Turning your body into metal was, shockingly, not a comfortable process.

Refine it.

Within Zoey's body, the wispy spider-web tendrils glowed orange, molten metal scorching her insides.

Bear it.

Zoey could see Rory slipping, losing ground faster and faster.

Almost there.

The spider-webs of molten metal within her body were almost all encompassing, a framework for the forceful skill evolution.

Just a bit…. There!

Like a puzzle piece snapping into place, Zoey felt it as her interface flickered open.

Skill Modification successful:

Crystal Skin and Earth Soul merged. New skill obtained.

 

Sword-Steel Skin

Rarity: Aberrent

Taking the conceptual understanding and manifestation of raw durability and fusing it with nonabstract earth-aligned elements, one has formed the basis of a truly peerless defense. While peerless in defensive capabilities, the forceful alteration of flesh and bone may result in extreme pain.

Gritting her teeth just in time, it took everything Zoey had to hold back the scream of pain that threatened to escape, her body in agony she'd never felt before. Given her pain tolerance, that was saying a lot.

I will not break!

The words, her steely resolve, seemed to hold back the tide as that same agony transformed her body. Skin, muscles, and bones were drenched and submerged within molten metal that she had indwelled within herself. Yet her resolve refused to wane.

Crystal skin was merely an outer manifestation of a concept, enhancing her durability further, but this was a step beyond. For years, she had been breaking down the Earth Soul skill, gaining a deeper understanding of it, and mentally attempting to reshape it. She had well understood that she simply wasn't the wizard-ing type; she'd likely never be tossing around meteors like Rory. The difficulty lay in that her attempts at reshaping a skill that she'd already 'absorbed' had never been done before. Rory's work on the skill had been through the Skill Slate, but what she was doing was purely from innate feeling and whatever understanding she could grasp.

Through that, she had realized that there existed a possibility between her already existing Crystal Skin skill, and it. Yet, it wasn't as simple as clicking two pieces of a puzzle together. She had to chisel it out from rock, forcing two barely compatible skills to interact in a way they were never intended to.

But she had succeeded, the agony in her body living proof. The more it hurt, the more it proved she had succeeded.

Galvanizing her, the thought quenched the burning metal as she rose to her feet, examining her hands. There was an ever-so-slight blue hue to the otherwise steely complexion of her metal skin. Giving her forearm a quick knock with her knuckles, she noted the metallic clang, and yet her skin still seemed supple enough to flex and move without much issue.

Sure, each shift of her skin caused a ripple of pain through her body, but it was something she could, would, withstand.

"Zoey?" Rory shouted from where he was fighting to Queen, a clear look of building stress on his face. "I need to know, do we try to run or fight?"

Zoey smiled to herself before charging forward as fast as she could, sword-steel skin preventing her from inverting her attributes.

"Oh, stop blubbering, you baby," Zoey finally said as she rushed past Rory to rejoin the fray. As she shot past, she didn't miss the momentary look of surprise on his face. In his eyes, the metal skin had come from nowhere. She'd made no mention of her 'project' over the last few years.

The Queen likewise seemed somewhat surprised to see her, the fact that she was even alive taking her momentarily off guard.

That moment was short-lived, though, as several vortex lances spun up and shot forward, slamming into her.

"Hah!" Zoey laughed, giddy even through the pain of her skill. "Is that the best you've got?"

Between her promethium armor, her natural durability, and the sword-steel skin, the vortex lance felt like little more than hammers hitting her. While being hit by a hammer was still far from pleasant, it was a long shot from what the vortex lances had been like before her newest skill.

Her fist shot forward, connecting with a satisfying crunch as she struck the pliosaur monster straight in the nose. In reality, the strike had next to no effect, but it was still viscerally satisfying for her.

Having rejoined the fray, the tide of the battle shifted. Now with Zoey leading the charge and the golems as nothing more than accessory combatants, Rory was able to once more turn back onto the offense. Her taunt skill, which had been rather hit or miss in terms of success rate over the last few years, finally seemed to work flawlessly, as if her metal visage empowered the effect.

