Path of the Slayer B3 16. Parasites & Crushings

As I took stock of myself, Thumper’s voice reached me like a whisper in the wind.

“The stronger you are, the stronger the Nemesis. It’s unfair, but that’s the nature of a suicidal Path like that. They become super easy to kill after their primary target is taken down, as long as there are others around to make them pay for it. But until then, it’s like fighting a hulking version of you with cheat codes.”

“Understood.” I rolled my damaged shoulder around before removing my crumpled helmet with a flesh-tearing yank. After latching the helmet onto my side, I shook my head, my dreadlocks flailing, my mind sharpening once more. “We’re going to have to really push it.”

“My liege, I will drive myself even further to the brink for you,” Hellion announced for my ears alone. “Even at the risk of breaking, we must ensure this fiend is destroyed!”

Hooker rattled supportively. She even slithered across my torso to wrap most of her links around the half ripper. Her heavy hook settled into my metal hand.

I appreciated them both, but I didn’t plan for them to break. The only solution was to fight even smarter than before regardless of the Nemesis powering himself based on me.

I refused to lose to someone who hadn’t earned his power.

With a more emboldened outlook, I strode forth as Merlin ran out of wands.

There was a moment of stillness while smoke wafted up from the deep and melted hole the wizard had drilled into a third of the courtyard. Then monstrous laughter broke the silence before a hugely deformed and ugly man-beast launched out of the spell-battered pit.

Just like before, Rory moved with a single-mindedness aimed at me, and he didn’t even try to wait to reach his primary target. The hostile teleport snatched me, making me snap and pop off the courtyard before I whooshed to a sudden stop under Rory.

Falling from his apex height, Rory’s malformed, melted, and bulging body curved back with hands combined into a meaty and bony hammer. Then he swung downward for a whooping spike that would’ve splattered me down into the courtyard if it landed.

A magnetic lightning blast from my legs and a flap of Doomie’s wings sent me careening around Rory’s attack.

The moment his teleportation magic tried to latch onto me again, Slayer Intent became the focal point of everything I wanted to achieve. My body was my own, and everything connected to me could be shifted and changed as long as I applied more spirit.

I felt my Vibrant Cultivator Gates spin even faster in all of my major joints as I dumped over half of my Path Energy. From there, I took Rory’s power and used it as my own.

With a snap, pop, and whoosh, I ended up directly behind the Nemesis as he grunted in confusion.

I latched onto his back with my left hand before jamming the point of Hooker’s head into a chink in Rory’s stony plate armor. Autosaw magic combined with Doomie’s power spun around Hooker’s head, digging into Rory’s flesh and energy, especially the energy.

He clearly had a lot to spare.

Rory tried to reach behind him, but he was too bulky and inflexible for that. We plummeted together as Hooker and Hellion chewed through the chink in his back armor and absorbed more of his energy into us. Doomie flapped her wings with a slowing effect, keeping the Nemesis from reaching the ground as quickly as he might’ve wanted.

The biggest issue was how hard he thrashed in our grasp, muscling his way to nearly breaking free a few times. But with all of his attention on what was behind him, he failed to notice four streaks of darkness flying up from beneath.

Thumper and three Shadow Clones were making their reappearance at long last, each one holding a version of the Super Darkness Nodachi. Thick trails of darkness and shadows traced the air behind them as they used his other Martial Legacy: Blade Barrage Dark Wolf Style.

Just when the rogue and his clones were about to strike the Nemesis, Merlin wove his spells into play once more. The wizard shot down bolts of lightning onto each nodachi. He combined the elements together with a supportive enchantment.

I remembered the combination as shade lightning, something the two had practiced a few times before.

The effect was more devastating for Path Energy itself, and that became clear as Thumper and his clones slashed Rory’s front with crescents and waves of lightning-touched darkness and shadows.

They forced an actual roar of concern from the Nemesis, his energy dipping far sharper than before. It was a noticeable change while me, Hooker, and Hellion chugged on energy through Rory’s back.

Merlin must’ve noticed the same with his Magic Vision – his next spell came down as a telekinetic grab. The spell crushed around me and Rory, keeping us from landing.

I hugged tight to Rory’s back, pushing Hooker’s autosaw-covered head deeper and deeper into the chink we carved into his back armor. The flow of energy thickened as we drained more out of him.

The Nemesis growled before releasing an explosive red burst that tore through Merlin’s telekinetic grab with a strident crack. The blast wave crushed my armor, pulped my innards, and rattled my entire existence while threatening to hurl me away.

