Nothing we had attempted fazed the behemoth, and its sheer size limited our options. The thing was truly massive, putting dragons and dinosaurs to shame. It was more like a part of the landscape than a creature that lived within it. Another wave of gravitational force blasted forth from the creature’s knobby head, pushing us all back a good twenty feet, and suddenly it was like we were back at the beginning of the battle. None of the damage we’d done had stuck, and the creature was again moving freely. Slowly, granted, but without restraint.

  It trudged forward with terrible inevitability. Each step crushed a dozen yards of terrain flat, not shattering the dungeon floor but pressing it down, as though the world were bowing in like a trampoline. The plates along its legs ground together with a sound like mountains shifting, and every motion dragged gravity with it, the air thickening until even breathing felt like a chore. I felt the pull of the behemoth’s aura resonate deep in my bones. Worse, I felt my primordial aspect answer it with a low, uneasy hum. There was something to it that I couldn’t explain, but I longed for the freedom that came with that type of raw power.

  When we reengaged, Samvek struck first, because of course he did. Lightning ripped from him in blinding arcs as he warped forward, spear driving into the behemoth’s knee with enough force to shatter a fortress gate. The impact sent a shockwave rippling outward, flattening trees and throwing debris skyward, but the behemoth barely reacted. It turned its head slowly, almost curiously, and brought one arm down in a casual sweep that forced Samvek to blink out of the way on instinct alone.

  Selena was already moving, reality bending under her will as she again folded space beneath the creature’s feet. For a heartbeat, the ground thinned into something insubstantial, like wet parchment, and the behemoth’s weight drove it downward. This time, the creature emitted a field of gravity that prevented it from sinking any further.

  Then the dungeon reasserted itself, earth snapping back into solidity, and the behemoth surged with renewed power as though offended by the repeated attempt. A gravity pulse rolled out from it, slamming into us like a tidal wave. Selena reacted before I could, altering reality around our protectees so that the gravitational force blasted into the ground instead of pulping flesh and bones. She flew toward me. “I’ve never felt this before, but it’s like when you touched me with your primordial aspect. This… whatever it is… makes me yearn for something I can’t identify.”

  I nodded, but didn’t have time to discuss the matter.

  I pushed back with my aura again, my Trailblazer’s presence flaring as I strained against the oppressive weight. The pressure eased just enough for us to move, but it was obvious this wasn’t a contest of dominance I could win outright. Lexa roared and drove her hands back into the ground, and this time the roots that erupted were as thick as old-growth trees. Once more, the behemoth tore through them without slowing, snapping wood and stone alike as though she’d tried to stop it with thread.

  Oliver shouted something I didn’t catch as his spell collapsed mid-cast, the gravity disrupting his control. He recovered quickly, throwing strength and speed buffs across the group instead, his role crystallizing in the chaos. Clay darted in close, daggers flashing as he tested the behemoth’s hide, and sparks and shards flew where steel met stone. But his blades always skittered off, leaving shallow gouges at best. I felt his frustration spike through the air.

  “Poison,” he called, more to himself than anyone else, already shifting tactics. He began carving shallow lines wherever he could reach, quick and precise, trying to spread venom through a body that dwarfed buildings. It felt futile, but I didn’t stop him. Sometimes attrition was the only path left when brute force failed. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he might have the right approach, but I wasn’t ready to give up on a faster kill. Not yet.

  I tried control again, focusing life force into Numbing Touch and driving it into the behemoth’s flank. My cultivator’s core spun as I pushed the flow of raw life force into it, shaping it to my will. The energy flowed, pressed, then simply dispersed, swallowed by sheer mass and vitality. The creature didn’t even twitch. Its response was a backhand that came down like a falling cliff, forcing me to blink sideways with Here Not Here as the ground where I’d stood cratered inward.

