Sliding under the tentacle, I kept my eyes open even as my face was splashed with blood.

It was like running into a waterfall, and the gunk stung strangely but I had to ignore it. There were other things to dodge after, and I needed to stop getting caught by them. There was no time to close my eyes.

Leaping over another smaller tentacle, I fell back to the ground and rushed forward towards the main body. The room was now full of its tentacles, all of varying sizes, yet most were those that had sharp barbs. Like thorny roots, they kept trying to wrap themselves around me. Half of my shirt was missing. The only reason I still even had what was left clinging to me was only doing so thanks to the blood.

Regrettably, not just the creature's blood either.

I’ve torn and damaged dozens of its tentacles, especially the smaller ones that I could easily get a hold on, but it was starting to feel like a pointless endeavor.

For each one I tore two more broke through the stone.

This thing had hundreds of roots, and they were all being brought to war.

War against me.

The creature let loose a bellow as it shifted, trying to turn aside as I ran up to it. The thing realized I was targeting its eyes, so it kept trying to protect them from me. All that did was make me want to crush them even more.

A massive root rolled to my right, preparing to fly out and crush me. Unlike the others that moved quickly, that one was the slowest. It looked like it was connected directly underneath the creature’s body… maybe the main one. But although slow it was still dangerous. It was as thick as the massive trees outside of the city, and I knew even I wouldn’t just get up and walk away if I got crushed by it. At least not right away.

“Should have brought an axe,” I complained as I ducked an arm sized tentacle root. After dodging it, I turned sideways to dodge another that slammed downward next to me.

I pushed off the tentacle that slammed next to me to give me the momentum needed to spin around all the way as to avoid tripping. I changed the route I had been running originally, and went a little more to the right instead. Too many tentacles had been readied to attack me from the other direction.

The thing was completely focused on me, and luckily wasn’t the smartest flower to exist. It kept trying to grab me with its tentacles instead of just outright crushing me. Maybe it still wanted to eat me, and knew from experience that a fully crushed body was hard to scrape off the stone.

If it just bundled up all of its tentacle roots at once and rushed at me, I’d have no way to escape or dodge them.

But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t resort to such a tactic once I pushed it closer to the edge of death.

Jumping over a root that was still half submerged in the stones, I noticed the way it didn’t even move as I leapt over it.

Too slow to use it to stop me, or was it a type of root it didn’t have much control over? It looked like it had tried to pull it out from the ground yet it had gotten stuck.

The thing was such an oddity. A beast, yet not. Plant like, with thorns and fibers, yet it bled warm blood.

Running through a patch of hundreds of little tiny root tentacles, I ignored the feeling of them grabbing at my feet and ankles. Some were able to latch on and tear into my leather boots and pants, but most couldn’t grab hold in time… or simply got crushed under my boot as I trampled them.

Now close to the thing I was deep into the thick green haze it’s been spewing out. I had no choice but to breathe when needed, especially when I was about to put a great amount of effort into something.

Like jumping up onto the thing again.

Sucking in the rust tasting air, I jumped up onto the creature’s main body. It recoiled and roared at the feeling of me landing upon it, and the moment I was on it the little hair like tentacles all over its body immediately began thrashing and trying to cling to me. I wasted no time in climbing the beast’s body, hurrying to the thing’s head.

Since it had turned a little, the larger eyeballs were on the other side of it, near the mouth, but there were some here too. I dodged a flailing limb that came crashing down where I had been a heartbeat earlier, and heard the sound of the smaller hair like roots get torn and crushed in the process.

Glancing down at my feet as I stepped aside and closer to one of the eyeballs, I noticed that it did indeed break and destroy some of the smaller tentacles on its main body from that impact.

Did it even realize it was hurting itself? Size wise, those little hairs would be something akin to a beard on a man. Noticeable but sometimes not.

But no matter.

Instead of stepping down onto the eye, this time I chose to kneel down next it. I stared into the bulbous black orb, and realized it wasn’t really an insect eye at all. It was more amphibian in structure. Instead of being many thousands of tiny layers it was a giant single ball… it was just deformed and so solid black in color that I had mistaken it for an insect’s eye.

The large round eye stared at me, and for a tiny moment I saw the huge pupil that nearly took up the whole sphere on its own… grow a little wider as I pulled back my arm and made a fist.