Through sheer grit and madness, I rode through the worst of the wave as it rolled over us. Hooker remained latched to her spot, and Hellion kept running his autosaw magic through the cursed chain and hook.

Better yet, my battered body was rapidly fixing itself. The anti-heal effect of the Nemesis was pointless while his own Path Energy gushed through my cursed treasures and into me.

Still, that didn’t mean this tactic could work forever, not with the Nemesis landing back on his feet.

“You know what happens to stupid monkeys on my back!” Rory shouted. “I crush them into fuzzy paste!”

“That depends,” I muttered. “Doomie might take offense at that.”

I poured all the excess power into the doom avatar. The tug on Rory’s energy became even stronger as Doomie expanded above the both of us. She stopped hugging me from behind as her shaded hips crashed down with us at the center.

Her mystical and metaphysical weight increased rapidly, and so did the pressure of soul-crushing doom.

Rory laughed it off at first and made some vulgar comments about Doomie. Then he stopped laughing as Doomie grew further and further, her weight increasing drastically, the same going for her hunger.

She demanded even more energy, drawing it out of me so fast it was like getting sucked into oblivion. Yet, I kept feeding her, pumping her up more and more, making her grow even further while draining Rory even faster.

Realizing the horror of his situation, the Nemesis ran for it, but his steps became burdened and slowed. Doomie weighed so much that even the Nemesis could barely endure her.

I didn’t care that my soul was getting crushed and abused. I urged Hooker and Hellion to push themselves close to the breaking point as we fed the gluttonous doom avatar.

Yet, the Nemesis continued to struggle under us, running and shaking, hoping to throw us off.

Rory nearly succeeded until Thumper made another arrival with his Shadow Clones. They could move freely through the weight of doom because I willed it.

Using their martial dark wolf style again, Thumper and his clones hurled arcs and waves of shade lightning. They struck the back of Rory’s legs, forcing him into a stumble.

While that was happening, Merlin latched onto the floor with telekinesis and demolished the way forward. Rory’s next steps sent him tumbling across the uneven and unsupportive ground.

He couldn’t even spare the Path Energy to stabilize himself as he landed on hands and knees. So much of his energy was flowing through me and into Doomie that the Nemesis finally hit his limit.

His body reversed its transformation. His bulky armor shriveled and became soft flesh. His massive muscles contracted into thin limbs and a scrawny torso. His grotesque frame reduced until he was nothing but a pale maggot of a man.

He screamed with outright horror as he became less the Nemesis and more of an animal to be prayed on, desperately trying to scramble free. But he couldn’t as I ripped the auto-sawing Hooker out of him with a bloody spray. Then I used my free hand to grab the back of his head.

He kicked and flailed weakly in my grasp as I raised him off his feet. The rest of his Path Energy existed as the barrier between him and the crushing weight of a megalithic Doomie that was over a thousand feet tall.

“No! This wasn’t supposed to happen! A Nemesis isn’t supposed to lose to his primary target! I’m supposed to be unbeatable!” Rory screamed and thrashed as his Path Energy dwindled.

Far above, Doomie looked down through her body with shaded eyes stuck on us – or me, mainly. She opened her mouth and responded with a silent moan that sent deep and powerful waves of doom that shook the entire battlefield and beyond.

The weight became even more crushing as she passively sat on the two of us.

The experience remained an interesting one, with me enduring it far better. Rory kept hollering like an animal.

“Wait, wait, wait! Just let me go and I’ll tell you everything I can! I can be useful to you! In fact, you don’t want to kill me. If I die, you’ll make things worse! You have to let me live, or you’ll be killed for certain!”

His words were like water off a duck’s back. I was listening more to my Path of the Slayer. There was a deep-rooted hatred buried far within me.

How many Slayers had fallen to these cheating-ass, parasitic Nemeses?

Too many, I imagined.

Thus, I didn’t even listen to whatever else he had to say, letting him scream useless words into the void. I simply held him all the way up as a tribute to Doomie.

The doom avatar became even heavier. The floor under us cried like gravel being pummeled into fine dust.

Rory screamed his last, his Path Energy hitting 0%.

His head burst apart first. His body hurtled down and became a gory and viscous fluid that ran over me. The weight of doom annihilated him like she was sitting on a pulpy fruit that couldn’t bear her.

My Path Energy wiped off his gory remains like the filth he was, and the rest of him drained down into the crushed rubble underneath.

I waited a beat to see if another Nemesis would come out. None did, leaving me to examine the spot where Rory had gotten flattened into a runny paste.

Then, an annoying realization struck me.

“I don’t have enough energy to shrink Doomie all the way back down.”