Force of Will

Following her words, highly pressurized water jets spewed from various parts of Lagia's body. Kaia managed to evade by jumping and bouncing off the walls and ceiling, but Cairn's 40 Agility was nowhere near enough to perform such a feat. His only option was to stand his ground, blocking as many streams as possible using his Aberrant Aegis.

Though his face and chest were relatively well protected, Cairn felt intense pressure and a burning sensation from his left thigh as Lagia's Water Jet cut through his Shadowsilk Braes and into it.

*Warning! Your Health has decreased by 317!*

"Shit...!" hissed Cairn. Losing 317 HP wasn't that bad, but what came after both proved Lagia's threat and made his skin crawl.

*Ding! Your Health has recovered by 317!*

("This bitch is planning to torture us until we break...") thought Cairn, his Ookami's Visage materializing around his head to prevent stray forth and water from getting into his eyes.

Reinforcing this sentiment, Lagia directed an apathetic stare at Cairn as she extended her right hand, her fingers shooting forward and elongating in the blink of an eye. His Aberrant Aegis ate the brunt of her attack, even reflecting her ring finger, but her thumb managed to pierce his gut before branching in multiple directions.

Using the gladius-like tip and serrated edge of the Aberrant Aegis, Cairn promptly cut through Lagia's fingers, causing the tendril that had stabbed into him to lose shape. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough to deter Lagia's assault, the tips of her severed fingers immediately regrowing and coiling around his shield in an apparent attempt to steal it from him.

Fortunately, while most of Lagia's stats were Boss-tier, she had severely underdeveloped Str and Agi. Cairn was initially caught off guard when she tried to steal his shield, but he managed to shake her off and tear it away without too much trouble. 40 Str wasn't that impressive, but it was nearly twice Lagia's 22.

Furrowing her brows, Lagia began to retract her fingers but summarily gave up on doing so as Kaia passed next to her like a blur, slicing the front half of her body and severing her right arm at the elbow.

Regenerating from her stump, Lagia began to fire highly compressed bullets of glowing blue water at Kaia, most missing their mark but a few peppering the speedy Karakut's side. Kaia's armor and puncture-resistant cloth protected her body, but even if it hadn't, she would have been fine as the few HP she lost were immediately replenished.

Realizing that Lagia couldn't kill them using conventional methods, a fierce resolution appeared on Kaia's face as she charged directly into the stream of water bullets, tanking them with her body. When she got close, she used a combination of Strong Kick and Charge to burst through with her shield, slamming it into Lagia's upper body, causing it to deform and temporarily freeze due to the effects of Stun.

Reforming the moment her Stunned status wore off, Lagia focused on Kaia, unleashing a much thicker stream of water that cut through and fragmented the cavern's walls, floor, and ceiling. Kaia got struck across her abdomen, leaving a deep cut, but a Karakut's stomach muscles were among their most powerful. The attack dealt more than 900 damage, but she recovered nigh-instantaneously, sheathing the Shadowsilk Queen's Stinger on her back to better focus on dodging.

Seeing the fighting spirit in Kaia's eyes, Lagia spread her arms, creating vortices using her aqueous hair and body. Then, rather than one strong jet, she produced six, her Mana draining rapidly as she attempted to cut through the fly-like rabbit girl buzzing around and bothering her. She had already determined that Cairn wasn't a serious threat, so she just needed to cut off one of Kaia's legs, and the fight would end in her favor.

Demonstrating the remarkable agility her people were known for, Kaia darted around at high speeds, using the walls, floor, and even ceiling as footholds to evade Lagia's attack. The latter tried to corner her several times, but since Kaia knew she would immediately recover from any non-crippling injuries, she just charged through one or more of the pressurized jets before the remainder could converge.

With her Mana depleted by nearly a third of its total, the intensity of Lagia's attack decreased as she decided to focus on conserving as much of it as she could. Cairn and Kaia might not be able to injure her, but if she ran out of Mana, she would have no choice but to retreat.

Taking advantage of the moment when Lagia's attacks subsided, Kaia threw one of her arrow-like javelins with all her strength. The arrow produced a high-pitched whistling sound as it traveled, but despite finding purchase in Lagia's chest, the glowing blue Slime Priestess had a placid look as she asserted, "It's futile. The only way to defeat me is to destroy my core, but it's hidden away near the source of this wellspring. Even if you could cast powerful enough magic to destroy this form, I would simply regenerate."

Pulling Kaia's spear from her chest, Lagia tossed it back to her, allowing it to clatter across the ground as if to emphasize that she didn't care if they wanted to attack. That changed when Cairn began to move, however, her eyes widening alongside Kaia's as he ran forward, his clothes vanishing as he leaped into the pool her legs disappeared into.

"It appears your companion has lost his mind..." remarked Lagia, using her amorphous biomass to prevent Cairn's apparent attempt to swim into the opening at the base of the spring and trace it back to her source.

Choosing to believe in Cairn, Kaia shouted, "Don't underestimate our conviction...!" as she unsheathed the Shadowsilk Queen's Stinger and leaped forward with enough momentum to fracture the ground beneath her hind legs, combining her Strong Kick, Leap, and Charge Skills to turn her entire body into a projectile using Shield Bash. Her efforts caused the upper half of Lagia's body to burst, but the amorphous slime just brought herself back together, calmly repeating, "It's futile..."

