Chapter thirty nine

        Since the conversation was so clearly over I decided to strike first, I quickly took out my guns from their holsters and shot at the floating ball of smoke until they were clicking because they were empty but just like I had feared the bullets just passed through the the Atelli without doing any discernible damage.

         I was wondering if my fans would do a better job against him when the ball of gas started to ripple and pulsate as the smoke started to shift and churn in an ominous manner. From amidst the smoke the figure of a naked woman in her late fifties appeared although it was hard to guess her age with her face twisted into a grotesque expression of pain and horror. She was shackled in chains made of smoke that wrapped around her neck, hands and feet, keeping her immobile. Pieces of her body were missing as if a vicious animal with sharp teeth had taken chunks out of her stomach and thighs. The smoke around her started to move and solidify into several gaping maws that had sharp looking triangular teeth arranged in rows of circles that were all rotating rapidly as they came into contact with the soul, because that was what the woman was, a trapped soul.

        I watched in helpless horror as the mouths latched onto the woman's soul causing her to release a wail of absolute agony. I could see a blue light start to travel from the mouths feeding on the soul into the Atelli making the smoke glow the same luminous blue, then the glow was gathered into small balls which flew at me. They were slow enough that I was able to dodge them but I had severely underestimated their power because when they hit the ground they detonated with the force of an exploding grenade, throwing me violently backwards through the door I had come from and I rolled several times before I came to a stop on the snow covered ground.

       I had never felt so much pain in my entire life. Several of my ribs were broken, my left leg was dislocated and I had burns allover my front, even half of my face was nothing but raw meat because the skin had been burnt off. I scrounged up enough focus through the intense pain to heal myself and picked myself off the ground. Most of my clothes had been burnt off by the explosion and now I was in a sorry state dressed in tatters in the middle of the snow.

     I knew that the power of souls was immense from my time healing people and now that power was being leveled against me, granted it was a very inefficient way of utilizing the power somewhat comparable to crushing an apple in your hands to lick the juice left over on your fingers but even those small drops harvested inefficiently were enough to throw me around like a ragdoll. The glowing power of the soul reminded me of the glowing daggers that Mike wielded , he could wield the power without consuming souls, or at least I hope he could. That probably meant there was a way that I could use it too but I doubted I could figure it out in the middle of a battle so it was useless to think about that now. 

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      As things stand I had no way of harming the fog that the Atelli was made of while he could definitely hurt me. I couldn't think of any scenarios where I survive the fight with him but I could think of plenty of situations that would end in complete disaster like if he was somehow able to trap my soul before I left the physical realm and he was able to tap into enough of my own powers to contain me, he would get an almost endless source of power and since it wasn't his own personal power he wouldn't even be breaking any of the rules that could get him evicted from this plane. Imagining an Atelli possessing that sort of power made made me shudder, not to mention the fact that I would be in eternal pain as my soul was slowly consumed. 

       I didn't want to be tortured for eternity or be the reason that the human race was conquered by the Atelli so I strained my mind, ignoring the biting wind that was slowly giving me hypothermia , to think of a way to beat the ball of smoke. The logical part of me was telling me that if I did not find a good solution in the next few seconds I had to retreat because what was on the line wasn't just the life of my best friend but also the fate of the planet but I doubted that the Atelli would let me escape so easily ,plus I didn't think I could just abandon a friend that I had known for over a decade because it was the wise thing to do.

       The debate in my mind became moot as the ball of smoke in question came out the door, this time he had two other souls he was feeding on besides the woman and the first thing he did was throw one of his glowing blue balls at the van. The balls had become much brighter than before and the van was completely obliterated.

      All I could think of as I saw it blow up in an enormous explosion was that I hoped that Kazimir had Atelli insurance.