Straining, Eryndra continued to wrench at the bars, until suddenly, another skeletal arm shot out from beneath the cage, grasping her tightly. The monster yanked her upward, preparing to slam her into the ground, but Zehrina's swift action severed the arm with a razor-thin line of black dust.
Eryndra burst free from the grip, landing nimbly as the beast howled in pain and withdrew defensively.
At that instant, Takara shouted into the comms, "Wait! It could be a Tyrox, kinda looks like it, but this one looks bigger than the size reference."
Roy stiffened. "Run that by me again?"
"A Tyrox, Captain," Takara confirmed. "The book says…um, 'EtR Rating: Six Star Threat. Flee on site, contact the nearest guild, pray they have strong enough forces. Hot damn, this bad boy is a toughie'. Oh…"
"Dammit," Roy muttered, dread pooling in his chest. He turned toward Eryndra urgently. "Did you catch that?" he called out.
She nodded curtly, eyes never leaving the beast. "Got it."
"Make sure Zehrina knows what it is."
"It's a Tyrox," Eryndra told Zehrina
"What's a Tyrox?" Zehrina asked warily.
"I don't know," Eryndra said flatly.
Zehrina sighed. "Helpful."
Roy felt a pang of guilt. "Sorry, I forgot to brief everyone. Don't hold back, this thing is deadly."
Zehrina's robe disintegrated fully into swirling black dust, revealing sleek armor beneath, strikingly similar yet simplified compared to Eryndra's own. Zehrina waved a hand, commanding the dust into a vast, web-like net. The mesh plunged downward, pinning the Tyrox momentarily to the ground.
Eryndra instantly charged again, lifting an enormous chunk of earth and debris to slam onto the monster, but it shrugged off the assault, throwing off the net and countering with a furious swipe. Zehrina swiftly shielded herself behind a dense wall of dust, absorbing the strike effortlessly.
Simultaneously, a bright blue orb formed in her free hand. She launched it; when the Tyrox leapt aside, the orb arced gracefully midair, striking the beast squarely in the gut and propelling it upward.
In perfect coordination, Eryndra leapt high and hammered the creature back to earth with a tremendous kick. Still, the Tyrox landed nimbly, adopting a wary defensive stance.
Eryndra shouted, frustrated, "Roy, I know you said go all-out usually, but those captives..."
"I get it," Roy assured quickly. "But your safety comes first. If your life or Zehrina's life is in danger, defeat it without worrying about collateral damage."
Exchanging a wordless glance, Zehrina and Eryndra seemed to synchronize perfectly again. Zehrina's dust spiraled behind Eryndra, solidifying into a formidable spear mid-flight. Eryndra sprinted directly at the beast, sidestepping at the last second. She seized the airborne spear and thrust it forward with immense strength. It struck deeply into the Tyrox's shoulder, yet the monster pulled it free, hurling it aside and snarling defiantly.
The two women attacked in fluid tandem once more. Eryndra ducked beneath a sweeping strike, kicking the creature upward directly into a downpour of sharp ice shards conjured by Zehrina. The beast hissed in agony but still recovered mid-fall, retaliating fiercely with hair-tendrils lashing outward. Zehrina quickly placed a thin platform of dust beneath Eryndra's feet, allowing her to pivot sharply mid-air and land clear of harm.
The Tyrox roared in fury. In an instant, Zehrina lifted the beast on a rapidly spinning disk of dust, flipping it upside-down. Eryndra slammed down from above, smashing it brutally into the ground with a devastating punch, sending debris flying. Yet again, the monster shrugged off the attack, lunging suddenly toward Roy.
On instinct, his barrier flared just in time, halting the strike inches away. Still, he staggered under the impact as Harmony urgently warned him, "That drained an entire percent of your mana! Avoid too many direct hits!"
Zehrina and Eryndra swept in furiously, driving the beast backward with powerful, synchronized strikes.