"Fighting to live and overcome oneself is never a wasted effort!" shouted Kaia, rebounding off the wall behind Lagia and punctuating her statement but cutting off the slime's head. Lagia regenerated without losing a single point of HP, but that didn't mean Kaia's attacks were meaningless. Rather, from the moment Kaia began her assault, Lagia immediately realized what she and Cairn were up to, a feeling of panic welling within her as the latter practically clawed his way through her body in search of her core...

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Upon realizing that Lagia's body comprised the Recovery Spring itself, Cairn set aside his fear and threw himself into her depths, relying on his marginally higher strength to tear and claw his way through her body as his skin simultaneously dissolved and regenerated. The pain was beyond description, but thanks to the Ookami's Vision safeguarding his head and allowing him to breathe underwater, he was able to make slow and steady progress despite Lagia's attempts to restrain and force him out.

('I really need Heavenly Divine Body...') thought Cairn, imagining how easy his current task would be if he had hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Damage Mitigation. He agreed with Vira's assertion that he needed more Mana, especially after acquiring Shield Bash and only being able to use it 3-4 times, but after enduring a rat swarm and now having his body eaten by acid, Cairn felt that he would lose his mind if he kept having to endure such extremes.

Propelling himself forward out of sheer spite, Cairn eventually reached a fully submerged chamber that served as the confluence point of multiple tunnels. Because the liquid surrounding him was crystal clear and glowed brightly, he had no double seeing what looked like an altar at the center of the chamber. However, once he entered it, he would have nothing to hold onto, allowing Lagia to trap him with a vortex or smash him into the cavern's walls by manipulating the liquid within like a subsurface current.

As if she could read his mind, the current that had been trying to prevent Cairn's advancement abruptly reversed, creating a powerful suction that

promptly drew him into the fairly large chamber's interior before spinning him around at increasingly high speeds.

('Okay, fuck capturing this bitch. I swear to all the Gods across creation that I will fucking destroy this bitch...!') thought Cairn, the rapidly spinning motion causing him to experience intense vertigo. It took all of his will not to throw up in his helmet, but it took even more to unequip it, allowing him to release the contents of his stomach but forcing him to experience what it was like to drown, seize, and have his insides dissolve at the same time. His only saving grace was that the pain was so extreme that he couldn't pass out, even if he wanted to.

After forcibly exhaling as much fluid as possible from his lungs, Cairn reequipped his Ookami's Visage and his Aberrant Aegis. He hoped that the latter's Retaliation would kick in, but it only triggered in response to physical attacks. Instead, Cairn retracted his limbs with all his strength and used Shield Bash, temporarily dispersing the vortex and stunning the bitch responsible for it. The counterforce from the Skill also drove Cairn through the water, but as he had no sense of orientation, he crashed into the chamber's ceiling rather than moving closer to its center.

Inspired by the unexpected phenomenon, Cairn kicked off against the chamber's ceiling and used a second Shield Bash, preventing Lagia from forming another vortex and propelling himself toward the fountain-like altar at its center. The core of a high-ranking slime was very durable, but with the amount of adrenaline pumping through his brain and body, Cairn felt like he could splinter the world in two as he equipped Mr. Boomy and swung it with as much force as he could muster. The water's resistance hindered his efforts, but by channeling all of his remaining Mana into the strike, Cairn succeeded in embedding the pick's tip into Lagia's bright red core, causing it to explode like an underwater mine...

*Warning! You have received 43,292 damage!*

*You have sustained a fatal blow!*

*Your body has been destroyed!*

*To revive yourself, you must move someplace without monsters in the next 5 minutes. Failure to do so will result in your spirit being transported to the nearest Altar of Restia.*

*Time remaining before forced resurrection: 04 minutes, 52 seconds*

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Reading the various notifications, Cairn, now existing as a ghostly blue specter, felt mixed emotions. He was relieved that his ordeal had ended, but despite enduring pain beyond imagination, his abrupt death prevented him from receiving a single point of Experience. The water around him had also lost its luminance, indicating that the source of the Recovery Springs, at least in this section of the Dungeon, was Lagia herself.

Exhaling an echoey sigh, Cairn tried to swim through the surrounding water but found it was unnecessary. It felt really weird, but his ghostly form allowed him to float freely in any direction, even passing through solid walls as he made his way toward Kaia's proximity marker. They had already discussed what to do if he inadvertently kicked the bucket, so she wasn't even remotely panicked when he rose from the ground. Rather, it didn't seem like she could see or sense him.

Confirming his suspicions, Cairn waved in front of Kaia's face, but she just continued to stare intently at the now-inert Recovery Spring. She tensed when he placed his hand on her head, phasing right through it, but after brushing the hair between her ears, believing a drop of water had fallen onto her head, she returned her gaze to the pond and continued waiting patiently.

Deciding not to keep the steadfast Karakut waiting too long, Cairn moved a few meters away and pulled up his system window, pressing the button to confirm his revival. Ordinarily, this would have caused him to lose all his stockpiled Experience. However, thanks to the Never Say Die Talent of his Jack-of-All Class, a blindingly white light erupted from his body, restoring his physical form without penalty...

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(A/N: Cairn may have flaws, but his grit would earn an approving nod from even Kim Gong-Ja(SSS-Class Suicide Hunter))