Right as I took a breath and steeled myself, I heard it too inhale. It sucked in air to such a degree I actually felt the pull of it, and out of the corner of my eye saw the green haze flow wildly in the air around the beast as to head for the mouth.

Then before it could release its scream, I gave it a better reason to do so.

Punching the eye, I delved my fist deep into the thing. I punched through the glob of the eye. I felt my fist push aside muscle tendons and ligaments, and kept forcing my arm into the beast until I was nearly shoulder deep.

Forcing my arm so deep made me have to lean down closer to the beast. I had to put my face right up against the spurting goop the eye was spewing, and the flailing little root tentacle hairs that surrounded it.

I ignored the tentacles as they grabbed and slapped me, just as I ignored the beast as it let loose its deepest and loudest roar yet. I ignored the sound of tentacles, the big ones, slamming around me. Not just on the walls, floor and ceiling of the room but even its own body. It was in such pain it couldn’t even attack me correctly.

Feeling around for something similar to a nerve group, bones or really anything… I finally found something. Something thick enough that I knew it wasn’t just muscle. Something malleable, so not bone.

Grabbing it, the moment I gripped it I felt a tremble. A shiver. A shudder… as the creature actually went still.

Then I pulled.

Standing up as I heaved, I pulled my arm and hand out of the things eye socket… Pushing aside the remains of the eye I had ruptured, my hand popped out and within it I saw the white nerves wrapping my fist.

The nerves didn’t want to pop out, not entirely, and for a small fraction of a moment I was tugging on something connected to the beast. Then the next moment, after putting a little more strength into it, the stuff I was pulling snapped somewhere.

With the snap, I fell backwards and away from the beast. I had been stretched a little, trying to tug out the nerves I had grabbed hold of, so my footing hadn’t been the best…

As I fell backward, I noticed the way the creature’s tentacles had all gone…

Strangely still.

Had I actually grabbed something important? Was I that lucky? This thing was huge… it probably had countless miles of such nerves within it… Though maybe there would be something important connected to an eyeball, even if it had dozens of them.

“Serves you…” I started to taunt the thing, but the rest of my words disappeared as the thing released a shrill screech.

Even I flinched and closed my eyes as I rolled down and off the things body. I felt myself hit a tentacle, one that was coiling around itself, and then felt the hard stone ground as I landed on it.

The thing screeched a high-pitched shriek; nothing like the deep guttural growls and roars it had been doing until now. The sound was ear piercing, mind piercing, and made me wobble as I tried to stand up.

Through half closed eyes I barely made out the thing as it tilted oddly. Its main body began to bend… like a tree about to fall over, as its shrill became even louder.

Stepping away a few feet I glanced around and wondered if I should attack it again. Maybe rip another one of those things out? None of the thing's tentacles were moving at all. Even though it was screaming, and bending in an odd way, none of its tentacles were even twitching. Even the ones in the air, lifted and poised likely from earlier as it thrashed around, were motionless.

I had definitely hurt the thing. In a bad way… But this was a strange way for it to react to such damage.

My head throbbing started to dull as my body got used to the horrid sound… which I noticed wasn’t ending.

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Did it have lungs? If so how big were they?

Stepping forward, I found one of the larger eyes. One that was bundled near others. It was almost three times bigger than the one I had just attacked, and was situated in a spot that was perfect for my next target. Thanks to the way the creature was bending sideways, it had made that eye and those around it pointed upward towards the ceiling… making it easy for me to attack it. I’d basically be standing on flat ground as I did, once I got up there.

I smiled as I started another attack. I rushed forward, jumping up onto one of the larger root tentacles. It was easy now that none of them were moving.

Maybe I had torn a part of its central nerve system. If so then maybe a few more similar attacks would put this thing down for good.

Leaping off the root I was on and onto the main body, I felt my smile grow into a wry smirk as I started to climb up the body. The mouth wasn’t far, but I ignored it. It was wide and open, but it was still screeching madly. Not a threat at the moment.

Even the little hairs on the body weren’t moving. They now felt oddly hard as I stepped on them. Before they’d get crushed and smooshed, now they felt more like the roots they looked like.

A few steps away from the large eye that was my target, I reached the grouping of the smaller eyes. I made sure to step on a few of them as I walked amongst them, stepping on the smaller ones as I went to the big one.

