I sprinted down the desolate country road pushing my body to its limits. When the vehicle sped up, I invested even more psykhe into the strengthening technique. My breath came heavily despite the strengthening technique augmenting my lungs and heart. The limitations of the flesh made themselves known in frustrating detail. Unlike my prior host bodies, I couldn’t recklessly experiment or augment this vessel’s anatomy. In doing so, I would be risking my progression and the integrity of my vessel at least while I’d potentially die at worst and lose precious time finding a new vessel.

I wasn’t afraid of death from mundane methods and even some sorcerous ones, but psykhe posed an entirely different level of threat. Ironically, my innate mana with its Truths of the Soul made me the greatest threat to date to my well-being. I might’ve been willing to dance on the edge if the stakes were higher, yet this assailant wasn’t a target worth risking myself over.

I resigned myself to not being able to catch the vehicle. Although I must’ve been traveling at a speed close to ninety kilometers per hour, I couldn’t match that damned marvel of mortal industry. The chase stretched onward for nearly a quarter of an hour and the distance between us grew further and further. I knew I wouldn’t catch my target.

If psykhe were better suited to destruction, I would’ve attacked the car directly, but as it stood, I had no way to affect the vehicle.

So, when a large, familiar figure wearing his faded bucket hat, appeared in the center of the road right in front of my quarry. I was as surprised as he must’ve been.

“Found you, eyeman.” My surprise turned to shock when Ricky slammed his fist onto the hood of the car and sent it tumbling through the air.

Now, at the time, I had little to no formal understanding of physics; however, I lived long enough to understand certain basic truths about the mechanical forces of the world. For example, an object typically gained more force when its speed increased. So, to see this speeding vehicle made of metal and weighing a couple of tons at least, not only stopped but launched into the air caused me to pause.

I reached through my covenant link to the Mad Titan and frowned when I felt the hazy feedback as though I was being hindered. In response to my probing, Ricky looked at me. He raised his hand; the same one he’d slammed onto the car. I couldn’t help but blink at the lump of bloody pulverized flesh and protruding bone. He waved it with a toothy smile on his face splattering blood onto the road and his face. The drops of blood dripped from his forehead to his chin and I had to admit, the crimson liquid augmented the madness in his eyes to a terrifying degree.

“Oho, what in tarnation are you doin over here, brother?!” His smile turned into a frown as he observed me for a couple of seconds. “Hey now, where’s your hat!? You can’t go huntin eyemen without protection.”

Although I couldn’t utilize the covenant connection for some reason, I had already engineered the vocal cords of my lupine body to facilitate speech in anticipation of questioning my target.

“I don’t have time for your rambling, Ricky,” I said. My voice was guttural and just barely understandable. I ran up next to him focusing my eyes on the smoking wreckage several meters down the road. “You did well to stop this vehicle, but it seems the driver has a bit of life in him.”

Ricky scowled at my outright dismissal but turned his attention to the wreckage as well. A man covered in blood and shadows crawled from the broken driver’s side window. As he pulled himself free, his body convulsed with spasms that started from his diaphragm and danced down his limbs. My keen ears picked up a rhythmic gurgling from him.

Neither Ricky nor I moved on the target immediately. The reason? The shadows surrounding the target weren’t cosmetic. The man’s body brimmed with mana which spilled from his pores and lacking any direct intent manifested in a manner faithful to its inherent Truths. Because of this, any sudden surge of emotion or intent from the target would set off the mana to possibly disastrous results for him or us.

The man was the equivalent of a live bomb. He shakily clambered to his feet slicing his hands and arms on broken glass in the process. His eyes were wild and unfocused.

Ah, but don’t misunderstand: I didn’t spend this time watching my enemy recover. Psykhe flowed from my body moving around a dome measuring fifty meters across and surrounding the three of us. This technique served a similar function to Morgana’s containment field minus the animation of plant life. No, aside from sealing ambient mana within, the dome empowered Ricky and me.

When the man took his first step toward us, my technique was completed. The air flashed with iridescent light. The connection between my body and soul shortened bringing one closer to the other. The mana within my body moved more fluidly and my thoughts were submerged in a calm lake of clarity. The frustration, confusion at Ricky, and the resilient anger I felt toward the astral beings who lurked in the Crawling Shadow’s wake, faded into the background. Everything fell into focus.

