Bright light shone through the barricaded room through the gaps between the tentacles pouring in. Neither Nero nor Gabriel could afford to distract themselves by paying attention to the room, so the others would have to protect themselves.
Step by step, Nero cut off invading tentacles and blocked the rest as he approached the monster. Gabriel kept a distance, but once again he began weaving his sand together, using friction to heat it up.
At the same time, a part of him was trying to understand why his sand became redder when heated. He did not reveal the details of his innate ability to anyone, letting them draw his own conclusions. But the truth was that the red colour was a result of a mutation, and something he likely inherited from his mother. If that was the case, its origins lay in an innate ability related to blood.
The burning ability of his sand was not actually burning, but corrosion, and it worked better on animals than everything else.
None of that translated to anything with heat, but that was exactly what was happening. He was not sure, but he felt like the corrosive ability of his sand might be better if it was hot. It was something he could only test in the future.
For now, he morphed his heated sand into arrows instead of darts, and shot them towards the tentacle monster, whose body was docked in a gruesome swirl of fleshy tentacles near them.
"Nero!" he yelled, and the other needed no other prompting. The sound of the arrows was enough.
Nero unleashed another curtain of flames which greedily grabbed onto the hot sand, turning into a devastating rain of flaming arrows.
The sound of something scraping suddenly distracted Nero, and the speed with which it was approaching alarmed him. He tried to use Ful Defend behind him, but since he was already using it to his front, he could not move it, so instead he used Ful Hele while he tried to dodge.
His timing couldn't have been better, for the next moment an entire cabinet smashed into his lower body. He had moved just enough to avoid having his entire body smashed, but he could not completely avoid being hit.
The tentacle monster had grabbed the furniture blocking Maximilian's room and slammed it into Nero. It had happened too fast for Gabriel to warm him, and the result was Nero's body being hurled to the side, his lower spine, pelvis and legs completely crushed.
The sudden, sharp pain overwhelmed Nero, causing him to drop his connection with all the cards he was using. Ful Defend disappeared, and Ful Hele was cancelled. But upon ending, the effects of Ful Hele came into play, and Nero's body began to rapidly heal. Even then, it could not be instantaneous.
This was the first time Nero had allowed such a mistake to occur, but the fact that it happened meant that though his aether was continuously being replenished, physically his body began to grow exhausted. His senses dimmed and his concentration waned, or else he would have noticed the attack long before it struck.
But there was no time to dwell on these things. Gabriel had no idea that Nero had used Ful Hele and was recovering. All he knew was that Nero was on the verge of dying as countless tentacles shot towards him, ready to pierce through his body.
He shot his sand forward, wrapping it around Nero and forming a sort of sarcophagus, hardening around him without really crushing him. The tentacles crashed into it a split second later, but weren't able to break through.
Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief. If his ability hadn't gained a new trait, more easily allowing him to form solid objects by fusing his sand together, then the protection his sand could provide would have been paltry.
A moment later, Ful Defend formed in front of the sarcophagus, and Gabriel felt Nero knocking on it from within, so he dismissed it, revealing an unharmed Nero.
"There's no air inside," Nero said calmly as he emerged, his focus reverting to the tentacle berserker.
The flaming arrows had struck its main body, and the fire had latched onto it. It had to use the same old strategy of smashing the flames with its tentacles to smother the flame, but the effects of the flame were evident.
"Use more arrows," Nero said as he retreated to come closer to Gabriel. Since physical fatigue was setting in, it was best to reduce his strain as much as possible. Long range attacks would have to suffice. This was a test of endurance between his aether and the creature's ability to heal from attacks. It was best to reduce all other factors, such as Nero's own physical endurance as much as possible.
Nero and Gabriel partnered up, protecting one another, as they readied and launched their salvo of flaming arrows again and again. They couldn't do it too quickly, for it took time for Gabriel to heat up his sand, and during that wait Nero made use of flaming Snowflakes!
Snowflakes acted as fuel for his fire, and though they didn't allow his flames to grow deeper in colour, they were much harder to smother.
Combined with the deep blue flame produced by Gabriel's heated arrows, the damage they were doing to the tentacle monster almost became obvious. In fact, the tentacles its body had docked into eventually froze, and shattered, disconnecting the monster.
As soon as that happened, the barrage of tentacles shooting at them stopped.
Nero saw an opportunity and instantly dashed forward at his fastest speed, using the opening from the lack of tentacle attacks to cut through in a straight line towards the monster, and threw himself at it.
Just to be careful, instead of Ful Defend Nero began using Ful Hele, but he intended to suffer no strikes. Instead, his flaming dagger constantly stabbed into the berserker's metallic skin, leaving countless small flames covering its body.
The already hulking monster moved slower than ever, stiffness having set in from the piercing cold. The tentacles revealed within the body after each stab moved slowly and lethargically, as the cursed energy drained from them.
Nero's eyes flashed and it suddenly occurred to him that the mass of tentacles covering the walls was not only a potent weapon, but also a reserve of cursed energy. That was the exact reason no other curses had appeared in the basement, because the tentacles were absorbing all the cursed energy.
He absolutely couldn't allow it to reconnect with the tentacles.
Even before he said it aloud, Gabriel began constructing walls around them, blocking the monster from the other tentacles. He must have had similar thoughts.
A flash of intelligence flashed through the tentacle monster's eyes as it realised how desperate its condition was becoming. It tried to resist, fighting as brutally as possible to break free from them.
Yet its movement had slowed down, and without the aid of countless tentacles to smother the flames, Nero's cryoflames slowly drained it of all its cursed energy while ice began to form on its joints, slowing it down even further.
Nero sensed victory, but the more it was like this, the more he did not let himself grow impatient. His emotions were still raging, and he was still influenced by that, but Nero would never allow himself to make such a critical mistake regardless of his state of mind.
After all, the closer the berserker was to death, the more desperate it would be.
In fact, that is exactly what happened. One of the berserker's knees froze solid under the influence of the flames, but since it did not stop moving, the knee suddenly cracked.
It suddenly lost balance and fell over. The berserker saw Nero approaching, as steady as always, to take advantage of its situation, and it felt the shadow of death.
A mix of fear, pain, desperation and a reluctance to die forced it to do something it never thought it would. The creature used the last of its strength to cause its body to self-destruct.
As close as Nero was, it was impossible to dodge.
Dozens of tentacles, some frozen, some already dead, and some left struggling against the flames covering them, shot out of its body, and more than a few pierced Nero's body. He managed to protect his face and neck, but he felt something cut into his stomach, and began wriggling around.
Yet instead of fear and horror, Nero felt victory in his grasp. Using all of his concentration, he kept Ful Hele active, covered his entire body in cryoflames, and began using Radix Augmentation.
The many dead tentacles around him turned to dust as Nero's body absorbed something from within them, which only made his own body stronger.
At the same time, Nero's flames began eating away the last of the tentacle's vitality, while Radix Augmentation waited to absorb everything else.
Covered in head to toe with blue flames, Nero finished off the last of the writhing tentacles, even as thick layers of ice began to cover everything around him, forming a sort of mini-castle of crystal clear ice.