After the right arm fell off, the Hellish Fiend began spewing more molten lava in all directions. Liam didn't dodge the lava anymore, and as the fight progressed, he barely felt the heat. 'Incursio is adapting to the high temperatures,' Liam confirmed.
Liam dodged the fiend's remaining left arm as it swung at him and brought his spear down toward its now-exposed right side. His spear cut deep but didn't reach the middle core. 'To reach its middle core, I'd need to attack from the front or back,' Liam noted. 'If I can break the middle or top core, its entire body will fall apart. Now, with one arm down, it should be doable.'
He pulled his spear back from the side, dislodging chunks of rock from the creature where he had struck. The stones quickly reattached, but the cracks remained. 'While it can pull the stones back, it can't fully heal the cracks without time. This keeps the parts I damage weak even if they regenerate.'
The fiend kept spewing lava and swinging its remaining fist. 'Its armor is strong, but it fights without any real form, it's purely relying on its instincts.'
'Since it's so slow, let's go from behind,' Liam thought.
Liam started circling the fiend, who, despite being slow, was just quick enough to turn its body halfway. It swung its arm at Liam, but he slid under the arm and, pushing off the ground, gained enough momentum to thrust his spear toward the fiend's head. The spear pierced the head slightly before Liam pulled it back, exposing the yellow energy core within.
The fiend retaliated with a swing of its fist, aiming at Liam who had still not landed on the ground. He raised his spear to block the blow, succeeding but still feeling the impact. Since he wasn't grounded, the punch sent him flying back a few meters before he landed on his feet. 'One more hit, and the head's core is done for,' Liam thought.
Sensing the danger, the fiend began backing away, instincts warning it of imminent death. It turned and started to sprint towards the dimensional tear. Understanding its intent, Liam raised his spear, pulled it back, and hurled it with all his strength. The spear hit its target, slicing through the fiend's cracked head, shattering the energy core completely. As the fiend's body crumbled, it stumbled forward, reaching for the dimensional tear. Without the main core, the other cores stopped rotating energy, and its form collapsed into rumble.
'That's that, then,' Liam thought, looking over the remains. 'I came as fast as I could, but I couldn't prevent these deaths, even if I'd wanted to.' He gazed around at the the corpses and a few scattered heaps of bones he hadn't noticed before.
'Anyway, time to deal with this dimensional tear,' Liam remembered the struggles he'd gone through to learn this magic.
"Wait, before that, I almost forgot," he muttered, moving closer to the tear.
As he approached, he felt attracted to the energy coming from Hell. Liam sat down, collecting his thoughts. 'People would call me insane for trying this.'
He re-equipped Incursio and summoned Neontote, beginning to draw in some of the energy from Hell. Suddenly, an ancient beast's roar echoed in his mind. "Argh!" he screamed, hands pressed against his ears as he lost control of the energy intake. 'I knew it. I should have never gone for Hell energy!'
The energy intake increased, flowing directly into his spear, Neontote began to transform under the energy. Liam heard metal sizzling as he looked toward his weapon, noticing changes in its appearance. The fire energy was sharpening Neontote's edges, and something else was taking shape in the center. The original blade split down the middle and both sides shifted back to the sides of the circular symbol, which was transforming also transforming itself. The circle gradually took on a new shape, looking like a dragon's head with open jaws.
As Neontote's transformation completed, the roaring in Liam's mind stopped. He examined the changed spear, wondering what had just happened. When he picked it up, he felt an unfamiliar feeling. the ability to channel energy into it. Testing this, Liam send some energy into Neontote, causing flames to erupt from the dragon's open mouth.
"What the fu… That's awesome," Liam said, excited. 'I never expected this to happen.'
He channeled more energy through the spear, causing an even larger burst of flames. Pointing it at the wall, he watched as the wall began to melt under the intense heat. 'How does it return to its normal spear form?' he wondered.
To his surprise, as he thought about it, the spear transformed back: the dragon head changed back into the circular symbol, and the spear blades shifted forward again. 'That's even better.' He switched back and forth between the normal and new mode a few times, feeling like a kid with a new toy.
"Okay, okay, I have to stop now—I still need to close the dimensional tear," Liam said, refocusing. 'I had to learn Sanskrit just to perform this spell. It took forever to memorize, and I still don't know all of it, but I know enough for this spell.'
He thought of the Ancient One, who had demonstrated this spell for him during their training. 'Since this tear is from the Hell dimension, I'll need a more complex, soothing type of healing. Knowing the energy type is important so I can adapt the spell accordingly.'
Liam began casting, moving his hands in deliberate, slow gestures. As he spoke, he felt his energy compress into thin threads, directing them with the final words of the spell toward the dimensional tear. 'It's starting,' he thought as he watched the threads stitch together the tear in his dimension. 'The Hell energy is pushing back, but the energy of this dimension is resisting it.'
"Time for the final step," Liam muttered, raising both hands to send additional energy towards the closed tear, helping his dimension's natural healing process. After a short while, he noticed the tear had completely healed.
'Now I need to clean up the fiend's body and cover up this scene,' he thought. 'How should I cover this up, though? Multiple deaths have occurred.'
He pondered, 'Though its extreme and very unreasonable, the best option might be to make it look like an explosion. That way, the missing people will be eventually be accounted for, and their families will have closure.'
"This is messed up on so many levels, but what choice do I have? If I start telling people that creatures from other dimensions invaded and ate their family members corpses after killing them, they'll think I'm crazy…or worse, they'll lose all will to live," he murmured to himself. "Besides, the Sanctum wants to keep magic a secret and I can see why."
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Really enjoyed writing this chapter, I hope you all like it too.
PS: Don't worry about Liam's regular form, he will get an actual evolution in a specific way too :).