The death tyrant examined its playing field. The upper half of the giant skeleton's body poked out from the hole in the ground. Just its upper body was over forty feet tall, towering over Vivi. The weight of its limbs would be enough to crush a building.

And that was without considering the tens of thousands of ether empowering its bones.

Lucius returned to Vivi's core and flooded ether back to her muscles. Her sixth sense returned, and she suddenly had the urge to puke. Suffocating ether filled the air all around her. Every petrified face on the walls carried thousands of ether, as if each one of them was a monster.

The boss itself was colossal. Standing next to it, Vivi felt like she was faced with an impending natural disaster. The boss's ether wasn't hostile like the other monsters'. Rather, the death tyrant was like an ancient behemoth awoken from a slumber. Vivi couldn't have guessed how many thousands of wisps the boss carried in total.

"Vivi, watch out!" Lucius called. "Run!"

The boss slammed down its open palm at Vivi, as if swatting at an insect. The attack wasn't fast. Vivi ran to the side and avoided a direct blow. A shockwave erupted from the impact, and the ground beneath Vivi cracked. She was sent sprawling.

"Up, up!" Lucius shouted. He filled her being with ether, flooding her with as much as he could.

Vivi pushed herself up. She glanced to her side and met the boss's empty-eye holes. Large wisps of ether rose from the blackness within. Vivi didn't see thoughts in its head as she had with the Twilight Shaman. The death tyrant was closer to a thoughtless colossus.

Aang had run to the left to avoid the first attack. They were separated. Aang had Abyss Destroyer, and Vivi had her two-runed back-up sword.

She gritted her teeth, thinking of strategies. She was positive that a clean hit with her runeswords would cause damage. The boss was colossal, but it wasn't invincible. Vivi's runeswords were built to counter skeletons and bones.

Landing a hit would be a bigger problem. The hole in the ground was like a moat that protected the monster from attacks. Vivi would have to run and jump for her to even reach the boss's ribcage.

She could throw her sword, but what if she didn't kill it in one hit? Retrieving the sword would be close to impossible.

"Wait for it to hit you, then attack its hands," Lucius said. "We can brace the shockwave if we focus."

Vivi nodded. Hitting its hands was their only option for now.

On the opposite end of the room, the boss slammed a fist at Aang. He dodged, then turned around with a similar idea, raising his sword to slash the boss's hand in half.

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The ground cracked underneath his feet, making him lose his stance. Another shockwave erupted, knocking Aang back with force. He landed on the wall, hitting one of the creepy faces directly. It was one of the scarier demons with long horns and a muscular jaw. The face's red eyes looked down at Aang. It looked pissed.

The wall around the face cracked, then crumbled. The demonic face turned skeletal. It grew legs and arms. The face popped out of the wall. It bore no weapons, but its knuckles glowed bright with pressurized ether. A punch would hurt.

Behind Vivi, crackling sounds came from the walls. More faces were forming into skeletons. She clicked her tongue. As she had feared, every face in the walls was a monster, and there were hundreds of them.

The death tyrant swung down at Vivi. She jumped out of the way, bracing the shockwave with her feet. Four skeletons were already reanimated near her. One by one, the faces turned to monsters.

"Kill the skeletons before we're overwhelmed!" Lucius called.

A jab was thrown at Vivi from behind. She sensed the wisps of ether and leaned her head to the left, dodging. She swiped from below.

The skeleton jumped back and joined up with two of its allies. More were being reanimated behind them. Across the arena, dozens were spawning. The faces near the ceiling were being reanimated into flying skulls.

Vivi gritted her teeth and attacked the three nearest skeletons. She slashed wide. The rightmost skeleton blocked with its fist, hitting Vivi's blade straight on.

For a moment, the skeleton's fist held, stopping Vivi's attack. Then a crack sounded, and Vivi's runesword cut through. Her sword was stronger than her opponent's defense. Just barely.

The two other skeletons attempted to counterattack. Vivi growled, meeting the fist with a claw-swipe.

The fist won, hitting straight through Lucius's claws. She was blown backward. Her body dragged across the ground, stopping inches from the moat before the boss. Her vision spun, eyes dizzy.

"Vivi, get up! It's attacking!" Lucius shouted. He pushed hundreds of wisps into her head, forcing her awake.

Vivi blinked. Above her, the boss was raising its fists, its black eyes staring at Vivi. Five flying skulls and a giant bony hand descended at her.

Vivi jolted to her feet and ran left parallel to the hole in the ground—the only spot in the arena that wasn't filled with enemies. The boss's fist crushed the spot where she'd just stood, crumbling the platform. Vivi scrambled to stay afoot.

On the opposite end, Aang barely kept up. He destroyed skeletons with Abyss Destroyer's void, but even he was being overrun.

Adrenaline and ether filled Vivi's thoughts as she slashed at an approaching skeleton. The arena filled up with more and more of them. The boss had crushed a few with its fist, and Vivi had killed one. During that time, more than twenty had reanimated.

Vivi knew that if this went on for much longer, they'd lose. She had to do something.

She killed one more skeleton, then decided to take a risk. She took aim and threw the sword at the boss's eyeholes.

The throw was perfect. Her runesword left behind a trail of light as it flew straight through the black eye socket, eventually crashing against the inside of the boss's head.

A cavernous roar echoed from the boss. It held a hand over its eyes, screeching in pain. It flailed around aimlessly—dangerously. Its head crashed against the wall, shaking the entire arena. Stone particles fell from the ceiling.

But the boss didn't die. It grabbed a part of the ground with its free hand, ripping a slab of bricks from the ground. It threw the bricks at Vivi.

Tens of skeletons surrounded her position, forcing her to the moat before the boss. There was nowhere to dodge.

In a split-second decision, Vivi took one running step and jumped over the hole. She summoned her hammer and smashed it against the boss's ribs.

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