Chapter 116 - 1 v 9
"NO ONE…TAKES…MY…MOMMY AWAY!!!!!!" shrieked the small face, and the arms smashed down at Vern.
His eyes widened as the fists became larger and larger in his vision. He commanded everything in his body to move—to back away, to escape, to dodge. All was in vain, something was constricting him.
So he narrowed his eyes, and they flared a bright white when—
Thump…
One of the spirits that had teleported perilously close, surged towards Vern with relentless speed, only to collide with the leg of the towering monster instead.
Splash!!
Caught in the terrifyingly narrow space between two massive hands crashing together, Vern felt the intense pressure threaten to crush him. His heart raced, teetering on the edge of bursting.
But he wasn't dead. The monster had somehow missed perfectly!
The ground and water trembled beneath him, and the odd constriction that plagued his body disappeared. Seizing the moment, Vern propelled himself forward, squeezing through the tiny opening left by the giant fists.
How…just…what? Vern's mind failed to process how he'd managed to escape certain death—or an uncertain were he forced to escape to the Third Rune.
However, he set these queries aside for the moment and focused on fleeing out of this death trap. He knew he stood no chance against such ferocity.
Moments later, a few meters from where disaster had nearly struck, Vern resurfaced. He caught sight of the child-like monster, staring down at its hands in bewildered dismay—could such a creature even feel confusion?
Then, with a turn, it reached for the spirit whose misstep had spared Vern, picking it up with a sense of what seemed like perplexed frustration.
The thought of those hands crushing him sent a shiver down his spine. So when the monster showed his back—ignoring Vern, an idea surfaced in his mind. An unseemly, yet practical one.
He gritted his teeth and flipped the blaster's mode to charged shot. Pulling the trigger, he held it taut. Sssssiiiii Red glow and steam began to radiate out of its chamber and his hands trembled.
Drenched, battered, and shaken to his very core, he justified it to himself, I have to do this. Now!
As much as he loathed to hurt a child, his conscience wasn't more important than his life. At least not in this situation. The child was clearly too far gone, and Vern didn't have much in the name of options.
His hands involuntarily dropped down a little, aiming away from the most fatal spot. No! He reminded himself of all that he'd experienced and pulled them back up.
It was either dying under the fury of a child who had lost himself to pollution or—
Bang!
A fiery bullet burst out of the vapor blaster as it shot straight towards the back of the large monster—exactly where the head of the little one should be.
Yes, he'd gone straight for the head.
If he was going to shoot at a child anyway, it would be hypocritical to not go for the most fatal spot, and end it in one go. Yet, his hands continued to tremble even after the shot, and he didn't let go of the overheated grip as he watched intently.
The child monster that was pummeling the already crushed spirit number fourteen like some toy didn't even turn around until the last moment—
Booom!
"EeeaAAGHHhh!" it screeched as the bullet exploded inside its back in a burst of gore and sinews.
It fell face-first into water and thrashed, the convulsions similar to the dying throes of an animal, but Vern's heart sank instead.
Motes of light emerged out of the fourteen, and then another one of the spirits that had slinked up to them, heading towards the child-monster.
No. I can't let this happen! Vern dashed towards the convulsing monster only to suddenly dodge to one side—
Chomp!
"Fuck!" he yelled, almost slipping into the water.
This won't do! His heart palpated, going mad from the frustrating realization. They're not going to give me a chance to end him!
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Another choice. Another fucking choice!
Closing his eyes for the briefest of moments, he took a deep breath and came up with a new plan.
Switching his gun back to simple shots, he focused on its stability, forcefully cooling down its overheated frame.
Doing so left the chamber expanded and would probably cause issues down the line. But that's all I can do for now. He needed the gun right now.
Ignoring the shrieks and cries of the thrashing monster behind him, Vern turned back, and his heart that he'd just pacified broke out in loud thumps again.
Three gruesome humanoids rushed at him from his right, their bodies charred and scarred, their maws so wide his skin prickled with fear.
Four on his left displaced the water, their trembling heads and eyeballs reminding him of their uncanny nature. Finally, two more came at him from the front—a maddening fervor in their deadened expressions.
He felt exposed and vulnerable, like prey in the sights of a predator. Still, he'd chosen this. He had no one but himself to blame.
Or to be proud if he survived.
The imbalance within his thought space that he'd come to ignore was firing at full force, too. Opening and closing his free palm, Vern waited.
.
.
.
Soon, the six from his front and left somewhat clustered together as they got close.
Now!
His eyes flared with a white ring, and the six halted in their tracks—their bodies resisting a water that turned as rigid as ice.
