Kris was definitely gnashing her teeth at missing a fight like this, and we were definitely going to be missing those Seven Dragons Forms of hers.

  On the other hand, Briggs was here, and he was still a Grandmaster of the Hammer, and Aelryinth knew just hard he could hit.

  With an Imperil into Negative Armor Value, Vulns to magnify damage, and the crit-magnifying Crippling Blow with Biting Strike Runes making those crits happen up to half the time for x6 or more damage with his Greathammer, Briggs’ lethal combat ability just exploded.

  He never tried to show up Kris, just as Ael’s Briggs never tried to show up Sama. But that didn’t mean he gave up anything to her in pure ability to kick arse.

  The fact he had a much more dangerous base Weapon in his Exotic Greathammer, which he wielded as easily as a willow wand despite its size, helped marvelously with that.

  He was much more dangerous with One Strikes, for instance, and his charge multipliers were colossal, Uber-Charging right to the limit.

  He couldn’t get off the blizzard of attacks that Kris could, but any hit he landed was something his enemies were going to pay attention to.

  Using slashing damage with Negative Armor meant the lava skin of the Behemoth tore across in an arc, ripping apart like wet paper to create wounds wider than the cutting area of the broadheads and Weapons coming in.

  I was on oversight, Healing, and Dispels, with Darts of uttercold plunging in for some incidental damage with Penetrating Cold, especially after I also landed a Cold Vuln VIII on this big fellow.

  Oversight meant pulling them out of danger with Zeks’ Telekinesis.

  -Pulling Gros!- I /swore, and the big lugian inverted his heavyfoot as much as he was able to, allowing the TK to yank him thirty feet sideways, narrowly avoiding fifty tons of stone coming down to stomp him flat.

  He ground to a halt, then promptly leapt back to the attack, a huge blow from his Axe Maior opening a huge bright wound on that wall of a leg, Health Qi spraying hotly as the injury was insta-mended.

  None of the three tanks were using their Shields, as there was simply no way a Shield was going to stop that much mass crashing down on them. It was an AoE effect, not an attack, and there was only avoiding it or being able to take the damage… and nobody wanted to take that much damage, even with adamantine armor.

  A long arcing blow from a half-spin actually looped around and caught Briggs at one point. He barely saw it coming, releasing his heavyfoot and bringing up Endure to cushion the moving wall of stone screaming at him and tearing it open at the same time.

  He should have gone sailing a hundred yards or something from the kinetic energy as he was bounced, but I flicked a Featherweight at him, and he was ten feet from the arc of the massive fist when he stopped and floated right back down to the ground, even though he was half-stunned by the impact.

  Darts came streaking in to wash away his stunning, and then I yanked him aside as a remarkably fast follow-up hammered down from above and slammed down into the lava.

  He wasn’t even thinking as he automatically hewed through two feet of half-molten stone and crits exploded in Icy Bursts in place from the Minor Shivering Stone, half-severing the fist for a moment before the Health Qi repaired it.

  If the Behemoth flexed and sent out War Magic at the archers, I tugged their Disks out of the way as they kept up the rapid fire at the joints of the colossal golem, slowing its movements down, even as the desperate Scold within it would suddenly shift a leg off-balance, bash itself in the chest or head, or trigger a pose or autonomic function that would freeze or catch the Behemoth in a pre-programmed motion for a few seconds, during which time the Wolfpack would explode around the legs of the Behemoth, heaping up tens of thousands of damage in mere seconds.

  Short kicks and sweeping arcs of the overlong limbs were the biggest threats, and I had to stay very focused on how the mighty golem was standing and shifting. Happily, everyone here had massive amounts of experience fighting golums and their attack patterns. The Behemoth had additional options with its pure size, as its stomps would pancake anyone who caught one fully, and wild flailings to clear the area beneath and below it would work fantastically well against smaller creatures who simply couldn’t handle that much mass.

  If it wanted to waste time and magic on me, I was more than happy to slide around on my Wings and annoy the heck out of it in return with Darts. I was not stupid enough to waste mana on attack spells with my other responsibilities, however. Even the Darts I was putting into it were clearing a good two hundred points of damage, so I was perfectly happy to keep pounding it down.

  The Mick was leading in raw fury of attacks, cutting away like a whirlwind, Icy Bursts exploding in crit after crit of Slashing damage around Bunita’s Kiss as she cut away and motes of Lost Light sliced and detonated against the Health Qi. He’d also stashed his Shield and was using his Claymore two-handed, sliding continuously to give and gain Attacks of Opportunity as rapidly as he could do so.

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  The thick slabs of stone that formed the skin did nothing to absorb the blows raining down, every cut and arrow coming in plunging into cracks and veins of molten metal, slicing through the force matrix integrity of the great golem.

  ---

  “A hundred thousand left!” the Mick gasped, sucking in a deep breath as he slid back twenty feet. I flicked over a bright yellow glass vial in front of him, and he plucked it out of the air, downing it without a second thought for some cool alchemical Revitalization.