“Mistake,” I barely said the word, even though I couldn’t hear it thanks to the screeching, before I was hit.

I scrunched up, curling my arm and leg inward and to my right side as to absorb as much of the blow as possible.

Once again being sent into the air, I had no time to even try and count the moments before I impacted.

The rock around me crunched and broke. Even the loud screeching seemed to momentarily fade out in the distance, and for who knows how long I only heard and felt my heartbeat.

It thumped. It, like always, barely changed in its beating. It thumped slowly. Hard. Continuously… no matter what happened to my body. No matter what was going on in my head.

No matter how violent the world was my heart like always thumped solidly. Steadily.

Unending.

I focused on it, and hated every moment it continued to beat.

Then noise returned. Like a far off ringing, the things screeching slowly returned to my ears… until it was loud again.

And once the screeching was loud enough to hurt my head again, I realized something very important.

I was still in the air.

Dangling, I coughed and felt the tug of gravity. My arms and legs were dangling downward… and…

Blinking blurry eyes, I groaned as I realized I was in the ceiling. I hadn’t been sent into the wall like I had been done before. It had hit me at an angle… sending me upward…

Shifting, I felt the rocks and stone I was stuck in shift and resist. Most of my body and waist was easily a foot or two deep into the stone. It held me in place, and I wondered if I was stuck like this from a singular blow or many.

Had it hit me more than once?

Staring down at the beast, I frowned at the sight of it being a little brighter than before.

Why did it look brighter? I could now see the blood leaking from it a little more clearly. Glistening as if from…

The thing twisted and shook violently beneath me. Its tentacles were flailing wildly again, but this time without any seeming rhyme or reason. They were slapping against each other, the ground and walls. Some were even coiling around each other, like snakes did when mating.

“Pissed? Me too,” I said as I coughed again.

Was the coughing from the impact or the haze I kept breathing?

I hadn’t coughed up blood yet… but I felt as if I should. How long has it been since I had been hit that hard? That Monarch with Oplar… Had it actually been not that long ago? Usually I went years and years between such…

“Ah.”

My shifting had done the job. I felt myself start to slide out the hole, and I hurriedly glanced down right beneath me to see where I’d be landing… or rather, what I’d be landing on.

A bunch of smaller tentacles. Great. More cuts and gashes.

Still…

Falling out of the hole, I fell alongside a large piece of stone. One that thumped me in the shoulder as I fell to the ground.

Before landing on the bundle of tentacles, I glanced up at the spot I had just fallen from. Sure enough, not far from the spot where I had been lodged into… was a hole. One larger than the hole I had just fallen out of.

A bright white light peered from the hole. Illuminating the room, and brightening the green air swirling within.

Sunlight.

It had broken enough of the roof to reveal sunlight.

Just where were we? I thought we were several floors beneath the surface…

Landing in the bundle of tentacles, I didn’t give them a chance to coil around me. I leapt out of them the moment after I landed and got my feet under me. The tentacles all around me went into a frenzy upon it noticing me. I had hoped it would have thought I was just another piece of stone from the ceiling falling, but it must have enough feeling in its roots to notice when something actually pushes against them. It didn’t just feel, it could judge what it was feeling.

Even when furious.

Its screeching became a little deeper as it shifted into a roar, and suddenly I was back into battle.

I dodged. I ducked. I jumped over those too low to do anything else. I was hit by those I deemed not worth dodging, and I grabbed and tore and ripped those I felt I could do so without endangering myself more than necessary.

My mind went dull as this continued for a moment. Then another. And another. The green air swirled around me when I rushed forward, or tentacles flew past. Blood drenched me, and then dried enough to become itchy… only for me to get drenched again.

As it did everything it could to hit me, I realized it was no longer trying to just grab me. It was willing to crush me now. Now I was no longer food or a simple pest… now I was its enemy.

It didn’t just acknowledge me. It hated me.

“Hate,” I hissed the word as I ducked a strangely barbed tentacle. I had barely noticed that its barbs were a little… oddly shaped as it flew past my head. They had looked different in color, for some reason.

Maybe it was the light. The sunlight. Or maybe the hole was allowing the air to thin out a little. It hadn’t seemed to spew any of that haze lately either, even though it was screaming so much.

Maybe it had run out of whatever it was.

Hopefully the haze wouldn’t seep out into Lumen, or contaminate the water supply…

Would its body? Once it was dead?

