In order to win, I needed to keep hitting the same spot over and over again, until I had melted straight to its' core. And so, I kept dodging, only taking pot shots when I felt I could afford them. My preparatory feasting had done its job, and the feeling of weakness was less than before, but my "ammo" was still limited. Sasrir was lucky in this fight: compared to the Golem, the Lord of the Dead had no real way of dealing damage to him so long as he remained a shadow. Once he felt he had recovered enough, he dove right back in and started wrestling with its' shadow again.
Once he did, I dropped another pillar of light on the same spot as least time, or rather, slightly to the left. This time, a portion of the bones that made up its body directly collapsed and disjointed, causing me to further focus my attacks. A mistake.
The bones that had fallen off, the ones I had dismissed, vibrated and shot at me before I could react. It was my instinct that saved me, causing me to drop down, but one still pierced through me shoulder and another clipped my side, breaking a rib.
The one in my shoulder damn near pinned me to the wall however, and I heard a painful grunt from Sasrir, the only acknowledgement of the pain he suffered. Seeing my precious blood running down the white bones, I grit my teeth and raised the Crucifix higher. The loose blood flowed towards it, and I acted through the pain even as it threatened to make me black out.
"Purification Halo!"
A less concentrated but wider spread of holy sunlight erupted, smashing against the separated bones and destroying all of them. It singed the Lord of the Dead all over too, but by now it had recalled enough material to start repairing itself. Seeing this, Sasrir decisively fled back, picking the wounded me up and slinging me over his shoulder.
Just before fleeing through the door, he glanced back and threw a shadow spear he'd condensed. It struck the Tyrant in the same area as mine had, causing another painful groan and more spasms. One last "fuck you" to the bag of bones, probably.
This time, I didn't lose consciousness, though a part of me wished I had. The good thing about the bone spears was that they were almost too sharp for their own good, making the wound a clean hole and not dragging on any flesh.
The Crucifix would stop any infection, but Sasrir made sure to wrap me up nice and tight, and fed me some of the preserved Scavenger meat. It took over two hours for feeling in my arm to return, though there was still a lag in movement from my thoughts.
"Not bad for a first attempt," I said with a small grin.
"At least we have gathered some more combat data. Perhaps, I can stay back with you and throw spears or daggers from afar to chip away at its' soul, and also protect you at the same time. I don't believe the skeletons lying around can be used to repair anything other than its' body, so doing this three of four times more shoulder be enough to kill it."
"Heh, just like how we finished off Gravelord Nito, right?"
"Except that took you two hours and three different loadouts before you remembered that Undead are weak to Divine and just bashed him with a Heavy Fire weapon."
"hey!" I protested. "That wasn't my fault, it was like three in the morning and I was sleep deprived!"
"Sure thing, you were just tired, and not at all struggling against one of the easiest bosses in the game."
I glared at him silently for several seconds before bursting out into laughter, though I had to stop after my shoulder flared up. As we both look back down to where the Lord of the Dead resided, I wondered how long it would take to kill him. And what we would do after entering the Dark City.
The first day was a lesson in humility. We'd gone in bold, maybe a little cocky. We came out bloodied. My shoulder screamed with a deep, throbbing pain where the bone spear had punched clean through. Sasrir moved with a slight, almost imperceptible stiffness, a sympathetic echo of my wound. We'd hurt it, sure. Melted a decent chunk off its chest and given its soul a few good jabs. But it was still in there, deep in that chamber of bones, already pulling from the endless supply around it to rebuild. We'd barely made a dent.
The second day, we were smarter. Warier. Sasrir's new plan was the way to go. He stayed by my side, a solid, dark presence. No more risky shadow-merging. Instead, he became an artillery platform. Spears and daggers of condensed shadow flew from his hands, streaking across the chamber to hammer into the Tyrant's form. Each hit made the monster flinch, a stuttering spasm of soul-deep pain that gave me the openings I needed.
I was more conservative with the Crucifix. No more grand, Essence-draining pillars of light. I used precise, surgical beams. I focused on the same spot, the weak point we'd created on the first day. A blast here, a searing cut there. Chipping away. Eroding. It was slow, tedious work. The Tyrant learned, too. It started using the scattered bones as shields, intercepting my shots before they could hit home. It was a grim, exhausting game of cat and mouse, fought in a tomb.
We left that day tired, but not broken. We'd taken no new injuries. We'd worn it down a little more. The cavity in its chest was deeper. The bone around the edges was blackened and brittle. Progress.
The third day was a grind. A war of attrition. We fell into a grim rhythm. Sasrir's endless volley of shadowy artillery. My focused beams of light. Dodge the retaliatory spears. Duck the sweeping limbs. The Tyrant's movements were slower now, more sluggish. Its psychic roars held more fury, but less force. We were winning. Slowly, expensively, but winning.
We retreated before we were truly exhausted. Before we made a mistake. We left it there, in its crumbling bone cathedral, weaker than it had ever been.
Back at our makeshift camp, under the indifferent gaze of the Saintess's statue, we tended to our wounds. The feeling was finally returning to my arm, though a strange numbness lingered. Sasrir handed me a strip of dried meat.
"Three more attempts," he stated, his voice calm. His assessment was clinical. "Perhaps four. Its soul is fraying. My attacks are having a cumulative effect."
But then what?
The question hung in the air between us, heavier than any bone spear. Killing the Lord of the Dead was just the key. It unlocked the door. It didn't tell us what was on the other side.
The Dark City waited. A place of survivors, of factions, of humans twisted by decades of nightmare. Of Gunlaug, the tyrant of Bright Castle. Of secrets we'd only read about.