  Samvek kept up the pressure, lightning coiling more tightly around him as he layered Psi-enhanced physicality into every movement. The problem of course was that he would run out of Psi all too quickly. He struck again and again, targeting joints and seams with brutal efficiency, but the behemoth’s durability was absurd. Even when his spear bit deep, the wound closed almost immediately, stone knitting back together under a surge of earthen power. Each successful hit felt like a victory that evaporated seconds later.

  I reshaped Wayfinder into a heavy axe, the haft lengthening and the blade thickening until it felt like a siege weapon in my hands. Lightning crawled along its edge as I charged, driving the axe down into the behemoth’s thigh with everything I had. The impact sent a tremor through my arms and split a plate free, but the damage was shallow compared to the creature’s scale. It answered by stomping, a gravity surge slamming into me hard enough to drive the breath from my lungs despite my defenses. I followed Samvek’s lead and used Physical Enhancement, pouring most of my Psi into it so that my stats doubled, if only for a few seconds. But even those blows weren’t enough.

  For a moment, the battlefield felt completely out of our control. The behemoth dominated space simply by existing, its presence warping gravity, time, and momentum into something hostile and absolute. I could feel Selena straining to keep our allies alive, Samvek pushing himself harder with every exchange, and the others fighting for relevance against a foe that barely acknowledged them. The truth settled in with brutal clarity.

  This wasn’t a fight we could win by overpowering it.

  The behemoth wasn’t a wall to be smashed. It was a force of nature to be redirected, endured, and ultimately undone from within. Even as that thought formed, the creature proved the point by slamming both fists into the ground.

  The impact was apocalyptic. A shockwave ripped outward in a widening ring, flattening everything in its path. Trees folded. Stone towers turned to dust, and the swamp flashed to steam wherever the raw energy surged through it. I projected a series of layered force constructs to shield us, one after another, each shattering on impact but bleeding off enough of the attack’s energy to keep us alive. Even so, Clay and Oliver were hurled through the air until Selena caught them by folding space around them, setting them down gently behind her.

  Samvek took the brief lull after the attack as an opening and hit it with ruthless precision. He warped upward, lightning flaring as he drove his spear down into the behemoth’s shoulder, then twisted space to wrench the weapon free before the creature could react. Gravity spiked suddenly, crushing down on him hard enough that I felt his bones protest through our bond. He snarled and pushed back, Psi and lightning reinforcing his body as he ripped himself free and blinked away at the last possible instant. It still wasn’t enough.

  Selena struck in tandem, reality warping around the behemoth’s upper body. For a heartbeat, its mass didn’t align with itself. Plates slipped out of phase as she tried to tear leverage away from its core. The creature bellowed, a sound so deep it vibrated through my organs, and responded by collapsing gravity inward. The distortion snapped back violently, forcing Selena to retreat as the world reasserted itself around the monster. Their teamwork was impeccable. It was like watching a master class, but sometimes no amount of skill could beat simple mass—if this thing plummeted from space, it would likely cause an extinction event.

  Lexa’s attacks had been muted to this point, so I pulled a sword out of Save for Winter. Dagen’s Sword of Sharpness had upgraded from rare to epic tier, and was now a truly terrifying weapon. I tossed it to her and she charged forward, the blade held high in her hands. It wasn’t the usual weapon I’d expect to see a treant wielding, but Dagen’s blade hummed with supernatural sharpness as she drove it into the behemoth’s ankle. The weapon bit deeper than anything else had yet, carving a glowing furrow through stone and bark that oozed blood akin to molten light. The behemoth reacted violently, dragging its leg back and kicking with a roar nearing the very bottom of the frequencies I could hear. The force launched Lexa across the battlefield, until I caught her with a force net and eased her descent.

  Clay committed fully to his strategy then. He vanished into motion, darting along the behemoth’s legs and lower torso, carving shallow but countless cuts wherever he could reach. Poison bled into those wounds, seeping inward drop by drop, a patient and relentless attack against a body that shrugged off everything else. I could feel the effect taking root—not damage exactly, but irritation, the monster’s regeneration stuttering in tiny, almost imperceptible ways.

