There were many ways with which one could begin an interaction. There were the simple, nonverbal ones, without the need to share a language. A friendly smile, a polite nod or even something more elaborate, like a salute or bow, depending on the circumstances and cultures involved. Sure, they could be misunderstood but generally, they would roughly communicate what one wanted to convey. And then there were the many verbal ways to greet another, from the simplest ‘Hi’, to more formulaic greetings like a ‘Well met’ or some sort of ‘Greetings and salutations’, which was more likely to be used in correspondence but could be used in verbal interactions.

Of course, those required peaceful intent on the party doing the greeting, otherwise, the greeting could be performed with a weapon and the introduction wasn’t done using one’s name but one’s blade.

With the guy standing in front of that weird pool of liquid energy, the interaction started with neither of those. It had taken us a bit of time but curiously, there were only a handful of snakeheads between us and the level we had seen from above, allowing us to progress relatively quickly. So, we were somewhat tense when entering the room with him, uncertain if we should attack first, simply because all the snakeheads we had encountered thus far attacked as soon as they became aware of us, or if we should try to see if conversation was possible.

Given that the guy’s eyes immediately focused on us when we entered the room, though his posture didn’t change one bit, as if he was aggressively ignoring us, I decided that we could try and talk, simply to see if we could learn more. Information could always be useful and if it was a case where the information was superfluous, it could always be recorded down and forgotten.

However, even if we wanted to see if talking was an option, there was no need to be reckless about it, so we spread out, making sure that we had plenty of room to dodge out of the way of attacks, with Lia and Silva taking up flanking positions while I remained roughly in the centre of our formation, moving to be right in front of the guy. He kept staring at me and while his face didn’t twitch or give away his thoughts, I could feel a faint echo of annoyance seep out of him, though I couldn’t pin down why that might be.

For a moment, neither party spoke or moved, waiting for the other to make the first move. There was a temptation to make funny faces at the guy, simply make him react and to test the way he did but I managed to smother that temptation and kept staring at him until he acted.

And acting he did. Suddenly, his eyes flashed with silvery light, faintly reminiscent of my own eyes when I used Overflow and I immediately brought my own Astral Power to bear, ready to break whatever he threw at me but the only thing he did at that moment was bark out a command.

“Kneel before your God!” his voice was strange, inhumanly deep and echoing in a way that I couldn’t make sense of, almost as if the voice didn’t come from his throat at all but from somewhere else. It didn’t really matter where it came from, his command was enough to make Silva bound forward, intent on ripping out the guy’s throat for the blasphemy. Silva wasn’t the most outwardly devout but she was loyal to Lady Hecate and having somebody try to make her submit to a God that wasn’t her Lady? That was a good way to earn yourself a mauling.

Despite the short distance between them, the guy readily reacted, turning and bringing the golden ornament on his right arm to bear. There was a crimson jewel set in the palm and I could see a visible distortion ripple through the air before it struck Silva, sending her tumbling back. However, while the guy was dealing with Silva, the rest of us were moving, too.

Luna started slow, her plants growing rapidly to give us cover and support, while Alex lobbed something to the place where Silva was about to land, providing some sort of cushion. Lia and I, on the other hand, moved to strike back while the guy was occupied, with Lia trying to stab him in the side and I sent out a flurry of deadly Icicles, trying to tear through his body.

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The result of our attacks left a lot to be desired- Lia’s attack was simply dodged, the guy demonstrating an inhuman amount of speed and grace but mine was handled even easier when his left hand went up, this one holding an emerald stone in the middle. However, there was no wave of energy rolling through the air, instead, the guy was enveloped in a glow mirroring the gem and all my Icicels shattered against it, leaving him unharmed.

At that point, things started to devolve into chaos at a rapid pace, as a group of six snakeheads came barrelling out of the pool of standing energy, briefly glancing at the guy and us before they started to unload their staves in our general direction.

All of us started to dodge and Luna was the first to take offensive action against the newcomers, using one of her vines to bash them in the chest, sending one of them stumbling back, right into the pool of standing energy. The result was far from anything I could have imagined, instead of being pushed through the veil, as I had expected, the guy dissolved where he touched the energy, causing him to drop with about half his body missing. However that veil worked, touching it was obviously a bad idea, Which was exactly why Lia went on the offensive, trying to shove our additional foes back into it, with Luna’s plants helping her.

Silva and I, on the other hand, went after the original guy. With physical attacks seemingly impossible, I tried to use Mind and Death Magic, both having some effect, though not as much as I would have liked. Given previous interactions I tried to aim for his stomach but contrary to my hopes, the guy didn’t seem to share the weak point of the snakeheads, leaving me with far too little information to go on.

But, what I noticed, was that my Mind Magic made him flinch, if only for a moment. With that in mind, I focused on supporting Silva, trying to have her get past his increasingly frantic defence with the device on his right hand. It seemed that those were purposebound, left for the defensive shield while the right had multiple attacking options, though only the kinetic wave seemed to be truly dangerous as it was almost impossible to dodge, thanks to its wide arc.

He also was able to send out a ray of orange energy that managed to scour a line into the concrete we were standing on when I dodged aside or some sort of blue energy arc Silva couldn’t get completely out of, but she remained standing and fighting, making me wonder what it had done. If anything, the weapon might be designed to affect humans, or even these strange worms the snakeheads were apparently reliant on. It didn’t really matter, though it allowed me to get an attack in, finally drawing some blood from the supposed god. Not that the shallow wound mattered, especially not given that it healed at a visible rate, but it was a start.

And, given that Lia and Luna were sending more and more Snakeheads back into the blue pool of death, a start was a good thing, these two wouldn’t be able to last forever.

Amusingly, it was Alex who managed to create the necessary opening, by lobbing one of their curious concoctions at the guy. It didn’t penetrate the shield around him but I had a feeling it wasn’t supposed to. Instead, the gooey liquid the grenade contained splashed all over it, liberally coating it with whatever it was, forcing him to keep the shield raised. That, in turn, allowed me to shield Silva’s approach and she could finally go low and break through the shield, her teeth and the pike on her head joining together to open a hole.

With that, the guy had a serious problem. It didn’t matter that he had an incredibly potent defence with his personal shield, it didn’t matter that his attacks had been able to keep us off him. Now, Silva was atop of him and some hundred-twenty kilogram of armoured canine wasn’t something you easily dislodged. Her teeth were enough to tear through his armour and more blood was spouting from his body until he managed to push her away with a desperate blast from his hand-device. Which only opened him up to my own attack, as I hadn’t been idle.

While Silva had been mauling him, I had carefully conjured up a frozen javelin, packing a massive amount of power into the projectile until Silva was pushed away and I could launch it. The moment the path was clear, my spear crashed through his gut, pinning him to the ground like some sort of macabre butterfly. With that, the fight was over… right?