“What… what is that?” Samantha asked.

The creature was now close to the house, about ten meters from the door.

“It’s a real monster…” Pointy said.

“A what?” Sam replied.

The monster began moving closer. It was slow. In response, Mat set several pink PSI ropes around the creature. The creature noticed them but didn’t interact with them.

“A real monster is…” Pointy began.

“Save the explanations for later,” Mat interrupted. “We need to deal with this thing now.”

“Yeah, but… what about the ropes?” Sam asked.

“They’re for the monster, obviously. Look, I’ll handle it. You stay with the girl. Take the Infini-Bag, just in case. Oh, and stick with Pointy. I’ll keep Roundy with me so he can heal me.”

“Alright… Got it!” Sam answered.

“Fine by me,” Pointy said.

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Sam stayed with the girl, hiding in one of the rooms with Pointy.

“Alright then, time to— What? Where did—?”

“Huh?” Roundy muttered, scared.

The creature was gone. The ropes were supposed to trap it—any contact with them would have triggered several stakes to pierce the monster. They wouldn’t have been strong enough to kill it, but they would have weakened it.

Mat stepped outside to investigate.

“It’s still close by, but…”

“Ugh!”

“Hero!”

The creature struck Mat from behind. He raised his arm, enveloped in a green PSI barrier, but it wasn’t enough. The impact sent him flying several meters, crashing into a tree. His forearm was broken.

But how had this happened? The creature had twisted its body in grotesque ways to slip through the PSI ropes without making a sound.

“Ahh!” Mat grunted, fighting the pain. His back ached as well, but thankfully, nothing there was broken. “Ack!”

His forearm, however, was snapped in two, bent unnaturally, with one of the bones protruding from the skin.

“H-Hero…” Roundy stammered, terrified.

The creature stood before him now, but it didn’t seem interested in Roundy either, passing him by.

“You… you won’t get away!”

Several red PSI spikes shot out from the creature, but—

“Chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”

The monster let out an ear-piercing screech.

“Ugh!” Both Mat and Roundy winced in pain. Their ears hurt a lot. Mat tried to get back on his feet but—

“What?”

They couldn’t move. The creature, injured but still advancing, was heading straight for the house.

“I have to do something…”

“Ahh!”

Mat tried to summon more PSI spikes to halt its progress, but as the distance grew between them, something went wrong.

“What… why?”

He couldn’t.

It wasn’t that he was too tired—well, he was a little, and he was injured—but that wasn’t the reason. What Mathias hadn’t realized until now was that his PSI Creations had a distance limit. Yes, he could create things that reached considerable distances, but almost all of them either appeared right in front of him, close by, or emerged from his body—and most weren’t intended for harm. The PSI spikes, in this case, were meant to deal damage, but trying to create them 50 meters away from himself… he couldn’t do it.

Mat grasped this in the moment, but there was nothing he could do. If he created a spear from where he was, it wouldn’t inflict enough damage, and ropes to bind the creature’s legs wouldn’t reach.

“Damn it!”

But then Mat realized… he could still control his PSI Creations, just like always.