David took his position atop the crumbling city wall ruins, his sharp gaze scanning the mud-slick battlefield below. He glanced toward Auriel and said firmly, "Miss, stay close. Don't take unnecessary risks."
Auriel gave a silent nod, her expression calm yet wary. Fiona, perched beside Aaron with arms crossed, rolled her eyes and muttered, "Aaron, are you in position yet?"
"Just a sec," Aaron replied, activating the Sharingan. The crimson glow surged in his eyes as he locked onto the looming Mud Golem. It towered nearly nine meters high, a pulsating mass of sludge and menace. Though it stood less than a hundred meters away, the oppressive weight of its aura gripped them all.
The ground was treacherous, slick with moisture, coated in dense mud, and Aaron suspected a hidden swamp might lie beneath. But with his heightened perception, he saw it clearly now: the golem's energy flow pulsing throughout its body... and at its core, a swirling nucleus buried deep within its stomach.
He tightened his grip on a kunai, its hilt wrapped in a detonating talisman, and said, "David fire now."
Without hesitation, David raised his enchanted crossbow, aimed true, and unleashed the Flame Arrow. The bolt streaked through the thick air, trailing fire toward the heart of the Mud Golem.
The flaming arrow tore through the misty air and struck the Mud Golem's shoulder with a sharp, wet impact. Steam hissed from the wound as fire battled the sodden sludge. The creature groaned a guttural, earthen rumble that sent tremors across the marshy ground.
Aaron's eyes narrowed. "Direct hit, but not enough," he muttered.
He noticed the impact zone drying, the fire vaporizing moisture, and stiffening the mud. Yet even as they gained a momentary advantage, the Golem reached up with a lumbering arm and yanked out the arrow. Sludge surged, overlapping the wound like living clay, healing the damage rapidly.
Aaron called out, voice steady but urgent, "Auriel, Fiona prepare to strike as soon as it's within range."
His fingers tightened around the kunai wrapped in a detonation talisman.
Suddenly, the Mud Golem twisted its body and launched a massive Mud Ball straight at David. The projectile roared through the air, a glob of compressed sludge spinning with destructive force.
"Move!" Fiona shouted.
David bolted from his perch, boots skimming over uneven stone. The Mud Ball struck behind him with an explosive squelch, splattering mud and shards of dried clay everywhere.
Aaron narrowed his eyes and swiftly holstered the kunai. The distance was too great for a precise throw.
Without hesitation, his hands began forming rapid seals, each motion fluid and practiced. "Fireball Jutsu!" he roared.
A blazing sphere, nearly two meters wide, burst forth from his mouth and surged across the battlefield, illuminating the fog with a fiery trail. The heat warped the air as the fireball hurtled toward the Mud Golem, its trajectory perfect burning straight toward its center mass.
For a moment, it looked like a direct hit.
But the Mud Golem reacted. With surprising speed, it slammed its massive hands into the ground. A wall of mud erupted before it, thick and sturdy, intercepting the fireball just in time. The explosion sent embers scattering, but the wall held.
Steam billowed. Mud sizzled. The terrain hissed as scorched earth met sludgy resilience.
Aaron grimaced. Smart... It knows how to counterfire.
Aaron's voice thundered across the field, cutting through the tension. "Everyone, fall back now!"
Auriel and Fiona instinctively retreated, sensing the raw surge of chakra crackling around him.
Aaron's hands moved rapidly each seal etched with intent and precision. As he channeled 300 units of chakra, his body radiated heat, a shimmering distortion flickering around him.
Two roaring spheres of flame, each over four meters wide, burst from his mouth in succession. They spiraled through the air like flaming comets, casting long shadows and igniting the haze with a fiery glow.
The Mud Golem, caught mid-recovery behind its crumbling wall, turned its gaze toward the incoming assault. The first fireball collided with the weakened barrier, shattering it in a cascade of scorched mud and steam. The second shot directly for the creature's chest no time to react.
With a deafening blast, the fireball struck true. Flames consumed the area, engulfing the Mud Golem in a searing inferno. Its roar echoed as its massive body reeled from the direct hit.
Fiona squinted through the rising haze. "Direct hit its outer layer's falling apart!"
Cracks veined the Mud Golem's thick torso, and its core a once-steady swirl of power now flickered erratically. The creature staggered, limbs sluggish, its regeneration hampered by the scorched terrain and dwindling moisture.
Aaron spotted the vulnerability and seized the moment.
He inhaled deeply, chakra surging through his system like wildfire. His hands snapped into seals with blazing speed. "Fireball Justu!"
He funneled nearly 400 units of chakra into the jutsu. Heat radiated from his body as a massive inferno erupted forth an 5-meter-wide fireball, roaring with violent intensity.
The Mud Golem, mid-repair, didn't stand a chance.
The fireball slammed into its chest with devastating force. The explosion tore through softened mud and ruptured brittle cracks, blowing chunks of the creature apart. Flames engulfed its core region, and the surrounding swamp hissed in protest.
A shockwave rippled outward, flattening the immediate terrain and kicking up a whirlwind of ash, steam, and smoke.
As silence settled and the embers faded, the Mud Golem knelt crippled, its core exposed.
Aaron locked eyes on the exposed core pulsing erratically within the battered Mud Golem. The creature, now kneeling in defeat, was cocooning itself in compressed sludge, desperate, unstable.
Around them, the ruins groaned under residual heat. Cracked stone walls jutted from the muddy ground like ancient sentinels, and the battlefield was drenched slick with sludge and scattered with small tenacious plants, their leaves trembling from the earlier shockwave.
Aaron inhaled deeply, his boots sinking slightly into the sodden earth. Chakra surged through his system, veins tingling with power. His hands flashed through seals with practiced urgency.
"Fireball Jutsu!"
He fed 800 units of chakra into the technique. The ground around him steamed as heat radiated outward. A colossal 10-meter-wide fireball erupted from his mouth, its infernal glow lighting the ruins in a sweltering blaze. Small plants wilted instantly; mud vaporized into boiling fog.
The Mud Golem, mid-compression, couldn't react.
The fireball slammed into its exposed core with ferocious impact. Hardened sludge plates cracked and crumbled, and the energy within detonated violently. The golem's body fractured like a brittle shell, flames tearing through its mass, melting mud, and hurling splinters of debris across the broken cityscape.
Ash rained across twisted stone pillars. Embers danced over vines curling from fractured walls. Steam roared into the sky as the last of the golem's form disintegrated into a scorched slurry.
Silence followed… save for the quiet drip of condensed moisture and the soft, wind-tugged rustle of surviving leaves.
The Mud Golem was no more.