The knight barreled forward on the ground and struck at the Devourer's coiling body.
Each strike burst with elemental force, but the attacks barely wounded the beast.
Ben gritted his teeth and forced himself to move.
He leapt off a platform of warped gravity and twisted in midair as two beams raced past his sides.
BOOM, CRACK, FLASH.
He dove beside Apophis and hurled another spiral of dark aether straight into the tenth eye, just as the knight launched a blade of pure lightning upward.
The two strikes collided.
CRACK.
The tenth eye did not shatter, but it fractured.
A deep, glowing wound split its center.
The creature recoiled, the eye spasming in its socket.
Ben landed in a crouch and gasped for breath.
Sweat mixed with blood at his brow.
Apophis landed beside him.
She did not yell this time.
She looked him straight in the eye.
"If you have something crazy in mind," she said quietly, "either do it, or do not."
She turned back toward the sky with her claws raised.
