Chapter 22
Eight Limbs Part 2
[Inside the Hall]
An explosion shook the walls.
THUD!
Laios's body was hurled like a projectile, spinning out of control through the air. The blood escaping his mouth hung floating for a few moments behind him, drawing a dark trail in the hall. The officer and the burly man watched him fly, unable to move, their gazes fixed on the slow turn of his arms and his head lashing from side to side.
The second impact wasn't long.
THUD!
Laios's back smashed against the red doors. The wood groaned first in an agonized creak, as if trying to resist, but the weight and speed of the body shattered the resistance in a single burst. The two doors bent outward, hinges exploding, and shot out like pieces of a giant toy, crashing to the floor. Splinters flew in all directions.
The echo reverberated through the entire hall.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. The officer's eyes were wide open, unable to process how his companion had vanished beyond what were once doors. The burly man barely breathed, his mouth slightly agape, as if the air had been trapped in his chest.
And then, a new rumble.
ROAR.
A dry, bestial roar snapped the officer back to reality. His gaze snapped toward the source of the sound.
The monster's roar thundered in the hall.
The creature launched itself forward. Its six limbs slammed into the floor with the force of battering rams, leaving cracks as it gained speed. The charge wasn't a simple leap: it was like a living landslide, a torrent of deformed muscle and bone aimed straight at the burly man.
The two-meter-ten man remained motionless, still processing the image of Laios flying through the air. He barely managed to look up when the monster's shadow was already upon him.
The officer was the first to react.
His left leg stomped the ground, serving as an anchor. With the other, he propelled himself upward, tearing a piece of splintered wood from the table debris. He gripped it with his right hand, twisted his torso, and leaned until his free palm almost touched the floor to give more inertia to the movement.
"—Hah!"— he exhaled as he threw.
His right arm described a full arc, and mid-spin a green glow erupted from his hand, expanding to envelop the improvised stake. The energy took shape, a rectangle with sharp edges that crackled before sealing itself like a sheath of translucent light.
The projectile shot out with a cutting hum. It spun on itself like a bullet with a double tip, illuminating its trajectory with emerald flashes.
The monster barely turned its skull upon sensing something in the air, but too late.
A wet, horrifying sound filled the hall.
SQUELCH!
The stake shattered against its last remaining eye, piercing the eyeball in an explosion of fluids that splattered the floor. The creature roared with a metallic shriek, bending its body backward from what seemed like pure pain.
That screech was the final blow that finally woke the burly man. He blinked, swallowed, and turned his head toward the hulk bearing down on him. What he saw froze his blood: the monster, though wounded, kept charging, its maw open like an endless fissure, its limbs ready to crush him.
The burly man was not a small man. He never had been.
At over two meters ten, his mere presence commanded respect in any tavern, any battlefield, any squad. Since childhood, he never had to look up to speak to someone his age; it was always others who looked up at him.
Even prodigies of his generation like Körper, the prana boy, and Laios.
In his early years as an adventurer, when he still wore borrowed armor and steel felt loose in his hands, he had faced beasts that doubled his weight. Yes, he felt weak then, even powerless, comparing himself to legendary figures and tall Imperials who seemed made of another world.
Even monsters of talent like the prodigies of his generation who even became part of the lesser 'Eleven'.
But he never felt small.
Never….
Until today.
---
The monster, wounded, with its six limbs spread wide, still surpassed him in size. It wasn't just its height: it was the density, the ferocity, the way its shadow covered the entire floor around it. Seeing it scream with that bleeding hole instead of an eye didn't give him hope, it gave him terror.
The burly man fell to his knees, collapsing the one knee still raised. His breath caught. Something inside him crumbled like the doors that had just shattered under Laios's body.
The security of a lifetime—the idea that his size was his shield, his guarantee against fear—shattered in a second.
And what came in its place was a panic he had never felt.
His face twisted, first into a gesture of horror… but then it began to truly deform. His skin changed tone, as if a wave of fever rose from his throat to his forehead. His cheeks trembled, bubbled, and a thin tentacle emerged from the corner of his lip. Then another. And another.
