Chapter 62: Three Fingers Lost, The Fist Crumbles

The dimensional crystal of the Colossus’s fist met his palm. STR 520, amplified by the contact-based Abyssal Dissolution Domain, held the blow. The crystal cracked under the pressure. Not from the kinetic force. From the dissolution. The acid in his palm was eating through the dimensional crystal, spreading cracks from the point of contact.

The Colossus’s six eyes widened. If crystal eyes could widen.

Its hand was dissolving.

’Good,’ Alvian thought. ’Now we’re talking.’

He squeezed.

The Colossus pushed harder.

Thirty meters of hard space crystal pushed down with the weight of a falling mountain. The courtyard floor under Alvian’s feet sank another half meter into the ground. Stone cracked in wide circles spreading out from where the fist hit. Dust and broken rock blew out in a grey ring that hid everything within twenty meters.

His legs held fast.

VIT 850 turned the massive pressure into a weight his body could take. His bones did not crack. His joints did not give way. The fist of a Rank 5 Calamity Boss pushed against his hand, but his body felt like it was just carrying a heavy box at the docks.

The contact-based Abyssal Dissolution Domain pulsed through his hand. Small area. High power. All the acid energy went right into the small spot where his hand touched the crystal.

The Colossus’s crystal fist began to melt.

Cracks spread out from his hand like ice breaking on water. Grey dust flaked off the top and fell down. The acid broke the crystal apart faster than the eye could see, turning hard space crystal into plain dust.

[Essence: 280 → 260 → 240 → 220.]

The Colossus’s six eyes watched the damage with cold smarts. It saw the danger. It pushed harder, grinding its fist down with enough force to smash a house flat. The stone floor under Alvian’s feet turned to dust.

Alvian’s feet sank ten more centimeters into the broken stone. His arm shook from the long fight. STR 520 was huge by any standard, but the Colossus weighed thousands of tons. The numbers were bad. He could hold the fist, but holding it while melting it was burning his Essence faster than he wanted.

[Essence: 220 → 200 → 180 → 160.]

Forty percent of his Essence was gone. The fist was only twenty percent melted. Cracks spread across the top layer. Three of the six crystal spikes that acted as fingers were half as thick as before. But the main part of the fist stayed solid, and new crystal grew over the melted parts almost as fast as he destroyed them.

’Three percent melted per second. Two percent grown back per second. Net gain of one percent. I am winning, but not fast enough.’

The Colossus twisted its fist. Crystal rubbed against his palm with a sound like a giant rock sliding down a hill. The monster was testing his grip from different angles, looking for a weak spot.

Alvian changed his stance. His INT 140 checked every shift right away, finding the best grip and the best way to push his acid. His fingers dug deeper into the fresh cracks, using them to push the acid past the new growth and straight into the core of the fist.

The melting sped up inside the crack lines. The three thin fingers started to crumble at their base where the crystal was weakest.

CRACK.

The first finger snapped off. A chunk of space crystal as big as a man’s chest broke free from the fist. It stayed in Alvian’s hand, melting fast into grey dust that ran through his fingers.

[Partial destruction: Colossus right fist, digit 1 severed.]

CRACK.

The second finger broke next. Same thing. The acid weakened the base, and the Colossus’s own pushing snapped it right off. Grey dust poured out like water.

[Partial destruction: Colossus right fist, digit 2 severed.]

CRACK.

The third finger snapped.

[Partial destruction: Colossus right fist, digit 3 severed.]

Three out of six fingers were gone. The last three held on, but barely. Cracks ran through their bases. Grey dust fell from every line. The monster tried to heal them, but the acid left inside the wounds fought back. A small war broke out inside the stone, and the Colossus was losing.

The Colossus let out a loud scream.

The sound was like a mountain breaking in half. It cracked glass across the school grounds. Students hiding behind walls covered their ears. Helen Croft, sitting against her pillar with blood soaking her bandages, felt the vibration in her ribs and winced.

The monster pulled its arm back with desperate strength. Its thirty-meter body rocked back like a drunk man trying not to fall over.

Alvian let go.

Three melted fingers turned to dust in his hand and fell like grey sand. The wind picked up the dust and blew it across the ruined courtyard, mixing it with the grey pool of dead beasts on the ground.

[Essence: 160. (120 spent on sustained Domain contact.)]

[Damage dealt: Colossus right fist, 50% destroyed.]

[Regeneration impaired by embedded dissolution residue.]

[Estimated full regeneration time: 4 minutes, 30 seconds.]

The Colossus stepped back. Its six eyes burned with real pain. The spots where the three fingers used to be were already growing back, with sharp new crystal reaching out, but the healing was slow. The acid left in the open wounds fought the new growth, turning each fresh layer of crystal back into grey dust before it could harden.

Alvian stood in the hole his feet had dug into the ground. His Essence was down to 160 from 280. Using the Domain continuously had taken almost half his reserves in less than a minute.

But the Colossus was hurt for real. Its main weapon was broken. Three fingers were gone, and the other three were cracked and useless. The healing was losing to the acid residue, which would take minutes to clean out.

[Colossus Status: Right fist, 50% functional. Regeneration active but impaired.]

[Colossus Status: Left fist, 100% functional.]

[Colossus Status: Core integrity, 100%.]