The Echo hit the ground in a roll, carefully arranging his body to cushion his tiny passenger from the fall. Despite the care he took in handling the cat, as soon as he was on the ground, the critter started to struggle against his grip. It lashed out, and he took another point of damage from its claws leaving a scratch across his cheek.

“Alright, alright. I get it.” Not wanting to hold onto the obviously distressed animal, Hirrus let it squirm out of his grip. As if by an Arcana, the cat turned itself into a streak of black sprinting away towards the outside of town. Hirrus hoped that the little animal’s decision tree would keep it safe from the destruction.

For his part, he directed the Echo to move away from the burning buildings, and towards the fight. He either needed more bodies to play bait for the fight, or he needed to stop trying to navigate the burning town while engaged with two giant monsters. It seemed obvious now that he wasn’t going to find any further survivors.

Meanwhile, Hirrus used his other Echo’s point of view to quickly judge what he should do with his actual real body.

The most prudent course was to continue to circle left around the metal lobster. If he could position himself to where he was on the other side of it from the Archaeotitan, he might be able to finish off the giant crustacean before dealing with the bloated lizard.

Hirrus still had a bit of Andrew’s cast speed buffs running, which made Reisenfuer the obvious choice. The otherwise long cast time was greatly mitigated, letting him fling an enormous orb of fire up into Kodetlan’s dripping face right as it turned to follow his movement. Six thousand damage blasted into the monster, chipping another big chunk off of its hit points.

The lobster let out a rumbling wail, and its mouthplates began to quiver again, more of that glowing green ooze dribbling out, warning Hirrus that it was about to spray the area with disgusting goo.

The High Jump Arcana wasn’t yet ready, but Hirrus had other options. He flung another magical Arcana up at the monster - Melisune’s Eye was one of the highest-damage options he had left, even though the monster was obviously immune to the debilitating debuff attached to it - and then threw himself forward, going into a roll to avoid getting caught by the spray of glowing ooze.

Again, the ooze ate away at all the organic material in a giant cone in front of Kotetlan, and left the area with a disgusting green glow. Hirrus still didn’t know what the spray or the glow did, exactly, but didn’t care to find out if he could avoid it.

The metal lobster was nearly dead, but Hirrus was forced to fall back on some of his worse Arcana for damage. He was starting to lose some of the shorter buffs. Andrew’s buffs were gone now, and wouldn’t be off cooldown again until after Eyes On Me ran out. He just needed to make another 20% of Kodetlan’s hit points happen soon.

Hirrus blasted Mortal Ray up into the monster’s underside, dealing just over two thousand damage. Three more percentage points shaved away, though Hirrus was worried that he was going to run out of gas before the fight was over. Ioun Flechette was going to be ready again in a few more seconds, but what Arcana did he have left for it to empower afterwards?

He had a selection of low-multiplier Arcana remaining. Rock III was the strongest, but it was still a far cry from his heavy hitters, its potency limited by the low effective cooldown. Otherwise, TK Bullets and Flamesplash were his remaining competitors, alongside the selection of beam attacks that demanded more consistent magical stats to be effective enough to use.

Archaeotitan tried to physically muscle its way around the lobster beast to get to Hirrus, its animosity for Kodetlan forgotten after being teased by the Echo. Despite all the damage Hirrus had dumped into the metal beast, it hadn’t forgotten Archaeotitan, though. Instead of lashing out at Hirrus, it turned and slammed a claw into the bloated lizard, sending it staggering sideways, and forcing it to give the other giant monster some attention.

Hirrus used the opportunity to duck out from under the giant lobster’s body, running between two of its giant legs and giving the still-glowing area it had drenched in ooze a wide berth. His escape was greatly facilitated by his Echo’s point of view; he knew exactly when he needed to make a sharp sideways turn and duck right as the Archaeotitan’s mouth began to emit that harsh blue glow again. The blast of energy was coming, and he didn’t have to look back to see it coming, or to check his position. Through his Echo’s eyes, he could see the attack coming, and could see when he was clear of its path.

