Chương 390: Chapter 373

Sam stepped forward, raising both of his hands and summoning a void between them and the rapidly approaching wave of amber light, the air rippling with haze around it. The magic struck the void, and the void swallowed it. However, the rest of his team also wasn't idle. Their room to maneuver was minimal due to the fact that they were standing on a relatively small outcropping above a sea of magma radiating intense heat, but that didn't mean they were slowed down.

As Sam began to clash with the demon's magic, Katie rushed around him to the side, aiming directly for one of the crystals jutting out from the walls of the magma chamber. The eyes within those crystals all tried to follow them. As Katie stepped onto the first crystal, the slit pupils began to glow and released lasers aimed directly at her. Mid-motion, she swung her greatsword, absorbing the lasers into it while launching herself into the air and aiming for another crystal higher on the wall.

As her feet left the first crystal, a small device dropped from her hand and adhered to its surface, a tiny red light immediately swallowed by the glow of the magma filling the chamber. She kept jumping, following the curvature of the magma chamber walls higher and higher while the eyes continued to rain lasers down on her.

She mostly used her greatsword, wreathed in magic, to deflect or absorb them, but when one of the larger amber crystal eyes decided to target her with a heftier laser, she spent more mana to summon small portals that looked like the edges of black holes, swallowing all light, sound, and lasers that entered their vicinity before closing with a sound reminiscent of someone smacking their lips.

It was a sound that all of them could hear, even through the chaos of battle echoing around the chamber with enough force to send the audience of a heavy metal concert fleeing. Every time one of those small portals closed, Sam could feel a shiver race down his spine.

Isabella began to dance and sing, her swords practically flying from their sheaths as she stepped forward to meet the crystal monsters wrenching themselves out of the wall, each one made up of hundreds of tiny amber crystals, every crystal containing a miniature eye with a slit pupil. It was creepy how they all moved in perfect unison. Her job was to keep the mobs away from them while also providing her usual buffs to the rest of the team. On Sam's other side, Dan stood within a sea of flame of his own making.

His muscular body glistened in the light of the fire surrounding him as he waved his club around like a maestro conducting a concerto, tongues of flame rising from the ground into the air, shifting from harsh reds into searing white before transforming into stars of plasma that floated upward and gathered around him, joining the collection already there. It looked like a constellation of stars. A deadly constellation.

Every time one of the amber crystals released a burst of laser fire from his side, one of those stars rapidly moved to intercept it, until the rain of amber lasers was met by an equally deadly dance of plasma stars swirling around the wizard as he continued to concentrate. Occasionally, he would allow one of the plasma stars to burst, releasing beams of the deadly substance that tore through clusters of amber crystals, leaving long scars on the surface of the chamber walls.

Behind Sam stood Clarissa, protected by her hexagonal shield, while her sworn sword, Melody, guarded her body and occasionally slashed at a monster that slipped through Dan's or Isabella's defenses. Meanwhile, Clarissa showered the team with spells, healing them when needed and refreshing their buffs whenever they expired. Whenever she found even a brief moment of respite, she would launch a beam of pure light toward a monster or amber crystal, destroying it.

And as all this happened, Sam stood his ground, his hands releasing copious amounts of void mana as he settled into a tug-of-war with the demon, whose own hands poured out vast quantities of amber light as it tried to destroy the team. The demon growled.

"I can see you falter! I can see your demise! Surrender to the inevitable!" Sam eyed the boss monster, but instead of answering, he cast a glance around, watching as the others did their best. Isabella was moving between monsters crawling up from below and descending from the upper reaches of the chamber, while Dan was crafting some kind of immense fire spell. Sam could feel the mana slowly transitioning from pure fire-attributed mana into something more akin to the primordial mana he had sensed down below.

Katie was still running all around the chamber, cackling occasionally as she used her sword to carve smiley faces into the crystal-covered walls while dodging the lasers.

"Ninety!" came the call from behind him. A simple one-world report from the healer. It meant that Clarissa was at ninety percent of her resources. Grinning, he refocused on the magical battle and began probing the incoming deluge of amber magic, which felt like liquid honey mixed with some kind of incredibly potent chili pepper. Even though the magic hadn't touched him, thanks to his Mana Sense skill, he could practically taste it through the air.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Naturally, the boss monster wouldn't be this easy to defeat. The moment the demon realized that it couldn't break the stalemate between himself and Sam, his eyes narrowed, and the already angry look on his face deepened.

"Fine!" he bellowed. The magic surging from him strengthened just enough that Sam had to increase his own output, creating a clash of mana, void against honeyed amber, which in turn produced a flash of light. Not enough to hurt anybody, but enough to make them blink.

"If you won't submit to me, then I shall strike you down with my new creation!" the demon cried out as he stopped flinging magic in Sam's direction, instead using it to suffuse his own body while a small thread of energy shot toward the sphere containing the Spirit of Flame. Instantly, the heat in the chamber doubled and continued to rise. Sam heard Clarissa curse behind him as more buffs rained down on the team, while he reached into his pouch and retrieved another fire resistance potion.

'This is the strongest one,' he thought, glancing down at the bottle before downing it in a single gulp.

'It better work...' As the liquid entered his body, he could still feel the heat trying to bake him alive, but the slowly ticking damage on his health bar lessened. His gaze shifted back to the demon, which appeared to be siphoning power from the spirit. Idly raising one hand, he summoned a bit of void mana and launched it toward the demon. It splashed harmlessly against a magical shield.

