Vice Captain Quoquo unleashed a two-layered vapour cone upon the Narlakk chest. A dense stream of Prana emanated out of Narlakk Nirrkarrlarr’s body, fuelling its psychokinesis that surged into the vapour cone and tried to turn it into its Spirit Container instead.
This was what it was doing all along, passively, which is how it caused all fluid-based attacks to splash weakly upon coming into contact with its body. Barely a portion of the damage was dealt to its body, which it could casually tank by relying on the robustness of its form.
This time was no different, as its concentrated power of psychokinesis intended to splatter the vapour cones. However, right as it was about to do so, the medium fluctuated as a foreign power, on par with it in terms of potency, interfered.
Primary Nature–Subtle Terrain Domination!
It was Runthral, using his psychokinesis to accurately counter Narlakk Nirrkarrlarr’s psychokinesis, thereby negating each other. This allowed the two vapour cones to slam into the Narlakk’s chest, causing a mild, scorching wound.
Even when the impact slammed with all its force, damaging a Gold Grade Pranic Beast wasn’t each. The scorched wound healed within a second, for the extent of damage was negligible.
"ATTACK!" Captain Trotro roared upon seeing the effectiveness of their attacks. He rushed first and engaged in close combat against the Narlakk, preventing it from using physical attacks against the rest of the Cooter Clansmen.
Only he had the means to barely match its strength in physique. Even Vice Captain Quoquo would barely be able to maintain the Skill of Kinesis Tsloch for a minute or two before the strain on his Spirit Container would increase to levels where he would be forced to deactivate it.
There were around forty Cooter Clansmen who were alive, with six of them having Silver Grade strength. They promptly harnessed their remaining strength to attack the Narlakk nonstop.
’D-Dammit!’ Narlakk Nirrkarrlarr began to gasp at the series of relentless attacks it faced every second. It barely defended against Captain Trotro’s punch to the chest when four vapour cones targeted its head, neck, and two knees respectively.
The Cooter Clansmen with Iron Grade strength released a mist that pressed down upon its body, providing resistance to its movements. Not only did the mist slow its actions, but also interfered with its Prana detection means.
Its physical senses too were limited, as even when it relied on its physical characteristics to see through the mist, Runthral countered its actions and kept its senses in the dark.
This forced Narlakk Nirrkarrlarr to flail around in hopes to hit its foes while steadily being damaged more and more. But its life wasn’t in danger yet, as a steady stream of pollen was still flowing into it from the Cooter Clansmen.
That was how it was able to maintain its present form.
’I only need to endure their attacks for a while more.’ It thought, grunting as a 5-layered vapour cone slammed into its shoulder and dented the region, ’They’ll soon run out of Prana...’
GRAH!
Suddenly, it screamed in pain, noticing a stream of blood being yanked out of its chest with enough force that triggered all the pain receptors of its body. Its original form didn’t have pain receptors.
Its only receptor was to analyse the feedback from its pollen intake. But now, it was strangely experiencing pain, which it wasn’t equipped to do.
Narlakk Nirrkarrlarr hurriedly, leapt away, only then realising that through its bleeding injury, Captain Trotro had injected his blood into its blood vessels. It had traces of his Prana, which when pumped to its heart, barged into its Spirit Container and cracked it.
The energy formed by the fusion of the energies of the body, mind, and soul, that was Prana. When the Spirit Container was cracked, the feedback was transmitted across all three mediums.
The only medium the Narlakk was capable of processing this feedback was the mind, which was where it experienced this pain. The mental pain reverberated as if its entire body had been wreaked by a series of volcanic dips, followed by freezing baths.
Bang!
Its backward leap was cut short, as a wall of air had blocked it. The wall of air turned into a gust that pushed it towards the deck, back to the spot where it had jumped from. The floor of the deck behaved like water, causing the Narlakk’s body to sink through it.
At some point in time, the floor of the deck had been reinforced by more material taken from the hull, sneakily added without the Narlakk’s awareness. There was no way it could know, since it was achieved through Subtle Terrain Domination.
The Narlakk’s body sank deep into the thick floor of the deck, stopping once it was half buried. Now, not only did the deck harden into its normalcy, but Runthral had also compressed the matter within it, gripping tighter upon the Narlakk.
"I’ll break this..." Narlakk Nirrkarrlarr roared, emanating a dense presence in an effort to suppress the fighting spirit of the Cooter Clansmen. It exerted its physical strength but failed to budge the deck that was closing it from all sides. ’If I can’t break it, I will change my form to slip out!’
GRRR!
Mist covered its surroundings, preventing it from sensing where Runthral was. All it could do was glare in anger, for the matter forming the deck seemed to have stuck to its skin. Without hesitation, it ripped off its skin and morphed its appearance into a serpent, intending to jump out first.
But the moment it morphed its appearance, its Secondary Nature’s effects vanished, reverting it to a regular Narlakk without emanating the physical characteristics of Subtle Terrain Domination.
All the Cooter Clansmen pollen was stored safely in its body. It was only an instantaneous transformation, as Narlakk Nirrkarrlarr intended to revert to its superior form momentarily after. But...
Boom!
Spikes jutted out of the deck and stabbed through its membranous body while a 5-layered vapour cone slammed dead centre, significantly damaging it.
’DAMN BASTARDS!’ Ripping its body out of the spikes, Narlakk Nirrkarrlarr hurriedly assumed its humanoid form and barely managed to splash the succeeding vapour cone attacks. Gasping for a moment, it roared, "I’ll empty you bastards!"
"Keuk!" Captain Trotro visibly grunted upon noticing a rapid decline in his Prana capacity, which was being used to replenish his vanishing fat reserves. He was aware the Narlakk was using him to recover and roared, "Attack with everything you got!"
"Don’t allow the bastard to recover!"
There wasn’t much strategy involved post this. Both sides jumped each other, attacking with everything they got.
Boom!
A fist created using the materials forming the ship’s hull slammed into the Narlakk and pummelled it to the deck, repeatedly, with every hit wounding it past its recovery rate.
"Die...bastard! DIE!" Blood dripped out of his orifices as Runthral harnessed every ounce of his strength. Ignoring his spiking Prana consumption, he used two Spirit Weapons. First was the fluids covering the Narlakk’s body, seething with its psychokinesis. Runthral was suppressing it completely, ensuring the attacks from the Cooter Clansmen did damage.
Second was the solid fist, reaching a metre in size and weighing over a tonne in weight, which repeatedly slammed upon the Narlakk. Each attack shaved off dozens of units of his Prana, as he was controlling two Spirit Weapons at the moment.
His body visibly thinned as Runthral used his last-ditch effort, which was to use his muscle as fuel to generate Prana. It was a technique granted to him by his predecessor through an inheritance, which was based upon a fearsome existence that preyed upon Empyrean Snappers in the past.
"Don’t think this is..." Narlakk Nirrkarrlarr screamed as it was bombarded nonstop, preventing it from finishing its statement as the heavy fist descended one last time and splattered its body.
"It’s...dead!" Captain Trotro gasped as he crawled towards the Narlakk’s corpse and double-checked its dissipating presence, ’I sense traces of its Spirit Container fragments.’
"It is dead." He concluded.
"Thank goodness," Runthral gasped with a wryly smile, feeling his head spin, "I was worried..."
Splurt!
Every surviving Cooter Clansman at the scene let out horrid screams, watching the arrival of another Narlakk, this one reaching a whopping height of eight metres. Appearing behind Runthral, it had clutched his shoulders and ripped off his arms.
"NO!" Vice Captain Quoquo hollered as Runthral collapsed in a pool of blood.