Bolts of lightning and freakishly sharp stalagmites began to erupt throughout the battlefield, Rory increasing his pace with no holds barred. Occasionally, an extra glow-y spear would appear before slamming downward like an angry god's judgment. The magma veins within the Queen were continuously widening as it tried to reach Rory, only to be thwarted by Zoey or the golems. As fast as it was, it had been unable to recreate the explosive sprint it had shown off earlier, meaning that it must have been a one-time sort of skill. Between her float gems, taunt skill, and Rory's own wise decision to keep his distance, the Queen was unable to chase down the foe that was causing it to weep fiery blood from an ever-growing number of wounds.

We're doing it!

The Queen was mighty, but having lost a significant portion of her power by the Oblivion Chain, she wasn't outside their range to beat, not when it was two founders working together.

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The only uncertainty was whatever came next; neither Zoey nor Rory believed she would be a simple 'one-phase' type of monster.

Something they felt even more certain of as the magma veins widened even further, her body now looking as if it were on the verge of falling apart like a quilted blanket with its stitching worn down.

At last, their answer came when an arrow shot forward from Rory, tipped with a blood-red crystal, and slammed straight through its jaw as it roared in pain. With the arrow having apparently crossed some sort of 'threshold,' the monster shuddered as its body fell apart, the magma veins splitting wide open.

Except, rather than a poorly stitched puppet falling apart, it was more like when the outer layer of a spider's exoskeleton was shed, revealing the monster re-emerging. The main difference was that, rather than resembling a pliosaur of craggy stone and scale, it now bore a closer resemblance to an elemental, its body almost pure magma with obsidian patches scattered here and there.

"Hey, it's like those cherufe from an earlier floor!" Zoey said, pointing out the obvious.

"Yeah, noticed," Rory shouted back before the battle began anew.

Throwing herself into the melee with the Queen, the first thing that Zoey noticed was that it was hot, with a capital H. The heat was intense, in fact, so fierce that she knew she had to warn Rory.

"Don't let it get close to you; its passive heat alone might cause serious damage even with just a few seconds."

"Noted."

Slamming her shield into its face, Zoey frowned. She realized she was contributing barely any of their overall damage profile, which itself wasn't a new revelation. Yet, what was odd was the way its body seemed to absorb the blow, flowing around the strike; the entire thing seemed off.

"It's immune to physical damage, or maybe damage in general!"

The two of them had spent enough time upon Aelia that they understood that the odds of total immunity were slim to none. Still, it didn't change the fact that even the bolts of lightning that zapped into the Queen seemed to cause no damage.

Problematic.

Yet Zoey found herself smirking slightly, even faced with the problem.

It's times like these that I'm thankful I'm not the brain of the operation.

Well, that's a problem.

Rory was wearing a frown as he continued to bombard the Queen with as many attacks as he could. Now that Zoey had rejoined the fray, his life was far simpler; the Queen was too distracted to deal with him. Or that had been the case, but the fact that it was completely eating up every one of their attacks without a single hint of pain said that things had changed.

For now, it was still preoccupied with Zoey. Still, if her taunt skill wore off, or if it simply got tired of dealing with her, it would turn to Rory. And unlike Lady Liberty over there, Rory highly doubted his heat resistance capabilities.

What's changed?

Slowing his rate of attack, two of his three mental threads turned to searching the battleground for anything different, if perhaps something new had sprung up.

Something…. something…. oh, that's something.

As he pushed her perception around, Rory noticed what seemed to be several outcroppings. That in itself wasn't all that strange; it was that they were fresh, as if they had grown from the earth only moments prior.

Also, they were absolutely bleeding heat. The only reason it wasn't more noticeable was that they were fighting in a weirdly tropical magma cavern against a magma monster; there was already a considerable amount of heat.

Oh. Ohhhhh.

Two-for-one, it was a domain-type skill. The reason they couldn't 'damage' the Queen must have been that they weren't attacking her real body. Somehow, she had seeded her physical body as anchors for a domain skill that seemed to be passively heating the area, which would wear them down over time while increasing its own strength.

Tricky, tricky, Ms. Pliosaur.

Exchanging his current weapon for his staff, he pointed it toward where he could sense the nearest outcropping, a four-foot-tall pillar of stone. Above it, a golden circle flickered to life, as an oversized boulder began to form until a dragon-head meteor was poised to descend.

Flicking his wrist downward, Dragon's Fall descended, crashing upon the pillar.

