Thoughts raced through Willam's head in quick succession, this was bad news, really bad news, he had to find a way to stop the repair squad from completing their task, and at the speed, they were infecting other lumps he didn't have much time before they completed their task.

'fire! I can use the properties of the motes to hopefully burn them!'

The spirit rushed to an unaffected lump beside him and watched anxiously as it went into overdrive mode and began producing crackling and vigorous new motes.

Wasting no time, Willams pushed his intent over the fresh batch of motes and willed them to move over to him.

'Please work! I should've tested this earlier!'

The spirit felt the motes pushing back slightly but that resistance was completely crushed as he applied more mental pressure, something snapped and popped and the motes flow over to him in a continuous stream and began circling him.

Willams willed a handful of the motes to separate themselves from the mainstream and sent it hurtling toward a lump in the process of being taken over by the repair squad, the motes collided with the base of the lump and immediately began lashing at the encroaching tendrils of shadowy stuff the repair squad used to take over soul nodes, each time an attack landed plumes of foul smoke was released as a tendril burned to death.

The fire grew each time a tendril was burned and soon grew to cover the entire soul node, burning brighter as it did, Hope was beginning to grow in the spirit as he watched the fire effortlessly push back and burn part of the repair squad.

'Yes! It's working! Maybe I can actually-' Willams thoughts were interrupted as a ripple passed through the liquid mass that was the repair squad.

The tendrils that were being pushed back by his fire developed a protective coating that totally ignored the damage being dealt to it and began spewing liquid shadow at his fire, in seconds it was doused and they began their attack anew.

'How is that even fair?' Willams began to feel a sense of impending doom as he watched another soul node fall to the repair squad, he decided it was all or nothing, He quickly sent the motes around him to the nearby soul nodes to activate them, and soon, they too began to pump out a continues stream of motes that flew and circled around him.

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He only managed to get five more soul nodes before he sensed another ripple travel through the repair squad, and soon, vaguely humanoid shapes began to form out of a pool of shadow nearby, it had a leafy texture and dripped shadow as it hunched over, bent its legs and jumped over to a nearby row of soul nodes, as soon as it landed the monster exploded violently, spreading the same shadowy substance that composed the repair squad everywhere, soon the entire row was infected.

'Great, magically charged suicidal gray goo.'

By now, a very large amount of motes swarm around Willams, but the spirit realized that his earlier strategy wouldn't work as he was dealing with an organism that could rapidly adapt to any form of resistance almost instantly.

'I need to contain it before it spreads and leaves this area, then slowly kill it within my enclosed space.'

A plan formed, the spirit went to work immediately, stretching his mind to the limit as he commanded the motes to form a massive dome that moved and soon encircled the repair squad before it realized what he had done, as soon as it did however it gathered all its mass and formed what appeared to be a railgun that was aimed directly at him.

Dread began to creep into Willams as he felt the icy cold grip of death around his entire being, the spirit felt instincts take over as he moved before he even thought of moving, seconds later, a horrible sound reverberated in his dome as creature fired, there was a bright flash and his dome popped and deflated like a rubber balloon.

A huge amount of his motes simply stopped existing, he could no longer feel them, it was as if they were erased from existence itself. The revelation shook the spirit up, what if his instincts hadn't activated and moved him in time? He wouldn't have died, no, that would've been nice, he would have simply stopped existing, entirely, and not even his soul would've been spared.

Willams gathered his thoughts as he focused back on the situation, he couldn't afford to make mistakes now because of the fear he felt now, looking back at the repair squad, he noticed that it was moving a lot slower than before and had lost most of its mass in that attack.

'Now's my chance!' Willams quickly ordered what motes that survived the ordeal to form a dome again, such an attack must've drained it and had taken to a lot to prepare so he was reasonably sure that it couldn't use it again for quite some time. This time, the dome he made was much smaller and thicker than the previous one and took less to upkeep as well.

Willams knew he didn't have much time before the thing started to give him issues again so directed small streams of motes to activate and burn off whatever was left of the repair squad off the soul nodes the repair squad had hastily left to gain the required mass to form the railgun thing, its gamble had failed and Willams was reaping the rewards and results of its failure.

He gained another ten soul nodes and now had a ridiculous amount of motes at his disposal, he diverted five streams into the dome with the intent of reinforcing it and making it stronger, the dome took on a red and pronounced color as the changes took place, spikes of semi-solid fire formed and lined the inside that rotated constantly.

Despite all these changes the repair squad hadn't moved at all, it didn't even twitch as the heat in the dome rose rapidly.

'I don't like that, what is it preparing for? It has to be waiting for something.'

The spirit's suspicions were confirmed when the monster started violently shaking, its body cracked and melted apart, only to reform instantly, this cycle repeated itself until what could only be described as a demon stood in his dome, reaching 3 meters in height the demon had long and curved horns and wore a wicked smile that made Willams angry for some reason, what it did next however, chilled him to his core.

It grabbed one of the spikes of fire and ate it, chewing on it as if it were a yummy snack.