Ahhhh This arc is finally coming to a close. lmao imagine ending an 'arc' at EOC? But tbh, EOC isn't the final boss of this section lmao... you already know who is. If you don't wait for ch 50, where I will summarize each chapter in a 30,000 foot overview.
Armour:
Victide (Ranger)
Weapon: Mandible Bow (Jester Arrows); Arkhalis
Acc(11/11): Band of Regeneration, Amidas Spark, Sailfish Boots, Luxor's Gift, Ocean Crest, Amidas Pendant, Crown Jewel, Tsunami in a Bottle, Frog Leg, Aero Stone, Shield of the Ocean
Health: (400/400)
There was a certain purity to it, the simplicity of action, the wind against his cheeks, the scuff of his armoured soles against the floating platforms. He felt the impact in his knees as he leapt and scrambled, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he danced about that tremendous monstrous eyeball which whipped about him like some ominous eldritch overseer.
Haah… haah...
It was awful, yes, an abomination like nothing he had seen before - but although his stomach lurched and his heart wrenched in utter revulsion, he could not look away. He gazed upon it as he dodged and fled, his neck twisted over his shoulder, his eyes straining to peer through the slats of his visor with an aberrant fascination he simply could not restrain. His guts were filled with dread like cold coiling eels, but he was burning with the irrational compulsion to kill.
...
Yes, there… there it was. This was what he was looking for. With teeth clenched in a wild, horrid grin, he'd drink deeply of his desires. The thrill of battle, he was made for this. The burning trembling heat that rumbled in his belly and filled his skull with mindless, liquid rage. The adrenaline that ripped through him like a vengeful, rabid creature, flooding his senses with that strange and disgusting euphoria. The terror which ran up and down his nerves clashed beautifully with his longing to rip the Eye to pieces. It was stupid, his compulsion. It was dangerous. But it was real, and he no longer wished to restrain himself. He wanted to fight. He was here to fight.
Haah… haah…
And alongside his abominable obsession was the absurd dread that loomed over him. He hadn't lived on this earth long; this was something he was well aware of. His own ignorance sat like a great stumbling block before him, staggering him wherever he went. There were a great litany of things he had yet to see, things he had yet to experience, and until this moment, he had never even considered that knowledge could do anything but help him. He had never considered there was safety in illiteracy.
...haah...
Because this creature (if it could even be called a creature) was so utterly wrong it made his head ache and the back of his eyes burn. It sat in his mind's eye, pressing up against the insides of his skull, twisting the pillars of what little he knew, tearing at the fabric of his still feeble mind. He… he was terrified, so terrified he wanted to flee and never remember what had happened this night, but alongside his terror, even equal to it, rose his own deviant ambitions.
Kill… kill it...
He'd seen every inch of it from every angle, every sickening protrusion of mangled pulpy flesh, every spurting wound the starry bolts left upon it as they pierced the glassy surface of its cornea. It loomed there floating, levitating maddingly in the air with it's all encompassing gaze fixed firmly, knowingly, maliciously upon him. He could not easily describe what he saw on those cosmic, alien eyes. Frankly, when he pondered it in hindsight, he would be grateful for the dumb, trance-like state his murderous impulses put him in. Had he been in his right mind, perhaps he'd be driven mad by the vast inconceivable knowledge it threatened to break upon him.
…!
The stinking eastern wind howled with a fury, carrying that ominous, ocular monster on its deadly swift wings. The nighttime sky was black as pitch, inky and starless as the abyss; the heavens above were crawling, as if alive with shadowy malice. Even so, The Slayer wasn't concerned with the terrifying heavenly phenomenon which unfolded above (surely The Guide was watching and trembling in terror at this very moment). The Terrarian was fixated on The Eye. That monster which hovered, bobbing, in and out of the deep shadows, yet even as it hid in the dark he tracked it by scent.
