Then he felt it.
The killing intent that oozed from the monster as it stepped into view in the middle path. Once it turned its head his way, it moved. No hesitation. Something had changed. Its empty eye sockets glowed with an ethereal red.
Below him, the freezing field was still active. Gale waited until the last possible second. Phase Touch activated. His body still instinctively stepped to the side.
The monster missed. It slid past him straight through the path towards the transit hub. A couple of metres away as it passed him, a breach charge detonated. The explosion caused it to gain momentum, shooting it straight through. Using its arms to change direction, it crashed into the side wall.
Gale didn't wait. He turned to the right and sprinted. This was the final part of the plan, and goddamn, hopefully it works.
The path stretched ahead. This path was straight. No twists or turns. Wide corridors. Nowhere to run. He pushed his body to its absolute limit.
When he reached the fork, the tendrils warned him. The monster was already behind him. Distance closing in the tens of metres each half a second.
He spun to face the monster, activating Phase Touch just as it reached him.
The creature passed straight through him in phased state. Another breach charge exploded as it passed him, causing it to crash onto the middle wall of the fork.
In a burst of energy, it lodged itself out of the pipes. Nothing seemed to be working against this monstrosity.
Gale bolted. Straight towards the dead end they encountered earlier. The monster was right behind him, so close he could practically and imaginatively feel its breath.
Freezing field triggered. Phase Touch activated. The monster passed through him completely, unable to stop its forward momentum. It crashed into the dead end wall, metal buckling under the impact.
In one quick motion, Gale pulled up his phone and shouted into the walkie-app.
"Now!"
The scroll on the floor lit up. Bright blue light flooded the vicinity. Pillars of light caged the monster. Reality fractured as if someone took a hammer and hit a mirror with it right on top of the image of the monster. One moment there, one moment gone. The scroll's blue light faded as the monster disappeared.
Gale took a deep breath, releasing the one he'd been holding. It worked. It fucking worked.
Now, he needed to get back to the facility.
He spun and sprinted back down the left path of the fork. Frustration sprang up in Gale's chest. There was nothing he could use in this straight path to vault himself faster. The only thing he could do was keep dashing straight forwards, making it feel longer than it had been before.
Finally, the path opened. The clearing appeared before him, and the facility housing the tesla coil at its top now crackled with lightning. A loud hum deafened the vicinity, the sound of high voltage that nothing on Earth could match. Lightning arced between the tesla coils and tankers tens of metres away from the coil. Wind picked up and swirled around the facility, picking up small pieces of debris and bolts that flew in the air.
On top of the coil was the monster, trapped in a cage of ice, restrained by chains on its neck, at the base of its arms, legs, and torso. It struggled against its restraints. A couple of cracks webbed on the ice with each movement.
Erin stood at the entrance to the facility, her blue hair whipping around. A closed fist raised towards the ice cage, trembling as if to hold onto the control.
The group had positioned themselves behind the crates they had arranged around the clearing. Kyle and Clyde shot ice rounds at the monster's legs at its joints. Lily and Ollie both shot their own ice rounds at the arms where the needle met flesh.
Rachel hung back, though it looked like she wanted a piece of the action. However, Erin had told her not to damage the ice formation with her fire.
Gale quickly came up to Rachel, catching his breath. "Is it working?"
"So far," Rachel said, still staring up above the tesla coil. "But it's breaking free faster than we can reinforce the ice."
Above them, the tesla coil's whine's pitch increased in octaves. Lightning crackled and arced ever more violently against the surrounding batteries.
Erin's voice rang out from the clearing, amplified by her own essence. "10 more seconds until full charge. Maintain suppressive fire."
A massive crack appeared down one side of the cage. The chain on its right arm cracked and buckled from the pressure. It stabbed its needle through the crack, completely shattering that part of the cage. Ice fell down from above, bouncing off of the dome and crashing beside Erin.
"5 seconds!" Erin shouted.
Kyle emptied his magazine into the widening crack. "COME ON!!!"
"Three!" Erin's voice rose.
Clyde's rifle clicked empty.
"Two!"
A chunk of ice the size of a car door broke free, crashing in front of Erin, nearly hitting her.
"One!"
The entire cage shattered. Ice fragments exploded outward. The monster dropped, plummeting directly onto the Tesla coil.
For a split second, nothing happened.
