The Twisted one was forced to pull Leor's Antibody Injection directly back into its body as it recalled its tongue. A single injection wouldn't do a great deal against a defiled as strong as a Twisted one, but Alina needed every advantage she could get right now. The longer the fight dragged on, the weaker the Twisted would become, but the companions were far more desperate for time than the creature was.
If they didn't destroy it soon and stop the dark corruption from empowering the other defiled, Bone, Old Grey, and Thale might get completely overrun. Even now the three of them were struggling desperately to keep their heads above water and prevent additional defiled from moving past them to attack Alina, Leor, and Drelk.
In the end, it turned out to be none other than the wizened old dark elf who finally shifted the battle fully in Alina's favor. No one was aware, but Drelk had begun setting a trap for the defiled creatures the moment the group had found itself stuck in this dead end with nowhere to run.
It wasn't clear how or when the sneaky old elf had done so, but he had somehow spread a carnivorous herb through the incredibly hard black rock of the cave floor. It was probably the hardness of that rock that had caused the trap to take so long to fully develop. Drelk hadn't just been sitting in the corner in pain—he had been constantly injecting his powerful Will into the developing underground herb. Now, it was ready.
As Alina dodged another of the Twisted one's devious attacks, a look of surprise covered her pale face. She suddenly felt a series of snakelike things moving through the tunnel below, each of them carrying a Willpower strikingly similar to Drelk's.
The next instant, as the Twisted was preparing to strike, the rock beside its feet suddenly exploded in a spray of debris as a thick thorny vine shot out and wrapped itself around the Twisted one's legs.
The powerful spring-like legs of the Twisted instantly exploded with might, kicking against the thorny plant as it tried to escape. The vines were no match for the powerful defiled creature and quickly began to tear apart as a strange high-pitched wail sounded out from the injured plant. The herb trembled in anger as three more thorny vines shot out from the ground to enwrap the struggling Twisted one.
"Go! I can't hold it long!" Drelk suddenly screamed, his voice strained to the point of breaking.
Alina and Leor both rushed toward the entangled monster. The young girl carved aggressively at its ichor-covered flesh as Leor took the chance to inject as many Willpower beads as he could manage in the time given.
His polearm stabbed into the tough flesh of the Twisted again and again, mercilessly filling the monster with Antibody Injections in an attempt to destroy the source of its power. Alina, on the other hand, took a much more direct approach, she intended to simply stab and destroy the creature's flesh with her needle-like blade.
The Twisted one writhed and wailed in rage as it was attacked from all sides. When it found that it couldn't fully break the vines entangling it, the creature did something Leor did not expect. It turned its abominable face down toward its own body and released a massive flood of burning ichor.
The ensnaring herb vine let out a deathly scream as it retreated back into the ground, smoke and steam rising from its many limbs. The Twisted one had managed to free itself from the trap, but it had been forced to melt away its own flesh in the process.
The monster began to hiss in pain as the bubbling ichor burned away the skin from its chest down to its thighs. If it hadn't possessed such a powerful Will, that acid would have eaten right down to the bone in a few breaths.
Unfortunately for the defiled, Leor had managed to inject over a dozen beads of powerful Will into its body. Given that he was currently being flooded with Willpower himself, he saw no reason to create the tiny Willpower beads he had used back in the fortress. Instead, what he created was closer to Willpower eggs than beads—at least ten times larger. The Twisted one's defiled Will was being drained away at an incredible rate, allowing the ichor to burn faster and faster.
Leor hastily stepped away when the Twisted one freed itself from the trap, but Alina remained right by its side as she continued to attack relentlessly. As she slashed her rapier across the bubbling flesh at the front of the creature's body, the skin finally gave way. The Twisted monster stumbled forward, grasping at its own stomach as its massive spear-like tongue fell out of the new hole in its body like spilled intestines.
After the black tongue came a wave of ichor that spilled over its body like a grotesque fountain. The Twisted one wailed and clawed at its own flesh as it continued to melt away. By now the creature couldn't even stand, collapsing to the floor in a puddle of its own melted flesh.
Alina stepped above the mutant's still-struggling form with a sour expression on her face. Even for someone as tough as her, the monster's death was gruesome. The young girl quickly said a prayer to the great Will of Light as she sent her rapier piercing through the creature's skull. By now its power had been so broken that it no longer had the ability to strengthen its body with defiled Will, and Alina was finally able to strike the killing blow.
Leor would have noticed the increase in his Willpower from the Twisted one's death, but his Will hadn't stopped increasing since the fighting began some time ago. By now his entire body was filled with a numb throbbing ache from the constant expansion and burning pressure of his growing Will.
Casting his gaze toward the frontline, Leor beheld a scene of utter devastation. Dozens of corpses were piled up around Bone like a barricade of death. The mighty ape was heaving and straining to move his heavy limbs as a pained and exhausted expression filled his face. Old Grey was doing no better. The old wolf was covered in so much blood that his body had turned a slick, shiny red. A consequence of his method of killing with hoa teeth was that he wasn't able to avoid the blood as well as the larger Beast was. Bone was a mess too, but it was mostly limited to his thick arms and fists.
As the dark corruption from the Twisted one finally cleared out of the area, the defiled mutants underwent a dramatic disempowerment, much the same as they had experienced in the fortress when a similar event took place.
By now, out of the second wave of nearly a hundred defiled that had attacked the companions, only a few dozen remained. These stragglers had been exposed to Leor's flame so long that they actually began to collapse on their own, as the defilement inside them began to be cleansed.
Bone looked back at the others with a look of uncertainty on his face as he felt the defiled Will begin to disappear from the mutants. It was Thale who rushed forward with desperation on his youthful face.
"Please! Give them a chance to live! I will take responsibility for them. I swear!" the young elf begged.
Drelk hadn't been planning to kill them anyway once they were no longer a threat, but he happily took advantage of the young elf's naivety.
"You said it already, so you can't take it back. These are all your responsibility now. Don't be looking for me to care for them!" he quickly spat out.
Leor was amazed that the injured old elf had the energy to take advantage of someone right now, when a few moments ago he was doubled over in pain.
"Was that the last of them? I don't hear footsteps approaching anymore." Alina cautiously stepped to the front of the group, lighting her own torch as she searched for any signs of additional enemies.
"I hear nothing," Bone grumbled in his deep voice as he slumped his exhausted body against the far wall.
By now Thale was rushing around, moving all the surviving dark elves away from the brutalized corpses and into a small area so he could look after them until they awoke.
Leor walked up curiously as he watched Thale work. He was considering the implication of adding so many new people to Drelk's small community. It didn't seem like a terrible idea. In fact, he would have much preferred to save all the mutant elves if he had the option. It was truly a great tragedy that they had been forced into a life-and-death struggle like this, with no choice but to slaughter so many.
"I'm sorry Leor. I doubted you. When you told me you were the one to cleanse my defilement, I called you a liar. I can see now that you were telling the truth." Thale humbly admitted.
Leor simply nodded to accept the elves' words, before turning his attention back to the massacre around him. As Leor was feeling regret for all the wasteful death, a sudden strange throbbing sensation spread through his body. Glancing down at himself in confusion, he realized that it wasn't actually his body that was throbbing—it was his Willpower.
Sometime during the last battle, Leor had passed the threshold into the realm of an Adept. Now his Willpower was about to undergo a great deal of changes!
He quickly turned his head toward Alina as he tried to explain the situation, but before he could speak, the throbbing in his chest reached a crescendo. The Willpower all around his body began to transform, spreading out and recombining into a new shape that perfectly filled every crevice and crack of his form.
Leor was attaining the Body of Will.