  It was past time to escalate. All I needed to do was slow it to the point where we could take our time and focus on our attacks. I had just the ticket. Mana Body surged outward, my form ballooning until I towered over two hundred feet tall, lightning and force weaving into a colossal frame that was still a head shorter than the beast I was facing. I wrapped both arms around the behemoth’s torso and heaved, muscles and magic screaming as I forced it off balance. For a moment, impossibly, I had the leverage, the creature tipping backward as the ground buckled beneath its weight.

  But gravity would have its say.

  The pulse slammed into me like the fist of a god. My Mana Body collapsed inward in a cascade of shattered constructs and tearing energy. I was thrown clear, my vision flashing white as I crashed back into my own body, pain blooming everywhere at once. Selena caught me before I hit, bending reality just enough to keep my spine from snapping.

  I didn’t have time to recover before the behemoth pressed the advantage. It leaned forward, crystal growths along its chest flaring as it unleashed a wave of primordial force that tore through the battlefield. Oliver barely managed to keep his buffs active as he fled upward, while Samvek and Selena split in opposite directions, each barely avoiding annihilation.

  Primordial Surge tore from me in answer, elemental fury slamming into the behemoth in a storm of lightning, ice, and raw force. The attack would have obliterated a city, but the behemoth absorbed it, wounds sealing even as they formed, its vitality roaring back unchecked. Blood is Life whispered the truth I’d been refusing to hear. I’d been told once that our core abilities eventually became almost alive, and I was hearing it now.

  You can’t kill it from the outside.

  The thought was both terrifying and clarifying. As the behemoth raised its arms for another devastating strike, I stopped thinking about cutting it down and started thinking about getting inside. The moment that decision locked in, everything else fell away.

  If I was going to do this, I was going to go all in.

  I Spirit Walked forward, slipping out of phase as the behemoth’s arm came down like a falling mountain. The strike passed through me with a pressure that still made my vision ripple, and then I was moving into the creature, my awareness threading between layers of stone, bark, and crystallized vitality. Even in this form, I could feel the pressure of its aura, but I was a trailblazer. No, I was the Trailblazer, capital ‘T’. I would not be denied. I was going where I was certain no man had gone before.

  The inside of the behemoth was hell.

  Gravity twisted in impossible directions, crushing inward from every side, and the pressure was so intense that my force constructs screamed as they struggled to hold my body together. I phased back to my solid form a split second too soon and felt ribs crack, blood bursting from my mouth as the monster’s internal density tried to pulp me outright. I slammed every ounce of focus I had into reinforcing myself. Force lattices locked around organs, bones, and spine just to keep me alive.

  I found the heart by feel rather than sight.

  It wasn’t a single organ so much as a nexus, a pulsing mass where earth, gravity, and raw primal vitality converged into something like a core. Each beat sent shockwaves through the creature, and every pulse tried to tear me apart. I wrapped one arm around it, anchoring myself, and felt Blood is Life flare with savage urgency.

  This was the only way.

  I tore into my own arm with my teeth, ignoring the pain as blood flooded free, already glowing with layered power. I drove my forearm into the heart’s surface and released Self-Propagation without an ounce of restraint. When I’d first received this ability, the system had warned me against misusing it, but the Heavens had no say here. Not in this dungeon. Not in this abomination. I was going to roll the dice. My blood invaded, threading into the behemoth’s internal pathways like wildfire through dry brush.

  The reaction was immediate and violent.

  The behemoth convulsed, its roar shaking the entire floor as conflicting instructions ripped through its body. With my blood came an adapted version of Night’s Fall, reshaped by the design of an Architect, the blood of a man destined for ascension, and a soul linked to a primordial aspect. Regeneration stuttered, gravity pulses misfired, and the crushing pressure around me wavered just long enough for me to snag a breath.

  Outside, it felt like all hell was breaking loose.

