Excalibur only cracks Camelot

There was no scream to show the moment it struck Leviathan. No thunderous boom or death cry. The rampaging beam of light swallowed him whole and continued on, consuming the boats of the Boat Graveyard behind him and flying out through the bay. In the distance, it crashed into the shimmering blue barrier of my imitation of Lord Camelot, and unlike Leviathan, who had struggled to do anything to it at all, it hit hard enough to crack.

For an instant that lasted an eternity, the beam of light shone brightly and kept going, and then, as the magical energy fueling the acceleration and convergence reactions inside Excalibur dried up, the beam itself guttered and died. The water that had been evaporated hung about, heavy and thick, so thick, in fact, that I couldn’t see through it.

In the aftermath, there was silence. Behind me, no one spoke; they all held their breath, waiting, as I was, to see if that was enough. The hot steam that rose from the bay met the cold rain falling from above, hissing and sizzling as they mixed and exchanged heat and energy in search of equilibrium.

Who knew high school physics could apply to the aftereffects of a magical laser capable of turning the entire city to slag?

The billowing steam began to clear. The great mist of all the evaporated water started to thin and dissipate, and now, I got the first real look at the destruction Excalibur had wrought. My breath caught and my heart leapt into my throat.

“No way…” I whispered, horrified. “Even that… Even the strongest sword ever made wasn’t enough to…”

It reminded me of what had happened to Behemoth, in Khepri’s world. The layers of impossibly tough skin, refracted over each other through multiple higher dimensions, had all been stripped away. The black ichor that had served as his blood had all boiled and evaporated. The fake organs, the glowing eyes — the great beast that had terrorized the world for most of my lifetime had been reduced to a blackened, charred skeleton.

Even that wasn’t totally intact. The right arm was missing from the elbow on down. A full half of his head, and three of his eyes with it, had been sheared away. His whipcord tail, so dangerous it was equally as lethal as any other part of him, was now nothing more than a stump, a nub at the base of his spine.

And there, in the center of his chest, was an orb. His core.

But, in spite of this horrendous amount of damage, in spite of being more injured than any Endbringer in this world had ever been, he was still standing.

“All of that, and still…”

The skeleton shifted. I threw myself backwards, gritting my teeth, and prepared to use Excalibur once more, regardless of what the consequences would likely be to my real body afterwards. I had just gambled with one of my aces — and lost.

I needn’t have bothered. Leviathan’s left leg snapped at the knee, and the immense skeleton listed to the side as gravity pulled it down. As the body collapsed into a heap, huge chunks of charred material flaked off and disintegrated like cheap chalk in the rain.

I watched, breath held as my heart thundered in my chest, the great bones fall, and when they hit the ground, they shattered and broke, as though the very thing holding them together was now gone.

Leviathan was dead.