Impossible colors, like sea corals twisted under the light of a strange sun, sprouted in irregular patches across his face. The infection didn't spread slowly: it propagated like fire on dry paper. Where there was once skin, amorphous masses now writhed, pulsing and intertwining like exposed viscera.
The officer, who was running toward him after throwing the stake, stopped dead. A golden light began to radiate from under the burly man's uniform, growing with each second. The glare covered everything, blinding him to the point of forcing him to cover his eyes with an arm.
"—Hanz!"— he shouted, advancing blindly, unable to see.
The entire hall shook.
ROAR.
EXPLOSION.
And suddenly, the light vanished.
The golden radiance extinguished as abruptly as it had appeared.
The officer lowered his arm, blinking, his eyes still irritated by the light.
"—Did he disappear…?—" he murmured, his voice broken.
When his vision returned, the first thing he saw froze him solid.
The monster was leaning forward, slightly hunched, like someone brushing aside an annoyance. One of its left limbs remained extended, rigid, still vibrating from the impact it had just executed.
The officer's gaze followed the line of that arm.
At the far end, embedded in the wall like a rag doll thrown in fury, was the burly man. Hanz.
His body hung crooked, head lolling, arms deformed at impossible angles. Almost half of his anatomy had turned into a viscous mass, iridescent colors pulsing as if still trying to recompose itself. The rest was shattered flesh, crushed against the stone.
The wall had absorbed the assault with a dull roar. Deep cracks spread from the point of impact, and fragments of rock fell slowly onto the already inert body.
The officer took only a couple of seconds to understand what he was seeing. It was enough for something inside him to tear.
"—Hanz…—" he said, barely a thread of voice.
He tried to take a step forward, but his knees refused to move. It was then that the monster turned its head toward him.
It had no eyes, but the officer still felt a chill run down his entire spine, as if those empty sockets pierced him through and through.
His body reacted with an involuntary jolt.
Wait… he thought suddenly. Before, its eyes seemed dead. It moved its head toward us, but its eyes didn't… its eyes never followed us.
That flash of lucidity barely gave him time to duck.
BAM!
The monster exploded toward him in an impossible leap, its entire mass falling like a meteor.
The officer had barely managed to duck when two shadows closed in on him.
He felt the brutal pull on his shoulders: the limbs on the monster's thighs had caught him by the uniform.
"—Tch!"— he grunted, trying to break free.
He had no chance.
The monster used its other limbs as levers, propelled itself, spun with an agility impossible for its size, and threw him like a sack of sand.
The officer flew diagonally toward the wall.
The air was cut short. The wall approached at a speed that froze his blood.
"Shit…!"
Mid-flight, he managed to twist his torso and spin around. With a desperate effort, he channeled energy to his legs. Two long, pointed green rectangles burst from the soles of his feet with an explosion of light.
CRRRSSHHHH!
The blades dug into the floor just before the impact would have shattered him. The drag was so violent it carved two deep grooves in the hall floor, hurling chunks of debris and splinters in all directions. His body was held in absolute tension, muscles burning as they resisted the inertia.
For an instant, it was all the sound of crunching wood and the grinding of his own teeth.
Then, silence.
The officer breathed raggedly, his forehead beaded with sweat. He had managed to stop his flight. He wasn't broken… yet.
As the rectangles dissolved and disappeared like dust, the officer landed with a spin.
He looked up.
The monster hadn't moved from its spot. It remained hunched, motionless.
A step thundered to the left.
TOC!
The officer immediately turned toward that side, raising his fist sheathed in the same translucent green energy. His arm was already ready for the impact.
And he saw it.
A new creature, humanoid, made of pulsing flesh, advanced toward him with a fluid, unnatural movement, as if its bones didn't exist.
The officer clenched his jaw. His fist was already covered by the translucent green sheath when the creature arched like a serpent.
