A small collection of students and archons stood to block David’s path. Among them was the floating corpse of a cherub, a werewolf, a short, fat elf, a tall thin dwarf, a marble-like greek god, and a mass of tentacle-tongues David remembered as being a collection of parasitic worms. There were also three adult men, four adult women, a skeleton, and a pink slime wearing a chainmail bikini— though the humanoid form it adopted was androgynous it was muscular enough to, well, David didn’t really care, but it wouldn’t have made a pretty corpse. Then again, did slimes even make corpses at all? Did they just dissolve? All of them were going to dissolve anyway, so…

David’s thoughts snapped back from this tangent. Some of them were speaking, but the words slipped by like rain, muffled and distant. He didn’t really care what the words were, nor even for the intent behind them. “Please don’t do this” or whatever was a sufficient understanding, or perhaps threats of some kind, but this was long past the point of words.

The group suddenly split into a half-dome, with the cherub flying above. David jumped backward, but there came a sharp pain from behind. He landed hard and tried to maneuver further away, but it became clear that his achilles tendons were both severed and this would not be possible.

David opened his mouth wide in a smile and began to laugh, but there came another ray of light that cut out his tongue.

“Fine then.” he thought silently.

The group had fully encircled him now, but it wasn’t enough. Rays of light, fire, ice, earth, and Yaldabaoth came from all directions as swords and spears closed the gap to do the same, but in the moments before any damage could come to pass, David’s hands gripped his head and twisted. It came off with a small pop, after which he threw it smoothly through the air to a point far outside the group’s reach. Blood trailed the whole way, but before it could actually escape the net cast by this collection of fighters, Ni was successfully able to catch it with a net of the ambient energy in the air, solidified just in time to prevent David’s head’s escape.

Unfortunately for the group, the body was still more than capable of acting autonomously, and with their attention split the body had been able to close distance on Ni as well, with David now six and twelve feet from the cherub.

Just before the body could close the gap it was targeted. The distraction didn’t seem to have been enough. But the head too was capable of action, and had forced itself further into the net with its momentum, then bouncing back faster towards Ni.

A thousand tongue-leeches blocked the path and shoved his head aside, but every one that touched him died in the process. And yet the leech-monster appeared no worse for wear— healers must have been present to restore this amorphous thing to full strength.

David’s body shrugged, and he supposed it was time to get serious. In a loud explosion the essence of Yaldabaoth was blown back some two-dozen feet as a menacing black and purple aura whose edges bled pink at the border of contact with Yaldabaoth erupted from David’s ever-more androgynous form.

His hair grew out to shoulder length, muscles shrinking slightly, fat slightly melting. The rotten brown robe stained by dirt and time was replenished to a shade of pitch black. Even his sandals were replaced with bare feet wiped clean of time and wear.

Stolen story; please report.

David’s eyes turned black, and the irises a single dot of white. His skin also bleached itself, as though his hair and nails absorbed their color, themselves growing so dark their styling became irrelevant. There was no such thing as texture remaining, only a void, a thing of absence imposing itself on material reality as though space itself had been removed, or perhaps concentrated to a point beyond the purview of light.

Either way, the distinction didn’t matter. David’s opponents could sense their total defeat and impending demise.

Ni tried to concentrate the divine essence to a point that could break through David’s sphere of influence and restore power to those among his group reliant on it for strength, but this effort was unsuccessful. David’s black maw opened as he loomed ever closer to the cherub, though the teeth within shone so brightly they may as well have never been stained with decades of life.

Light and fire, lava and ice, metal attached to wood, earth brought to sharp edge, tooth, claw, and sword; all these things sought David’s flesh, and all found their mark, but as the earth itself was mended by Yaldabaoth’s power, so too was David’s flesh knit back together the moment after any damage was done.

Some of the students began to tremble, and a few laid down their arms to flee. For some, however, it was clearly a feint made to regain contact with the divine essence required to sustain their techniques. David would have none of this, and began to smile larger.

Their terror filled him with glee as he spoke.

“Yaldabaoth isn’t the only one that can act at a distance.”

A girl some fifteen years of age, perhaps a mage, perhaps a healer, but a student and one of the few brave enough to face him here and now made contact with the barrier separating the far too small collection of resistance from divine support. Her hand was burned to the wrist as it left. She tried to stop herself from crossing over, but by then the full weight of a leg had passed through, severed at the knee, and the inertia was too great to resist. She screamed and tried to pull her head back, but this was only successful in throwing the upper part of her torso— from the traps on— backwards. The wound was cauterized, but she was no longer able even to scream. It would not take long for her to succumb to lack of oxygen, and yet David would be merciful. The edge of his barrier closed just enough to bring her head from inside to out.

With this closure, two others who had attempted to retreat upon seeing what became of Tristina were also swallowed up in terror. It did not last long.

David didn’t bother closing any more distance on Ni, he merely fell slowly back to the ground— just before the point of allowing his toes to make contact, of course— and reattached his head that followed a smooth arc to the same point. The fetus tried to resist. The tongues tried to attack him. The healers tried to sustain the others, but David remained firmly in place and their techniques had no effect. His barrier continued to close as he powered down, but its edge remained just as lethal.

David tilted his head upwards to face Ni in the ever-more cramped chamber.

“Thank you for bringing this out of me, I figured I would repay you in kind.”

The cherub did not speak. His throat did not bulge, nor did his purple skin change shade. He looked on at David in steely resolve as acid and fire and boiling blood shot from his open wrists whose hands were attached now by nothing more than a thin strip of skin.

At last the bodies came into contact with each other, pressing inward and outward with equal pressure, and were simultaneously eaten away on both sides. David paid no heed to what the others said, but when Ni’s turn finally came to meet the end, he spoke words that David couldn’t ignore.

“Thank you for allowing us to buy time.”

He fixed his gaze on something just a few-hundred feet away, but it did not come in time.

The barrier closed and there were no survivors. David, however, was not done with this battle.