I smiled. I developed the secondary part of the technique when contemplating the state of clarity that I achieved during my first encounter with Ricky. Once I witnessed Morgana’s containment field, it was a simple matter to intertwine the two.

“Ricky,” I said. His head whipped around to look at me and tilted to the side. “Five hits.”

The giant of a man grinned like a fiend being let loose on the innocents. He didn’t ask what I meant. Despite the strange hindrance in our covenant link— which I believed he was somehow behind— he understood my meaning instantly. His form bulged and his eyes went wide, the sclera gleaming in the light of the stars. Then, his eyes became swirls of prismatic light.

“Arise, oh madness of mine.” For an instant, I felt the presence of the Mad Titan, clear as day, then as though I had imagined it, Ricky was back. He stomped on the ground sending out a web of cracks from the point of impact and the area around the three of us erupted with wriggling, parasitic mana manifesting in the form of undulating worm-like masses. Thousands of whispers filled my ears like spirits speaking in the wind.

Unlike my containment field, Ricky’s technique, if you could even call it that, lacked subtlety and more importantly, control. As soon as his ridiculous mana emerged, one of the masses latched onto the volatile shadowy aura of the laughing man. A second passed when nothing happened.

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Then, the mantle of shadows burst like a bloated abscess waiting to pop. The dark mana spread one meter in every direction.

With a roar that nearly shook the earth beneath our feet, Ricky swung his massive arms out wide sending drops of blood flying from his injured hand and gripped ahold of two of the worm-like masses. He pulled the masses together causing a strange distortion over our target. The man in question let loose a wild cackle seemingly spurring on his uncontrolled shadowy manifestation.

The distortion met the shadows and power rippled through the air. The darkness shifted from a formless aura to an inhuman face that floated behind the man while towering over him at a height of over five meters. Its eyes were bottomless pits that observed us with disdain and derision.

As for the man himself, he might’ve been considered handsome before our confrontation, but that wasn’t the case any longer. Half of his hair was missing, replaced with angry, blistered skin that stretched across most of his skull. He looked as though he had already started healing from a horrific burn injury. He wore a set of a charred vest and a set of pants that hung in crispy tatters around his knees exposing more burned flesh on the lower legs. He had nothing on underneath the vest, but a thick sleeve of tattoos depicting an abomination of eyes, mouths, and teeth covered his left arm. However, his tattoos weren’t his most conspicuous feature. No, that honor belonged to the vertical eye situated in the middle of his forehead.

“You two look like a good time,” the man giggled. “Come on, show old Theo a good time!”

I dodged to the left barely avoiding a sudden blast of black gas that sparked with purple arcs of mana shot from the giant skull’s loathsome eyes. Immediately, I ran at Theo curving in from his right side.

Ricky twisted at his core bringing his arms in a sweeping circle and space once again distorted. I got the same sudden sensation from my first confrontation with my large covenant mate. This time, I witnessed the phenomenon from an outside perspective.

One moment, Theo stood on the road pulling together a loose ball of his mana in his left hand. The next, he was ten feet in the air and upside down. At that moment, I was there to take advantage. The burned man flailed in mid-air thrusting the ball at me only for it to miss as I jumped.

My fangs and claws radiated iridescent light from the intense amount of psykhe packed into them. I struck him three times. My teeth sank into his side while my front claws tore at his arm and face. Rather than press my advantage, I disengaged by releasing him before we hit the ground and flinging myself back a few meters.

The skull’s eyes flashed while I was still exposed, but Ricky flung one fist upward causing the resulting blast to shoot directly upward instead of toward me. At the sight of it, I couldn’t help but marvel at the absurdity in Ricky’s mana and “techniques”.

They didn’t follow any rules that I knew of regarding mana or technique formation. Aside from the whispers and the focus on spatial manipulation— and possibly time(?)—, I wondered if there were any rules or formations at all.

“Urgh,” was all Theo managed to articulate as he hit the ground. He had barely touched the roadway before he scrambled back to his feet. I tried to attack him while I had the chance, but the skull belched out a cloud of black gas that rolled over him.

