Mordecai was proud of everyone's performance today, but especially of Fuyuko and Amrydor. The two youths had pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, and Amrydor had utilized the powers that he'd been granted well. The other trainees of Zagaroth's temple, Taeko and Yugo, had done so also, but unlike his fellows, Amrydor had two sources of empowerment intended for protecting others. One of them was simply more focused.

It was perhaps a bit unfair of Mordecai to encourage the growth of Amrydor's and Fuyuko's friendship as much as he had, given the chance that Amrydor might never have his true level of affection returned and how this friendship might interfere with his other romantic pursuits. But Amrydor was already inclined to protect and defend others, so having that inclination a little more focused when it came to Fuyuko shouldn't interfere much with the life the boy already intended to live.

And Fuyuko was already turning herself into a champion of Li's, though of course, neither she nor Li were aware of it. Her instinct to protect others was just as strong, but there was no standard training for Li's champions, or even a standard set of skills. However, it was rare for any of Li's champions to prefer heavy armor, so Mordecai was willing to be a bit selfish and encourage another shield to be ready to interpose himself on Fuyuko's behalf when she was acting to protect others.

The younger members of the party had all done very well in the battles so far today, but they had also reached the end of their reserves, or at least, the reserves it was reasonable to call upon for training. Mordecai cast a minor illusion upon the ground, creating two large rings of light centered on where people were already being taken care of, with about ten feet of distance between the rings.

"Team A, you are now out of the fight. I want all of you inside the inner ring, after making sure all bodies and readily cleared messes are outside of the outer ring." No one wanted to be trapped with the scent of decaying bodies after all. Blood soaked mud would take a bit more work, but walls wouldn't make that task difficult the way they would for bodies. "I'll make some basic walls to make sure you aren't caught in anything. You can field dress after I have walls up, if you have time."

That got a reaction out of everyone, even if that reaction was just to sit up and stare at him. Mordecai smiled. "That was a hard fight. But it was not a boss fight. This is an open tundra, and there is no reason the boss can't come to us at any moment."

Those who were able to move quickly started getting people and bodies organized, and when everything was ready, Mordecai raised two simple rings of stone. Each ring had three equidistant gaps, with each gap covering about ten degrees of arc, and the two rings were offset so that their gaps were centered on the solid sections of the other ring.

Once that was done, he completed it with a dome that overhung the outer ring. He intended to get as far from here as they could before the boss arrived, but that was not under his control, and he wanted to make sure all the junior members of their expedition were safe.

"Alright," Mordecai said once everyone else was gathered, "I want you all to evaluate yourselves honestly. Are you fit to continue, or should you rest here too? Whatever we will be facing should be stronger than the devil we fought yesterday."

There was a moment of silence, broken when a thoughtful-looking Kansif said, "A question for you. I noticed that these moose also have scaly hides. What do you think the chances are that the boss is going to be able to fly a lot better than these young ones?"

"High," Mordecai responded. "I think those are dragon scales."

"Then I think Bellona, Xarlug, and I should probably just watch over the kids here; we have bows, but neither of us is the best of archers."

"Hah," Bellona said, "speak for yourself, I've improved a lot since we last competed."

Kansif snorted. "That's just because your new tricks help you guide your arrow after it's already shot. Without a wind boost, you're still not any better than I am."

"Alright," Mordecai said as he interrupted the familial bickering, "it's probably a good idea to have some backup here anyway. Anyone else?"

There was a bit more conversation, but it was soon verified that everyone else had some method to fly. Mordecai knew Bellona could leap rather high with the right combination of her elemental powers, but they were neither as sustainable nor as potentially powerful as Derek's abilities, so for a fight that might be mostly aerial, she did not have much to contribute here.

It was about an hour after their last foe had died when the group finally set out; making sure everything was ready at the camp and that everyone traveling was healed and prepped took time to do correctly.

Even so, it was rushing things a little. "Kazue," Mordecai said, "I need you to walk behind me and to stay alert. I can do a walking meditation, but it leaves very little attention left over for noticing things, even for me."

"Alright," Kazue said, though she looked nervous about it.

He smiled at her. "Love, you notice the forming teleports faster than I can, especially right now — I trust you to notice something big enough to teleport a boss." Then he settled into the trance that allowed him to start restoring his mana while keeping just enough awareness of the world to not trip easily.

If Mordecai had thought that Derek was up for it, he'd have had the boy make those stone walls. Mordecai was currently concerned about his mana reserves. His rapid growth in power during this trip had been great, but it also meant that he could spend his energy faster than he could renew it. At this point, his chi was still just fine, but Mordecai had dug deeply into his mana at the start of the day.

He'd been as subtle about it as he could, but Mordecai had laid one emergency heal contingency on everyone in the party. Such spells were expensive and had limits, and those limits were part of why Mordecai had told no one. The power invested in each spell was all that it could use for healing, and once triggered, it healed rapidly and continually until it was spent in just a few seconds. Both overwhelming damage or a short series of fatal injuries could completely consume the spell without the spell being able to save its target.

