Honesty, I wasn’t too sure how I’d missed . . . it? . . . him? . . . before. The figure wasn’t hiding, instead, he was plain to see upon the top of the ‘head’ of the monster. I was hesitant to call the figure a person though, because their figure seemed to be every bit as distorted as their voice. In the most basic appearance, they seemed to be a man, but it was only a guess due to the breadth of their shoulders and their general size. Almost all their other physical traits were somehow warped, though it was difficult to be sure.
The main thing was that he seemed to be half-merged with the monster. His legs and hips were completely gone, either melted into the beast or just buried in its flesh. He seemed to be slumped forward, his forearms and the surface of his chest sunken into the carapace of the monster. In some perverse way, it looked as though he had laid face down upon the creature's back, then begun to sink into it, and was now struggling to stay above the surface.
His body, what I could see of it, was grotesque, there was no other way to describe it. His frame was almost stick thin, but with lumpy growths all over him. His left shoulder sported a cancerous-looking bulge the size of a melon, while his arms were each marked by at least four smaller growths. His face was also deformed, growths beneath his skin making one side of his face bloated, while the other side was gaunt, almost hollow. His forehead was afflicted as well, a smaller lump making it seem as though a small horn was trying to grow from one temple.
To add to his strangeness his hair was long and grey but shot through with black streaks. This, combined with the dirty and greasy look to it, only served to heighten the appearance of someone diseased and desperate.
And lastly, there were his eyes!
If eyes are the windows to the soul, then I had no idea what that said about the remnant of a man before me. Those eyes were burning, as though he were trying to set the world on fire simply by looking at it! I’d seen the force of Joan’s faith before, and I’d also seen the inhuman conviction in Hadriel’s eyes, but this was like some sort of black mirror of such gazes.
And those burning eyes . . . they were locked on me. I had no idea why, but I was currently the target of all the anger that they contained, and something told me that unless I was careful, that anger would gleefully feed me to that fire!
The monster, or rather the man melded with the monster, seemed to pause for an instant as our eyes met. There was something there, intelligence beneath the rage, an understanding that I had seen him, that I understood he was no mindless animal. It was only a brief thing though, because in the next moment, I was once more moving, and he was again charging.
“JE TE DETESTE! JE TE DETESTE! JE TE DETESTTTTTTTTTTE!!!!”
The words seemed loud enough to shake the ground, but they were much clearer now, more recognizable as something close to the utterings of a human. Well, except for that last word. That one seemed to trail off into an inhuman roar that came not simply from the mouth of the human body, but also from the gaping maw of the body he was attached to.
That was the last thought I had time for because after that any distraction would have meant my death!
The huge monster came surging at me, more like an onrushing tide than a living creature. All four of the free main tentacles came at me, the others acting as legs to pull it along the ground in a strange mixture of a snake’s slither, and an octopus moving over sand in the deeps. I was only just able to get my shields about me in time to block the blows, and that single defence was enough to let me know that things had changed in this fight. These were deliberate attacks, clear efforts to smash through my defences, and me along with them.
I retreated, falling back as I did my best to maintain my protection. It wasn’t what I wanted, but as things stood it was all I could manage. I wanted to take off, to shoot up and open distance, but the massive creature wasn’t giving me a moment’s respite. All I could do was fall back and focus on my shield, nothing more.
Not good! Not good at all! I was managing to maintain the shield, but I was certain that I’d run out of power long before this thing ran out of stamina. My only advantage this time was that it didn’t have a hold on me. This meant I could open more distance between us and make it harder for it to maintain a continuous assault. The problem was that I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it up, not with thick woods behind me. It was something of a miracle that I’d managed to make it as far as I had without finding my way blocked.
But then, it happened.
I should have realized that with my shield as big as it was there was no way I’d be able to fit between the trees once they grew denser. Unfortunately, I was too preoccupied with the attacks I was fending off to realize it until the back of my protective sphere found itself lodged between two thick trees. Each of them was at least twice as thick as the tree the monster had smashed, and the space between them was barely more than a couple of metres apart. Some corner of my mind wondered how two trees so close could have grown so big when they should have stunted each other’s growth, but that was peripheral to the realization that I wasn’t able to retreat further!
The first blow was deflected by my shield, but the second impact cracked it. I had it fixed before the third impact hit, but I wasn’t able to repair the crack from that strike before the fourth one hit. Then another. And another. And another. They came so fast that, again and again and again! Behind me I could hear the groan of wood, then the cracking of splinters as I was driven back by the force, and in front of me I could see my barrier beginning to break. I couldn’t keep up, that was the simple truth! This thing, it was hitting me faster than I could recover.
