Ronan had two options to deal with the black smoke rushing towards him. Inhale it and hope his body could handle the damage until he won the battle and healed itself, or attempt to dispel it. Neither was ideal, but there was a risk that his dispel would fail and he would be forced to take the full brunt of the magic anyway.

With barely a split-second to make the decision, Ronan opted for the dispel. He had no desire to inhale the smoke that had drained the life from a thousand goblins.

He poured mana into the skill. Usually it took a maximum of ten mana points to dispel a particularly challenging spell, or else it failed entirely. Ronan felt his mana pool start to drop. Considering he had at least five hundred points of mana that was worrying.

He checked his mana pool and saw that he'd lost about forty points. Not a huge amount compared to the total, but considering the usual limitations of dispel it was a big chunk. The smoke paused in the air, recoiling from an invisible wall.

Ragar'vath paused. The goblin chief seemed surprised that its spell was blocked. Ronan was more surprised that dispel had failed, even after taking so much mana from him. Neither of them were satisfied with the outcome.

The shaman grunted and smashed its staff against the ground. Purple and black sparks of magic darted and crackled around the staff, joining the smoke and empowering it. The newly reinforced tendrils of darkness shot out, four coiling assaults aimed at Ronan's head and chest.

He used dispel and immediately felt his heart lurch. Ronan cancelled the skill. There was no use spending all his mana if it wasn't even going to stop the shaman's spell. It was time to face the smoke.

The four tendrils each struck at a different point on his body, or attempted to. Ronan was still cycling his mana and inhaled deeply. The four tendrils were immediately drawn into his mouth, then lungs.

The burn was immediate. It felt as though his throat had been lit on fire. The smoke clawed at the lining of his windpipe, like a wild cat trying to claw his lungs apart. He persisted through the pain, knowing the only way out was victory against the boss.

He heard a few chimes, knowing they would only be telling him what he already knew—the shaman's disgusting spell was draining his life. He stepped forward, seeing Ragar'vath's shock as he continued to function under the influence of the spell.

Ronan conjured a shortsword and stabbed at the shaman's chest. The chief swung its bone staff, catching the conjured blade and parrying the strike. It immediately swung it upwards, catching Ronan's shin with the base of the staff.

He stumbled, the force of the blow greater than he had been expecting. Recovery was a simple affair, but the shaman had successfully prevented the assault. He coughed, the choking fumes of the black smoke still tearing at his insides.

With every inhale and cycle of his own mana he diluted its power, but that didn't stop it from burning away at his health points. As long as that was all it drained he could manage it. His mana was still at the same level, if not a few points higher thanks to his regeneration, which meant it didn't have the same mana draining effect—at least after he'd inhaled it.

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He darted back in to strike once more. A whirlwind melee ensued, with Ronan taking the initiative. He would stab or cut, thrust or slash, and each time Ragar'vath would move faster than expected for a hunchbacked spellcaster, knocking the conjured blade aside and counter-attacking where it could.

Ronan was able to better judge its attacks after the first few exchanges. The first bruise on his shin was the worst of them, and after that point in the battle he didn't take any worse hits.

However, the damage from the smoke continued to seep through his torso. His entire lungs were past the point of burning, simply suffering the life-drain as his body resisted the smoke. He hoped the shaman wouldn't be able to cast the spell again that soon.

Ronan was about to deliver a more dangerous strike, using arcane piercing strike, to try and finally break through the shaman chief's defenses, when he stumbled. A lance of burning pain had cut right through the core of his being, striking at his very soul.

The shaman wasted no time in exploiting his weakness, smashing the butt of its staff into Ronan's chest. It knocked the wind from his already ravaged chest, sending him tumbling to the ground. He tried to sit up but found himself unable to move. The pain in his soul multiplied; a thousand ethereal knives stabbing his soul.

Ronan had never experienced pain this bad. Even that brief instant when Azathere struck him wasn't this intense. The effects were far worse, but the fact it lasted a millisecond meant he couldn't truly comprehend the horror. This was agonising in a way he hadn't imagined could be real.

While convulsing on the floor and clenching his teeth to force himself through it, he mentally pulled up the damage notification. It might give him some insight into his current situation and how he might handle it.

You have been hit by [Curse of Soul-Leeching]

-0.1% Soul integrity / second

-0.1% Soul integrity / second ^ 2

Holy fuck, that's not good, Ronan inwardly cursed. Losing health points was acceptable. His soul being torn apart piece by piece was far from it. He refused to allow it.

Ronan was someone who had a greater soul weight than the average challenger. He refused to believe that some crippled shaman had a more powerful soul than him. The boy who was called a stubborn goat by his grandma had never given in when it came to getting what he wanted. The man who had died forty-nine times would not fall to a mere goblin, no matter how evolved it was or how many spells it knew.

He pushed back against the corruption invading his soul. With every passing second it grew in strength, the edges of his soul fraying. Ronan refused to let it continue.

He was a man who had passed the first threshold of soul cultivation. The sixth realm. His soul was at least ten percent weightier than the average person. He had made a soul-bond with an ancient sapient tree and subverted its power. A goblin would not be the one to damage his soul.

He felt the corruption retreating as he made his intentions known. He would not back down. The weight of his soul pressed down on the spell, letting it know who was boss.

Another notification popped up. He didn't have the presence of mind to focus on it. He felt an ache spreading through his stomach. The shaman was taking advantage of his incontinence to deal more damage to him. He would be sure to pay it back tenfold when he recovered.

The soul corruption was tenacious, but it couldn't hold a candle to Ronan's determination. He slowly pushed it back to the edges of his soul, quashing the foreign invader. Destroying the final motes of smoke was harder than pushing it out of his soul, but through a concerted effort of will, he managed it.

The instant he purged the corruption he threw his consciousness back outside his body. Ragar'vath was standing over him, a villainous smirk on its face as it raised its bone staff above its head in both hands, preparing to smash it down on Ronan's face. The killing blow.

When the shaman chief whipped its arms downwards, Ronan regained control of his body. The deciding moment of the battle was now.

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