Plus, there was always a tiny chance that injuries would accumulate in a way that the contingency did not recognize as eventually fatal, and then when the threshold was crossed, the vitalizing energy would heal the less dangerous wounds first and run out of energy before healing the grievous wounds.

Or even get tripped by not-actually-fatal wounds, consuming the spell early. He was somewhat surprised that it hadn't happened with Fuyuko, but her innate healing had been keeping her alive and conscious, for a while, at least. If she had bled out far enough to lose consciousness, the spell would have triggered then. Probably.

Mordecai did not like relying on such spells for good reason and preferred that everyone remain sharp and alert rather than letting feelings of comfort from the spell’s protection dull their edge. Of course, three people had noticed, but neither Kansif, Paltira, nor Orchid had said anything. Whatever the power of everyone here, those were the only three with the field experience to notice such a subtle touch of magic from an ally.

Upon leaving the camp, Mordecai had taken the calculated risk of breaking the contingencies on those left behind. Unfortunately, this did not restore any of the mana to him; it merely freed up that portion of his pool to be refilled. Thus, his desire to meditate as they traveled.

His contemplation was interrupted by the touch of Kazue's hand on his back and her urgent whisper. "Mordecai!"

That was all he needed — the moment that his awareness was free to expand beyond his body, he could feel the oncoming pressure of a teleport, delayed for a precious second by Kazue throwing her own will and power against it.

With a flash of white lightning, Mordecai stepped into the air nearly a hundred feet above the party, his body in the process of taking on his war form as he intercepted a giant dragon-moose. The beast was even larger than the devil general had been, and unlike its immature brethren, its more draconic features were fully developed.

Including spikes along various ridges, which meant that the impact hurt a lot, even for him. Mordecai growled, ignoring the pain as he grabbed its head before combining fire, lightning, and air chi into a concussive blast from one side of Mordecai's body that let him twist and throw the giant moose up and away from everyone else. It had been set on a power dive that would have cratered the ground while barely injuring the dragon moose.

That speed was also what had forced the teleport to be so high. The more momentum conserved in a teleport, the more inaccurate the teleport destination was, so a greater margin of safety was required if one didn't want to mix with the ground.

By the time the moose had recovered from being thrown, Mordecai had fully shifted into his six-limbed, four-winged dragonoid war-form, and they charged each other. The dragon-moose's bellow carried too much energy for sound alone to transmit, each oscillation of the wave slamming into Mordecai like a small explosion, and in the vacuum of each wave's wake rode a blast of random elemental energy.

This left the impact of the charge in the moose's favor, though Mordecai at least managed to get his front limbs impaled on the antlers instead of his body. The knowledge that he really was a bad influence on Fuyuko floated briefly through his head, but at least she wasn’t here to see this. Then he returned the favor, and flooded his voice with mana and chi as he roared.

Pulsing black energy enveloped the moose, raking at the giant creature's flesh as an empowered breath weapon drank the moose's life energy, channeling it into Mordecai's body, healing him. The moose bellowed in pain as it spun and shook itself, trying to rid itself of the hungry, dark cloud that was trying to devour it.

Mordecai took that opportunity to grab at the antlers that were tearing into his arms, twisted his grip to apply torque in a plane across the base of the antlers, and then spun himself in opposition to the dragon-moose's frantic actions. Both antlers snapped off at the spot he was gripping, and Mordecai surged upward to gain some distance between them, before transferring the antlers into his storage ring.

Despite the vitality transferred from his previous attack, Mordecai's forelimbs were still a bloody mess, and he took this opportunity to cast a healing prayer. Keeping his distance for the brief moment that took wasn't too hard, given that Moriko had slung herself feet-first into the side of its head, using her black lightning to pull herself in hard and fast. It was rapidly becoming one of her favorite moves, since in an aerial battle, it was very hard to dodge or block unless one could prevent her lightning tethers from attaching. So Mordecai could hardly fault her for using such a successful tactic when she could.

A quick shake of the moose's head sent Moriko flying as the lightning tethers snapped, but others were arriving on Moriko's heels to begin their assault. Paltira had fully manifested golden dragon wings and claws that now glowed with white-gold flame as he raked up the dragon-moose's flank, and when the moose spun to bite at him, it was assaulted with spells from the rest of the now airborne party, and almost immediately after that, three dragon hatchlings attached themselves to its back.

Mordecai dipped to the side in a gentle dive as he conjured two spears of rare elemental affinity. One of them he had used before — black fire. It burned life and spirit as much as it did material objects, though it was correspondingly less powerful against non-living objects.

The other was more difficult and dangerous to work with — living ice. So long as there was heat above the level of freezing water, the ice could feed on it and grow, chilling all it touched and covered. It was also directly opposed and countered by black fire, which was why he was using both to limit their potential growth.

His dive curved so as to briefly leave Mordecai upside down as he passed underneath the dragon-moose, and he threw both spears at widely spread points of the exposed belly. He grinned with satisfaction as both struck home and began both burning and freezing their target, then he spun to right himself and regain elevation.

For the moment, he ignored the boss and let everyone else occupy it. It was going to take a lot to bring the boss down, and until it was down, it would be dangerous, but there was little Mordecai could do to speed up the process at this point.