Even as the final blow shattered my shield into shards, I hurled myself backwards, both my magic and my wings acting in unconscious concert to move me as fast as I could. Ahead of me, the last blow stabbed through the spot that I’d occupied only moments before, impaling the ground hard enough to drive the tendril more than two feet into the earth.
“NON! SOIS MAUDIT! MEURS! DISPARAIS!”
Once more I could practically hear the rage and hatred drip from the words, the trees around me shaking from the sheer volume. Then the sinuous limb I’d only just avoided split open, more than a dozen smaller tendrils, each no thicker than my thumb, shooting out of it.
The sudden attack caught me by surprise, the new limbs seeming to grow out of the first one like branches coming from a trunk, only at insane speeds. They had reach too, easily crossing the distance separating us, and were fast enough to make it before I could raise another shield.
“Aaarrgghh!”
It was less an exclamation of pain than it was one of surprise. These tendrils lacked the hardened spear-like ends that the larger ones had and tried to grab me rather than impale me. My arms came up instinctually, keeping them from my face, but the tentacles simply wrapped around them, tightening instantly and with such strength that I could feel the blood flow in them being cut off. Then they were dragging at me, trying to pull me back towards the monster as he roared, a wordless howl.
This time I did think. It was a frantic and desperate thought, but it was enough to let me take action born of reason rather than instinct. Rather than trying to pull back, and just pitting my strength against that of the tendrils, I shot sideways, dragging them against one of the trees. My action must have been as much of a surprise to the monster as the tendrils had been to me, because for a moment there was a little bit of slack, of give to them, as though they had momentarily been unsure of what to do.
I used the moment as ruthlessly as I could, dodging behind another tree trunk, dragging the tendrils behind me. It was an awkward zigzag, one meant to do nothing more than tangle the tendrils, maybe discomfort them slightly as I pulled them taut against the trees. Still, it must have managed something, even if only to confuse the creature, because, in the next moment, the grip on my arms loosened slightly.
That was all I needed. I hadn’t moved all that far, but I’d managed to move away from the clearing, and been able to put some more trees in between me and the monster. It could have probably gotten through them easily enough, given the way it had burst into the clearing without having to knock them over. But tangled up as it was that would have been more difficult. I just needed him to hesitate for a moment, after all, then I could begin my counterattack!
Most of my more potent offensive capabilities were touch-based, and I now had some convenient limbs holding me, but as of yet unable to harm me. Fire, ice, or earth might not be able to help me here, but lightning . . . that was an altogether different proposition. Lightning wasn’t fire that you could recoil from when it scorched you. If I’d used my earth or my arcana then I could have cut or crushed the tendrils, but that would have inflicted only momentary pain and not real damage. Lightning was different though, faster, deadlier, and all it needed was a moment, a touch, and then it could surge through a body faster than you could blink.
Turning my mind inwards I focused on the mana of my core, feeling its flow, following it through me, and then into the halo hovering above me. It came easily now, only the work of an instant. A good thing too, because an instant was all I had. As my fingers grabbed hold of some of the tentacles, I could feel them tense again, getting ready to do something. I couldn’t give them that chance, so I reached out, through the halo and to the colours that represented magic to me.
The one I wanted was a bit of a strange one. Electricity and lightning were different, distinct. Both were covered by a single concept despite their differences though, one being wild and one being tamed.
In my head, the concept I reached for didn’t really have a name. It was both lightning and electricity, but there was no name for it. Even stranger was the colour it was linked to because it was one of the strange hues that didn’t really exist in the world.
A concept without a name, a colour without a hue, that was how lightning/electricity sat amidst the multitude of powers I could call on, and it wasn’t even the most complicated.
The halo thrummed above me as it helped me in touching my power, and then I felt the now familiar surge as it released through my hands and into my enemy, the electricity visible as it crackled down the tendrils! I felt something, a connection, a link, a-
////RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE WORLD, RAGE AGAINST FATE, RAGE AGAINST THE INTRUDER! RAGE! RAGE! RAGE!
////HATRED, POISONOUS HATRED! WHY HIM?! WHY HIM AND NOT ME?! HATE HIM FOR IT! HATE THEM FOR IT! HATE! HATE! HATE!
////HUNGRY, SO HUNGRY! MORE! MUST EAT MORE! MAGIC! FLESH! HUNT IT! EAT IT! FEED THE HUNGER! FEED! FEED! FEED!