The demon merely laughed as amber-colored cracks began to spread across his body, quickly darkening to a glowing red filled with barely suppressed power. To Sam's senses, the demon's entire body sang with magic. However, the magic was angry. He didn't know whether it was the spirit's rage bleeding into it or the demon's influence coloring it, but it was angry.

The demon's hair began to float behind him, changing from root to tip into the same amber color as the crystals, while he looked down at his slightly clawed hands with awe.

"This..." he whispered, yet his voice carried clearly through the ongoing battle.

"This is power! I was right! Just as I foresaw it!" He looked up and grinned at Sam before sweeping his gaze across the rest of the team. Raising one hand, he caused several of the larger crystals around the chamber to light up. The eyes within them instantly turned toward him, and beams of energy lanced out, striking him directly in the back. With every crystal that lit up, a new connection formed, and Sam could sense the mana surrounding the demon surging higher and higher, reaching previously unseen heights.

"Yes! YES! This is the power that will allow me to see my plans come to fruition!" the demon declared. Then his eyes locked onto Sam. A wide grin spread across his face as he pointed one hand at him, a clawed finger extended. The tip of that finger began to glow with a sickly mixture of amber and dark red magic. Unfortunately for the demon, that was the exact moment Katie landed next to Sam on the platform in a picture-perfect T-pose, a grin plastered across her face.

"Done!" she chirped. Sam nodded.

"Hit it!" The demon watched them for a second as Katie brought her hand to her wrist and tapped something there.

"Wait, what are y–" BAMM BAMM BAMM BAMM BAMM BAMM BAMM Explosions rippled through the chamber as the giant crystals began to detonate one by one, sending shards tumbling down into the churning sea of magma below. The previously shining beams of light vanished within seconds as the demon stared at them, agape. Katie high-fived Sam.

"Damn! I love Liz's work! She's awesome!" Sam's Mana Sense remained locked on the devastated demon, who was watching his empowered state get stripped away before he could even make use of his newly acquired power.

"Focus," Sam said.

"There is still a third phase." The demon used those precious few seconds to regain his composure. He straightened himself in the air, the previous air of power gone entirely, replaced by a burning rage that seemed to out-compete even the magma below.

"You're going to pay for that," he whispered, eyes locked solely on Sam and Katie.

"I shall see to it that your suffering shall be legen – nay, beyond legendary!" Even though the crystals were destroyed, the demon was still connected to the sphere containing the spirit, so he was not exactly powerless. Both of his hands burst into flame, angry dark red fire lapping at his skin and darkening with every passing second, though the demon seemed not to care.

"You shall perish under my sight, you foolish mort–" The poor demon, it seemed, was destined to be interrupted. As he raised his hand to unleash the primordial fire he had summoned, a gigantic beam of blue plasma slammed into him and sent him careening into the chamber wall, where he was stuck, unable to move, pinned beneath the force. The noise was immense.

The closest analogy Sam could give was the sound of a jet engine igniting combined with hurricane-level winds, as if someone were operating thousands of flamethrowers at once. BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARHG Turning his head, he saw Dan standing within a pillar of plasma channeled through his club and directly toward the demon, his eyes shining with the same light while his mouth moved continuously as he chanted.

Sam watched for a few seconds before turning his attention back to the demon still stuck against the wall, straining under the phenomenal force of whatever Dan had managed to put together. Shrugging slightly, he raised his own hands and summoned his void magic. Another beam of light lanced out, striking the still struggling boss monster, this one a void of empty light, a darkness so absolute that even illumination seemed to be swallowed by it. Then another lance.

This time, pure white light from Clarissa, carrying a hint of a deadly shade of green, the exact opposite of healing. The demon struggled on the far side of the chamber, the wall behind him crumbling as he was forced deeper into the stone, unable to resist the combined assault. Then Dan began to whisper.

"Let the flame of the old consume the new, and the flame of the world cleanse all that remains."

"Let the flame of spirit reveal the hidden, and the flame of the new unmake the wicked."

"Let the endless flame of the cosmos speak the final word." A breath of silence followed, as if the world itself were holding its breath. Then two words. Two simple words.

"An Nur." Dan didn't yell. He stated them, matter-of-factly. But that was enough. And a star was born. The sound went beyond what human ears could hear, yet it still reverberated around them. The light was searing, but they could see everything clearly. The heat was suffocating, but instead of pain, it brought a strange sense of comfort.

The whitish-blue light Dan had conjured began to twist into the shape of a flame tongue before it reeled back for a fraction of a second, then whipped toward the demon at speeds that surpassed everything. And the demon ceased to exist. Sam staggered as the sudden absence of sound and chaos sent him reeling, eyes fixed on the humanoid-shaped hole on the far side of the chamber while the amber magic around the spirit began to vanish.

The others were still blinking the light out of their eyes, confused at the abrupt end of the fight. Turning toward Dan, he saw that he was breathing hard. He could barely sense any mana from him, but there was a wide grin on his face, so Sam suspected whatever he had done worked. As the magic holding the spirit unraveled, the temperature began to drop. The orb that made up the spirit unfurled into a shape far larger than they had anticipated, easily dwarfing the mountain it had once been sealed within.

To nobody's surprise, it took the shape of a great bird – a phoenix. Its humongous eyes looked toward the heavens, where it turned its intangible beak and let out a cry of exultation as it celebrated its freedom. To Sam's surprise, the cry was pretty mundane. Nothing earth-shattering or universe-breaking. Finally, the spirit moved its transparent head toward them, its eyes fixed squarely on Dan.

"Shaper of fire," it whispered at a volume that it rattled all their bones.