If you asked Robert how he was feeling at that moment, he would answer he felt like the halves of his brain were pulled apart to the sides and out of his skull. As he screamed in pain from the powerful psychic attack, he punched forward and used his only offensive technique.
Void Punch created a ball of nothingness in front of his hand, which he then punched into the squid. At the last moment, he tried to will the energy to explode outward instead in an all-around fashion. Hot meat and blood splattered around his face and shoulders. His right hand was burning as if flayed alive. The squid screamed a rumbling bass that shook Robert's bones. But at least the wedge trying to rip his brain apart vanished. Exhausted, Robert fell to the ground.
When he woke up next, all he saw was the pitch-black sky of the liminal void and the slightly less black canopy of the trees. The squid variant was nowhere to be seen, oh, no, belay that. Robert looked at the monster, only an inch ahead of where it was. A handful of its tentacles were shredded and its eye had popped. The monster was moving so slowly that it seemed to be still if you didn't pay much attention. And the rumbling scream kept going on.
He also saw some chunks of squid tentacle near the spot where his void punch hit. These were in grayscale and completely still. Robert felt his right hand burning and looked at it. The skin covering his knuckles was gone, red muscle and white bone in full display. Fuck. If he wasn't in the liminal void where he couldn't bleed, his hand would be pretty much fucked. He used healing hands to heal his hand. Discolored skin grew back to cover the wound. His only hope was that it wouldn't look so bad in the real world. Damn, why couldn't he get supernatural healing already? The weight of the subjective time was getting to him. He had already spent more than one and a half years in the void.
Goddamned squid. He drew his sword with his left hand and stabbed the creature. The blade didn't go in. It felt like he was poking a rock. This was weird. The squid wasn't leaking Time wisps. It wasn't moving much, either. No way it was this slow if the other Archs were running away from it. It led Robert to believe the squid wasn't quite in the liminal void. So why was it inching forward?
And why wasn't it attacking him again?
He had no idea. Robert used lavi flows to cycle lifeforce around his hand, to help with the healing. He checked his notebook and wrote down the moment of entry. Knowing he would have to wait for days until he could return, Robert sat down on a rock and watched the squid squirm. When he ran out of essence to use his tempering technique, he gathered a little.
Once he returned from his meditation, he checked the squid's position. It was still moving but... the position of the grayed-out chunks of flesh was the same. But hours had passed in the liminal void, it should've moved past these, right? Except these hours were subjective. Robert was still in the same instant as when he entered, if the time in the real world was considered. He watched the squid and the monster did move a bit forward. As an experiment, Robert turned around and read his primer on Time affinity for the umpteenth time. He would need to get another book because his footnotes had already covered all the empty space on the pages.
Finished with the book, he turned and looked at the squid. Yes, same position. The squid wasn't moving, it was somehow making Robert believe it was moving. And the psychic attack didn't happen again. Robert walked around the squid variant to examine the creature. On the other side, it made eye contact with it again.
Robert fell to the ground, screaming.
If you asked Robert how he was feeling at that moment, he would answer he felt like the halves of his brain were pulled apart to the sides and out of his skull. As he screamed in pain from the powerful psychic attack, he thought how much he loved recursion. Then he blanked out.
*
*
Robert woke up still in the void. He looked up, saw the tentacles enter his field of view, and averted his eyes. Perhaps he didn't like recursion that badly when it hurt him like hell. He looked at the puzzle pieces he had.
The squid wasn't entirely in the liminal void, but somehow was pretending it was moving. Whenever Robert made eye contact with the squid, it used a psychic attack. Robert could affect the squid with a void punch. If he could pop the other eye, the squid would become a non-issue. He wasn't so sure he could hit it with his sword, and a test swing on a tentacle showed that he didn't have enough strength to do any real harm to the creature. Dragging it to the liminal void like he did with the Kraven acolytes was suicide. If those three delvers were part of a five-man team, it means the squid killed two people. At least one.
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And the stupid kids are getting psyched for combat. Sweet, really sweet.
Robert trained his sword moves hacking at the squid's tentacles. He managed a few nicks but nothing too substantial. He needed to find a gym to work out. And get started on his other tempering techniques. When it was close to the return time, he made his way back to where he started.
Time resumed again. An inhuman screech rang. He heard a buzzing in his head. The squid was in pain and his psychic powers were unleashed. The party was shaken with confusion. They were in one moment ready to attack whatever was behind the bush, and now they were bleeding through the ear. Robert only felt moisture and a faint smell of blood on his nose. His tempering was showing some improvement by staunching the bleeding right after it happened.
"LISTEN UP!" Robert shouted. "We need to withdraw! Everyone, to me! The enemy over there is not something we can take on!"