////Despair, black and clinging! Why this? Why go on? Why try to live when any sort of life is impossible?
////wHy mE? wHy dO i HaVe tO bE tHe oNe tO sUfFeR? whY Me? WhY mE? wHy Me?\\\\
I felt the tentacles jerk for a moment, the smell of ozone suddenly thick in the air. There was an instant where I could see the electricity crackling along the thin limbs, but that didn’t matter to me.
Instead, I found myself wondering what the hell just happened?!?!
I’d . . . I’d been able to feel what the monster felt? That was the closest I could come to describing it. It wasn’t so much that I could tell what he felt, rather it was as though I had suddenly been able to feel it as well, the emotions as clear and sharp as my own, but strangely distant at the same time. I could feel them, but they left no mark, no imprint. That . . . that was good, that mixture of rage, hatred, and despair, I didn’t think that a sane mind was capable of supporting it.
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And that hunger . . .
A shudder ran through me, even as the tendrils went limp. I wasn’t sure just how much I’d been able to hurt the monster with my attack, but a glance told me that it had at least paused in place, maybe stunned by the sudden shock. I wasn’t exactly sure how much electricity I’d used against it, but I instinctively knew that it had been weaker than a natural lightning strike, so I doubted that I’d managed anything fatal.
Away, I had to get away!
The single thought ripped its way across my mind as I tried to comprehend not only what I was seeing, but also what I had just felt. Nothing like that had ever happened before! Not when sparring with Joan, not when being taught by Hadriel. To suddenly feel those foreign emotions swamping me, and then nothing . . . it had been too much! Panic, desperation, and a simple primal need for space all came together, urging me to get away! I launched myself upwards and away from the beast.
It saw what I was doing, but it was too late to do anything. I saw it curl for another leap, but this time I was too far away. It tried anyway, the melded bulk of man and monster shooting upwards in a way that should have been impossible for something so huge. Long tentacles reached out, snapping like whips, but fell short by a good margin. Then the beast went crashing down, breaking branches, crushing undergrowth, and even toppling one of the younger trees.
What was even stranger was the odd silence in which the monster acted. There was no roar, no howled words, nothing. It was as though a switch had been thrown and the earlier distorted roaring was just gone.
Still, as it came down I slowed my ascent, turning to stare down at where it had come down even as I continued to rise. With my improved eyesight I could still see the monster’s form clearly, despite the distance.
The thing was recovering from its fall quickly, all of its larger limbs either pushing it up to regain its footing or coiling around trees to aid it in reorienting itself. It was quite a sight, watching something so large moving so fluidly. Even its earlier injuries didn’t seem to be slowing it down.
In fact . . . those wounds seemed to be gone. One of those larger tentacles should have been missing a good chunk of its end, but as my eyes flicked from one tendril to the next none of them seemed to be shorter than any of the others. It was only when I saw some visible burns on one of the limbs, that I understood what was happening. The injuries weren’t deep, but they were wide, as though swathes of skin had been ripped off. The chitin had remained, but the edges of it were clearly burnt and still smoked in places.
I felt a surge of both guilt and triumph at the sight. Guilt that I would ever inflict such a grievous wound on a living creature. Triumph that I’d finally been able to deal some damage to this monster that had been getting the better of me so far. It was a strange conflict of emotions, one that was quickly chased away by what I saw next.
The burns were shrinking.
Right before my eyes massive wounds rippled at the edges, then were replaced by healthy hide and chitin, diminishing in size until they were gone. I gaped for a moment, then my eyes flicked to the other tentacles, from one to the next, to the next, to the next. All of them, every single one, was fine, with no hint of an injury. As I continued to rise I could only blink in incomprehension until it finally clicked.
This monster . . . he wasn’t just healing, he was flat-out regenerating!
I knew all gods possessed some form of advanced recovery, as did angels and demons. It varied from one being to the next and was tied to whatever type of immortality they might possess. That being said, it was possible to maim a god or leave lasting wounds. Hephaestus, for example, was left crippled after his mother cast him from Olympus for being born ugly. It was harder for mortals to inflict such wounds, but it was possible. Of course, in the case of such injuries gods could simply abandon their ‘avatar’ bodies and return to their home planes, then when they reincarnated it would be in a once more perfect form. Angels and demons had their own ways of doing something similar.
