I’ll admit, it certainly looks monstrous but it's not that bad. Definitely not worth screaming over.
“Y-you! You threw a shadeling at me?!” Idiot Isaac screamed.
I shrugged. “And? It's just a small little guy. What’s the big deal?”
The monster raised its arrow-shaped head and spun toward Isaac’s direction. The top of its head split and peeled away revealing nine purple orbs jutting from the rubbery flesh.
Okay. Less cute.
“Skriiiii!”
Around the eye orbs pointed teeth sprouted and chomped, locking the eyes behind a cage of glass-like bone. The teeth protruding from its tentacles started to vibrate and split apart into smaller, spaghetti strands that rapidly solidified.
Ohhh…
It flopped forward and ate sand before pushing itself up and releasing another screech. Isaac’s jaw dropped and he took one step back, but the creature started pulling toward the man. Awkward at first, one inch became three and then it began to gain momentum easily clearing a foot with every lunge.
To his credit, the noble brandished his spear and charged. The creature jumped, impaling itself atop the extended spearhead.
“Die!” Idiot Isaac screamed.
He slammed his spear into the ground and adjusted his grip to twist the shaft. A wet squelch saw the creature’s limbs rattle in the throes of death before it flopped limply at its side.
“H-hah! Begone monstrosity!” Idiot Isaac panted. He slumped, relaxing now that the creature was dead. But he froze as the shadow-squid started to bulge and the strands reanimated. “Wh-what’s happening?!”
The spaghetti strands retracted and the original five tendrils reformed. The eye-teeth blinked once before sucking into its body with a slurp and leaving the purple orbs to start spinning in random directions. Isaac yanked his spear away and jumped back, whipping his weapon forward.
But despite what I expected, the creature remained motionless and started to pull into itself. Slowly, the tentacles lost their solidness and gooped together culminating into a small puddle of not-exactly shadows but something radiating its mana.
“Well, that’s a first,” I chuckled. “Do you mind?”
Isaac snapped his head in my direction and started to open his mouth, but no words came out. Instead, his spear pointed toward me like an accusatory finger and startled to wiggle.
I ignored him and approached the puddle. A quick prod of my foot sent me enough information. It wasn’t fully shadow, but something in between. My light tap proved I could move it, but I suspected it was only due to the chitin covering my boot.
Under the befuddled gaze of the crowd and the noble, I summoned a vial to my hand. It used to contain ghost goop but the enchantments should work with shadows. Using my fingers, I managed to scoop most of the puddle into the vial with only a small batch of black stains remaining.
Should be good enough for Khrem. Now let’s see…
I channeled mana into my palms and sank them into the ground. Erebus helped guide me, controlling the shadow-mana underneath my fingers to sharpen and cut. My hand sank up to my wrist before I met resistance, and with a minor adjustment from my familiar my arm pushed up to elbow before I stopped.
That should do it.
Before I could begin pushing mana out of my palms, a stomp kicked sand my way.
“Yes?” I asked.
The noble’s face scrunched in outrage. His mana fluctuated around his body, the band of repulsive energy contracting like a rabbit’s heart.
“You summoned a shadeling! You grabbed a shadow spawn! And you’re doing it again?!”
I made my mask blink with exaggerated movements and pushed my mana through. In the shadowplane the mana streamed out like ink in water before Erebus helped adjust and command it to pool. It never fully solidified like I wanted, but it created a spherical haze that glowed inside the void.
“What about it?” I shrugged. “Got a problem?”
“A problem?” he repeated, voice going high. He looked apoplectic and ready to explode from how red his cheeks turned. “You’re a madman! I was wrong to invite you into our house. You’re a loon! A crazed fool! Cease this at once!”
As he stomped closer, a sharp tendril tugged at my pinky, forcing my hand to the left.
Gotcha.
I grabbed onto the creature and started to stand, pulling the spirit out of the seam. As I turned toward the noble I changed my mask to display a laughing grin.
“You’re only realizing this now? Shame, I thought nobles were smarter than that, But hey, answer me a question, if you don’t mind.”
Isaac hesitated.
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“What is it…”
“Simple. Is all of house Ajestella a lil bitch like you?”
His mana activated and he lunged but I whipped my arm forward. It wasn’t so much a scream, more a strangled cry that passed from his mouth in reaction to the toothy bastard that latched onto his spear. He wrestled the creature off his arm and hacked into it with fervor. While he did that, I channeled more mana into the abyss and wiggled the hook.
It was like sticking my hand into a fish tank. The next denizen of the shadowplane grabbed on and by the time the noble had finished dismantling the latest attacker, a new one was tossed his way.
It wasn’t the same; the creature had one massive tentacle with smaller hooks instead of teeth coating its flesh. It wormed its way closer and slapped his leg, tearing a strip of leather from his boots.
The scream echoed through the arena and I continued to fish.
I wonder what the crowd thinks of all this? I hope they’re enjoying it at least.
As soon as another slimy tentacle wrapped around my thumb, I stripped it of its home and added it to the fire.
Two more came, chasing Isaac down using whatever means they had available. The nightmare parade was drawn to the foreign mana like moths to the flame. His spear made short work of the creatures when he managed to hit them, but their pseudo-phantasmic limbs and his rising panic didn’t help the situation.
Even with his strange repulsive ring skill he had running, the disruption to his mana and the sheer number of appendages aiming to take a bite off his limbs saw him covered in black and red blood.
Shallow cut to his leg. Chunk torn from his cheek. Superficial. Tentacle aimed for his achilles heel. Will fail.
A strange calmness overtook me. The noble’s every movement stopped mattering, his panic little more than a distraction. The creatures were creating results, providing effective for now but there had to be more to test.
