Guardians of Terraria II: The World of Calamity

Episode 32.3 - Infernal Catharsis

There were two armoured guards for each of them. A hand on each shoulder, ushering them down the deep shaft. Passing lime foliage, nests of bees and glowing jungle spores.

Yharim was at the rear. The insignificant second son of his family, but subjected to the same fate as the rest of them.

At the very bottom of the jungle, just above the Underworld's ashy ceiling, they emerged into a massive, cavernous chamber lit by warm flames. Public executions of this scale were mandatory to attend, and Yharim could feel every eye he'd ever known on him.

In the centre of the chamber was a pit that dropped directly down to the Underworld. Down to nothing but a vast lava ocean.

Once Yharim and his family had been lined up in front of the pit, the King started to speak.

"Ignalius and his family are hereby sentenced to submersion in lava in punishment for his troublesome and dangerous actions."

Yharim knew full well what his brother had tried to do, though the King was too reticent to say it. Ignalius had tried to use an artifact to summon the almighty Xeroc. Yharim did not know whether the ritual had been successful, but Ignalius had been left ravenous, demented, mad.

And once the Royal Guard had gotten wind of what had happened they'd finally decided to use that as an excuse to execute them all.

"Let it be known that meddling in the natural order of the world will only bring ruin upon us all, and the removal of these lives is something to be rejoiced. May Xeroc bless us all. That is all."

There were some loud thumps of drums, sparse enough to not strike up any rhythm, but frequent enough to draw weight onto what was happening.

"Begin," the King said.

To the left, Yharim could see a pile of belongings that the guards had relieved them of while ransacking their house earlier. His father's armour that he wore for his job alongside the very guards that were executing them. His mother's ethereal bow, the Astreal Defeat. There were also several of her hunting trophies strewn in among the mess, including the egg she had gifted him some months ago.

Yharim personally found this outrageous. The acts of his brother, resulting in the death of them all? If there was ever a greater sign of injustice, this was it.

The belongings were the first to be thrown in, by three guards that just pushed everything over the edge. Slowly at first, one item at a time toppling over, before it became a major tumble. Yharim was close enough to the edge that he could see everything burning down below. That was his destiny.

Then his father was pushed over the edge, screaming. A gasp went up from the crowd as he fell. Yharim watched him fall, knowing his father deserved his gaze during his final moments.

Then his mother was brought to the same fate. Much more stoic, with a look of acceptance across her face. She had never believed in violence, only in peace, but was willingly submitting to the punishment bestowed among the family.

Yharim knew that he would be next. He felt the shove, and the hole rushed through his vision.

The lava below.

A burning embrace.

Orange all around him.

Except in front of him...

Was a bright yellow glow.

The egg.

It expanded, forming itself into a large shape.

***

Jungle Dragon, Yharon, lunged towards them. He was easily twice as massive as the Old Duke, and Robyn felt sure he would deal even more damage. Robyn made an almighty jump, spreading her wings and starting to shoot with her Alluvion bow. Being an upgraded version of the Monsoon, it too spawned typhoons upon making contact with its arrows. However, Yharon was moving so quick the typhoons were barely having much of an extra effect. She tried switching to her Phangasm for its raw damage, then switched back to her Alluvion when Yharon made a stop in mid-air to start breathing a line of wicked fireballs.

She moved to the side to avoid the fireballs, then took higher to the skies upon realised the fireballs were starting to chase her. She found herself flying too close to the swirling edges of the massive flaming cyclone. She dropped downwards, taking care not to touch the orange edges, and the fireballs just shot straight into the cyclone and were absorbed by its heat.

She wasn't sure what would happen if she got knocked into the cyclone – chances were, she'd take lots of damage and quickly get broiled to death. Yharon had effectively constrained the fightable space into this single area, meaning they couldn't just try to get him to chase them over large distances like with the Devourer of Gods.

Another problem was that she was pretty sure the flaming cyclone of doom was running over the respawn hut she had built. Magic-mirroring out was no longer an option.

Plus, only half of the platform arena she and Sid had built out was contained within the cyclone, taking up about half its surface area. Outside the arena, the terrain was still muddy and uneven, with some sparse trees and ponds of water sprinkled throughout.

Not ideal, but they were left with no other choice but to play to Yharon's rules.

The dragon gave another roar, and spurted out a small fiery projectile that landed on the ground, only to erupt into a tall, flaring tornado. Then he gave two charges towards Robyn. She tried flying to the opposite end of the arena from Yharon, landing on one of the high-up platforms and continuing to fire arrows at him. Yharon roared again and charged at her. She flew to the left, only to get hit by the wave of homing fireballs that had been streaming behind him.

Ouch!

Yharon tried to charge at her again, coming in from an uncomfortably close distance, so she used her God Slayer Dash to get out of the way. This was a special ability in her new armour that gave her a powered boost to escape attacks, allowing her to phase through any damaging enemies or projectiles in the process. It could only be used once every 45 seconds though, so she felt like it was vital to use it only when there was no other option.

After some more time fighting Yharon, Robyn and Sid began to figure out that keeping their distance from the boss was the best strategy, as getting hit directly by the dragon resulted in a lot of damage. He was of course prone to spurting out a rather large amount of fireballs, flaring tornadoes and other attacks from its fiery breath. At one point he did some loop-de-loops in the middle of the arena, spurting out several dense rings of fireballs in all directions.

Sid did his best to fly around and between the fireballs while his dark raven summons dealt damage to Yharon, but the Jungle Dragon suddenly teleported next to him and started flying in loop-de-loops again, this time spurting out fireballs that came out in a pattern shaped roughly like a star. He was hit, once by Yharon himself and then a fireball, which caused his health to plummet down to deathly levels. He tried to fly away to a safe distance so he could regenerate, but Yharon came charging out from the blaze and slammed into him, sending his health to 0.

"Ouch. That looked like it hurt," the Cloud Elemental said.

"Good riddance. I never liked him anyway," the Brimstone Elemental muttered.

"I'm not dead!" Sid shouted. "Silva armour!"

"Oh yeahh, that revives you," Anahita said.

"Would you like a healing orb?" Sandhee asked.

"That would be much appreciated," Sid muttered. His Silva armour revive had bumped him back up to half health, but it could only revive him once per boss fight.

Not a great thing to have happen already...

Things looked dire, but he remained confident. He wasn't going to whip out a gun and try to blast Yharon away. He had full confidence in his summons.

"Come on!" he shouted.

His ravens formed a dark swarm around the dragon. The Elementals fired from afar while the Profaned Guardians rotated around him shielding him. Yharon's health went down and down no matter how many waves of fireballs he launched out or how many flaming tornadoes burst up.

Then Sid felt the air getting even warmer around him.

One thing that's not getting warmer is votes!