The world turned white. Everyone covered their eyes with their hands. They could only hear lightning erupting from the coil. Tendrils force fed Gale everything that was happening.
A pure white hot mass of essence flowed out from the coil. It acted like lightning, searching for the nearest conductor it could latch to, and it found it. The dark chrome metal that held together the monster's body. It crashed onto it, flash melting it and merging its bones into its flesh.
The monster's body jerked and twisted, suspended in the lightning storm. Its flesh blackened, peeling back to reveal even more of the dark chrome metal bones beneath. Its metal needle arms glowed red, yellow, then white until they bent and curved sideways.
The air filled with the stench of burning meat and ozone. Thirty seconds felt like an eternity as the lightning continued to pour into the creature's body. Bits of the dark chrome dripped onto the dome like mercury.
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Finally, the coil whine stopped. White turned back into darkness. Silence.
The monster's charred remains dropped from the Tesla coil, landing with a sickening thud directly in front of the facility entrance as Erin looked down on it with pure apathy.
No one moved. They all stared at the smoking heap of flesh on the ground, but no one was sure. All of them held their guns up, aiming them at the body.
"Is it dead?" Ollie asked.
Everyone looked to Erin, whose face remained impassive as she studied the blackened mass.
"The probability approaches certainty," she said. "This lowly being should not be able to withstand the essence of two stars."
"Should?" Kyle lowered his pistol slightly. "That's not exactly reassuring."
"Nothing living could survive that," Clyde said. "Probably."
Lily took a step outside her crate, looking over at the body. "I don't see any movement."
"Keep your distance," Rachel said. "Just to be safe."
Erin turned away from the monster's remains, her deep electric blue eyes finding Gale where he stood at the entrance of the clearing.
"You," she moved towards him, stopping just a step away. "You performed admirably. What is your name?"
"Gale," he said.
"Your full name," Erin pressed, her eyes narrowing slightly.
"Gale Hathie."
She opened her mouth to speak but put a hand over her mouth before her tongue could utter anything.
A sudden wet squelching sound interrupted their conversation. Everyone's heads snapped to the source. The charred remains of the monster twitched. One bent needle arm pushed against the ground, lifting up the sizzling blackened mass of flesh.
"It's still alive!" Kyle raised his pistol.
"Finish it," Ollie said, raising his Desert Eagle.
But before anyone could pull a trigger, the monster already burst into movement. Ice rounds hit the metal floor where it had just been.
Its aim, Erin.
Needles extended to her neck.
Breath of the Void seeped into Gale. Time slowed. Billions of intricate patterns, shapes, and lines bloomed across his face. His perception expanded, showing him every cause and effect that could and would happen at every choice he would have made.
Weber materialized. Blade struck out to meet the needle. Deflect sideways. Needle missed Erin's neck by a hair's width. Metal scraped against metal.
Foot planted in front. Weber took on the needle in a circular motion. A sweep of his blade sent the monster flying backwards.
"Now!" he shouted.
Pistols all around barked in rapid succession. Everyone's rounds met with a part of the monster. Ice started to form on its skin. A shockwave round came from Clyde's rifle. Centre mass, hit, but it barely did anything.
"Freezing rounds!" Lily shouted, whispering something inaudibly until an ice blue sigil appeared on top of the monster's head. "Slow it down!"
The sigil formed ice all around the monster's body, focusing on its arm and leg joints.
Ollie's deagles boomed across the field. Standard rounds. Holes opened up on the charred flesh of the monster. Steam rose from the monster's flesh. As quickly as the rounds opened up the holes, writhing flesh covered them right back up. It was regenerating, gaining its strength back by the second.
"Target the heart! Nothing else matters!" Erin shouted.
When it rolled to its feet, steam poured out of its body, covering the vicinity. Another shockwave round aimed directly at its heart. Bullet hit its ribs, sparking and ricocheting.
Its red sockets glowed from behind the steam. Its gaze landed on Clyde. It pulsed once. Charge. The needle aimed for his heart. A killing blow if it connected.
Gale pounced from below, meeting its needle just a couple of steps away from Clyde’s heart. Weber deflected the needle. With a twist of his hilt, he drove the edge toward the glowing red heart inside its chest cavity.
The monster twisted to meet his twist. Impossibly fast.