Instead, he spread his awareness outward, seeking even the faintest ripple of dangerous probability. There.

Twelve shifts of reality began to manifest, and Mordecai bounced two of them while trapping two more into a brief standoff before he was able to focus enough to convert them into more of Kazue's moose mush.

That concentration made it harder to defend himself, and in the few moments it had taken him to overcome the resistance of the second pair, a quintet of dragon-moose had slammed into him, forming a cage of antlers that pierced his flesh.

While these ones were smaller than the boss, they were larger and more mature than their brethren whom the party had fought earlier, and would not have any trouble staying aloft.

Contrary to most people's good sense, instead of trying to force the quintet away, Mordecai used a pulse of gravitational magic to draw them tighter to him. None of the antlers were dangerously deep, given the size of his current form, and twisting his body as he drew them in made the antlers dig furrows across his flesh instead of pushing deeper in.

Dealing with the somewhat predictable but reasonable arrival of support for a boss surrounded by that many foes was only one of the reasons Mordecai had abandoned the primary battle. The other was that his war form was dangerous for others to be around, as illustrated by him having left more than a few poisoned spikes lodged into the face of the boss-moose.

Now his combined spell and maneuver were forcing the quintet that assaulted him onto more of those spikes. He used his tails as well, but not to attack the dragon-moose. Mordecai flicked his tails in order to spin out large, thick strands of sticky webbing. In moments, he had a net entrapping all five of his attackers against his body.

Naturally, his wings were not useful right now, but Mordecai did not need wings to stay in the sky. He was just as capable of skywalking as Moriko was, though he did admittedly have to put some effort into it. Unlike his wife, who had to put in a tiny bit of effort to keep her feet on the ground.

Each of them tried to flee by teleporting away, but with them so close, it was easy for Mordecai to interrupt the forming magic. He was not letting his prey get away so easily. They thrashed in desperation, antlers and hooves battering his scales and bellows of elemental energy scouring his flesh despite his resistences, but Mordecai was relentless, keeping them trapped with him until he felt the last flickers of life fade from their bodies.

Mordecai had to use two or more clawed hands to slowly rip each one free before he let them drop. His webbing was strong, and it was hard to move the bodies laterally while they were still impaled on his spikes.

His fight had left five other dragon-moose to attack the rest of the party, but two of those five had been delayed, and by the time the tardy pair managed to teleport into the battle, one of their fellows had already fallen, thanks to Moriko and Orchid. Moriko's assault had drawn the first trio's attention to herself, while Orchid had glided quietly in to lash out with her poisoned spear. The debilitation from the poison weakened the moose enough for Moriko to quickly finish it off before they began working on the rest, with the aid of Kazue and Ruby, along with all three familiars.

Mordecai was amused to note that whatever spell Orchid was using caused her to float about like a flower or petal in the wind, though it did allow her to readily slide out of the way of attacks. Maybe he should look into adding that to his repertoire.

While everyone else was dealing with the other moose, Paltira and Takehiko had stayed focused on the boss, assaulting it physically and magically, and both of them were capable of healing themselves or each other. It was more of a holding action with just the two of them, but that was sufficient to keep it occupied until everyone else was back.

When returning to the boss, the three hatchlings did not attempt to renew their physical assault and instead chose to harry from a distance. The giant dragon-moose hadn't been able to build up that same mighty bellow that had rattled Mordecai at the start of the battle, but its 'normal' bellows still outclassed the sound of a large cannon going off, and the little dragons had been physically rattled by being in such close proximity.

While his allies finished the boss off, Mordecai focused on healing his wounds. His natural regeneration had kept him from bleeding too badly, but nearly half of his scales were some level of damaged, with a lot of deep bruising and cracked bones beneath even the intact scales. This was why he had designed his avatar with such a low capacity to feel pain; it could be debilitating to deal with all the pain signals that a normal body would be assaulted with while in this condition.

It was rather satisfying to see the boss fall under the combined assault, but that feeling lasted only a flicker of a moment before Mordecai sensed something wrong. Part of it was noticing a flow of energy deep inside of the dragon-moose's body, but part of it was feeling Dersuta's core take direct action, moving two fresh inhabitants into place on the ground, each one approximately where one of the liquefied moose had splattered. These two dragon-moose shimmered and became semi-translucent. Almost like ghosts, though it wasn't quite the same as real ghosts.

Shit.

"Spread out and up, heal fast!" Mordecai shouted before following his own instructions.

The boss's body burst into hellfire before it hit the ground, and its wings snapped open as it halted its fall. Never mind the ragged holes torn along its wings, or the broken bones that should have prevented it from moving so freely.

Dersuta had created demonic undead. Great. False ones, of course; he could tell the subtle differences from here. It was also why the two new moose with spectral enchantments had been added; a real necromantic monster would have been able to raise spiritual wraiths out of even such liquefied remains, but in this case, the cores that Dersuta used to enable the false demonic undead would have been destroyed, so he replaced them with two new ones that he custom converted into false ghosts. Still demonic of course, complete with spectral hellfire.

As much as Mordecai loved seeking out new experiences, that one seemed like one he'd rather avoid. Well, time for round two, it seemed.