For the most part, the wholesale regeneration of entire lost limbs in a matter of seconds was the province of powerful monsters. Creatures such as the Hydra were an excellent example, beings that could recover from almost any injury, even going so far as to grow back entire lost heads. In the end, it had taken Heracles himself to bring it down, one of the most powerful demigods ever, according to gods willing to talk on the matter, and even then he’d needed help to do it. Hell, technically he hadn’t ever managed to fully kill the monster, given that one of its heads had been straight-up immortal, he’d simply cut it off then buried it under a multi-ton boulder.
I didn’t think that the thing beneath me was on that level, but the fact that it had been able to completely regrow the lost end of its tentacle in the few moments since it had been smashed off was . . . worrying.
For the moment I was safe. Well, safe-ish. Depending on how smart the thing beneath me was then just being out of its reach didn’t guarantee it couldn’t attack me. In its position, I’d have started to throw stones and boulders at me. I knew it was damned strong, so it could probably have them coming at me as though they’d been fired from a canon. It didn’t look like the man part of this thing still had enough control to be making those decisions, but I had no way to be sure. The last thing I wanted was to be shot out of the air like a duck during hunting season.
Beneath me the monster was turning around, its tentacles lifting it so the human form on the back of its maw could stare up at me. Despite the distance between us, I knew that our eyes met for a moment. It was too far now to get a clear look, but I could swear that those eyes were looking right at me.
Then the monster let out one more roar and then turned away. For a moment I was confused as to where it was going, then it started to shovel the dead bodies of the monsters I’d killed into its gaping maw. Seeing this there was a brief feeling of . . . respite. It wasn’t coming after me straight away, so I had some time to gather my thoughts.
I was out of my depth here, that much was clear. This thing . . . I wasn’t sure if I could kill it. Lightning had been one of my deadliest options, but it seemed like this monster had just shaken it off. And what I had managed to inflict was being healed so fast it was ridiculous! Did I have any other options available to me that would do worse?
Well, there was fire, if I took the time to build it up and strengthen it. And how well could flesh heal or regenerate once it was frozen solid?
I had options, and that knowledge was enough to help the dread that I’d begun to feel rising up in me settle down. I could do this, I kept repeating it to myself as I tried to organize my thoughts and get my ideas into some sort of order. Yes, I’d been almost completely overwhelmed by this monster’s attack, and I’d been almost completely on the defensive the entire time But that didn’t mean that I was helpless against it, not with some prep time.
And . . . maybe allies. During the attack, I hadn’t really had time to give it any serious consideration. Truthfully, it was more a case that once the ‘fight’ had started I simply hadn’t had enough spare mind to recall the charm, let alone use it. Taking out the charm and breaking it wouldn’t have taken much concentration, but it was concentration I could ill afford to spare at the time.
Maybe I should try calling them now though. Would that disappoint them? Would they be shamed at my lack of resolve? My fists clenched again as I tried to resolve my emotional quandary. Why did being sensible feel like cowardice? I had to admit, some small part of me felt disgusted that I was seriously contemplating it, but I told myself that it was just unthinking pride and caveman machismo. The thing down there was dangerous, and it was only an idiot that allowed pride to dictate strategy.
My hand dipped into my pocket that held the small vial of glowing liquid. I didn’t plan to use it, not yet. The gesture was more a nervous action, a desire to bring out the small magical item simply so that I could get a better look at it, and get a better sense of what I’d do if I chose to use it.
Only, when my fingers reached in, I found no small artefact, only an empty pocket with a large hole torn in the bottom of it.
My mind just locked up as I tried to process what my senses were telling me. No, actually I damned well knew what they were telling me, rather I was doing my best to try to come up with something else for them to mean other than the truth.
Gone! It was gone! When had it happened? Had it been when I hit the tree? When I was dodging? Had it been the first time I tried to get away by flying? It had fallen out of the tear, so when had I gotten the tear? I’d been protected by my shield all the time when the smaller beasts had been attacking me, and I’d kept up that protection until it got broken on the ground . . .
That was the only time it could have happened, so at least I had a general idea of where it was. But that spot was only a dozen or so metres from where the monster was busy gorging on the bodies of the dead beasts I’d left behind. I could try retrieving it with telekinesis, but that would only work if I could see it. So far, my abilities in that skill were limited by line of sight, unless it was at very close range.
I realized just how . . . screwed I was. I was up against a monster I didn’t feel ready for, my backup didn’t know I needed them and I had no way of calling them, and on top of it all I had absolutely no idea what to do! I could practically feel the panic welling up inside me, a hungry hole all too eager to gobble me up if I let it.
Oddly enough it was fear that saved me, fear of giving in to panic, fear of losing control, fear of breaking.