Even as Gale's perception buffed up to insane levels by Breath of the Void, it couldn't take away the motion blur. Weber missed the heart by centimetres, passing through its ribcage and lungs. Boiling blood sprayed out of its wound, droplets hitting his face.
The monster's foot connected with Gale's chest. The impact sent him flying to a wall of pipes. Air forced out of his lungs. Pain shot through his spine as something dug into his flank.
Through the haze of his dazed pain, he saw the monster turn its attention to Erin. She stood her ground. 12 ice bolts formed in the air around her. They whistled through the air, skewering the monster on its foot, hand, thigh, biceps, chest, and neck onto the metal floor.
The bolts melted too fast. Pushing off the ground, the monster moved fast but was clearly affected by the damage. More steam poured out of it, signalling the increasing regeneration.
It charged.
Erin tried to evade. She couldn't.
Gale pushed off from the dented pipes, crossing the distance in a heartbeat. Phase Touch activated. Crouching low on the ground, Weber struck upwards. Needle met blade, and Weber directed the needle's flow in a circular spin, diminishing its momentum.
Tch. Phase Touch couldn't break through the hardness of the needle.
Once the circle was complete, the edge met against the monster's chest. Metal clanged against metal. It was enough. The monster skidded backwards.
Rachel met its trajectory. Hands engulfed in flames. As the monster came to a stop, she met it with her fiery fist. Fire spewed out from the back of where she had hit. The impact struck the metal ribcage, sending it sprawling backwards.
It wasn't finished.
The monster drove its needles into the floor, using them as pivots to reorient itself mid air. One kick at the floor launched it into a counter strike directly at Rachel's head.
She raised her gauntlets to block. Needle connected with the hardest part of her gauntlet. It punched straight through. Blood sprayed from the other side as the needle pierced through her hand, making Rachel jump backwards with a scream of pain.
"Rachel!" Lily rushed to her side, pulling her away from the monster's reach.
Gale dashed in low, Weber held at his side. He sliced upward, aiming for the monster's exposed chest and cracked ribs. Alter activated. Edge extended, aimed for the heart, but it grazed the heart by just a millimetre.
The monster tapped the flat of the blade downwards with its needle, then sprang forward. Its knee caught Gale directly in the stomach, driving the air from his lungs and sending him crashing into the metal wall once again.
Looking up above, Gale already saw it coming. A single needle aimed at his heart as the monster charged at him.
Before he could do anything, a shadow blocked his line of sight. Erin Weber stood in front of him.
The needle punched through her ribcage. Blood sprayed out from the other side across the metal floor as the point emerged from her back, deep red against the pale blue of her robes. Her hand closed around the needle shaft, gripping it like she was holding onto a rail.
Ice spread from where the monster's feet touched the ground. A crystalline structure formed on the ground and crawled up to the monster's waist. It struggled, yanked backwards, trying to free its weapon and legs, but the ice held its limbs in place.
Erin looked back at Gale. No pain crossed her face, just the same apathetic coldness she had shown since waking up.
Child of Cev, slay the corruption. Erin's voice rang in his head. Not a voice, but as if she spoke from within him.
Gale clenched Weber's hilt. Metal flowed, extending into the length of a spear. Focused Phase Touch activated on its point. He drove it forward behind her, sliding through the cracked part of the rib to pierce the glowing red heart at its centre.
A wail tore through the clearing. The sound defied anything he’d heard before. It was the sound of every dying animal on Earth screaming at once, filtered through the grating noise of metal screeching against each other.
The monster's body convulsed around the spear. Its free needle arm flailed wildly, striking sparks off the metal floor. The red glow in its chest flickered, dimmed, then went dark. It slumped down from its iced coffin.
The needle slid free from Erin's chest. Flesh writhed in the hole in her chest as water formed a membrane around the damaged parts. She swayed but remained upright. In a snap of a finger, the blood soaked pale blue fabric reverted back to its pristine condition.
[Corrupted Abel felled.]
[Extracting Origin from prey…]
[Type: Named Entity]
[Description: The son of the Proctor born from the first sacred womb. He was the favourite out of all three of his siblings. When he had refused the Proctor's call to enter the flesh forge, Abel was forced to kill the womb that had borne him. He had vowed to one day kill his father himself.]
[Origin Grain: 75]
[Reward: 2000 points]