Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] Chapter 231: Book 3: Chapter 81: Monster

Read chapter 231 of Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] by TTReynolds on NovelPedia.

Book 3: Chapter 81: Monster Chapter 81: Monster The Original Primal Queen’s body pulsed like a living storm of power. Alex could see the aether inside her boiling and rippling like fire coaxed under a bellows. The fact of her daughters’ deaths had reached her surely reached her. He didn’t know how, and he didn’t care. He only knew her fury had doubled, pushing her into a monstrous being. Her version of [Vita-Surge Cloak] grew somehow brighter than even his own, becoming a white-blue inferno laced with streaks of emerald. Their fists met again, and Alex’s whole arm screamed from the contact. His bones rattled, and joints popped. He felt as his muscles tore under the impact. The force of it hurled shockwaves through the dirt beneath their feet and formed cracks that spidered outward. Every time he siphoned her aura with his martial skill, he could feel as her anger came with it. It shot through him like poison, the rabid emotion both burning and intoxicating. It wanted him to stop fighting, to give in and become nothing but hunger and rage. His vision darkened at the edges, the Queen’s wrath looming in his mind, whispering to him: tear, kill, break, eat, consume. Karsali burst in at his flank with her golden fire wreathing her armor, the halo of her augmentor spell glowed as bright as miniature sun. Her blade descended from multiple angles, the dance of steel forcing the Queen to split her attention between her and Alex. With their augmentor spells, Martial Styles and various item enchantments, the two human mages managed to close on the gap that was the Chimera Beast’s sheer physical stat advantage. But it wouldn't be forever. They were pressing her, but not dominating her, and it would only be a matter of time before they ran out of aether, Alex probably being first. Malric’s glyphs suddenly shimmered into being above their heads. They looked like sweeping glyphs etched into the very air, each line showing power and grace. Then lightning cracked down from them in erratic rhythm. The Queen twisted and roared each time they hit her body, the electricity crawling across her carapace. Symon’s fire came in at the same time, his dense bolts of molten flame splashing with drops of near liquid heat that warped the ground around them into glowing glass. Each spellbolt drove the Queen back a half-step, forcing her to account for the two ranged casters even as Alex and Karsali pressed her front. Alex threw himself into the space the subsequent lightning bolt opened for him, his aura billowing brightly into a storm of violet-blue. The Queen met him and they exchanged a volley of blurringly fast strikes. Every attack felt like it could be the last—hers or his. The tide shifted, and Alex felt it the instant it happened. The Queen’s fury focused suddenly, her [Vita-Surge Cloak] condensing like it was a star about to collapse in on itself and it boosted her monstrous stats even further. Karsali went down first. A single misstep was all it took. The Queen’s tail whipped out like a spear, punching through her shoulder and tearing down across her torso in a fountain of blood. The Knight screamed, her golden fire dying out as the Queen’s followup kick smashed into her torn ribs and launched her across the battlefield. She skidded into the dirt with bent armor plates, her own blood painting her once-brilliant flame. “Karsali!” Alex shouted as he watched her body come to a rest, but there was no time to reach her. Symon cackled a hysterical laugh as he hurled even more firebolts into her chest. Malric layered even more lightning glyphs overhead, his own bolts raining down endlessly. But the Queen only smirked. She stomped once and the earth cracked beneath her. A forest of stone spikes ripped upward from the ground and then were flung outward like javelins. They punched into Symon before he could dodge, piercing his arm, leg, side, and shoulder. The stone javelins sent him flying before they pinned him to the ground like some gruesome science-class