“Focus,” I chastised myself for letting my thoughts wander as I grabbed a tentacle that had been able to wrap around my arm. It was a long and thin one, which ran along the floor nearby. I stepped over to it, and with a quick motion stepped down upon it and tore it in two.

The smaller tentacle spurted blood, yet the beast didn’t seem to register the damage this time. Either it was too small, or the creature was now in so much pain and so furious it didn’t even notice it anymore.

Hopefully Renn and Fly were far away. By now they had to be… Odds were this thing had pulled its roots from a great distance. The hole in the ceiling might have been amplified by its roots being moved.

Running along a huge tentacle that was starting to rise up off the ground, I glanced to the wall where I thought the hallway was. To see if it was still intact, or broken and collapsed.

Oddly it wasn’t where I thought it was. Instead it was on the wall to its direct left. I had gotten turned around during the fight.

It was broken, but not completely collapsed. I could see the darkness deep into it. Only a part of its entrance was broken off. Likely from a tentacle slamming into it.

I was glad they hadn’t stayed… but at the same time upset I had not gone with them.

I should have escorted them back. This thing was immobile, it seemed. Stuck in place.

But I hadn’t known that. I hadn’t known it was a flower at first and…

“Master!”

Jumping up onto the large tentacle that was now a few feet off the ground, I turned to find the voice I surely had mistakenly heard.

No. I hadn’t.

Looking upward, I stared at the odd sight of someone dangling from the main hole in the center of the room. The one that Fly and Renn had been tossed into.

“Master! Please!” the deep voice of a terrified man shouted, trying his best to be heard over the creature’s screams and roars.

He was dangling from a rope, which was tied around his waist… but he was holding it with both of his arms so he was clinging to it as much as he was dangling.

What was he doing?

Glancing at the creature, I shifted my weight as the tentacle lifted itself higher. It began to move faster through the air, likely because it knew now I was on top of it. It was curling inward, likely to take me over to where a large cluster of its bigger tentacles were.

I let it for a moment as I studied the beast, all the while the man from the rope kept shouting for its attention.

Would it notice his cries? Why would it? Surely it had no reasoning. Or did it… and I had simply hurt this thing too much too quickly for me to have noticed?

“Master! Please! Calm yourself!” the man was pleading, and for some reason sounded genuine. As if he was as worried for his supposed master as he was himself.

“Fanatics,” I cursed them as I rushed forward down the tentacle, to head for the main body.

Upon my movement the tentacle shifted, and began to rise upward. But it was slow, even though I could tell it was doing all it could to lift it as fast as possible.

It was time I finished this. Especially now that it was starting to expose itself. If it kept flailing like this, it’d bring the whole ceiling down upon us.

I’d survive… but sadly, so likely would this thing.

Which meant this thing would be out in the open. No longer sealed in. No longer just a caged beast.

The possible deaths of innocents in Lumen were one thing. I didn’t like it, even when humans suffered from such chaos… but their deaths weren’t serious enough for me to care too much. However this thing wasn’t great enough to kill them all. It wasn’t powerful enough to survive the wrath of Lumen. A place crawling with mercenaries and knights. Although they would panic at first, and it’d wreak havoc… it’d eventually be subdued.

Humans banded together strongly when such monsters came hunting.

And all it would do, other than kill hundreds if not thousands… would shed light on its existence.

And those like it.

Humans forgot. Over time. But it’d take generations for them to forget this thing.

This would become legend. They’d make statues out of it. Write books of it. Study it.

I needed to kill it before it became that much of a threat.

Running along the tentacle towards the main body, I glared at the mouth. The huge teeth lining it. The blood and gunk flying out of it as it roared at me. It really was big. Nearly as wide as the thing’s whole body. Far too big to be natural. Too deformed. Teeth weren’t just inside the mouth, but outside it… growing like exposed bone and horns, poking out of torn flesh.

No more small wounds. No more crushed eyes.

Something with blood would have a heart.

So it was time I crushed it.

“Master! Calm yourself!” the man from up above screamed, and I hoped his master noticed him. Just so it’d kill him and shut him up.

Reaching the main body, I leapt off the tentacle. This time though, I didn’t land on its main body. Nor did I land anywhere with those little hairs either.

Jumping into the thing’s open mouth, as it roared, I took a deep breath as I entered the dark green haze.