As Kaitzer Starden, the giant six-legged cat monster titled Primal Death, regarded Hirrus and Alric, the overcast sky above them went dark. It shifted its stance in a way that warned that it was ready to pounce.

Whiskers wiggled and twitched as it stared at them.

“Don’t run,” Hirrus said, doing his best to quickly calculate the best way to survive this encounter.

“Fucking duh,” Alric snapped. Despite his angry tone, he was pale as a sheet as the cat’s giant eyes flicked back and forth between the two men. “It’s a predator. Running will make it chase us.”

“Not just that,” Hirrus said, trying to keep his voice even to calm Alric down, “the forest is too cramped. Out in the woods, its attacks will corner and devastate us. In this clearing we have a chance.”

“We?” Alric said, his voice cracking. “We. We? Really? We?”

Hirrus pushed aside the tingle of irritation at the attitude. He wanted to snap something unkind at Alric, but he suspected they were nearing the end of the time the giant cat would spend letting the tension build before it attacked.

It was time for action now.

Despite Kaitzer’s size, Hirrus had seen the speed it had reached its feet from prone. If it decided to pounce, it could cover the distance faster than he could get his preparatory Arcana active. He needed to start by engaging the beast, and activating his buffs whenever it gave him a moment to breathe.

He hoped that it wasn’t wishful thinking to imagine that it would give him those moments.

As with so many situations, Split Second was the perfect Arcana for the moment. The dramatic and instant increase in move speed let him tear across the clearing into Kaitzer’s face. He had thought it was too fast for the beast to react, but as he swept his hooked sword at its face, the monster had already flinched back, narrowly avoiding the attack.

Hirrus had startled it with the sudden burst of speed, but it had startled him in turn. The giant cat had reflexes that seemed downright unnatural. There wasn’t a lot he could do to affect a beast that was fast enough to elude him entirely.

But there wasn’t nothing.

Hirrus stepped to the left, leaving a Mirrored Echo behind. And then he stepped again, and again, and a fourth time. He wasn’t completely confident in his ability to control so many at once, and he had some grave concerns about pushing his limits in a fight against something that might actually be able to kill him. But with the beast’s incredible speed, he needed all the help he could get.

As Hirrus directed his Echoes to spread out, the giant feline lashed out with a giant paw. Hirrus directed the Echo to dive clear, and it nearly made it out of the way, but he underestimated the length of its claws, and the Echo was shredded. It only had just over a thousand hit points, and the strike from Kaitz dealt over three thousand. Hirrus decided that the Echo had served its purpose, buying Hirrus enough time to spread the three remaining Echoes out - one circled around behind the monster, relative to Hirrus’ position, one stayed at his side, and the third darted out of the fight entirely, providing vision of the field of battle to him.

For his part, Hirrus himself used the moment’s distraction to activate Pumped Kicks. If any Arcana buff was going to serve him here, it needed to be speed to keep up with the monster.

The giant cat whirled, and its antlers crashed down towards Hirrus, crackling with electricity. Hirrus barely got out of the way of the attack, but it was immediately followed by a blast of purple energy around the point of impact. His Echo got clear of it, but Hirrus himself was caught in the radius of arcing electricity, suffering over eight thousand points of damage. The impact was accompanied by a high ripping sound, almost like a peal of thunder sped-up until it sounded like a yowling cat. More than that, the electrical energy rolled down off of the monster’s antlers, running up and down its heavily-muscled forelimbs.

Hirrus hacked his blade into the creature with a grimace, directing his Echoes to do the same. Eight thousand damage was a lot to take all at once, and he needed to start chipping away. Kaitzer’s hide was incredibly dense, and Hirrus’ attack was under two thousand damage, with his Echoes only striking for around six hundred each.

This was going to be a long fight, if Hirrus was going to win it.

The six-legged monstrosity was determined to insist that this fight was going to be very short, instead.

Instead of attacking again, Kaitzer threw back its head and yowled to the sky. The sky responded with a rumble of thunder, and the thickening clouds grew black. Unnatural purple flashes crackled across the nascent storm, indicating that this was another of the monster’s Arcana. It didn’t have an immediate effect, but Hirrus got the idea he was going to be relying on his other Echo to watch his back for whatever the effect of it ended up being.