There, it was approaching him almost curiously, observantly. It circled him in a menacing manner, that tremendous mass of smooth glassy flesh rippling, its tendrils trailing behind it like a sickening cloak of root-like nerves. Surrounding it were smaller identical creatures, tiny demon eyes each slightly larger than his fist and whose impacts were comparable. He had shot several of the small creatures down as he ran and scrambled and leapt, making liberal use of his hook to evade the creature's bludgeoning. Although he could easily absorb several strikes from the miniature creatures without much consequence, he was well aware that that watchful eye would not miss the opportunity to crush him the moment he became entangled.
Haah… haah…
With a thud and a scrape he scrambled up and over another layer of platforms, quickly climbing to his feet and sprinting to put distance between himself and The Eye. As he ran, he summoned his bow and twisted about dramatically (nearly contorting his spine) to loose a succession of arrows at the beast which pursued him. Fear and excitement. Terror, rage, adrenaline. His arrows flew from his armoured fingertips with a deadly precision, cutting down the myriad of miniature eyeballs but doing nothing to stop that great monstrosity from looming closer.
*RURAHREO*
An otherworldly screech rang in his ears, causing the tree boughs to cringe back and the air begin to tremble. A great amalgamation of mindless noise stabbed at his eardrums - yet the vocal impressions were not that of a beast, but rather a chorus of wildly screaming men. Had The Slayer any true affection for mankind, he may have been immediately paralyzed by the cry - alas, the only thoughts that filled his mind were bloodthirsty ones.
…!
It was coming, rearing back as if to charge. No longer was it content to observe him and suffer the pepperings of his arrows, for the incomprehensible mind that lay hid behind The Eye had lost interest in him and gave the order to execute. It glared at him with an infinite hostility as it screamed through the air, the chorus of beastial shrieks following it as it dashed at him, it's terrifying mass growing ever larger to fill his visor.
Haah… haah…
He threw himself off the platform as the eye roared past him, its ridiculous mass flinging about with wild abandon. Its intentions were clear, it wanted to crush him the same way a man swatted an insect out of the sky - and there were many instances where it came very close to accomplishing just that. Yet he fled and danced in his bloody trancelike state, barely noticing the innumerable arrows that flew constantly from his fingertips, hardly registering the bumps, bruises and bites from the army of demon eyes that tracked his move. All he could think about was butchering this thing, and the more blood he saw, the more viciously happy he became. It was torn badly now, chunks of flesh peeled off from that once flawless lens. Great holes marred its strange alien flesh and it leaked a lurid yellow fluid from each of its many wounds. The Slayer gnashed his teeth, his eyes fixed feverishly - animalistically on the failing creature.
Hee… hee...
He felt his heartbeat pounding in his head, his temples throbbing under the pressure of the liquid rage which poured through him. His mind was almost completely gone, wiped clean by the purity of violence. There wasn't enough of him left to feel fear as he watched the beast's eye rip open with a sickening *Grsssh*, shedding its cornea to reveal a massive misshapen maw filled with bloody needle-like teeth. A putrid odor of Crimson emitted from deep within it's throat, a throat whose depth was far deeper than the eye's spherical body allowed. It seemed to go on and on and on an-
*RURAREOH!*
Another scream and the eye whirled and charged at him, is strange jaws hung agape as it shredded the air at an impossible speed. He had not expected such dexterity from the tremendous creature, and felt himself go cross eyed as it made several erratic passes at him. As he ran the beast plowed down at him and snipped at his fleeing ankles. He evaded most of them, but the blows connected once, or twice. He heard the distinctive sound of bones being crushed, but his brain was so drowned with opiates he hardly registered the injury, much less felt the accompanying pain.
He… he was having the time of his life.
The Eye screamed at him.
And, with spittle smattering the inside of his helmet, and a rabid glint tainting his eye, he bared his teeth and screamed back.
"Slayer, wait! Not done! Don't- urgh..."
The Guide grimaced as The Terrarian shook himself free of preliminary first aid and stood to his feet to hobble impatiently towards The Eye's fallen corpse. He could hear his companion's shattered ankles crunching with every step as the almost-man kneeled over the mess of flesh, teeth and arrows in search of salvageable loot. Frankly, The Terrarian looked quite awful. His always impeccable armour was doused in all manner of blood and viscera - some scarlet (his own) some an awful glowing yellow. He had shattered his ankle in the scuffle, lost a large chunk out of his left bicep, and had nearly an entire set of terrifying needle-like teeth sticking out of his back. Despite it all, he didn't seem discouraged by his grave injuries and appeared very eager to get back to The Compound to accomplish the… second slaughter of the evening.
