Sonic booms echoed off the chamber's ceiling as Black Eyes bulleted at them. Her snapping fangs filled a face twisted in alien intensity. Just looking at her is giving me the heebie-jeebies! Still, Josh couldn't help but be surprised at the commanding voice his usually meek brother had tried to use on him. Sen, you really are an heir to the Hegemony! Before Josh had grown to know and love him, Sen's command might have worked. But even his brother's fearlessness didn't change what Josh had to do.
Josh sprang up and put his hands on Sen's shoulders. ~Sen, I'd follow you through the gates of hell just so you could piss in the devil's cornflakes…~ Josh's eyes were frozen on the rapidly advancing vampire. ~...But you're cracked in the head if you think I'll let you stand in front of that! I have a plan... Well, maybe it's just most of a good idea... Anyway, hold on!~
Josh’s face had screwed up in concentration. The next instant, Black Eyes' was upon them. Her dirt-crusted claws tore through the outer layer of Sen's earthen shield and robes as Josh's other hand slapped down on Sen's shoulder—
Suddenly, they were 100 yards in the air and falling.
With both hands holding tightly to Sen's shoulders, Josh felt Sen's body go rigid at their sudden weightlessness. ~Hang on! This is just the start!~
Josh had a lot of balls in the air, pun not intended, and he was going to throw a few more up. His intentions were spinning through his mind so fast that he didn't even have time to send Sen more information through their Bond. Josh surely didn't have a split second to think about the inhuman level at which his mental faculties were currently functioning.
But that was ok... he had already given his new cognitive abilities considerable thought. Specifically, the Attunement from the Ip'pul fruit had massively increased his mind's acuity, capacity, and speed of thinking. It was unfortunate that it hadn't made him any wiser... and Josh was sure that regardless of his expanded mentation, he would make all of the same mistakes he'd made in the past in his personal relationships. But, and this was a big but... It was mind-blowing how he could compartmentalize his thoughts and set his brain on multiple simultaneous operations... Pun intended. Josh suspected that his ‘science brain’ ability, if not created by his special link to physical matter iterations from Sen’s overzealous infusion of all things from Earth’s twenty-first century science, was definitely amplified and accelerated by it.
Josh had first seen the possibilities of the Mind Attunement when his perception had been split into three distinct perceptions just before Alysa had nuked Kyon Shi into the Stone Age. And Josh had worked on improving his multi-tasking talent since then.
Beginning with when they had Translocated into the air, Josh had split his mind into performing seven separate and active functions. All receiving his complete concentration. First, he used his event sphere to track where he and Sen were and where they were going with their next jump. Second, he was scouting for and theorizing where and when Shisoka's flying form would enter his event sphere based on where he had been when Black Eyes had charged them. Third, Josh was making a judgment. Given Black Eyes' current mindless rage, he reasoned that it was safe to expand his mindscape from its locked-down shield configuration to communicate with Shisoka when he came into range. Fourth, he was cycling his Essence to propagate the next Translocation of him and Sen. Fifth, he created an Earthen shield around him and Sen, for all the good it would do... Sixth, he instigated a double phase of him and Sen. Seventh and lastly, as every father always did, Josh wondered what Sophie was up to, and hoped she was ok.
A continuous screech of inhuman pain and demand directed over them like a rotating emergency klaxon. But it didn't pass by. After digging herself out of the impact hole she had made when they Translocated out from under her, Black Eyes was coming back at them!
Josh was working again before gravity had even grabbed hold of the duo. Based on the estimated range of his Translocation and the distance he had perceived Black Eyes and Shisoka battling, his compartmentalized mentation's best guess was that it would take three Translocations before Shisoka was in range. So, Josh was surprised when he saw a rapidly moving, two-dotted gray body charging directly at them through his Event sphere.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The next events all happened at exactly the same time.
Josh reached out with his mind to Shisoka, "I'm bringing her right down the pipe. Send everything you have and knock her out of the park!" If Shisoka didn't understand the instinctual baseball analogy from Josh’s overloaded mind, there was no time to worry about it.