Hirrus let his Echoes continue to hack away. For his part, he needed to employ more Arcana that would turn the fight in his favor. Activating Going Ape for more damage seemed unwise at this stage. Reducing his GLE would make him more vulnerable to the already-devastating Arcana the beast had at its disposal. If he was going to prepare to open himself up like that, he needed to weaken the beast.

Hirrus threw a brown orb of liquid between the monster’s legs, splattering the ground with his Oil Sear Arcana. It would do reasonable damage - just over one thousand every few seconds - but it would reduce the movement, attack, and cast speed of the monster for its duration, giving him an opportunity to stay ahead of its attacks. He was also grateful for the powerful interaction with the Cosmic Barrette, healing him a small amount every time the damage affected the beast.

Despite the debuff, when the monster's claw whipped out again, it was still blindingly fast. The monster had instantly identified Hirrus as the primary body, and therefore the most valuable target. Only the increased movement speed of Pumped Kicks kept him ahead of the strikes, and even then, the misses were so near he still felt the brush of fur against him with each swipe. He was anxious about dancing too far out of reach, as he needed the monster to stay put inside the burning oil of his Arcana. If it was allowed to get back up to full speed, this was going to be a very short-lived fight.

Through the eyes of his Echoes, Hirrus could see purple energy gathering around the clouds directly above his body. However the Arcana worked, Kaitzer seemed to be uninvolved in its generation now, and the swiping claws denied him a moment’s peace. He had to leap away from the beast before it was too late. He managed to get out of the way before a column of purple lightning ripped up from the ground to meet the gathered energy in the sky.

Hirrus could guess that so long as the storm persisted, bolts would intermittently form and strike like that. If he hadn’t had the external set of eyes, this fight would be useless. It was no wonder adventurers so loved to travel in packs. If this was the caliber of foe they sought out to fight on purpose, they would need all the help they could muster just to call warnings to each other.

After being forced back, the giant cat monster stepped out of the oil with calm intent. It seemed happy to entirely ignore the Echoes as Hirrus spared the mental effort directing them to pursue and continue to hack away at the beast. It only had eyes for Hirrus’ body itself, which made him wonder if the effort of chipping a few hundred damage into the beast was worth it if they couldn’t serve as distractions. But considering his own opportunities to damage the beast were apparently few and far between, he needed all the help he could get.

Kaitzer lifted its head up high and fixed Hirrus with a glare. Its ratlike tail lashed, and suddenly he knew he was in the middle of an Arcana. The grass in a giant circle around himself was twitching and standing upright, and the smell of ozone filled the air around him. Judging from the size of the blast and the amount of time the beast was taking to unleash it, this was going to be big.

So Hirrus declined to allow it the opportunity. Hiden Sokyaku was an Arcana Hirrus had found few opportunities to use, and now seemed an optimal moment. He leaped at the beast and kicked it in the middle of its chest. The physical Arcana dealt over two thousand damage to the monster, but more importantly interrupted the long cast of the Arcana it was readying. The knockback portion seemed ineffective against a beast that size, but it still snarled and flinched back at the interruption.

Claws whipped out at him again. Hirrus was starting to get the feel for the monster’s movements now. Despite having so many extra legs, its body weight was apparently too much for it to bring both forelimbs to bear at the same time. It had to put one claw down before the next could swipe at him. That was why it had leaned so hard into the use of Arcana. Its powerful physicality was its own downfall.

The Echo providing Hirrus with an overview of the fight noted that Alric had started throwing his own ranged Arcana into the fray. All he had was that little explosive spark thing, but the man seemed intent on helping now that Hirrus had some manner of control over the fight. Despite the steep damage penalty on his Echoes, he doubted that the attacks would be as effective as those of the Arcana-created bodies, but if he was resigned to a battle of attrition, every little bit was going to help.

Of course, his opinion on that score changed when the first spark detonated against Kaitzer’s antlers. The creature yowled and whirled. In a blinding flash of dappled fur, the monster lunged across the clearing, purple energy crackling around it as it launched itself bodily at Alric.