Losing a leg hadn’t slowed the champion down much, but it had forced the monster to hold its weight up using one of its arms, leaving only a single tentacle-like limb to smack at Velik with. That made it a lot easier to dodge its unending flurry of strikes, and even allowed him to stab the spear into the vulnerable joints between its chitinous armor plates. Whether that actually hurt the monster was still open to debate, as its only visual reaction was to flail harder.

The champion hit hard enough to crack the floor where its arm landed, and, having already felt what it was like to get thrown by the monster once, Velik wasn’t interested in learning how much it hurt to get slammed between an arm and the arena’s stone. His sole mission was to try to take out another limb, preferably the arm the monster was trying to kill him with, so that he could completely cripple the damn thing and finally get a clear shot at its head.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t cooperating with that goal.

A huge part of Velik was tempted to just fire off another [Dread Lance] at the part of its arm he could reach now that it wasn’t letting him get close to the main body, but after slaughtering a thousand or more monsters and with no way to tell what was coming up after this one, he was hesitant to commit resources he didn’t need to.

Instead, he took his time and leveraged his immense strength to his advantage. Even a single of the creature’s whip-like extending limbs outweighed him, but Velik was learning the limits of its reach and adapting to its speed. Every time it lashed out, his spear was there to dig into the flesh. Once he was certain he had the timing right, he switched to his dagger and started poisoning it with the debilitating enchantments.

It's too bad this thing doesn’t qualify as a beast. That’d stop it in its tracks.

It seemed likely that the champion had some form of regeneration, though, just judging by the fact that despite taking dozens of wounds, it was still flailing around. The small nub of flesh jutting out of where he’d destroyed one of its legs further supported that theory. It had only been a minute or two, and at that rate, he wouldn’t be surprised if the leg was fully functional inside the next half an hour.

The simple solution was to kill it before it got that far, of course. Despite its own powers, it was slowing down a bit. Velik also thought it was losing its vision, as its attacks were far less precise. If things kept on like this, he’d wear it down over the next few minutes, then deliver the final blow unprotested.

The monster must have reached the same conclusion, because it flopped onto its stomach and reared up to bring both arms to bear. The new position limited its movements, but Velik immediately found himself being driven back now that it had two whip-arms to swing at him again.

Eventual victory wasn’t in question, but how much work he was going to have to do and whether he’d need to burn another [Dread Lance] or four to put the champion down very much was. He quickly arrived at the decision that dragging the fight out wasn’t worth it, not if it was going to give the monster enough time to heal itself. Annoyed more than anything, he blew the end of the next arm to come swinging in.

Six feet of elongated meat flopped free to smack into the arena floor behind him, but if the champion felt any pain, it didn’t let that slow it down. Another [Dread Lance] crippled the other arm, and with its range shrunk, Velik advanced closer to the monster’s core. He blocked the stump of one arm, already capped with a fresh growth of chitin to stem the black blood spurting from it, and ducked under its other arm when it tried to smack his head.

Velik got within striking range and sent what he expected to be the last [Dread Lance] of the fight into the monster’s chest. Brilliant light exploded outward, shredding muscle and throwing bloody gobs of meat in every direction. He retracted his spear with a small smile of satisfaction.

The light faded to reveal a small pillar of black chitin wrapped around the core of the champion. No notification, Velik thought to himself. Damn thing’s not dead.

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The pillar wobbled, then split open to reveal something human-shaped and completely covered in a black carapace, like a man in field plate. The monster unfolded in a blink, caught Velik’s lunging spear on a forearm, and heaved upward to throw him off-balance. Velik came right back in, [Aspect of the Wind Tamer] helping him to bring the spear right back around and push the champion back before it could find firm footing.

The chitin covering the monster’s new body was different—thicker, or stronger, or maybe just better angled to deflect Velik’s probing spear. Shards of it flaked off as the monster defended itself with its arms, its movements a blur to keep up with the sheer speed of the incoming attacks. More than a few slipped by, the tip of the spear digging into the creature’s chest or stomach before a sweeping arm knocked it aside.

If it would hold still, Velik thought he could probably run it through. The chitin was surprisingly tough, but not invincible. Getting a good, clean stab in was proving to be impossible, however, which left him chipping away at the monster’s armor. On the other hand, it was so focused on defense since it had transformed that it hadn’t even tried to hit Velik back.

His attacks were speeding up, and he knew that sooner or later something would slip through. The second he felt his spear hit tender flesh beneath the chitin, he was blasting the champion. He wanted this fight to be over with. It had gone on far too long already, and while Velik was starting to think nothing else was going to wander into the arena until it was over, he wouldn’t be surprised if the dungeon proved him wrong. The less chance he gave that to happen, the better.

There!

The spear scraped across the edge of an abdominal plate of chitin and caught at the seam, then sunk in an inch. Velik triggered [Dread Lance] inside its body, fully planning on vaporizing whatever passed for organs in the monster. He didn’t care if the chitin armor survived whole, so long as the monster wearing it died.

What actually happened was that instead of the expected burst of light, the monster convulsed in place, then the chitin helmet split open down the middle to reveal interlocking yellow teeth and a black gullet. The next moment, a burst of light came out of the maw in a tight beam of destruction, striking Velik head on and hurling him across the room.

Velik pushed himself out of the way with an [Air Walk]

. The regurgitated [Dread Lance] had imparted enough momentum that he still slammed into the wall, but compared to the blasted stone a few feet away from his impact site, he got off lucky. Stone dust billowed out from that crater, obscuring the arena momentarily.

That’s a neat trick, Velik thought darkly. If [Dread Lance] isn’t an option, then the quickest way to end this fight is with [True Form]. That’s a risk, though.

He practiced constantly, but instantaneous transformation was still out of his grasp. In perfect conditions, he could take on his wolf shape in three seconds. Standing still for that long in a fight was suicide. Maybe the monster would let him activate the skill. Maybe it would charge forward and dash his vulnerable, malleable body across the stone in a single strike.

Maybe I should just stick to what’s working and wear this thing down. Nothing’s shown up yet. I might have the time to do it.

The human-shaped monster glided across the floor, graceful and precise in its movements now. It looked nothing like the grotesque thing it had been just minutes ago. If anything, it seemed to be acclimating to its new body more with each passing moment. Worse, the scars on its chitinous armor had already started to fade away as new material filled it in.

The damn thing can heal even that? That’s not normal, even for a monster.

Velik met it with a hail of throwing knives, all of which hung on strands of [Telekinesis] to harry the monster from different angles while he tried to skewer it. The monster, now confident and agile, ignored the knives for the most part and focused on slapping the spear aside as it tried to claw at Velik’s hands and arms.

Thanks in large part to his tremendous stat advantage, the Life Giver’s Ring on Velik’s left hand kept him healed up at least as well as the monster, but the fight had turned into a stalemate. Neither combatant could land a decisive blow, and even with all the enchanted gear he was wearing, Velik didn’t have a trick to slip through its defenses.

As much as it hurt his pride to even think it, he was considering fleeing the fight. Kulkorax the Pit Master was a champion with too much defensive power to be cracked open, and it was too fast for Velik to get the distance needed to activate [True Form]. Back when it was some lumbering monstrosity of flailing limbs, he could have outrun it, but not now.

The problem was that Velik couldn’t actually see a way out. Much like that giant frog, he’d been pulled into an arena with no exits. It was just a flat stone pit with walls that stretched a hundred feet up, then nothing past them. He didn’t know what dungeon magic was going on at the top, but he doubted he could break through it while being pursued by a champion elite.

Unless it can’t climb. And if it can’t climb, then I can put some distance between us… Enough to get a few seconds out of its reach?