It was dark. Heavy clouds completely covered the pale moon. Down in the bulldozed forest trail, seventeen Adventurers stared at the towering back of the Miasma-Titan.
The massive beast lumbered slowly toward the east, dragging its weight straight toward the Capital of Voragale. Its body was a walking nightmare of twisted timber and petrified black sludge, leaving a wide trench of crushed bedrock and splintered trees in its wake. Thick, toxic gray fog poured endlessly from the giant vents on its shoulders, choking the air with the stench of rotting leaves and dry, choking dust.
The melee fighters already had their blades drawn, so a yellow light coated their bodies and weapons. Near the flanks, the Mages stood ready with Thorne at the front, and the tips of their wooden staves glowed with concentrated energy. They were fully prepared to shoot at any second. The Healers stayed in the rear under Nia's watch, ready to give support.
Kaelen stood at the very front of the formation, his broadsword resting in his scarred hand.
Everyone waited in total silence for his command. Kaelen watched the humongous shadow shift and sway with every heavy step.
"Titan's current Mana Pool is around forty-eight percent!" Vance shouted over the grinding noise of the monster.
Kaelen heard the number, so his chest tightened painfully. The math was brutal. He quickly calculated their remaining supplies. Each Adventurer carried maybe four to five vials of Mana Potions left in their leather pouches depending on their roles. Those few glass bottles were the only remaining fuel they had left to stretch across a full fifteen-day rotation. Once they emptied those vials, the battle was completely over.
Even if a Thief used explosive speed to sprint all the way back to the Voragale Association branch for a fresh supply, it would not change a single thing. The fighters' stomachs were already wrecked. Their bodies were actively rejecting the harsh alchemy, especially the Mages, so forcing more liquid down their throats would just make them vomit blood. Kaelen realized their grim reality instantly. They had a very low chance of succeeding.
Vance gripped his daggers. "What should we do, Boss? The current Mana pool is way beyond our expectations. Our Mana Potions will not be enough."
Kaelen kept his eyes on the lumbering giant.
This is happening because I did not enforce the shift's quota of 1.67 percent, Kaelen told himself. I know I'm the reason we're behind schedule, but I don't regret the choice. If I'd forced that strict number on them from day one, half of these men and women might be dead right now, and the survivors would definitely be too exhausted to even lift a sword.
He looked back at his team. Their posture was incredibly solid. Their stomachs burned with potion intoxication, yet their eyes burned with raw energy. This was the thirteenth day of the raid, but there was zero sign of deep exhaustion on their dirty faces.
Kaelen took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
He looked back on their brutal clashes over the last thirteen days. Pictures of the ruined swamp flashed in his mind, and he analyzed the grinding encounters piece by piece. When he opened his eyes, the grim truth finally settled into his bones.
This fight was completely impossible from the start. The Miasma-Titan lacked the sheer, overwhelming aggression of the other Calamity-class threats he had previously faced, but its Mana pool was incredibly enormous. It possessed far greater reserves than any other beast on that threat level.
In his tactical comparison, this creature felt less dangerous in terms of raw combat power. That deep Mana well, however, made it virtually unkillable within a strict fifteen-day battle of attrition. The Adventurer's Association only provided limited intelligence since this specific breed was incredibly rare. There were only two confirmed sightings of a Miasma-Titan in recorded history, so that lack of data led to a fatal miscalculation.
The grueling thirteen days of combat in the toxic mud finally made Kaelen realize the truth. The Association severely underrated the beast due to its sluggish movements. They completely failed to understand that its lack of aggression was the main reason it remained so deadly.
The logic was quite simple. A fierce monster burns a lot of Mana to launch continuous, highly destructive attacks, so it empties its tank fast. A slow beast, however, operates on a completely different set of rules. The Titan refused to unleash flashy, energy-draining spells, so it passively conserved its huge fuel tank and could easily sustain its rapid regeneration for a very long time.
That was the reason Kaelen's raid team found themselves trapped in this desperate situation right now. He realized the cold, hard math of their doom. They were no match for the Calamity-class Miasma-Titan from the very beginning because this kind of monster was naturally built to outlast the fifteen-day potion toxicity limit of any human raid team.
