Jack took a step back, his fingers tightening around the shaft of his spear. The weapon had served him well so far, but as he gazed up at the writhing, pulsating horror that was the Charnel Colossus, doubt crept into his mind. The spear was a weapon meant for precision, for striking at vital points—he had used it to pierce hearts, sever tendons, and exploit openings. But there were no vital points on that thing. No tendons to cut. No organs to puncture. It was an unholy fusion of death and malice, an entity beyond the reach of his spear.

  The others were still struggling. Ly stood amidst the carnage, the glow of her staff barely pushing back the sickly aura emanating from the abomination. Her voice rang out in rhythmic incantations, Witchfire surging forth like arcs of lightning, striking the Colossus’s amalgamated flesh. Each spell burned through a portion of its countless corpses, but for every body that crumbled to dust, dozens more shifted to repce it. The Colossus did not suffer like a living thing—it merely adapted, reforming, its mass inexhaustible.

  The wolves were a blur of motion, their furred bodies weaving between the thing’s unnatural tendrils, snapping and tearing at the grasping limbs that sought to consume them. Teeth met flesh—if such a thing could even be called flesh—but for every bite they nded, a tendril shed out in retaliation, striking with the force of falling stone.

  Goldeyes, the rger of the two, lunged for what might have once been a head, sinking his fangs into a half-rotted skull. A surge of green energy pulsed outward, sending the beast flying back, his yelp of pain mixing with the Colossus’s guttural moan. But even as he hit the ground, the white wolf pushed himself back up, eyes burning with spectral fury.

  Cael darted through the fray, sshing with his dagger at any tendril or limb that drew too close. He was a flurry of motion, his poisoned bde making short work of anything it touched. The rotting bodies bckened and withered instantly under his strikes, shriveling away into nothing. But the Colossus did not slow. It was too vast, too many bodies held together by necrotic will. The dagger was death incarnate to anything it struck, but against this horror, it was like cutting individual grains from a mountain of sand. The enchanted poison in Cael’sweapon was effective against individual bodies within the creature, but it did little to the whole. The Colossus merely shifted, absorbing the loss, reforming itself as though his strikes were little more than a nuisance.

  Jack’s mind raced. There had to be another way. Something he could do.

  And then his gaze found the elf.

  [Name: Faraun Aguir

  Race: Arcane Elf

  Level: 18

  Health: Blocked

  Mana: Blocked

  Stamina: Blocked

  Skills: Blocked

  Attunements: Blocked

  Abilities: Elven Grace, Mana Sight

  Description: Arcane Elves are known for their mastery of magic and their deep connection to the arcane energies that permeate their world. They possess a natural affinity for spellcasting and often excel in various magical disciplines, from elemental manipution to necromantic arts. They receive 2 free points as well as +2 to Wisdom and Intelligence per level. Arcane Elves are typically characterized by their pointed ears, white hair, and graceful demeanor.]

  The name sounded familiar to Jack although that thought was quickly overtaken by the revetion that Faraun had some way to at least partially block his status. The necromancer stood apart from the chaos, his bck eyes gleaming with satisfaction as he observed the unfolding carnage. He was untouched, unbothered—smug in the knowledge that his masterpiece of undeath would soon finish the battle for him. His robes were pristine, his posture rexed, his hands loosely at his sides. Jack knew better than to believe he was defenseless.

  But he was flesh and blood.

  Jack turned away from the Colossus and sprinted toward the necromancer.

  The battlefield was a war zone of shifting corpses and shing limbs. A tendril of sinew and bone whipped toward him, nearly catching his leg. He twisted mid-step, leaping over it, rolling as he hit the ground. Another strike came, this time from a decayed hand that shot out from the Colossus’s shifting mass, fingers elongated into cws. He barely avoided it, feeling the air shudder as the cws carved through the space where his head had been moments before.

  Faraun noticed him now. The elf’s expression darkened slightly, his amusement giving way to calcution. He raised a hand, his fingers weaving a silent command. The Colossus reacted instantly. A wall of grasping, writhing limbs burst from its shifting mass, blocking Jack’s path. He skidded to a halt, cursing.

  He had to get past. He couldn’t fight this thing head-on, not with a spear. He needed to reach the summoner.