  Kopf was hit by a foot sweep before I could pull him far enough, half a ton of lugian going flying and sliding… but TK kept him upright, his heavyfoot dragged at the stone, and cold Darts plunged into him to take care of broken bones and bruised flesh. He grunted and gasped as his ki dragged him to a stop after only thirty paces, bracing as another flight of Darts came in to complete the Healing process. Growling defiance, he brought Lapis up and charged right back into the fight.

  Briggs was circling and spinning in constant motion, each step braced like a mountain, endless pivots that carried him around and around in Titan-Fighting. It was a Feat none of the others had, as its usefulness had never really come into being here in Dereth, with few things being large enough to trigger it. He could actually hit the golem hard enough to move the massively heavy legs, throwing off its balance and forcing readjustments even as he spun aside from being crushed again and again. If he was bounced off his feet because he didn’t dare to keep heavyfoot locked beyond proper leverage of his blows, he always landed perfectly steadily.

  Elysa and Fan had both launched over a hundred arrows each, and were looking exhausted. King Borelean had been briskly and smoothly efficient, wielding Hoshino with grim efficiency and speed hard-pressed into his arm this last year. Lost Light swirled in a dance around the men, helping move them out of the way of incoming blows, instead of pushing the blows away from them with parries…

  The THOOM of a blow caught my attention, as suddenly one of Briggs’ blows tore free hundreds of pounds of molten rock and scattered it over the area.

  “HAH! Pound it down!” he roared, and the tired warriors were moving in on the same leg with marvelous harmony as the Behemoth bellowed, trying to shift its weight, and in the next two seconds tons of magma and hide were ripped into and through its right leg. They opened up the wound, aiming to get to the central force matrix inside…

  -AWAY!-

  They all obeyed instantly, bouncing back as far as they could, the lugians aided with TK to slide back even further as the Behemoth brought both fists down.

  Greater Shards slammed into that open wound, exploding through the molten stone and instantly freezing it solid. Pressure differentials promptly shattered the limb and sent it exploding over the area in molten rivulets.

  A second later Briggs’ Uber Charge hit it, and Endure blasted completely through the great boulder of a leg.

  The Behemoth wobbled and fell sideways as it lost the lower leg, reaching out to catch itself and suddenly on all threes.

  The Mick promptly ran up the bracing arms and drove Bunita’s Kiss into the floating stump of a head atop the house-sized chest-stone. Ice flared against molten stone as he executed a complete circle of the massive hand, the glowing gold of the Slashing Vuln carving right through its stony armor, while Gros, Kopf, and Borelean jointly tore into the left arm’s elbow, sheering away more stone and aiming to cripple it.

  Hissing broadheads trailing frozen motes finally plunged successfully into the molten eyes, the Behemoth jerking and twisting as it explosively lost its vision. With cool efficiency, the Mick ran by both eyes and crosscut them to make the damage stick, then was forced to leap off its shoulder and slide down its wounded arm as the other arm came slamming in to bludgeon him dead, nearly knocking the Behemoth itself over from the impact.

  Bunita’s Kiss did plunge into the elbow there as he came down, actually whipping in a complete circle around the joint as he cut it as deep as he could. As his Claymore sliced free, Briggs came in right underneath him, and Endure came down in an irresistible arc of charge damage.

  The crack of the force matrix disrupting, followed by the thump of the massive forearm dropping free and slamming down to the ground out of control, was pretty impressive.

  The crippled golem, unable to regain its feet and completely blinded, was even more awkward and uncontrolled than before. While this added a nasty random element to its flailing about, it was definitely easier to attack, and the lads went to it with a will with charges and One Strikes now that it couldn’t see them coming.

  Methodically, they first took out its other leg to stop any kicks or attempt to get back to its feet. Once its knee-matrix was chopped apart explosively, it could only barely keep itself upright, and its random strikes with its remaining arm sent it spinning uncontrollably as it attempted to hit them.

  They were having none of it, and Blooding was making sure none of its Health Qi was coming back, nor was it able to magically Heal itself.

  Inevitable, the boys withdrew long enough to swallow one more set of liquid stamina with the two lady archers while I froze up their next target. They took deep breaths, and then went in for the kill.

  The right arm was shattered loose of the force matrix, and the Behemoth was defenseless, only able to randomly launch War Magic that wasn’t going to hit anything, especially as I Countered each and every spell it hurled out.

  ---

  Briggs cleared twenty feet on a massive leap, and Endure came down in one titanic final blow.

  The flattened, neckless head shuddered as the axe-shadow around the Greathammer hewed right through the entire five-feet height of the lump of a skull. Crimson-hot lava gushed forth as its force matrix destabilized, and the fiery energy empowering it began to dim with incredible speed.

  Briggs kicked off with Cloudstepping Sandals, coasting back to the ground as the Behemoth’s great head split, dimmed, crumbled, and fell apart.

  A breath later, the massive chest pieces were dimming, the disruption flowing to the other connected pieces. A hundred tons of central rock fell to the ground with a jolt and crash, rapidly going black and still.

  The Behemoth of Tenkarrdun was dead.

  ============================

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