With the Tyrox occupied, Roy quickly scanned the scattered debris, noting how oddly placed and strangely aged it appeared. Something about the scene gnawed at the back of his mind. Cautiously, he knelt and picked up one of the broken wagon wheels, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"This wheel hasn't seen use in at least a decade," he muttered, turning the rotted wood in his hands with a look of mild disgust. "This isn't fresh wreckage…"
Dropping the wheel, Roy stepped toward the bodies littered across the ground. His boot nudged against one of the more obviously decayed corpses, and he turned it over carefully. The sight of its decomposed, putrid flesh made him recoil immediately.
"Ugh, this thing's been dead a long time. What the hell is going on here?"
His attention then turned toward a few fresher-looking bodies nearby, some of which were twitching or making faint sounds. Roy approached them cautiously, reaching out and gently rolling one onto its back. A chill ran down his spine as he glimpsed its lifeless, glassy eyes staring emptily into nothingness, mouth moving grotesquely in an unnatural rhythm. Leaning closer, he spotted thin, nearly invisible strands of hair threading into its flesh.
Roy stumbled back urgently, horror dawning across his face. "These things, they're being puppeteered! This entire debris field is a deliberate trap set by the Tyrox!"
No sooner had the words left his mouth than several of the corpses jerked violently upright, lunging toward him with erratic, spasmodic movements. Roy barely had time to conjure his barrier, but the puppeteered bodies simply pushed right through, their hair-wrapped limbs penetrating the shield easily.
Roy shouted in alarm, stumbling backward under their combined weight. In an instant, Zehrina surged toward him, sweeping a mass of her black dust forward. It crashed into the reanimated corpses, knocking them violently aside and freeing Roy from their grasp.
"You alright?" Zehrina called sharply, standing protectively before him.
"Yeah," Roy gasped, regaining his composure quickly. "Just… just caught me off guard."
The Tyrox tottered a dozen paces, its broom-stick forelimbs tangling in its own mats of hair. One gangling foot snagged on the other; the beast pitched forward, flopped onto its chest, and loosed a pitiful, breathy yowl. It lay there quivering, chin in the dust, heaving, as if the fall had shattered its crooked spine. After two heartbeats it angled its head, the four dim eye-glows looking towards Roy, Zehrina and Eryndra. No pursuers. A low, puzzled grunt rumbled in its throat.
With a jerk it scrambled upright, favoring one leg in a cartoonish limp, and lurched off again. Ten strides later it repeated the performance. A dramatic tangle, a crash to earth, a moaning writhe that shook loose clumps of straw-like hair. Once more the creature risked a backward peek, black tongue lolling, hopeful they were charging. When it saw only their wary stances, the Tyrox hissed in frustration, hauled itself up, and shuffled side-to-side in an almost sulky circle, still convinced its wounded-prey act would coax the chase it craved.
Roy shook his head, watching the Tyrox stumble theatrically, clearly feigning weakness. He glanced at Zehrina. "Zehrina, look at this thing. It's literally trying to lure us after it. It thinks we're actually falling for that."
Suddenly, Eryndra's confident voice crackled loudly over the comms. "This thing looks weak! I'm going after it!"
Roy's eyes widened in horror. He quickly tapped his comm. "No, Eryndra! I was just explaining that we weren't stupid. It's faking! Don't go after it recklessly! Keep alert," Roy ordered decisively.
Eryndra and Zehrina moved cautiously ahead, positioning defensively around him as they closed distance. The creature waited, tensed and ready, its false captives still unmoving.
Roy hesitated only a moment. "This'll look insane, just trust me."
Drawing his sidearm, Roy fired carefully at the wrist of one captive. The bullet passed through harmlessly, no reaction, no blood mere hair-woven mannequins.
"They're fake," Roy declared grimly. "This entire setup is fake."
The Tyrox suddenly went berserk. With its deception shattered, the monstrous creature abandoned all pretense, lunging viciously at Zehrina and Eryndra. They were thrown backward by its abrupt, savage strikes, and before Roy could react, the Tyrox's massive hand crashed down, smashing his barrier against the dusty earth.
"Shit!" Roy yelled, scrambling backwards. The barrier flickered back to life around him just as the remaining puppeteered corpses leaped onto it, only this time, they passed effortlessly through the shield, their thin hair tendrils slicing through the protective energy as if it wasn't even there.