The giant blue beam crashed into Kodetlan. It did much more damage this time than last time, nearly finishing off the monster. Hirrus was somewhat distracted, though. His Reflected Echo Arcana didn’t give him a way to identify where his Echoes were in relation to his body, unless he could see them, or they could see him. As such, he had no idea that his farthest Echo - which was nearly back to the fight - was directly in the path of the giant blue beam.

From that Echo’s perspective, the building in front of him suddenly exploded with blue light, and he was abruptly engulfed in it. Hirrus' physical body felt an explosive searing pain as the Echo was obliterated by over ten thousand damage in a single strike.

That was one way to learn that despite the size difference, Archaeotitan was definitely the more threatening foe. Despite that, Kodetlan was nearly dead, and so his priority was to clear it out of the way before focusing his energy on the monster that was just barely bruised.

Hirrus flung his Ioun Flechette at Kodetlan. The Arcana bludgeoned the beast’s curled tail for barely over one thousand five hundred damage, but the magical stat boost the purple dart provided when it returned to circle his head was the most powerful one he had access to.

The giant metal lobster whirled on him, its claw lashing out, and Hirrus dodged it by activating Split Second. For his next move, he wanted to be in just the right spot, and the extreme speed boost let him get exactly where his other Echo’s point of view told him he needed to be. As he moved, the Archaeotitan’s giant glowing maw chomped down on one of Kodetlan’s legs, taking a meager chunk of its hit points.

Hirrus used his newest Arcana, Trembling. The purple dart floating around his head flew down and slammed into the ground, and as the earth shook with the Arcana’s power, purple streaks radiated out from his feet. Despite their size, both foes staggered as the ground shook under them. The Archaeotitan took slightly more damage than Kodetlan, but they both took about three thousand damage total.

Kodetlan hadn’t fallen, however.

After the damage from Trembling, the monster’s health level was reported as 0%, but it still stood. Hirrus could only assume that it had been rounded down for the report.

A little spark of light flitted across the field. If Hirrus had only been using his own eyes, he never would have seen it, but his Echo saw the flicker before it turned near-invisible. There was a tiny little pop and a flash of light next to Kodetlan's head. It seemed such a small thing, but the monster’s remaining health was so low that it was enough. The giant metal beast’s limbs went limp, and it sagged to the ground with a crackling sound of shell knocking against shell.

“Aaaay!” Alric whooped from somewhere behind Hirrus' Echo. “Got ‘em!”

Hirrus didn’t have the time to respond to the adventurer’s victory. Giant glowing jaws were about to snap closed on top of him. He almost had to throw himself all the way to the ground to avoid the bite. Hirrus scrambled to the left, circling around the monster as he prepared to take the fight to it.

Archaeotitan was at a dramatic disadvantage. Hirrus knew how to avoid its attacks - the harsh blue blast was greatly telegraphed, and the bubbling ring attack wouldn’t affect him if he stayed close to it.

And he had all of his physical Arcana ready.

Going Ape, Pumped Kicks, and Iron Typhoon turned his hooked blade into a flurry of destruction. The damage escalated further and further as he re-stacked Crushing Blade and eviscerated the monster in increments of three thousand damage blows, delivered lightning-quick.

The giant glowing maw was unceasing in its own attacks, but Hirrus had another pair of eyes watching over him. The attacks could not succeed against him. He found the assistance so critical that when the Arcana expired and the Echo vanished, he recast the ability to spawn another one to dart away from battle and act as his eyes anew.

It took a few moments, but eventually the bloated beast shuddered, tipped sideways, and fell, unable to deal with Hirrus’ physical damage output, after all his Arcana were brought to bear.

As usual, the rewards of the battle were issued once all the foes were down. Hirrus was rewarded with another huge chunk of experience points, though the Archaeotitan rewarded him significantly more than Kodetlan did. The reason why became immediately apparent from Alric’s energetic cheer.

“Fuck yeah!” the man shouted. “Dinged off the kill steal!”

Hirrus had no idea what those words meant in that order, but from the context, he assumed that Alric’s participation in the battle had earned him a share of the rewards. As he put away his weapon, he wondered if his celebration also meant the man had earned the Arcana as well.