Where the gas met the road, the stone hissed and sizzled before starting to crumble. Seeing this, I withdrew.

“Hehe, little doggie, you barely scratched me!” Theo said, his voice flowing disjointedly from the fog. “I ‘spose you haven't gotten your big boy fangs yet. Too bad cause I ain’t using kids gloves on ya.”

Faces formed in the black fog and the skull’s eyes which hung ominously over the cloud glowed. Dozens of blasts cut hurtled toward Ricky and me.

“You can’t hide, eyeman!” Ricky yelled at the top of his lungs. He punched out at the blasts like a crazed drunk and rather than destroying his hands further, the dark energy appeared to affect the masses which had merged with his fists at some point. The wriggling masses let out small screams that echoed in my mind like a cry from a deep well and with each outcry, they grew less real. Despite this reaction, Ricky’s methods succeed at matching the blasts directed at him nullifying them completely.

For my part, I lacked any overt displays of power to combat the attack, but my lupine body was augmented and my speed was even more potent in the short bursts of movement necessitated by close combat. I dashed between the blasts likely appearing as little more than a white blur in the eyes of the other men. I even coated my paws in psykhe so I could interact physically with the mana around me and used the masses of Ricky’s power to change direction mid-jump.

Unfortunately, although I had far more grace in my wolf form, I mistimed a single step and took a hit by one of the small blasts to the flank. I instantly felt the shadowy energy corroding my fur and flesh. At the same time, a sinister presence pressed itself against my mind, and subsequently, my soul. The presence carried with it a macabre thrill of amusement that tantalized the darker parts of my consciousness where my sorrow, frustration, and anger resided. However, even if such an attack could affect me, my calm mind casually banished the presence and a fluid application of fleshcraft eliminated the skin in the affected area.

When the barrage ended, most of the road around us lay in ruin. Entire sections of the asphalt collapsed in on themselves creating sinkholes of various sizes and fouling my potential maneuverability. I glanced at Ricky whose breathing came in great heaves. He didn’t look exhausted, but I knew that he exerted himself in the exchange. I pressed my will against the impediment within our covenant link, this time applying the full force of my will. Ricky’s face momentarily twisted with anger before reciprocation came from his end.

“WHY ARE YOU IN MY HEAD, BROTHER?!”

I flinched. It was like he screamed at the top of his sizeable lungs in my ears, but far worse. The words bounced around in my head and if it weren’t for the bolstering effect of my containment field, I would’ve been momentarily incapacitated.

A snarl escaped my jaws and I glared at Ricky who returned my ire with equal fire.

“Look,” I said to him. Mentally, I sent an image painted by my augmented eyes. It depicted a ball of iridescent energy within the cloud of black gas. “I snuck a marble of stable mana into his body when I attacked and hid masked its presence. I need that man outside. Only need two more.”

Once Ricky processed my intentions, his head snapped back in a howl of mad laughter. He threw the fading masses of chaotic mana away and grabbed at two more. There weren’t as many since the barrage had chipped away at the ones floating through the air, but plenty had survived somewhat intact. It seemed the Mad Titan’s mana was as resilient as he was. Ricky rubbed his hands together, snickering all the while like some sort of conniving, fairytale villain. The two wriggling masses in his hands melded into one which he gathered in his uninjured hand. More of the parasitic mana manifested nearby latching onto the mass within his hand.

Slowly, the mana crawled from the center of his palm down his arm.

“Are you two afraid, hounds of Holsburg?” Theo called from within the fog. “Don’t worry. You can run and I’ll let you live… The taste of your fear and failures will be enough for me! I’m no glutton after all… Hahaha!”

As the fool tried futilely to taunt us, Ricky's arm became completely covered in his mana. It looked like a seething throng of worms wriggling into his flesh. The sight of it made me feel sick for a moment, not physically either. Something about this mana as it was in front of me seemed wrong to even my ancient mind. A boom echoed in my thoughts.

“GET READY BROTHER!” He mentally screamed again making me flinch. If it weren’t for my calm, I might’ve bitten him right then and there. Thankfully, restraint won out.

I coiled my muscles like a spring, ready to an explosive burst of speed and capture my prey.