With a swift step, he dodged to the right and tightened his grip on the gun, trying his best to suppress the whispers in his mind.
Chomp!
The three from his right came at him, all at the same time. He ducked from one and shot at the second, but the third took this chance to swipe at his legs.
"Aghhh!" He screamed, not forgetting to kick the spirit back in its mouth while also using this chance to land a shot on the first one that was coming for round two.
Like ink dipping into the water, red blood blended into the cyan liquid, and his leg burnt like hell.
With a sharp hiss, he jumped back and spent more of his rapidly dwindling representation and mental focus to close the wound.
To offset the expenditure, he reigned in his perception and stuck it very close to himself, the grays only depicting the things that he actively stabilized.
Running out of representation just because he was wasteful with it would be a terrible mistake.
An acute pain surged through him as he felt the skin around the bite marks stretch and try to cover the flesh underneath.
Bang!!
One shot. One down. More glass-like chunks fell from the sky and shattered in the air as the whole world unraveled.
While dodging and weaving, he speculated, Killing these spirits is also affecting the stability of this realm. Which made sense, given this world was probably a twisted representation of reality—propped up by the thoughts of all the spirits in here.
Not keen on wasting even an ounce of extra representation, Vern cut the size of the cluster he'd been stabilizing into half, and three more spirits rushed towards him as he finally nailed a bullet in the head of the one who'd bit his leg.
Turning to face this new wave of enemies, Vern remained on the move and reloaded the ammo chamber of the gun another time, making the first bullet count.
Bang!
The pale maw that had opened wide enough to fit his whole head burst into gory bits and pieces with so much force it sent his damp hair fluttering.
However, that's when two dangling arms wrapped around him, and a sharp pain exploded on his shoulder as his body was weighed down by something on his back.
Shit! He'd reigned in his perception, so he wasn't able to 'see' behind himself.
"Get the fuck off me!" he cried, barely keeping himself from falling over as he switched the gun to his other hand and pulled the trigger—its muzzle facing the head above his right shoulder.
Eahhh! It screeched, and the arms holding onto him fell limp. Yet, before he could stop the bleeding or reorient himself, another one pounced.
Splash
It opened its maw wide and chomped at his arm. Vern barely managed to stabilize the liquid wrapping around his hand in time, even missing a bit as sharp teeth punctured his skin.
His gun was still in the wrong hand, so he punched it instead. The boneless entity's charred face dented inwards, yet it opened its maw again, aiming for Vern's head.
That's when he had an idea.
He narrowed his eyes and imagined a small knife-like shape in the water between his head and the entity. The light seemed to curve around the floating knife made out of stability, but the spirit didn't care and plunged right in.
The sheer momentum skewered the spirit's maw as the stably floating knife pierced right through its pale mouth.
His right hand snatched the gun back and rested its muzzle against the pale head as it still tried to bite Vern.
Bang!
He clenched his fist and stopped stabilizing the last cluster of the enemies. Only three were left.
Hmm, they aren't very smart when their leader isn't in the mix. Their ferocity, on the other hand? He didn't even want to imagine what would've happened if all nine of them had attacked him at once.
This started with fourteen of them, but he'd slowly cut their numbers down.
He killed one right at the start, and then the child monster 'broke' another by throwing it at Vern. He'd managed one more before being surrounded. Then the monster had cannibalized two more, leaving these nine for him.
Six of which he'd already downed.
A determined light burned in his eyes as he stood back up and looked at the final three charging at him.
His leg was screaming in pain while his right shoulder burned. Blood flowed out of his left arm, but he let them be and deepened his focus.
He was running dangerously low on representation. He had to save every ounce to go against the big one later. It clearly wasn't dead.
EAHHheeh!
Rang another bout of screams as all three of them came at him from different angles, almost at the same time.
A little bit of trajectory calculation, and he moved his hand to follow the leftmost almost intuitively. Bang! and the shadow halted in its path. More chunks of glass dropped from the skies with another spirit's death, and the world became more hollow.
That did it! However, he didn't have the energy or mind to rejoice as he dodged to one side, barely escaping the lunge of the second one.
This time, he expected the last one coming at him from the front and jumped, landing back with all his might.
He almost crushed its arms and a leg in the process, but that wouldn't end it. So he tamped down his foot on its neck and shot it right in the head.
Bang!
In that instant, however, a primal terror surged within him, and his body constricted just like last time.
A shadow loomed over him, and he felt a pressure build in the air as the hand above him raised high, primed to pummel Vern's head.