  Jack’s eyes flicked to Cael, who was still engaged with the creature, his bde fshing as he cut away more of its rotting mass.

  “Cael!” Jack shouted. “Cover me!”

  Cael didn’t hesitate. With a sharp twist, he drove his dagger deep into one of the Colossus’s many limbs, the bde sinking to the hilt. The poison spread instantly, causing the surrounding flesh to bcken and wither. The monster reacted violently, recoiling with an ear-splitting wail. The limbs blocking Jack’s path momentarily twisted away, shifting toward Cael in retaliation.

  Jack saw his chance and took it.

  He dashed forward, ducking low, weaving through the gaps left by the writhing mass. The Colossus was already reorienting itself, its countless dead faces turning in his direction, but it was too slow. Jack closed the distance to his enemy in seconds.

  As he sprinted towards the necromancer, Jack lowered his spear. The smug elf’s smirk vanished as he saw the warrior charging, and in an instant, his hands wove through the air, fingers tracing dark sigils. The ground around him pulsed with malevolent energy as a dome of sickly green light materialized around him, solidifying into an impenetrable barrier just as Jack’s spear struck.

  The force of the blow sent sparks dancing across the barrier, but it held firm. Jack gritted his teeth and struck again, his spearpoint scraping uselessly against the necrotic shield. Inside, Faraun merely raised an eyebrow.

  “Predictable,” he murmured.

  With a single gesture, he twisted his fingers into a cw, and a pulse of dark energy surged outward. From the dome’s surface, streaks of green light shot forth, ncing toward Jack like vengeful spirits. He barely had time to move, twisting his body as the first ray seared past his shoulder, leaving a burning sensation in its wake. Another grazed his thigh, sending a spike of pain up his leg. He growled, forcing himself forward, zigzagging in erratic patterns to avoid the onsught.

  Faraun didn’t stop. The air became a storm of emerald death, each ray fired with precise, calcuted malice. Jack rolled under one bst, narrowly avoiding another as he closed the distance. The necromancer’s expression remained cold, unbothered, as if he were merely entertaining himself.

  “Charging headlong like a beast,” Faraun mused, watching Jack close in. “No finesse, no strategy. How disappointing.”

  Jack ignored the taunt, his mind focused solely on closing the gap. His spear was useless against the shield, but he refused to be deterred. There had to be a weakness—every defense had a limit, and every spell had a fw. He just needed to find it before Faraun tore him apart.

  The necromancer’s fingers wove another intricate gesture in the air, his lips forming an incantation too quiet for Jack to hear. The ground beneath Jack’s feet shuddered. A pulse of bck energy rippled out from where Faraun stood, spreading like cracks through the battlefield. Jack barely had a moment to react before the earth beneath him convulsed.

  A dozen tendrils of gray, necrotic flesh erupted from the ground.

  They surged upward like serpents, writhing with sickly life. The tendrils were not part of the Charnel Colossus—this was something different, something born directly from Faraun’s magic. They moved with deadly precision, aiming for Jack’s limbs, his throat, his weapon.

  He sshed at the first that came for him, his spear’s bde cleaving through the rotting appendage, sending a spray of dark ichor into the air. But it wasn’t enough. For every tendril he cut down, another took its pce. They coiled around him, grasping at his arms, his legs, his torso. He tried to twist free, but the grip was ironcd, impossibly strong for something made of rotting flesh.

  His arms were forced to his sides. His spear was wrenched from his grasp, cttering to the ground just beyond his reach.

  Jack struggled, but the tendrils only tightened, wrapping around his chest and forcing the air from his lungs. The necrotic magic pulsed through them, and an unnatural cold seeped into his skin, numbing his muscles, dulling his thoughts. It was not merely a physical restraint—it was draining him, siphoning his strength away little by little.

  Faraun tilted his head, watching as Jack’s struggle slowed.

  “You should have stayed with your friends,” the elf said, his voice ced with condescension. “But heroes are always so eager to die alone.”

  Jack snarled, still straining against the tendrils, but they only tightened further, locking him in pce. The battlefield raged around them—the Colossus still cshed with the others, Ly’s spells crackling through the air, the wolves snarling as they tore into rotting flesh, Cael’s dagger fshing as he danced between attacks.

  And yet, in this moment, Jack was helpless.

  Trapped.

  At Faraun’s mercy.