“Get away from me! Get away!” he shouted.
I started to whistle and swished my arm around, widening the seam. Flex the finger, shake wrist, rotate the hand. Tentacle nibbles and I pinch the bastard and yanked it out. This repeated another two times before I felt a change in the loose bubble around my arm.
Something breached the space and hardened the area around it. The exterior of the bubble near my pinky turned into molasses. Areas around my other fingers were still fluid and I tested by curling my fingers inward. As I did, the spirit must have moved, the whole of my thumb down to my wrist hardened into slowing goop.
Erebus sent a light trill radiating confusion. To him, the shadows shouldn’t be hard to pierce and so he extended the mana around my claws and thinned the edges. Another flex, found the fingers cutting through the thickened bubble but not nearly as well as the fingers untouched by the effect.
Temporarily tuning the noble’s shouting out of my mind, I closed my eyes and focused. I said I wanted to enter the tournament to experiment and test my skills. Now was the time.
Threading the mana, I controlled its release into a fine stream and used Erebus’ memories of adjusting its shape to change the shadow orb into something more expansive. It didn’t quite work the way I wanted, but the orb flattened and extended while sloping downward. More of the mana filled the space and I forced the entrance of the shadows to open further. My arm pushed through, sinking up to my shoulder before I started to move.
Come on… Where are you?
I swung left and found empty space. Backwards was the same, as was the right. But as I angled my arm upward and in front of me, I crashed headfirst into the sand as something grabbed hold. It dragged my limb and extended it into the entrance’s edge.
“Ugh. Fuck. That’s not good.”
It wasn’t tentacles, it didn’t grab a finger. What felt like hardened points tried and failed to crush my hand. Chitin cracked and Erebus sent an alarm through the link. It was strong and hungry.
After nearly yanking my arm out of socket, I grunted and plunged my second hand into the hole. My claws found purchase against something rigid and spikey. The spirit reacted by thrashing against my searching hand and crushing the chitin along the back of my wrist.
Adjusting… Done.
I thrusted my claws into its side and punctured through boney-flesh. Gripping the shell from inside I pulled and tried to stand. The bastard bucked, sending me to my knee.
“Enough! Whatever you’re doing, stop this! No more of this folly, Mordred!” Idiot Isaac panted.
I turned and found him looming over me, hair dripping wet with sweat. His once pristine armor was marred with scratches and holes. His entire left side was painted black, while his right cheek down to his collarbone shined with bright red blood. The gash was approximately 3 inches in length; the potential for scarring high if left untreated.
He leaned closer, eyes spinning with stars. “Remove your arms or I will take them from you.”
Another yank slammed my arm into my chin. My fangs punctured my lip and I grimaced at the taste of blood.
“Now!” Idiot Isaac demanded. The head of his spear pushed against my throat. “Remove them. I won’t say it again.”
“Erebus? Think we’re ready?” I asked.
He replied with his version of a thumbs-up which was by releasing a banshee wail inside my head. I only knew it was approval by the lack of demonic warbling that usually echoed his speech.
Good enough.
Throughout my short struggle with keeping the creature from ripping off my arms, Erebus had been refining his skill. When you looked at the bone spider dive into shadows it was easy to forget that he wasn’t just a shadow-aspected spirit.
He is primarily a death spirit. One I acquired from a plane of death who used his mana types to create a hardened thread.
It definitely wouldn’t have been possible if I was still tier zero, but as a tier one?
Erebus took the shadows produced from my mana and wrapped it around itself. With his direct control, the second aspect available to me from the transformation added to the mix. From hardened shadow to a thick, resistant thread–I spooled the material inside the creature and weaved it through its form.
It stopped its thrashing long enough for me to regain control.
Isaac’s spear bounced off my mask, sending a jolt through my cheek. Isaac adjusted and moved the spear to my neck, drawing blood.
“Now,” he spat.
I turned. The metal carved across my throat, sending a line of cold stinging across my skin.
“Are you sure?” I asked, voice sounding flat to my ears.
“Your neck… What-”
“Very well,” I interrupted.
With some effort, I heaved upward and heard a high-pitch whine as the space around my arms collapsed.
From the depths, an armored shell entered our side of reality. It was covered in black spines that distorted the air. Three sets of bumpy claws reminiscent of a lobster’s slammed into the sand.
Isaac backed away, his ankle twisting as he stepped wrong. It was sloppy, and his movement skill fumbled its activation, sending him bouncing seven paces.
From my side, the creature wailed. Its low rumble vibrated the earth. It was too slow.
I retracted my threads and forced it out of the seam entirely. It was roughly the size of my legs and twice as wide as my torso. A quick smack of my tail sent it rolling forward. It wailed again and rolled into a ball, bouncing closer to the noble.
It hopped once then crashed, spraying Isaac with debris. Teetering once, it stopped in place.
The noble looked at the egg-shaped creature with wide eyes. Interestingly enough, the stars inside his pupils were faint–almost invisible in the sunlight.
Subconscious effect of passive skill? Or evolution perhaps. Can test further.
“What have you done,” the noble whispered.
I cocked my head. “You asked me to remove my arms. So I did. Why the confusion?”
“That’s not. I didn’t mean…” He shivered and a crack filled the air. His eyes darted to the creature as flopped forward and between his legs. “I-”
From the shell of hardened black emerged dozens of snapping claws. The creature’s shell exploded from its body as it ballooned and dwarfed the man beneath it.
“Interesting. How will you fare against this one, I wonder. Well, good luck.”
“Raaaaauuuuurrgh!”
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