I surround myself with plasma, aiming to do the same thing to the inside of Mataku as I did to Alverost's flying fortress. Even if he has the dragon template or knows how to shield himself, it won't be enough to protect himself from this immense heat. Spreading the heat away from me, I explode like a miniature sun.
But through a view hole I left in the plasma, I find that the inside of Mataku's growing palm is covered in metallic-looking plates. In the next moment, I'm assaulted by my own heat and quickly switch it off. Looking around, I realize that he must have created a magnetic field like the one used inside a fusion reactor.
The only reason I even know about fusion reactors is that it was shared around on social media. As if I'd ever pay attention to that if it came up in physics class. But it helped me identify the danger of this situation, so I'm grateful that this tidbit stuck with me even through a reincarnation.
Turning around, I find that Mataku's hand is about to close off around me. Once I'm inside him, I won't be able to get out no matter what I try. He was able to eat Chaos-Juzual from the inside somehow, but he also had thousands of years more time to learn how to do it. I won't try my luck in the middle of a life and death battle.
Narrowing into a spear as I did in the battle against Oinos, I shoot through the tiny remaining opening and escape Mataku's grasp. Once outside, I grow a multitude of extra arms and create plasma blades on each one of them. I don't think there's much else I can do to defeat him right now than to chip away at his mass piece by piece.
Suddenly, Korenga tackles his main body from the side and drags him with her. With Nymphy's eyes, I can follow their incredible speed and watch them impact somewhere in the crater left behind by Tokomaha's finger earlier.
Last time Mataku's punch hit her, it knocked her out in an instant. But this time, she bounced back almost right away and has the energy to strike back. If she has overcome her physical limitations, there should be nothing he can do to stop her now. Still, aside from punching and bear-hugging him, there isn't much she can do either. I have to be her follow-up and find a way to end him for good.
But before I can fly after her, I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn around. It's Aurelia, who can't speak in the vacuum of the moon's atmosphere and gestures instead. She's pointing down at the stopped blender made from her gold, to direct my attention to the wriggling pieces that remain of Mataku's lower half.
"Thank you." I realize that this is an opportunity. Flying down, I quickly scoop the individual blobs and masses of small tentacles up with countless tendrils. Making sure I don't gather them all into one place, I pull them inside my body and begin the absorption process.
It's a strange feeling, but somehow it gives me a sense of delight. This is my first time eating another of my kind, and it's quite unlike what I get from rejoining a piece of myself after it was severed. It's hard to describe, but it brings me satisfaction, and every piece I eat in quick succession raises that feeling.
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Not good; I might get addicted to this.
Suddenly, the ground under my feet rises and lifts me on a pillar of gold. I look up to find Aurelia looking down at me with a disapproving gaze before pointing in the direction of where Korenga and Mataku flew earlier. It seems I lost myself in the feast and forgot that we're still in the middle of a battle for the fate of the world. Right now, the Primordial Terror is focused on pummeling the Black God into the moon dust, blind rage driving him to forget about the more significant threat that I should present.
Feeling the incredible amount of mass I took from Mataku, I should now have enough to overcome his when I eat him. But there's still the unknown factor of what he did to Chaos-Juzual when she had already swallowed him whole. Maybe I should keep chipping away at him until there's not enough to hold his consciousness before finally consuming him.
"Please reconsider." But before I can move, Mithra appears before me and speaks into my mind. Flann warps out of space right next to him and looks up at her father.
"You want to beg me to show him mercy now?" I glare at the bandaged man, but since I can't see his expression, there's no way to tell what he's thinking.
"You have defeated the third wheel. Now is not the time for you two to fight." He explains in a neutral tone, and Flann turns her gaze toward me, her green eyes piercing mine while awaiting my answer. I have no idea what he means, but we took Chaos-Juzual out of the picture. The moonfall has been stopped, so we no longer have a common enemy.
"Why should I spare him?" I know that I'm in no position to talk as if I have Mataku on the ropes when he's barely weakened. But it's better than to think that I'm the one at a disadvantage, now that I most likely have more mass than he does.
"You talk big..." The Primordial Terror's voice speaks into my head, and I look past Mithra to find that the former stopped his relentless assault on Korenga and is now staring at me across the plains. At least that's what I assume he's doing, as he has no face in his true form either. Even now, my mind isn't Crawling Chaos enough to perceive our kind's appearance as it truly is. "... for somebody in eating distance."
In the next instant, he zooms across the landscape and stops a few steps in front of me. Thanks to Nymphy's eyes, I could follow his movement even at that speed. But it was to show that he has all the abilities that I have at his disposal, and more. I can't even glance past him to check on Korenga; his overbearing presence has my eyes glued on him.
"I have more mass than you now." Standing my ground, I grow to my true appearance to match his. We're around the same height, though he appears slightly bulkier still.
"See how that helped your predecessor." Even though I'm just as tall as he is, Mataku still manages to look down on me. Chaos-Juzual had overwhelming mass, but he was somehow able to eat her from the inside. If I were to swallow him whole, he could do the same to me then.
"And you think I wouldn't do the same to you?" The moment these words leave my mouth, something in the Primordial Terror changes. His face is indiscernible to me, but something tells me that he's smiling. It seems that he has seen through my bluff, but to my surprise, he isn't calling it.
"We're at a stalemate then." Shrugging, he shrinks down into his human appearance as if saying that there's no point in fighting at this point.