Some of them, especially the ones in the vanguard, glared at Robert. "Heal us!" They clamored.
"Get over here and I'll heal you! I'm not going to the front lines when we are about to—"
The bush vanished in a blur. Leaves blew over them, and some of the vanguard gained new cuts from them. On the other side, the squid was seething with rage. It glared at Robert with its single eye.
Robert fell to the ground, screaming.
If you asked Robert how he was feeling at that moment, he would answer he felt like the halves of his brain were pulled apart to the sides and out of his skull. As he screamed in pain from the powerful psychic attack, he thought how much he used to love recursion. Then he blanked out.
*
*
Robert woke up soon after. He was sure he had a concussion. His danger sense was flaring and it was what brought him back to the waking world.
He heard shouts, war cries, and then another kind of shouts. Disoriented he tried to look around. The clearing they stood on was painted with blood. Headless bodies dotted the ground. He counted four of them. Then he saw a tentacle approach his forehead, dripping red blood. Dazed, he went to slap it away. A mind spike struck him, causing him to wail in pain. He grabbed the tentacle and slipped into the liminal void. Another mind spike struck him, making his migraine double in intensity.
The squid started to screech and squirm. Robert rolled away, with his eyes closed. He cycled lavi flows and waved his hands over his temples to heal his concussion. No mind spikes or any sort of attack but the disorienting buzzing attacked him. But the variant Mollusk was active in the void on its own.
He had a theory. The squid's powers worked through visual contact. Whenever he was attacked for real, it was when he made eye contact with the squid. Even looking at its body caused it to attack. Perhaps this was why it could move and act through dimensions. It worked on reverse cognizance. With his eyes closed, nothing happened. And perhaps, the source of its invulnerability when he attempted to attack it was exactly because it wasn't really in the liminal void.
Eyes closed, he stood up and unsheathed his sword. His right hand was okayish so he grabbed the sword with both hands. He focused and used foresight, with the window of half a second ahead. Then he overlapped it with life sense. He could perceive the squid in his mind. He could tell what it would do moments ahead. Robert approached the thrashing squid. Time wisps leaked from the creature; Robert could very well avoid it and wait for it to die.
But he was pissed at the creature. He was pissed at the mass murder it caused. While he didn't have time to count the bodies, he was sure it was more than three. Taking a neutral stance, he approached carefully. The creature was too busy to mind him. And perhaps, it couldn't see Robert since Robert couldn't see it. Or because it could've lost its second eye in the fight.
Exhaling, Robert cast lesser haste on himself, and lesser slow on the creature. Then he struck. He aimed his slash at a tentacle that was rising so the forces combined. He felt the sword cut through the limb. Another. And another. Foresight warned him of the corrosive ink spray. Robert dashed backward as the squid launched its attack. Then he laughed. The ink stopped mid-air the moment it was launched. The squid was now surrounded by a cloud of liquid ink droplets. Too bad it didn't corrode its own skin.
He lunged and stabbed at its body. It connected and he felt the sword sink a few inches into the squid's flesh. Robert pulled the sword downward but instead of slicing through the mollusk, it dragged the creature down. He instead let it slide off the blade. Then he took the bull guard and hacked down. The sword struck at an odd angle as the squid kept convulsing and squirming. But he heard a satisfying squelch. Not letting it time to recompose itself, Robert lifted his sword and brought it down as fast as he could. Over and over again. Only when life sense went blank did he stop. Panting, Robert opened his eyes to look at the dead Mollusk.
He sensed the Time wisps floating around. Robert sat and gathered them. The void was once again secure. it was his safe place where nothing but rowdy tagalongs could do him harm. A few hours later, he returned. The squid's body was left behind. In the void, it was preserved for eternity.
Then he vomited. A combination of disorientation, echoes of his recently healed concussion, and the smell and sight of carnage were too much for him.
He counted six bodies. He recognized the equipment. All of them had their heads blown off. Chunks of scalp and skull bone along with brain matter were scattered everywhere, including on his armor. Hells. Bloody hells. Robert fell on his knees, splashing his ejecta. It didn't matter. He was thoroughly soaked in gore.
"Someone survived." He stated.
Robert crawled back to his feet. He used life sense, at maximum range, trying to find slugs and snails. He found some, about half a mile in the direction the squid came. He took all the bodies to the liminal void. Then he traveled through the liminal void to the spot where he found the Mollusks.
What he saw shocked him. The snails were crawling over the bodies of those running Archs' party members, eating them. But since he made short jaunts to deliver the bodies, he had little time in the void. As he returned, the creatures noticed him and attacked.