In a blind panic, The Little Fella struggled to find words as the overwhelming spiritual pressure bore down on him, physically crushing his tiny form. The creature's crimson eyes gleamed with an intensity deeper than the pools of blood that coated its snout and jagged teeth. Each breath it expelled was accompanied by a billowing wave of steam and spittle, while its powerful jaws effortlessly snapped bones.
In a desperate bid to escape, The Little Fella vanished, leaving behind a disintegrating trail of shattered light. He traversed the boundaries of space, slipping in and out of existence through hidden folds. Frantically, he raced across vast distances, pushed beyond his limits by the unrelenting dread of being observed, pursued, and marked by the abomination.
Exhausted and breathless, he collided with an insurmountable barrier. Tremors wracked his small form, his translucent essence flickering with instability. The dark essence that composed him began to fracture and splinter, resembling unruly, broken strands of hair.
“WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT WAS THAT? WHAT? HOW!... WHAT NOW?” he walked on air, in circles, with maddened panic. If his body was corporeal or consisted of any liquids, he would be sweating right now.
Frozen in place, The Little Fella unleashed a torrent of frustration. Inky black tendrils shot out in all directions, unraveling and unmaking his immediate surroundings. He screamed, his thrashing movements, burdened by the powerlessness he felt.
Once his outburst subsided, he regained his composure and accepted the perilous gamble ahead. Emitting a pulse that further depleted his essence, he honed in on the approximate location of the Crab Man. With a tearing of the air and a radiant burst that consumed the surrounding light, he slipped between the dimensions, his mind, and body resolute in their mission to rescue Luke from the clutches of the ravenous Horror.
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His body was rapidly getting cold. Losing so much blood made his thoughts murky and his vision blurry. With every shift of his body, his ribs were grated down and his lungs squeezed, pushing out fluids from the gashes in his body. He was being eaten alive, something massive stood behind him, using its powerful crushing grip to hold him in place as it enjoyed the feast his flesh presented. He could feel the barbed tongue licking the muscle fibers off the bone, with the sounds of them snapping overshadowing his shallow screams of torment. The massive teeth that entered his field of view were stained by his crimson dark blood, yet still, the enamel on them shone with light. They were cutting his skin into strips and griding, tearing it like peeling a fresh fruit that trembled and screamed.
His body grew colder with each passing moment as blood spilled from his wounds. The haze of pain clouded his thoughts and blurred his vision. No matter how he struggled, the grip of the monstrous creature remained firm and unyielding. Despite summoning all the power within him, his attempts to guide the energy were in vain. The wound in his chest disrupted his intentions, causing the energy to scatter aimlessly, exacerbating his injuries.
The specter of death loomed closer with every weakened beat of his damaged heart. It served as a foreboding harbinger of his impending demise. An Omen to an End.
The specter's white claws were massive, each one easily as wide as Luke's forearm. Its grip exerted immense pressure, rendering him unable to move. The fur that covered the claws was hard yet flexible, appearing to be composed of bone and cartilage. Countless tiny strands infiltrated his skin, causing agonizing pain with every slight movement.
The colossal clawed appendage raised his arm, causing chunks of his flesh to peel away in its wake, unveiling the feeble, pulsating underside that had been concealed by his epidermis.
With a resounding crunch, the teeth clasped on his torn shoulder and glided along the exposed bone of his elevated arm. The fleshy mass folded into the voracious maw, which hissed with sadistic satisfaction as the gushing warmth of his blood mingled and glided down its throat, drowning out the delirious screams of the man now destined to become a macabre meal.
The monstrosity clamped its jaws around his left elbow, severing it with a chilling precision, the act executed effortlessly. The excruciating pain overwhelmed Luke's senses, causing his consciousness to unravel. His screams dissolved into an eerie silence, and the once vibrant light in his eyes faded into oblivion. The creature that ensnared him cast a disdainful gaze, its crimson eyes exerting a palpable pressure upon the flesh they fixated upon. It exuded an unfathomable power and insatiable bloodlust, bending reality itself to its sinister will.
And it willed for more blood, pain, and anguish.
With a casual wave of its other hand, it callously flung his lifeless body aside, treating him as nothing more than worthless debris. The tail that had suspended Luke in the air slid out of his torn form, emitting a sickening sloshing sound as it tore through his flesh, leaving behind a gory trail of shredded organs and a cascade of thick, oily blood.
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The tail moved with astonishing speed, splattering the foul remnants upon the ground as the air crackled with its final movement, creating a resounding boom. It elongated, segment by segment, revealing a horrifying spectacle. Like the demented creation of a twisted blacksmith, it possessed the combined features of a whip and an array of bone blades, stacked together with flexible cartilage and emanating an ominous glow from the gaps between the bony plates. Its wide, flat structure was lined with sharp teeth that sliced and ground its unfortunate victims.
