Running over the crystalline black ground, Puck had a hard time holding his balance. For each and every foot he set down, Puck needed to make sure his claws reached deep enough into the black ice. If not, he would fall.

And falling would mean his certain death.

Behind him, a swarm of abominations scrambled to reach him, each and every one looking as if it had come straight out of a nightmare.

The only good part was that after Puck’s attack on the heart, it seemed like their enemy had truly lost the last vestiges of its intellect. The ever-present heartbeat had turned unsteady; in one moment it was becoming ever faster, and in the next, it stood still for a few eerie seconds.

The only things dominating the actions of their enemies now seemed to be the hatred, hunger, and madness of the heart itself.

Through this madness, the heart had lost all tactics and calculation. It was only filling its creatures with ever more dark energy to make them stronger and even stranger.

Instead of cornering Puck from all sides, as would have been sensible, nearly all the creatures ran behind Puck while only a select few that had already been stationed there attacked him from the front.

These few enemies, though, were more than enough to send a cold shiver down Puck’s spine. One mistake, one wrong step, and he would be lying on the ground, with the mad horde behind him finally reaching him and devouring him whole.

Concentrating on one of the creatures coming at him from the front, Puck only barely made out another one coming at him from the side with terrifying speed.

Making a split-second decision, Puck knew that getting hit by the creature from his side would be certain doom, while a confrontation with the one before him was unavoidable.

Pushing farther ahead, Puck closed the distance between himself and the creature in front of him. It was some kind of amalgamation of beings: the maw of some kind of predator, human arms and legs, hundreds of crawling appendages, and a tail made out of millions of sewn-together fingers.

Straining his mind and perception to their limits, Puck welcomed a pulsing headache as he once again pulled on his ideal to help him go beyond the limits of what should be possible.

Hesitating slightly, Puck gave Brock, who was flying above, the command at just the right moment. Crashing down in a suicidal flight, the buzzard dove toward the eyes of the abomination, hoping to claw them out before it could notice him.

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Steeling himself for what was to come, Puck was clear about the fact that Brock likely wouldn’t survive the attack and would get dispersed for a later resummoning.

Still, though, Puck nearly completely ruined his own plan with hesitation when he saw Brock getting ripped apart by the dozens of appendages from the creature.

Pulling himself together, Puck managed to push himself off the ground the second before he would collide with the creature.

The abomination, still blinded by Brock, misjudged Puck’s movements and grabbed past him as Puck sailed above it. Not even trying to strike down with Zephyrian while sailing above the creature, Puck knew that any such attempt would hurt his own position more than the creature below.

Seeing the tail of the creature react in time to slap him out of the air, Puck used Zephyrian instead to ram it out of the path, while sending himself into an uncontrollable spinning motion in the air as a rebound.

Using the last millisecond before his impact on the ground behind the creature, Puck disposed of Zephyrian into his soul. A moment later, every morsel of air was pushed out of his lungs as Puck felt himself hit the ground with the left side of his chest.

Instinctively going into a rolling motion over his left shoulder, Puck managed to keep moving before another appendage of the abomination reached him from behind.

Rolling one more time, Puck felt his speed slow down as his head spun and his lungs screamed for air.

Knowing this was the moment, Puck pushed off the ground with both his arms the moment his belly faced down again. Managing to get his feet under himself, he started scrambling forward again, guided only by Zephyrian’s input from his soul, as he himself was still completely disoriented.

Heaving in great gulps of air, Puck tried to speed up with all he had before something could catch him again. The situation was still dire, but even in his deranged state, Puck couldn’t help but let a small smile pass across his lips.

His mad plan had worked.

He himself hadn’t been able to look out for it anymore, but Zephyrian had given him confirmation. The abomination that had been coming at him from the side had collided with the one that had been blocking Puck’s path forward.

Now they were both tumbling over the ground, using whatever weapons they had to claw and swipe at each other.

Had the wind been any less responsive to help his efforts, had Brock lasted a moment less, or had the creatures just been less dumb and crazed in their frenzy, Puck would be dead right now.

He wasn’t dead, though. He had managed to get away without so much as a scratch inflicted by his enemies. Sadly, his own maneuver had taken its toll instead, with the worst result likely being his pounding head and his lessened ability to summon his ideal.

One more time, one more all out effort with help of his ideal, that was all that remained. After that his ideal would go into hibernation, leaving him to fight for himself.

Puck would need to fight nearly completely without his supernatural tools as any more help by Zephyrian too could only be a last resort move as it would cripple Puck for quite some time after that.

Nearly completely out of options, Puck felt like he was dancing a fragile lifeline ready to snap at any moment.

Why though, was he so elated at that very feeling?