  I recognized Samvek hitting it with everything he had. Lightning and Psi crashed down in relentless waves as the monster staggered. Selena folded reality again and again, forcing its limbs to miss, its footing to fail, buying me seconds of time. Clay’s poison finally reached critical saturation now that I had shut off the behemoth’s regeneration. The thousand cuts that peppered its skin turned systemic as the beast’s internal chemistry fell apart. Lexa hacked deeper with Dagen’s blade, carving glowing channels that didn’t instantly close as they had before.

  Inside, I pushed harder.

  Blood flooded out of me, Vitae and life force burning as they rewrote pathways that had never been meant to hold anything but primordial order. I screamed with the effort, forcing my will through the connection until the heart began to slow. Each beat came weaker than the last, and with every falter, the pressure around me eased. I used everything I had at my disposal, as though I were a virus intent on rewriting this monster’s existence.

  The behemoth collapsed.

  I felt it fall before I felt it die, its massive body slamming into the ground with a force that rippled for miles. Inside, the heart finally tore itself apart, unable to reconcile what it had become. I couldn’t use Spirit Walk quite this soon, but I had other options. I activated the Toe Ring of the Phased Step, passing through the gray and decaying flesh that was breaking down around me and out into the light.

  I hit the ground hard, rolling across shattered stone and steaming mud, my body screaming in protest as I forced myself upright. Blood ran freely from half a dozen wounds across my body, but the behemoth was barely recognizable, its vast form already being reclaimed by the dungeon in slow, deliberate waves.

  Silence followed, thick and heavy. I sat down, resting my bleeding arms across my knees.

  Samvek was the first to reach me, lightning still crackling faintly along his skin as he grabbed my shoulder. Selena was there an instant later, hands already glowing as she assessed damage with a nurse’s efficiency. I waved them off weakly, breathing hard but grinning despite the pain.

  “That,” I rasped, “was decidedly not level appropriate.”

  All other thoughts were driven from my mind as a loot chest fit for a behemoth appeared where the beast had fallen.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Behemoth’s Treasure

  I stood up once I had regenerated enough to feel a little more like myself again. My breathing was still hard and my heart pounded, adrenaline singing through my veins. I could feel the dungeon recalibrating again, already preparing whatever came next even as it absorbed the last of the behemoth’s remains.

  The loot box made me feel much better, though. The rest of the team landed around me with eager expressions—when it comes to loot, everybody loves large chests. I offered to let Clay open it, but Selena wouldn’t have it. “Nope. You’re opening it.”

  “You won’t get an argument from me. But out of curiosity, why?”

  She stepped up next to me. Her voice was soft, although I expected everyone here had the Perception stat necessary to hear the words she practically purred—the girl liked her treasure, I’d give her that. “Because only one of us is a Forerunner with a looting ability that automatically upgrades low-tier loot and has a reasonable chance of upgrading even higher-tier loot, not to mention the upgrades to consumables.”

  “Good point. But it feels wrong to be the one to open all the loot boxes. Besides, we don’t know if my ability affects the box, or if the loot has already been determined when the chest was created.”

  “Right, but that’s one large chest, and if there is even a chance that you can increase the yield, I don’t know why we would do it any other way.”

  I wasn’t going to debate it any further. She was probably right. I reached out and laid a hand on the chest. As soon as I did, I got a notification.

  For repeatedly looting corpses and now a loot chest within a dungeon of another system connected to you, your loot ability has been upgraded.

  Loot—Pelt Skinner, Final Blow (Epic 53%) >> Legendary 1%

  Three variants exist for the upgrade. All versions will maintain the bonus to loot whenever you land the final blow on a target.

  Loot—McScrooge: All your loot will have dramatically increased monetary value. The probability of obtaining credits or other negotiable valuables at the conclusion of battle will increase significantly. This includes property deeds and merchandising contracts.

  Loot—Crafter: you will have a significantly increased chance of looting crafting materials, multiplied by a factor concurrent with ability tier. All crafting materials received will be at minimum rare tier, with the average being epic tier. There will be a 20% chance that epic-tier crafting loot is upgraded to legendary and a 2% chance it will be upgraded to ascendant tier. Note: this ability does not convey the skill necessary to craft with high-tier materials.