Simultaneously, Josh propagated another Translocation to take him and Sen directly in Shisoka's angle of descent at maximum range.
Lastly, Black Eye's extended claws ruptured Josh's earthen shield into dissipating orange motes as they raked through his back, bisecting Josh on the right half of his body.
Josh’s Phasing skill propagated and stopped him from getting cut completely in half before he was whisked away on his next Translocation.
His last thought, Sheesh, phasing takes a really long time...
They appeared in the new Translocation site, and Josh’s Interface was pinging.
Warning! Escalation of Disunion Phase skill’s Essence deduction for phasing two additional Cultivators. One being is beyond the current Cultivation limit. Being remains in union with physical universe. Warning!
But Josh, having exceeded his amount of Free Essence, was beyond hearing it.
* * * * *
Unlike the two previous Translocations, Sen and Josh started to fall. Josh's right hand had also released its death grip on Sen's shoulder. Sen spun around in the air. His chest and face were immediately covered by spurting blood from a wound that had cut the right side of Josh's body in half and then stopped. The right lower half of Josh’s cleaved body sagged grotesquely as Sen held the top part of him in a white-knuckled grip.
Over Josh's shoulder, Sen saw a white streak lance through the air and collide with an oppositely angled black streak. Shisoka's perception must have been several orders of magnitude above Sen's to function effectively at those speeds. The next thing Sen perceived clearly was Shisoka's flying form arcing back through the air toward them while the three pieces that Shisoka had just cut Black Eye's into parted vectors on their own individual trajectories. Her pelvis and legs caught wind resistance and pinwheeled through the canopy of sunflower heads as they sprayed black ichor in every direction. The head and ribs flipped end over end and splattered against the transparent ceiling several hundred meters overhead. The abdomen containing the beasts’ Cores rotated wildly as lengthening tendrils of pale flesh sprouted. Even now, her undead fire hurriedly attempted to regrow the missing portions of her body.
She's unkillable!
Their fall began to accelerate. Sen grabbed Josh under the armpits and reflexively spun him to the top of their plunging dyad as he repropagated his earthen shield to enclose them both. Sen could sense that Joshua was completely depleted of Essence. He wasn’t sure... But it seemed as if some of his own had already been taken into Joshua’s Meridians just prior to their Translocation. Sen immediately started transferring Essence to Josh. Still, he couldn't stop looking over Josh's shoulder to see what awaited them after their fall.
He saw Shisoka's body burst into an inferno of red flames that trailed behind him like a living mantel. The Talon leader moved again to intercept Black Eyes' spin-flapping midsection. With horror, Sen saw that the chunk of corpse flesh had already sprouted a head and regained some motor control over its thin but quickly growing extremities. Her whip-thin limbs wrapped around Shisoka as he crashed into her.
The Talan commander's fire mantle intensified into the glowing heart of a blue/white star as he wrapped his arms around the reforming Black Eyes, embracing the nightmare in his own hellish hold. The air for kilometers around boiled. Sen's eyes were seared, and protective tears flowed as he tracked the fight against Shisoka's solar illumination. The back of Josh's crew jumper caught fire, and Sen could smell the acrid stench of his and Josh's hair burning from the heat. Flames also flickered from below as they fell into a short-lived but raging forest fire that sprang up all around them from the growing plants. Stalks for hundreds of meters combusted under the heat and rapidly fell to ash.
Sen's last sight were the shadows of Shisoka and Black Eyes. The vampire's still-forming head and fangs continued to strike at Shisoka, never stopping in its attempts to consume his Blood Essence as Shisoka held the creature tight to his chest. Each contested for control in the furious hades above. Shisoka’s Fire Attunement, repeatedly destroying Black Eyes... only for the undead demon to regrow and attack again.
Then Sen hit the ground. A puff of superheated ash rose to obscure everything. Sen didn't see Shisoka hovering above, his extended arms glowing the bright blue of ultraviolet destruction. Nor did he see Black Eyes' finally incinerated body fall like thick slag.