Fear was something the entire world had become familiar with during the dark days of the Black Sun.
I closed my eyes took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out slowly. I did this again, and then a third time, each repetition leaving me feeling calmer, more in control. It might not have been all that smart to do it while the monster was still so close, but I was still slowly rising, and the distance between us was enough that even if it did think to start throwing rocks I’d be a tough target.
When I no longer felt like I was going to lose it I opened my eyes and looked back down.
More than half the bodies were gone now, mostly the smaller ones that he’d been able to just throw into his maw. As I watched the creature worked on one of the larger ones, its limbs tearing off chunks as large as I was.
Gods, just how much was it going to eat? Mentally I tried to add up the sheer volume of the corpses it had consumed, comparing that to how large the monster’s stomach could be. I could see a large bulge starting to form along its underside, but it didn’t seem big enough to hold all the mass it had consumed.
He’d soon be done and I had to think about just what I was going to do next. Leaving was an option, after all, I was here to try and find the source of the corruption, not fight every single monster I came across. Leaving this thing at my back seemed like a bad idea though. If some hiker or park worker came across him they’d be dead, and if I came back there might be another ambush. Dealing with him now seemed like the better option.
I wasn’t sure how I wanted to do that, how I wanted to advance. My simplest option was to prepare as much firepower as I could scrape together, then hit the creature beneath me as hard as I could and not stop until it was very dead.
Finding Hadriel’s SOS spell was something I had to try. I didn’t need to use it but having it there to be used was a step in the right direction. Of course, I didn’t know how to go about it, but I had plenty of motivation, didn’t I? And that, and some magic, had to count for something.
Joan had explained the basics of stuff like remote vision and scrying, though she hadn’t gone into detail. At the time I hadn’t been too interested, since she’d said it would have to wait until I was better at manipulating magic. I’d wanted to learn how to blast things, how to fly, how to protect myself.
Now I was starting to regret that.
Closing my eyes, I tried to remember what she’d said. It had been something about . . . using the magic itself as a sensory organ? So that was, what, seeing through the magic? I could do something like that up close, feel when things were getting very near to me. It wasn’t much use in a sparring match, since Joan and Hadriel moved too quickly for me to react when their practice weapons came that near, but I could feel it. Could I do something like that here?
Reaching out I tried to visualize the small bottle that had been handed to me, tried to visualize the exact colour of the liquid within, maybe even the feeling of the magic within. It had been made by Hadriel, and she’d hit me with her magic enough times during our sparring that I had something of a feel for it, although most of the time it simply felt like painful lightning. Keeping all of that in my mind I stretched out with my magic, fumbling blindly to find what I wanted.
To my surprise, I felt something almost immediately, though it wasn’t what I was looking for. Instead of the bottle of magic, I felt a . . . connection, something that ran from me to . . . somewhere else.
I’d not encountered anything like this before, but that wasn’t saying all that much. It was definitely a connection of some sort, but as things stood I could only perceive the end that was ‘plugged in’ to me. After it left me I could tell that it went somewhere, but otherwise it was invisible, untouchable.
No, not untouchable, more like ‘empty’. The link had some firmness to it, but it lacked any energy, any vitality. It was a line without any power running through it, a dead connection.
So, I did the logical thing and channelled my magic into it.
It wasn’t a completely reckless move, though I admit that it was quite the gamble. My line of reasoning was that Joan and Hadriel, and maybe Emma, though I didn’t think it likely, were the only logical supernatural beings that I could have a connection to. Joan had healed me up tonnes of times, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if that had led to some sort of link. With Hadriel there was less of a connection, but it wasn’t completely out of the realms of possibility.
I wasn’t too sure what I was expecting to happen. I supposed that an ideal result would have been some sort of communication with either of my allies, at least enough to let them know I was in some sort of trouble. However, rather than reaching off into the distance the link, once filled with magic, ran downwards from me, straight to the monster below. I couldn’t really see it, not with my eyes, but it was as though I could sense the direction of the link purely on instinct.
What startled me was the feeling that accompanied the solidification of the connection. Earlier, when I’d felt the creature’s emotions, there’d been a similar connection, but that had felt like a foghorn going off next to my ear. This time it was fainter, distant even, but there was something recognizable there. Those emotions that had been like a collapsing mountain of burning rocks seemed to be just tumbling pebbles in the distance, but the emotions they carried, the intensity, shone through despite the ‘distance’.
Unsure of what else to do I mentally reached out to the link, trying to see if it could do anything useful.