Its torso bent backward beyond the human, vertebrae cracking like dry twigs, and it dodged the blow with an impossible motion.
WHSSSHH!
The air whistled as the fist passed, cutting through the space where the spawn's head had been a second before.
The officer didn't waste time. He pivoted his hips, wanting to chain another blow, but a sharp pain pierced his abdomen.
"—Gh…!—"
He looked down.
One of the humanoid's limbs had struck directly into his left side, tearing out a piece of flesh that hung loose, leaving a hole almost an inch deep. Blood gushed immediately, warm and sticky, soaking his uniform.
The officer instinctively leaned back, ensuring the blow didn't go straight through him. Even so, the burning forced him to bite his tongue to keep from screaming.
As another of the green rectangles appeared over his wound and it began to smoke.
The creature, however, didn't stop. It bent forward with the same fluid motion and attacked again, unleashing a flurry of pulping arms that seemed to have no bones.
The officer retreated a step, raised his energy-coated fist, and struck again. This time the impact hit the monster in its side.
The crack was dry, like hitting wet meat against stone.
The humanoid was thrown sideways, staggering, with a strange whine, a mix of hiss and bubbling. But it didn't fall.
It arched again, bending its back until it almost touched the floor, and turned toward the six-limbed monster, as if it hadn't seen the officer at all.
The officer panted, bringing his left hand to his abdomen, increasing the intensity of the green color, and forced himself to turn toward the creature. But then, what he saw paralyzed him.
The six-limbed fish monster… was collapsing.
Its hollow body fell in on itself, crumbling like empty clothes falling to the floor. The sound was viscous, repulsive, like hollow flesh being crushed.
"What…?" thought the officer, brow furrowed.
And in the same instant he saw it: the pulsing humanoid hurled itself toward the mouth of the fallen monster. It slid inside, torso first, then legs, sinking with a disgusting rapidity, as if being absorbed.
The hollow carcass of the monster trembled. Then… it stood up.
The officer stood frozen.
"Eh…"
For a moment, just a moment, he stood still, involuntarily trying to comprehend what he had just witnessed.
The officer hadn't finished processing what he was seeing. The fish monster, which seconds before had collapsed like an empty sack, was rising again. The hollow flesh now swelled and creaked like stretched leather, as if the body had been stuffed from within by something more solid, more lethal.
A viscous sound rumbled from its interior.
The officer took a step back, breathing rapidly, legs ready to launch in any direction.
And then he felt it.
A new pressure, different, erupted in the hall. It didn't come from the creature in front of him, but from the entrance.
TOC!
The echo of a single step resonated louder than any previous roar.
The officer jerked his head around.
There, in the broken frame of the door, a black foot emerged from the gloom. The surface wasn't skin: it looked like volcanic rock, cracked, with incandescent veins glowing from within like embers.
The foot descended calmly, and upon touching the floor, it released an explosion.
FWHOOOOSH!
A wave of fire expanded in a fan, sweeping the hall with a searing roar. The wood reddened on contact, columns creaked as they were licked by flames, and the air itself became unbreathable, cutting, like a red-hot iron entering the lungs.
The officer barely had time to crouch and cover himself with his right arm while with his left he touched the floor, the moment three small but dense green walls rose in front of the officer, one over the other.
The wave shattered two of the three walls and simultaneously the officer pressed himself against the last wall which held,
but the fire reached around the sides and top of the wall, almost reaching the officer, though it did burn part of his uniform.
The wave lifted pieces of wood and debris. The back wall took the brunt of the flare and cracked into a web of fissures that crackled like burning coal before igniting.
The fish monster was engulfed by the flare. The officer glimpsed it out of the corner of his eye: it writhed, as if trying to close any orifice of its body, while tongues of fire licked its deformed flesh.
The silence that followed was suffocating. The air still vibrated with the echo of the fire, and the floor burned, as did all the debris in the hall. Everything emitting smoke.
The officer gritted his teeth.
While watching through the translucent green wall as the new monster moved and emerged from the darkness of the stormy night.