The air within the cavern vibrated with a primal hum as the Glacial Behemoth slowly turned its massive head, its glowing blue eyes fixing on Elias's position behind the ice spire. The colossal creature let out another deep, resonating growl, a sound that seemed to crack the very ice around them. Elias didn't wait. His Perception screamed, and he knew this was not a monster to hide from for long.
He burst from cover, using his Enhanced Agility to weave between the treacherous stalagmites, attempting to draw the Behemoth away from the denser clusters of ice pillars. The creature responded with terrifying speed for its size. One of its colossal, jointed legs slammed down where Elias had been moments before, pulverizing the ice into a fine powder that shimmered in the air. The sheer concussive force sent tremors through the cavern floor.
Elias tried his current best attack. He activated Cryo-Kinetic Burst, expelling a concentrated cone of freezing shards and concussive cold towards one of the Behemoth's legs. The shards impacted with a shower of sparks against the Behemoth's armored hide of rock and ice, but the effect was negligible. The creature barely registered it, its colossal leg already regenerating the faint surface damage as it began its next, thunderous stomp. Elias instantly knew: direct elemental attacks of the Behemoth's own type wouldn't work, and physical force alone was akin to chipping at a mountain.
The Behemoth moved with a relentless, terrifying simplicity, its strategy clear: crush. It began to advance, forcing Elias to constantly evade. He darted beneath its wide, sweeping leg, the frigid wind of its passage biting at his exposed skin despite his Frost Resistance. He rolled as its other leg crashed down, narrowly avoiding being flattened. His Armored Hide and Stone Skin were his only saving grace, absorbing what would have been lethal blows into agonizing impacts that left him breathless.
He needed a weakness. He needed to find a flaw in this glacial leviathan. Activating Perception to its fullest, Elias focused his senses, searching for anomalies in its construction. He ran a hand over a wall of solid ice, then darted towards the Behemoth, feigning an attack before abruptly dodging. His Ethereal Sense strained, trying to pierce beyond the physical bulk of the beast. Most ice golems had a core, a source of their elemental power, usually somewhere in their chest or head. But this was different. Its entire form was alive with frigid energy.
He noticed a subtle disparity. While the outer shell of rock and ice was virtually impregnable, there were faint, almost imperceptible lines of shimmering blue light that pulsed deeper within its massive form, particularly concentrated along its underside where its legs connected to its main body. They were like veins of pure mana, throbbing with cold energy, flickering slightly whenever it regenerated or launched an attack.
The Behemoth's massive head suddenly dipped, and its jaws, formed of jagged ice fangs, snapped shut where Elias had been. He leaped backwards, narrowly escaping the chilling crunch. He stumbled, landing hard on the ice, his shoulder screaming in protest. A direct hit was inevitable if he couldn't find a way to counter.
[Notification]
Warning! Your Anomalous Resilience is mitigating significant trauma. Sustained damage may lead to critical injuries.
His Mana Conduit, still recovering from the previous fight, began to hum with desperate intensity, a resonant thrumming that threatened to burst from his core. The sheer pressure of the impending death, the titanic force of the Glacial Behemoth, was forcing his dormant power to respond. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer of heat pulsed around his body, a primal Fire Affinity desperately trying to manifest against the crushing cold of the Behemoth's aura. It was not enough to harm the creature, but it was a clear signal of untapped power, a desperate internal struggle mirroring his external one.
His eyes, now burning with fierce determination, fixed on those pulsating blue veins. They were fleeting, easily missed, but his Ethereal Sense saw them. They were the key. He needed to get under the Behemoth, to strike at those vulnerabilities, to sever the conduits that fed its monstrous regeneration. It would be a suicidal move, putting him directly beneath its crushing weight, but it might be his only chance.
Elias has identified a potential weakness.