For the first time since the magma form of the Queen had appeared, it cried out in pain in synch with the pillar destroyed.

"Figured it out!" Rory shouted.

"Great, keep doing… that, or whatever you figured out!" Zoey shouted back before being slammed into the ground with the force of a derailed freight train crash.

Oh, that looked like it hurt.

Ignoring his partner, who was being abused like a chew toy against an over-stimulated dog, Rory fixated on the next pillar, frowning.

Oh. Damn. Looks like each broken pillar reinforces the others.

The next pillar was eight fall tall and twice as thick, and it wasn't alone; all of the seven remaining pillars were equally enlarged.

Zoey really isn't going to like this.

"So, uh, keep it busy!" Rory shouted as he sprinted toward the next pillar. While Dragon's Fall could be used at range, the closer he was, the more oomph he could add.

Something, something, concepts, distance, power, blah, reasons.

Zoey never responded, still being thrown and bashed around by the frenzied monster.

Reaching the next pillar, Rory stopped, examining it for a moment from up close. Seeing it up close with his eyes, Rory could see the similarity between it and the Queen's physical body, made of the same material.

It was also quite hot, and Rory felt as if he was hovering above one of his magma forges.

What's the best way to do this?

Rory was glad he had made a point of directly examining the pillar, as he could sense something like a buildup of energy within. Sure, he could drop another Dragon's Fall, and probably was about to. Still, for the next pillar, if that same energy buildup continued, Rory was reasonably confident he would have to neutralize it first. Otherwise, he would merely be fulfilling the pillar's role, releasing excess energy into the environment and continuing to turn it against them and in favor of itself.

Well, I can worry about that at the next pillar.

Within moments, another dragon-shaped meteor fell, smashing upon the pillar and sending out a shockwave, though Rory had already moved on.

The next pillar, hundreds of yards away, was sixteen feet tall and as thick as his arm span.

Oh yeah, definitely need to neutralize this first. That's a lot more energy.

The question was how. It wasn't just heat energy that had built up inside the pillar; there was a signature that matched the Queen herself, her very lifeforce contaminating and merging with the heat and spreading. In a way, the pillar was a bit like a spore pod of a mushroom.

Neutralizing another's aural signature wasn't nearly as easy as 'painting over' it. Such effort usually required sustained effort, something Rory couldn't afford in the middle of a life-or-death battle.

Well… I have one idea.

He had just seen what the oblivion concept could do to energy, and it wasn't as if Rory was totally new to the oblivion concept.

Alright, how to do this without blowing myself up?

Circling the pillar, Rory dragged his staff into the ground, magically etching a circle. While Rory could have opted for a simple magic circle, a bound circle would be more robust, which would be important for what he was about to do.

Alright, oblivion occurred when I collided aspects of infinity and sort-of-nothingness. Let's try introducing those just… smaller.

Quickly adding runes, Rory soon had what looked like a Venn diagram of interlocking circles. Checking over his work, Rory nodded to himself once before flicking three gems into the circles —a point gem, a burn gem, and a room gem.

Here goes nothing.

Pushing a thread of pneuma into the circles, Rory felt energy spinning up, fueling the individual runes as they worked together like a well-oiled machine. Once each circle had 'warmed up,' the energies at last began to slowly merge around the pillar.

The good news was that Rory could sense a faint trickle of energy tinged with the sense of oblivion.

The bad news was….

Was…

Huh. That's odd.

There was no bad news.

Half expecting something to go wrong, Rory was baffled that everything just… worked.

Well. I'll take it.

If Rory had to say there was any downside, it was that the oblivion aspect of the pneuma was forming slowly, but that was sort of the point, as Rory didn't want to explode himself.

Nifty.

Glancing over toward Zoey, Rory winced as he witnessed the Queen bathing her in a spew of napalm, his partner blackened in soot and one of her arms hanging limply by her side.

Right, better get a move on.

Having felt like he had figured out how to neutralize the pillars, all that Rory had to do was add the bound circles around each one. It even had the added benefit that by neutralizing the pillars instead of outright destroying them, they wouldn't reinforce one another.

Sparing one more look at Zoey, Rory mentally shot her a thumbs-up.

Time to earn your paycheck.

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