Once again, I made the mistake of not activating my Chaos senses. In the last half a year, I can count the number of times I used it with one hand. Peacetime is truly dangerous for one's fighting instincts.

But I seriously need somebody to remind me of using all of my abilities that I accumulated over the past year. That should preferably be somebody who's always with me. Maybe I'll set aside another me inside my body for that express purpose when I get the chance.

That's how Oinos was able to ambush me from below. Not that it was a real ambush since he only pulled me down to the floor below the throne room and then let go without attacking. It seems my roar alerted him to my presence, and he used a shortcut to get me to face him.

"We meet again." He states with a grin, his gaze doubtlessly fixated on me even though his white eyes lack pupils. Green hair extending into bushy sideburns of the same color make him appear to have a mane. His bare upper body is covered in silver markings against his bronze skin. But unlike last time we met, he has a massive curved sword that looks like an upsized katana strapped to his back with a sash.

I'm sure it has a Japanese name because Alverost is a nerd like that.

"Is your master aware that the moon is falling onto Earth right now?" Out of all the Old Humans in the Zenlith faction, Oinos is the only one I haven't seen in the room where my mother was killed. And in our brief encounter in Zohigal, it seemed as if he was only being forced to fight. He may genuinely enjoy battle, much like certain other muscle-heads I know, but I think he might want to free himself of his creator's influence.

"That's precisely why I'm here." The Walker of the Wild raises his arms into a shrug. "Shelnir predicted that you would come to the place of predicted impact."

"So, you want to stop us?" I'm in my Crawling Chaos form, so I can't show surprise on my face.

"Kind of, yeah." Despite the situation, Oinos looks incredibly relaxed. "Father has a plan, but he hasn't told me. All he wanted me to do was keep you here."

"Huh?" Don't tell me he wants to let the moon crash into the planet and kill me with it? Surely, he doesn't think that's enough to finish off a Crawling Chaos with access to the Imagination Engine? Or maybe I'm underestimating the force of a moon impacting a planet. "What would keeping me here accomplish?"

"As I said, I have no idea." With these words, he walks toward me with a relaxed smile. In the next moment, I catch a punch thrown at my nonexistent face, causing his eyes to widen in surprise. He has bridged the distance between us in an instant, but the eyes of Nymphy allowed me to react in time. Her template has been the most useful one for the eyes that I've gotten so far, even more so than Hestia's.

"Don't think I'm the same as I was when we last met." With these words, I spread my tentacles all across his body. Unlike with Korenga, nothing stops me from touching his skin directly, so I hope to swallow him whole. So far, he has only displayed unparalleled physical strength, which is easily countered by elasticity rather than hardness.

"What's so different about you now?" Unperturbed, Oinos asks while the silver lines on his body begin to glow. In the next instant, beams of light emerge from them that cleanly cut through my tentacles, even though they were covered in dragon armor. It seems that he has defensive measures against being swallowed whole. Good thing I found out before he was already inside me.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

But it was enough time for me to draw close to him. Last time, the only thing that could hurt him was a pile bunker, but in a normal fight, it would never land a hit on him. This time, I created a massive pile bunker inside the depths of my unfathomable body, with only the spike poking out from my surface.

With my chest close to his, I fire the weapon right into his solar plexus. The tip reinforced with the highest density dragon armor I have created to date pierces his skin and crushes bone. Then the force propels him backward with a momentous blow. He breaks through the wall and into the next room with such speed that he leaves a hole with his outline on it.

But I realize that it didn't crush his bones but mine. While there's the golden liquid that seemingly runs through Oinos' veins on the spike, the dragon armor tip has been shattered. Without wasting time on wonder, I retract it into my body. While repairing it, I realize that this liquid doesn't contain any genetic material and might as well be some kind of coolant or lubricant in a machine.

When I chase after him into the next room, I find that the wall beyond also has an Oinos-shaped hole. In fact, it seems to go all the way through the pyramid and out the outer wall. With every further wall, the outline is less defined, until the last few are simply holes. When I reach the exterior, I'm greeted with an uppercut from below, which I can barely dodge in time.

However, in the same motion, Oinos grabs my neck and drags me back down before slamming my back against the side of the pyramid. I've realized that adopting a less dense and more malleable form is the best against force, so I don't even feel the impact. But then he runs up the side of the structure while dragging me along its rough surface as if wanting to grind me down.

I can react quickly enough by turning my back into smooth dragon armor, which is wholly unaffected by the abrasive sandstone. The instant I do so, he realizes that there's something hard for him to hit, as he stops and brings his fist down at my midsection like a battering ram.

That's what I've been waiting for, as a new pile bunker is ready inside my chest. This one is reinforced with countless tiny spirit spears arranged into a microscopic tip. With perfect precision due to the slow-motion I perceive the world in when using Nymphy's eyes, I time the exit of the spike with the moment the punch connects.

While his flesh is hard, it can't withstand the force behind my pile bunker. This time, the spike lodged itself between the bones in Oinos' hand. It seems that his bones are sturdier than anything I could ever create, as it shrugged off even the spirit spears.

Even then, Oinos doesn't flinch from pain as he stomps his foot on my chest and pulls back his arm to free his hand. Not letting this opportunity go to waste, I create serrated hooks on the spike still in his hand to hold onto him. Turning the end of the spike into a flexible tentacle, I keep the hard tip lodged inside his flesh even as he pulls back with all his strength.

"Impressive." He states while looking at his deformed fist before bringing his other one up to pull it out directly. But I won't let him do that; opening a hole in my chest, I let his foot sink through my body. Then I grow two more pile bunkers inside me while pushing myself off the ground.

The instant they're aligned with his knee as my torso travels up his leg, I let the weapons shoot into him from both sides. I know that the human knee has many tendons vital for standing. Even if these pile bunkers can't destroy his bones, they should be able to sever those tendons.

But right at that moment, the silver lines on his body glow and shoot out beams that cut my torso apart from within. The spikes miss their intended target and only pierce flesh before I fall apart. Without wasting a single second, Oinos rips out the spike still in his hand and pulls on the tentacle attached to it.

Shooting out tendrils all over, I quickly reconnect the severed parts just as the Walker of the Wild swings me around once and throws me into the air. Within a second, I reconsolidate into my humanoid shape and stop my momentum in midair.

But when I look back, Oinos has drawn his massive sword. Phase two of the boss fight, huh?