(26) Mephelgor

Tara stared at the inferno in a strange state of hypnosis. It was mesmerizing, its destructive power awe-inspiring. It seemed to draw the mind in, enrapture it with cosmic mystery—

Snap.

Hannibal snapped his fingers in front of her face, and Tara jerked out of her reverie. She blinked several times, staring at him as he relaxed back onto the banister.

“Do not stare. The Flame of Perdition is an indiscriminate hunter. It recognizes neither friend nor foe. All are prey equally,” he said, gazing at the inferno fondly, as if recognizing an old friend.

“The magic has a mind component. It intoxicates like a drug. The effect worsens the longer one stares,” Nephthys explained dryly. She must have seen Hannibal’s face fall, as she quickly amended the explanation. “And it is a living hunter…or whatever.”

Tara resisted the hysteria that threatened her mind. She was watching hundreds, maybe thousands, of monsters beyond a level she ever expected to reach be scoured from the world by flames. Fire monsters—destroyed by flames! Yet here they were, having a relaxed conversation, poking fun at the potent magic.

Yet, no matter how many times she pinched herself, she did not wake from this absurd dream.

Vrump!

Tara jumped back instinctively as Leonidas appeared near the doorway, kneeling with his head down. Had he teleported? How did he appear so quickly? He was just out maintaining the—

Tara looked out to the Crater, but there was no trace of the blue flame, though the land would remember its heat for many years. There was a five-sided glass shape scorched into the ground, the dry volcanic stone fused from the torching it had suffered.

“It is complete, my lady. The others clean up the remnants even as we speak,” Leonidas said, his voice like stones grinding together.

Strangely, Nephthys did not respond, not even glancing in his direction. She stared out at the Crater, her arms crossed before her. Attention in the room gradually shifted to her as everyone realized that she was focused intently on something.

“The commotion seems to have awakened him,” she mused, likely thinking aloud.

“Awakened who, my lady?” Ramose asked, striding up to stand next to her, staring into the Crater.

“Mephelgor,” she replied simply.

The energy in the room changed instantly. Hannibal stood straight, his posture tight, nodding to Ramose, who nodded back. He looked over to Leonidas, who immediately stood, thumping a fist to his chest.

“Lock the guild down. Pull everyone back and activate all defenses. Ramose and I will have to handle him. Do not leave—” Hannibal started, but Ramose’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.

Hannibal looked back to find Ramose staring out at the crater, at Nephthys. She floated over the railing, phasing through some invisible barrier that rippled with her passing. She floated out into the Crater, alone, her arms still crossed before her.

Ramose and Hannibal, once again, traded nods.

“Raise security to its highest level. Get all of our forces inside and remain there. Do not interfere. Do not get in our lady’s way,” Hannibal instructed.

Leonidas thumped his chest and vanished faster than Tara could perceive. Ramose and Hannibal stood side-by-side in front of the railing, both with arms crossed, staring out into the Crater, as if in anticipation.

“What’s going on? Who is Mephelgor?” Tara asked, approaching them.

Just as she asked, Tara noticed a rumble in her soles. It was deep, powerful. It traveled up her legs and rattled her organs, shook her brain in her skull. Colossal fissures burst, ejecting steam out in the Crater. The ground ballooned before bursting, ejecting streams of lava into the air.

“He is one of the most powerful creatures we have ever discovered. Entire armies once gathered to slay him. None succeeded,” Hannibal explained, his eyes sharp, focused intently.

“Why is she going out alone, then? What are we going to do?!” Tara yelled, heat rising in her chest and searing her mind nearly blank.

Ramose glanced at her and, noticing her rising panic, placed a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face the Crater.

“We are going to witness,” he said.

“Witness? Witness what? Her death? Why are you not worried?! Entire armies failed to defeat the thing!” Tara shouted, her hands beginning to tremble.

“I said no army has ever defeated him. I did not say he has never been defeated,” Hannibal clarified calmly, not even glancing in her direction.

Tara looked between the two, her anxiety starting to diffuse from their nonchalance, settling into confusion.

“Did you think my lady’s titles mere ceremony? What we will witness is not a battle, but divine judgement, a god made flesh: the Starfall Queen—nay, Starfall Goddess,” Ramose declared, holding his fist up, his eyes practically glowing.

“Now, witness,” he instructed, turning back to the Crater.

Titanic hands of black stone smashed through the ground, emerging from it like breaching the surface of water. They were hundreds of feet long each, and at least a hundred wide at the forearms. They were rugged and rough, covered in bumps, ridges, and cracks. The cracks glowed from the magma flowing beneath, as if its blood.

The arms smashed down onto the ground, using the leverage to hoist an equally enormous body from the ground. A bulbous torso of the same craggy, molten rock emerged, shaped like a predatory cat, if its entire body was made of craggy muscle.

There was a hole in the creature’s midsection, from which lava flowed freely. The interior of the hole was filled with swirling, deep-red magma. The head. atop broad shoulders. was like a flower, three ‘petals’ opening to reveal rows of red teeth that glowed with an internal light. Its throat was lit, hinting at the magma likely waiting to erupt.

The creature roared, and Tara covered her ears; the sound was so loud, it felt like it was going to knock her off her feet.

Was this a battle she could even survive witnessing?

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Mephelgor bellowed, sending flaming bits of molten rock from its maw, which cratered the ground where they landed. It surveyed its surroundings, spinning around before noticing a small figure slowly and casually approaching.

“I would advise that you go back to sleep,” it said, somehow its voice so tiny, yet reverberating around the space.

Mephelgor roared once again, swinging a great mitt faster than most could perceive. The figure vanished, but was not thrown aside by the paw. It appeared before Mephelgor’s face, staring into its molten red eyes, each larger than its entire body.

“Final warning,” it said.

Slam!

Mephelgor clapped its hands together, thinking to crush the bug into paste. Yet when it opened them, the bug was not there.

It turned, feeling a colossal gathering of mana. The bug was there, surrounded by a swirling whirlpool, riding atop it. Mephelgor made to roar once more, but before it could get any sound out, the water leapt into its mouth, drowning its internal heat, snuffing it.

Mephelgor recoiled, steam billowing from its cooled body. It worked to stir the fire within it and stoke it back to temperature.

Shink!

One of its arms dropped from its body, smashing the ground and shattering like glass. The bug was there, a gargantuan blade of ice extending from its hand.

Mephelgor roared.

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Cool its body. It will become brittle. Remove its arms, one at a time.

Nephthys’s mind was clear, no thoughts but the pattern of Mephelgor’s boss fight running through her head. He was a world boss that spawned at a preset time, though in-game lore said that he awoke ‘during periods of peak volcanic activity’. He was meant to be a raid boss, yet none had defeated him.

None save Nephthys.

Slap from the remaining hand: not threatening.

Mephelgor’s titanic paw slapped her, but it passed straight through her body, as if it were not there. Nephthys phased back into reality and blinked to his other arm, slicing it off at the joint as well. He roared once again, and she backed off to await her moment.

This phase was not threatening so long as one could tolerate the heat. Many raiding parties made it past without much trouble. It was the next bit that was tricky.

Mephelgor sucked in air through its flower-like mouth, preparing to launch a magma breath that would cover the entire area in molten debris. This was the moment she was waiting for.

Mana concentrated in her closed palm, and a symphony of music filled her mind. Denser, denser, and denser, the mana built until the air around her hand began to vibrate. She thrust forward, and the tiniest spike of ice shot from it like a bullet, piercing into Mephelgor’s central magma core.