They clawed frantically at Roy's tactical vest, their broken fingernails snapping and falling away uselessly against its reinforced fibers. Heart racing, Roy drew his sidearm, firing off shot after shot directly through their torsos. Though the bullets punched clean through, it still took several rounds before the corpses went limp, collapsing into foul-smelling heaps.
Roy hastily shoved the sludge-covered bodies aside, staggering to his feet. "I'm alright!" he called out breathlessly, reforming his barrier. He spun, blasting several more incoming corpses, each dissolving into the same putrid muck. "Guys! None of these people are alive! The Tyrox staged everything here; it's been puppeteering these bodies the whole damn time!"
"So, you're saying we can stop holding back?" Eryndra called, a hint of excitement edging her voice.
"Go for it!" Roy shouted, ducking behind a fallen wagon wheel. "Give that bastard everything!"
Eryndra nodded firmly, her vents snapping fully open. Jets of steam burst forth, crackling with bluish lightning. Zehrina ascended smoothly into the air, forming a network of compact dust platforms around the raging Tyrox. Without hesitation, Eryndra bolted forward, accelerating until she became a blinding blur. She struck the Tyrox mercilessly, battering its limbs, torso, and head, each devastating punch punctuated by arcs of energy.
The Tyrox howled, limbs thrashing wildly, abandoning defense entirely as it desperately attempted to strike her down. One massive swipe landed squarely against Eryndra's forearm as she raised it to block, forcing her feet deep into the earth. She grinned fiercely despite the strain. "Huh, That attack actually spooked me, that's a first!"
She disengaged and hopped away from it. Electricity surged across her armor as steam jets shifted, coalescing into focused, triangular cones of plasma that released a haunting screech before going silent. Her movements turned dazzlingly rapid, each assault coming from an unpredictable direction. Zehrina swiftly shaped her dust into ramps and angled barriers, effortlessly guiding Eryndra's relentless assault.
At the height of her speed, Eryndra dashed upward along a curving ramp Zehrina instantly shaped in front of her that led right to they Tyrox. Halfway through her trajectory, Zehrina merged the other barriers into a massive, axe-like blade of hardened dust. Snatching it midair, Eryndra spun downward with unstoppable momentum and cleaved straight through the cage on the Tyrox's back, splitting the monstrous body nearly in half.
The Tyrox shrieked in agony, eyes flickering madly, as another grotesque hand emerged, desperately attempting to hold its severed halves together. Stumbling away, it screeched one final defiance, until Zehrina's hands flashed forward, hurling a torrent of crackling frosted lightning into its torn frame.
The Tyrox's final, horrid scream resonated sharply across the battlefield, sending chills down everyone's spine before the creature convulsed violently, the lights in its four eyes dimming one by one until it lay utterly still. The cage on its back dissolved rapidly into heaps of hair strands and shattered debris, scattering across the dusty earth.
Eryndra landed lightly beside the lifeless creature, her glowing plasma cones dissipating into mere steam. She stepped closer, cautiously kicking the beast's motionless head. "Think we're good now," she announced casually.
Zehrina laughed and smiled wide as she drifted in the air, blast dust reassembling her robe. "Roy, let's try not to make every fight this exhausting. We burned a hell of a lot of energy on a fake rescue."
Roy exhaled shakily, holstering his sidearm. "Yeah, but we won. That's all that matters."
Zehrina descended beside him, her eyes still warily scanning the horizon. "We won this fight, sure. But who's to say there aren't more?"
Before Roy could respond, Takara's voice crackled clearly over the comm. "According to Master Everran's manual, Tyrox are solitary. They don't even raise their own young, so we shouldn't need to worry about others."
Roy smiled weakly, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Takara says they run solo, so it looks like it's a job well done, team." He glanced meaningfully toward Zehrina. "All things considered, at least we learned one important thing today."
Zehrina tilted her head, curious. "And what's that?"
His smile widened. "You came back."
She paused, cheeks reddening slightly as she smiled softly back.
"Oh, and Bigfoot," Roy added.
But just as the team began to relax, an explosive column of magical energy erupted violently in front of them, shaking the earth beneath their feet and casting the battlefield into blinding chaos.
Roy stumbled back, eyes wide with dread. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."