The Arc Lightning had hit the top of the demon’s head and traveled down its body, tracing a glowing pattern down its spine.
A long fracture ran from the top of the demon’s head down through the narrow body, the structural integrity failing along a line that the discharge had traced in its passage, and the demon came apart along that line in a way that was difficult to look at directly.
However, I did not take my eyes away from the gory scene.
The two halves of the demon fell in different directions; its internal organs, which were among the strangest I have ever seen, burst out of its body.
Despite being torn in half, the limbs of the demons were still kicking, causing its brownish black blood and organs to jump several feet in the air.
I had used the weakness on its skull that I observed the last time, and it turned out that I managed to find a hidden weakness that ran down the bodies of these demons. It was the spot where their shell seemed to be fused together like a crab, and it ran from the head down to the spine.
There should be a feeling of elation in my heart at this moment, but the Epic Title that I had equipped had given me a supernatural focus that dampened everything else but the fight.
With this title, nothing mattered to me but to kill demons, and as I watched the tendrils on both halves of the demon’s face continue to burn for several seconds after the body had stopped moving, the only thought on my mind was... is that it?
The dark fluid inside the iron-dark hide spilled across the cracked earth in amounts that did not seem proportional to the size of the creature.
One of the rear limbs twitched once and then did not twitch again, the last of its foul life fading away, and I felt a sort of presence enter me from the corpse of the demon, and I instinctively knew that it was my title absorbing something from the dead demon.
I stood with my staff raised and my Anima Depth at approximately eighty-five percent and watched the first demon come apart in halves, and for the second time in two loops, I understood that I had crossed a line in what I was capable of doing.
Two casts with no hesitation or panic, and I had butchered this demon before it was able to take two steps forward.
In my previous loop, at this time, I was surrounded and torn apart, and I knew even without the cold spots from Death Touched that the demons had placed me in their sight, and I calmly turned around.
I had no detection sense, no advance warning of their approach, nothing telling me where they were or how many.
What I had was my eyes and my ears and the sound of movement in the wreckage of the camp ahead of me, and when seven demons broke into my field of vision at once, they were already close.
So, these were among those that killed me the last time... bet they did not remember, but I did.
Last time, there was nothing I could do but bring up a pathetic defense before I was torn to pieces, and despite the way my title seemed to focus my thoughts, I still bared my teeth at the demon like a little wolf.
They were eight meters from me, two to my left, three in the center, and two to my right. Moving in a loosely coordinated arc.
I had time to register seven of them before the lead one was within five meters of me, and the absence of the Death-Touched warning made the moment feel different from any other combat I had been in.
It was not necessarily worse or better; it just felt more raw, as the threats were filtering through my eyes rather than arriving as pre-processed information on my skin.
This was not the time for experimenting or holding back; I opened both channels.
Arc Lightning and Surge together, the combined cast, but with Arc Lightning as the component rather than the old Spark.
The combined discharge built in the staff, and I could feel the weight of it gathering differently than it had in previous loops. Tiny arcs of lightning emerged from my fingers and buried themselves into my staff, and the blue crystal at the top began to shine.
I could feel that Arc Lightning wanted to travel, and Surge amplified that wanting. The humming in the ashwood rose in pitch as my Resonance with my staff came to life.
The three charms vibrated against each other with a sound that was thin and bright as I poured forty percent of my Anima Depth into the cast.
This was deliberate and calculated to be the largest single spend I had ever committed.
The power built up in my staff and my channels felt painfully swollen as I released the power inside me.
The arc that left the staff was not a single strand like before; it was a trunk!
My entire staff lit up as if it were burning as the lightning blasted from my staff and traveled toward the lead demon, and as it struck, the moment it found the jaw cluster and the electrical charge began to seek ground, it branched.
A thought entered my head as I recalled the description of this skill.
[The electrical discharge now exists as a directable arc with extended duration. Due to Attunement Skill, conductive paths are sought preferentially. Range and branching capability increase with rank.]
The lightning... it jumped from the lead demon to the second. From the second to the third. The arc following the conductive paths between their bodies, leaping the meters of open air between each one because the bodies themselves were more conductive than the air, and the discharge wanted to travel, wanted to keep moving, wanted to find every connected point it could reach before it dissipated.
I guided it with my staff; this was the new thing I had not known I could do until I gained my Staff Resonance.
The combined cast was not a single discharge and done; it was sustained, as the channel in the staff was still open, the Concentration grip still present, and I could influence the arc’s onward path by moving the staff as the discharge traveled.