With terrifying grace and blistering speed, it surged forward, its segmented parts aligning seamlessly to form larger, razor-edged blades that crashed against the ground, obliterating it in an explosive eruption akin to a fragmentation grenade.
A behemoth in its entirety, the creature commanded attention with its sheer magnitude. A single, joyful shrug caused its fur to stand on end, releasing a mist of minuscule bone shards infused with a venomous elixir extracted from its own blood. Walking on two legs, its body mirrored that of a human but was twice the size of an ordinary man. Muscles rippled beneath its coat of white, bony fur, while atop its frame sat the head of a bloodthirsty rat. The elongated snout, streaked with fresh crimson, was ceaselessly attended to by a forked tongue that writhed in ecstatic delight.
As its prey hit the ground it looked back at it, with even more pleasure to be gained, he closed in on it.
Warm blood gushed forth from the jagged wounds, spraying the ground and staining the exposed white ribs in a vivid crimson hue. Above, a dim light filtered through, casting an unsettling glow upon the cavernous void that greedily consumed Luke's fleeting vitality.
Laying face down in dirt and moss his last thoughts were swimming lazily in his head. He was happy that at least The Little Fella managed to escape. He wanted to return to the surface, he really did. Just once, he wished for things to go his way, for the fucking bad luck to end. To meet an obstacle that he could actually face, that he had even the slightest chance of conquering. Indignation filled him, shame rose up from within. Not at his failings, but at the chances he did not take to improve. To conquer. To make things right. There were still things he had to fight for, people in danger he loved, people he loved that…
Abruptly, a subtle tug seized his consciousness, arresting his descent into the realm beyond. Yielding to the pull, he surrendered, his being engulfed in an abyss of all-encompassing darkness. Nothingness prevailed.
Amidst the thunderous footsteps that heralded the monster's approach, the very air seemed to tremble around Lukas, light convulsing and resisting the impending force.
In a surreal display, akin to a film with frames abruptly missing, the body suddenly appeared, suspended in mid-air like a marionette. This bizarre spectacle halted the creature in its tracks, its features contorting with confusion.
A violent eruption of pitch-black, oil-like blood burst forth from both the front and back of the body, spewing globs of varying sizes with incredible force. They swirled around the limp form, merging and separating in a mesmerizing dance, some pulsating with energy while others remained motionless.
The cacophony that ensued was horrifying, akin to the sound of countless chalkboards being scraped or the shattering of hundreds of icebergs. It reverberated through the empty Throat and the surrounding tunnels, particularly the collapsed and rugged ones that descended into the depths below the sewer level.
A dense mist, spherical in shape, enveloped Luke's lifeless body. Its inky blackness and oily texture seemed to devour the very space it occupied.
But the space itself fought back.
Two primal forces clashed in a cataclysmic collision, their sheer animosity akin to armies fueled by boundless hate. The resulting discord distorted the fabric of reality, rendering laws and concepts into fractured and failed manifestations. It was an aberration of profound malevolence, a deeply unsettling presence that defied all sense of natural order.
The vanquished force succumbed, and an eerie stillness settled over the scene. In a swift displacement, the torn patches of space returned to their origins, adhering to the surface of the body from which they had emerged, forming a nightmarish tableau unfit for mortal gaze. The severed arm regenerated through a swirling abyss of darkness, driven by an insatiable appetite for consumption, while the flesh succumbed entirely to the taint of the Void, melding seamlessly with its essence.
The space once devoured by the receding Void now fueled the remnants of the core, a final act of defiance against its eternal adversary. It pulsed with an unprecedented power, expanding ceaselessly despite the absence of a fragment of the heart. In its stead, a crystalline construct born of the Void took shape, forever intertwined with the core's existence.
The gaping void within the torso no longer allowed light to pass through. Instead, it emitted a raging storm of colors, throbbing with an immense life force. Blinding white light became the origin of countless hues, entwined within the encompassing darkness that fed both the void and the mutating body.
From the chest, white veins spread like fractured lightning, cutting through the encroaching darkness, imposing boundaries upon it, and aiding the body in resisting complete assimilation. Instinct wrestled against instinct in a primal clash.
The creature born from the clash of opposing forces swelled with newfound power, growing in stature and musculature. It stood eye to eye with the rat-like monstrosity, though lacking physical eyes itself. Its face is concealed by a mask of pure blackness.
Drawing nearer, they closed the gap, their proximity mere inches apart. Jagged lines of luminous light etched the contours of a mouth that emanated blinding white brilliance, pulsating with raw power and harmonizing an ethereal symphony of life.
A thunderous boom erupted as the two monsters collided, their titanic blows capable of shattering buildings. Their shared smiles unveiled their collective lunacy and insatiable thirst for battle.
It has begun.