A slow, freezing wind blew through the crushed forest path, rustling the heavy coats of the Adventurers. He answered Vance's question, but he projected his rough voice so everyone could hear him over the monster's footsteps.
"Logically, we are doomed," Kaelen declared as he let the heavy truth sink into the quiet ranks. "Our potions will run dry before that shell breaks. But if logic fails us today, we abandon it entirely."
He paused. The wind picked up, whipping through the dead trees and tearing wildly at their hair.
"We rely on the one thing a Calamity will never understand," Kaelen continued, his voice rising in power. "We rely on an Adventurer's strong will that refuses to give up, and we leave the rest to luck. We might bleed. We might break. This very well might be the last battle of our lives. I know the odds are completely against us, but I have to ask you one thing."
Kaelen turned around fully to face his comrades. The cold wind howled around his heavy iron armor.
"Knowing that we are marching into a meat grinder, knowing that the logic says we are doomed..." Kaelen roared, his eyes fierce. "Are you still going to fight?!"
"UWOOOOOOOOH!"
A wild, deafening roar ripped from the throats of the sixteen Adventurers. It was a massive shout of pure defiance that drowned out the grinding sounds of the Calamity.
Thorne slammed the bottom of his wooden staff against a rock. The old Mage wiped the sweat from his face, so a tired smirk cracked his wrinkled features. "I survived thirty years of bad odds. I am too stubborn to die today."
Vance spun his daggers in his hands. He looked at Korinn and bumped his shoulder against his fellow Thief. "If we run away now, the tavern girls back home will laugh at us forever. We have to finish this job."
"Yeah," Korinn agreed, his legs finally steady on the ground. "I promised my little brother I would buy him a real sword. I cannot go back to the Imperial Capital empty-handed."
A Light Swordsman from the flank raised his blade into the cold wind. Tears carved lines through the dirt on his cheeks, but his grip remained firm.
"I met people in Voragale," he shouted. "If this monster breaks our line, they die. I'll break my own bones before I let it take another step!"
"We left our comrades exhausted in the swamp," the injured Healer from Team A choked out. She clutched her wooden staff tightly against her chest. "They trusted us to finish the hunt. I refuse to let their sacrifices turn to ash."
Nia stepped forward to join them. She looked at the towering monster, so the familiar fear in her chest turned into a quiet, burning resolve. "We are the lifeline. We fight."
The other Adventurers nodded. Their jaws were set tight, and not a single one of them looked away from the Titan.
Kaelen smiled a fierce, ugly smile.
"From this point forward, hold nothing back!" he commanded, his voice cutting through the cheers like thunder. "Give everything you have. Unleash the hidden power that stays dormant within you. Believe in yourself. Believe in your comrades. Believe you are stronger than you are right now. Show this monster the true heart of an Adventurer!"
Before he started speaking, the Auras of the melee fighters and the Mages were already glowing brightly in the dark. But after his words settled, the air pressure violently shifted. The glowing yellow light surrounding the Adventurers became incredibly dense, flaring into a blinding physical wall of energy. This could only mean one thing. The playtime of the marathon was officially over. They were tapping into their absolute full strength this time.
The ten melee fighters lowered their stances, entirely preparing their legs to rush toward the Miasma-Titan. The three Mages pushed their attack output to the maximum degree. The magical energy floating above their wooden staves burned hotter and more intensely than ever before, casting long shadows across the ruined forest. They were all prepared to attack at full power.
At the rear, the four Healers raised their staves together. They cast a massive, synchronized Flush spell. The warm green light washed over the entire team, completely cleansing their lungs of the toxic Miasma fog so they could draw a huge breath of clean air before launching their full-scale attack.
Kaelen turned back to the huge Titan and raised his heavy broadsword high above his shoulder.
"Ready arms!" Kaelen bellowed. He waited for a single heartbeat. "Attack!"
The melee fighters rushed fiercely toward the Miasma-Titan. The Mages unleashed the stronger versions of their attack magic.