Hah… that leg armour is entirely useless now… the arm too.
The Guide sighed and stood to follow, his mind flitting to the terrifying scene that stretched across the sky as The Eye and The Slayer fought. Terror had shot through his heart as the stars blackened to nothing and the moon approached low and threatening in the sky. In the moment The Eye became hostile, something deep, deep underground lit his bones ablaze, rattling them like a prisoner rattled its bars in fury. As he suffered another of 'The Wall's' attacks, The Slayer fought like a crazed bloodthirsty creature directly over his head.
I heard it, his yell… he sounds even more horrifying than The Eye… he can only fight monsters because he himself is a monster...
He exhaled hard as a peculiar cold feeling bloomed in his stomach and trickled out through his veins. Not the chill of fear, but the cold lump of resigned disappointment. The Guide had been foolish. How could he expect a newborn non-human to behave with all the complexity and nuance of a human being? His sadness was his own doing. Because of his own loneliness, he had taken hold of The Slayer and treated him like… well, like a child. His child. A particularly capable, ruthless, utilitarian and emotionless child, but his nevertheless.
… And of course, The Slayer neither knew nor cared for this. He remained exactly as he said he would: cold, emotionless and paying loyalty only to those who remained useful to him. The only reason The Terrarian treated him preferentially was their contract. Aside for the terms of their agreement, he didn't owe The Guide a single thing, and he didn't ask for anything either. He didn't want any affection. He didn't need it. It wasn't part of their deal.
Enough! Stop being sappy and get your head screwed on straight.
The Guide sighed once more and kicked at the fallen leaves and undergrowth. He felt…he felt bad. He felt uneasy. His heart was heavy within him, and the weight only grew more dreadful as he raised his eyes to behold the scene before him. The Eye was laying in two halves, shot through with innumerable perforations and smashed in the dirt. Broken teeth lay all around, chunks of tremendous glassy flesh, blobs of a clear jelly substance held together by thin veins, a great carpet of matted nerves... and The Terrarian was elbows deep in that house-sized corpse, yanking, tugging and cutting out anything he thought to be useful. He discarded the rest, tossing it to the ground to be trampled upon by the wild beasts.
...ugh
As The Guide watched him, as he watched the growing pile of 'worthless garbage' grow taller and taller, he began to feel sick. He began to feel cold. He began to feel hollow. This was the man he had thrown his lots behind. A ruthless creature whose bloodlust even outmatched the eldritch monstrosities of legend. He had just killed a monster, next he would kill men - and he would kill at The Guide's orders.
I'll… I'll soon be a murderer.
Yes, soon enough screams would ring out in The Compound. The Arms Dealer, The Merchant, The Demolitionist, The Pink-Haired woman… all would fall before those flashing starlight bolts. Would The Slayer search their corpses too? Perhaps pluck out their teeth or string their intestines if he could find some use for them?
Agh… shut up.
He didn't want to watch this anymore. He wanted to go home and sleep. If he was lucky, he'd nod off before the executions began.
Guide: Slayer come here, you've still got EOC teeth stuck in you.
Slayer:... I'm fine
G: What, you wanna visit The Nurse so badly?
S: ...!
G: Suit yourself.
S: Guide, wait!
NOTES: So I actually had some help writing this. I asked my Terraria discord to choreograph the fight scene for me, but I felt it was getting a bit long to go through ALL the phases. after all, the actual fight is pretty boring, esp with ranger. you just run and shoot etc... I actually have pretty much all the patterns for EOC down pat, becuase I died SO many times to it in other playthroughs. EOC on Rev difficulty is really scary until you learn the patterns.
I'll probably start drawing illustrations for this after I hit intermission. Find my reddit u/AsianAmerican97
Drop me a note peeps. love u all