, "Let the flames be extinguished under the scorching desert..son."
SHIING!
Yamato was already behind some of the clones, ripping them In half with one strike from his katana. Yamato's body glowed with a red flaming aura, and he and the remaining clones blasted all though the air.
Yamato was dodging the sword attacks, evading as he used his crackling speed to shoot though the sky, left and right, the clones kept coming, slashing and jabbing with their own katanas, but Yamato blocked them all, and stabbed them in the head, the chest, the legs, and cleaved them in half In a spinning 360 move. Blood came from his mouth ferociously, due to the fact that the burden of his one death weighed upon him heavily, which was another conduit of power to channel the katana's sword and speed and strength.
'This Umibozu…its feats are insane. It's doing everything it can to keep us from getting too close. His eyes have no pupils, so we can't tell where exactly he's looking…'
As the tide receded, Gunjo seized his moment. He charged at the Umibozu, the newfound horn on his forehead enhancing his awareness. He dodged a shadow spike and closed in.
'Getting close! Tides are low! The Umibozu didn't calculate that we can still see from other parts of the blood ocean that the tides are low or high, based on the obsidian rocks coming out of them..'
Yamato, clutching his sword imbued with his son's aura, blinked across the battlefield with incredible speed. He appeared beside Gunjo, blood trickling from his mouth, but his eyes were fierce with determination. Together, they struck in unison, a dance of fiery blood and spectral speed.
Gunjo said, "It barely showed resistance!"
Yamato added, "When we both charged in, it's like it almost gave up."
Gunjo thought, 'Was it baiting us?'
Yaien, witnessing his allies' advance, unleashed his **Thunder Thump**, causing shockwaves to ripple through the blood ocean, further destabilizing the Umibozu and opening a path for his allies' assault.
As the Umibozu recovered, Gunjo's heart thundered, unleashing **Reality Sunder**. The air cracked, the ground shook, and the beast staggered, stunned just as it was about to unleash its temporal distortion.
"Go! I knocked it off balance!"
Yamato asked, "Did you always have that skill, pissboy?"
"Uhhhh yeah?" Gunjo lied.
"Interesting."
'Something's up with this brat. He didn't feel..this powerful before..' Yamato thought. 'How is he getting stronger? He's been abandoned by all of hell, no demons are helping him, so how..?'
Taking advantage of the beast's disorientation, Gunjo swung his scythe, now ablaze with **Scalding Onset**, searing through the Umibozu's shadowy tendrils, cutting them from the air as they attempted to regenerate.
Yamato's sword gleamed as he used his blink ability to evade a wave of shadow spikes, launching a devastating counter-attack that cleaved through the watery appendages, his movements a blur of precision and power.
As Yaien rolled into his **Speed Ball**, he became a meteor of destruction, the flames left in his wake scorching the Umibozu's form, leaving blackened marks upon its watery flesh.
The black halo over the Umibozu intensified, and as it manipulated the blood ocean into a weapon, Gunjo's **Scalding Vitality** flared. The ocean's weaponized waves burned at the touch of his blood, turning the Umibozu's own attack against it.
Gunjo was soaring downard as a large blood ocean 500 foot wave of large shadow weapons fell down towards him. Gunjo gritted, saying, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me.."
Gunjo dashed upwards, running on shadow weapons, but Yaien in his steel ball form collided with Gunjo's back, giving him a boost.
Gunjo exclaimed, "What are you doing?!"
"We gotta get through this to get to the other side of the wave where the monster is! You were soaring upwards too slow!"
"I can handle it!"
"No! Just focus on cutting through the weapons this bastard is shaping from the blood ocean water!"
"Tch!"
Gunjo, attached to Yaien, blasted upwards past the large sea of shadow weapons mixed in with the large 50 foot tidal wave of blood ocean water.
CLING!
CLANG!
SHIIIIING!
Gunjo sliced his scythe left and right, cutting the weapons away, but more just formed. Yaien soared upwards as he used the shadow weapons to propel himself upwards, dodging in spiraling arcs of flames, avoiding getting hit, and then they finally made it over the wave.
As time slowed once more, the trio stood motionless, the fatigue setting in. They locked eyes, their breaths synchronizing, awaiting the tide's retreat to strike anew.
The tide ebbed, and the trio exploded into action. Gunjo, with his **Death Punch**, staggered the Umibozu, allowing Yamato to deliver a series of rapid, arcing slashes, further weakened by Yaien's fiery trail.
The Umibozu, enraged, summoned a wave of blood, but Gunjo, still in his **Charred Ascendance** form, leaped above it, his increased speed allowing him to rain down fiery blows upon the beast's halo with his scythe.
Yamato, noticing, thinking, 'He's attacking the halo..? Does he notice it intensifies as well when the Umibozu uses complex attacks?'
Yaien, timing his **Thunder Thump** with the ocean's rhythm, disrupted the Umibozu's control over the tide, causing its shadowy form to flicker and waver under the relentless assault.
'I'll try and control the tide with this..it's the least I can do.'
The Umibozu's shadow spikes launched with a renewed frenzy, but Yamato's sword was a blur, deflecting and cutting through them with the precision of a master swordsman, his son's aura pulsing with each strike.
'He's hiding something…I know it!'
Gunjo's form began to flicker; his **Charred Ascendance** was nearing its end. With a final roar, he unleashed a maelstrom of strikes, his scythe tearing through the Umibozu's incoming shadow spikes from underwater like a hurricane through sails.
'Shit! Not much time left in this form!'
[Charred Ascendance: 2 minutes left]
'How come it's not giving me the stars of this monster like it did everything else including Yaien and those tree wraiths?'
The Umibozu faltered, its shadow form dimming, its attacks less frequent. It was clear the toll of the battle was mutual, as the trio also showed signs of exhaustion, their breaths heavy, their movements slowing.
Gunjo, Yamato, and Yaien were standing on an obsidian rock together, their breaths awkwardly in sync, blood dripping from their being.
Yaien said, "Tough bastard. It's unpredictable."
Gunjo replied, "Damn right it is. It's like it's toying with us. Letting us get close to not letting us get close at all."
'But..'
Yamato said, "It is weakened. It tried its best to keep us from noticing the change in tides. And Gunjo seemed to notice that the halo is the source of its power..it resonated with the time the Umibozu performed a skill."
Gunjo added, "Its body is the source of its regeneration. The more I attacked the halo, the more its attacks got weaker."
Yaien added, "Alongside the low tide attacks we've performed."
Gunjo commented, "Let's keep doing what we're doing. It's weakened. We can definitely do this."
"Hell yeah!"
Yamato nodded, "Agreed."
Gunjo thought, 'At this rate, we can't lose. But something's throwing me off. The feeling, the feeling that the Umibozu..has something up it's sleeve..'
The Umibozu stared at them, and then a large smile came from it, with its teeth sharper than ever. And it's eyes hollow black.