Beyond the Deep Sea (3)
The thing that had been chasing No. 26 and me raised its head.
The Pale Mask is the most powerful deep-sea predator after the Sea Demon, and its notoriety rests as much on its revolting appearance as on its overwhelming strength.
Its overall shape resembled a sperm whale's body with the flat fins and multiple long tails of a stingray grafted onto it. Though its form mixed the features of several different sea creatures, the most striking part by far was the faces covering its body.
True to its name, the Pale Mask bore pale, bloodless human faces across its flesh. Against the black of its outer hide, those bone-white faces looked like barnacles clinging to the body of a whale.
*Barnacles. Not a bad comparison, actually.*
Those faces were a kind of parasitic organism that the Pale Mask's body produced naturally.
Those faces might as well be the creature's defining symbol.
I'd called them barnacles, but these parasites did their host no harm at all. Quite the opposite — they devoted their many abilities to protecting it. In a sense, the relationship resembled the symbiosis between my tooth fairies and me.
*Though those faces are far more powerful than the tooth fairies.*
｢Kiiii,｣ ｢Kiiii,｣ ｢Kiiii.｣
The waterlogged faces let out strange wails at their host's command. So this was what a water ghost's laughter sounded like. The noise crawled up my spine as much as the creature's appearance did.
I tuned out the cries and calmly studied the beast. Pale Masks showed considerable variance in combat capability depending on sex and growth stage, so I had to learn as much as I could before the fight began.
Mother of the Sky seemed to have reached the same conclusion.
｢Judging by its size, it's already a full adult.｣
At some point she had returned not as a gryphon but in her half-beast form. I gave a nod instead of an answer.
I'd fought Pale Masks plenty of times in the game, too. I couldn't measure exact stats from the part of its body above the water, but I could roughly estimate its scale.
*Close to fifty meters, I'd say.*
An adult Pale Mask ran forty to fifty meters in body length. This one belonged to the larger end even among ordinary adults.
It had one more defining feature as well.
A Pale Mask's sex could be identified by the faces on its body. Strangely, a male bore the faces of human women, while a female bore the faces of men.
Every face attached to this creature's body was that of a pale woman.
[Zzz... zzzzzz. (It's a male.)]
｢...Tch. This just got annoying.｣
Mother of the Sky clicked her tongue.
She was right.
A male Pale Mask's body was only about two-thirds the size of a female's, but the male was far more dangerous. The reason lay in a troublesome trait only the males possessed.
*The Hypnotic Wave trait. What a headache.*
A male Pale Mask's Hypnotic Wave continuously radiated a wavelength that scrambled the minds of other living things. It was similar to the Red Mist's hallucinogenic trait from jungle-type planets, but rather than conjuring illusions in its enemies, it specialized in inflicting a kind of debuff.
Caught in its Hypnotic Wave, for instance, you could no longer use any trait or skill that required concentration. In my case, that would seal my psychic power traits, my nest-related traits, and my Nest Link ability.
It was also why Mother of the Sky's transformation had been forcibly dispelled, returning her to her base Wolf form.
Maintaining Deification required sustained focus, and within the range of the Hypnotic Wave, it could be canceled without warning. Rather than risk being thrown into a crisis mid-fight by a dispelled transformation, she had evidently decided to battle in her human-like form instead.
We weren't the only ones who sensed something wrong with the creature — No. 26 fired a thought-wave at me.
｢Big Baby, I get a bad feeling from that one.｣
Judging purely by the effect of the Pale Mask's Hypnotic Wave, a Sea Demon should be at an overwhelming disadvantage — but Sea Demons are immune to disruption attacks of this kind, whether by wavelength or pheromone.
If we weren't, the creature would have been thrown into confusion every time I used my Mimic Organ.
Still, the unfamiliar sensation seemed to unsettle No. 26, and faint light flickered across her body.
｢Me,｣ ｢feeling,｣ ｢bad,｣ ｢unpleasant,｣ ｢unpleasant.｣
Adhai, too, shook her head back and forth, trying to shake off the strange feeling.
Unfortunately, the Green Gallagon lacked the Sea Demon's immunity. In this fight, the strategy of supporting our allies with Purple Lightning would be hard to pull off.
｢Kiiii,｣ ｢Kiiii.｣
While I was analyzing the creature, the Pale Mask seemed to finish observing us.
It must have judged us worth fighting, because it opened the attack first. The eyes of every face on its body swiveled toward the beach where we stood.
Then powerful shockwaves erupted from the mouths set into those faces.
The shockwave was the Pale Mask's basic attack, but with hundreds of faces firing at once, its power was anything but trivial.
[Zzz zzz. (Everyone, watch out.)]
I was the most heavily armored of the group, so I shot forward and took the shockwave head-on. My outer hide shuddered so violently it felt as though the scales would tear right off my flesh.
It hurt, but there was no better choice. On land, No. 26 wasn't fast enough to dodge the shockwaves.
*Besides, I need to know exactly how hard that thing hits.*
Taking it directly, I found it bearable. Even Pain Mitigation hadn't triggered.
*At this level, I can tank it without worry.*
While I absorbed the shockwaves with my body, the agile Adhai and Mother of the Sky scrambled out of the blast radius.
｢Kiiii,｣ ｢Kiiii.｣
The Pale Mask howled, having accomplished nothing with its barrage. It ceased firing, swung its head around, and slid back into the sea.
At a glance, the movement looked like a retreat. It was not. A far more powerful attack was about to come crashing onto the beach.
[Zzz. (Fall back.)]
｢Okay.｣
I sent No. 26 into retreat and lunged forward myself.
*Now it begins.*
I was kicking up sand and crawling toward the Pale Mask when it surfaced again. The creature thrust its head high above the waterline, a whale breaching.
Like a sperm whale ramming with its forehead, the thing could use that enormous head as a hammer.
Its head — several dozen tons of it at least — came plummeting down toward mine.
Instead of retreating, I tensed my tail and flung my body against the sand. With my head carapace and body aligned in a straight line, I shot toward the Pale Mask's skull like a shell fired from a cannon.
*Meet force with force.*
My thick head carapace slammed into its skull. The colossal shockwave from the collision swept the sand from the beach in a rolling curtain.
The Pale Mask's head alone was nearly ten meters across. Mine, carapace and all, was less than three.
On paper, the outcome of that clash was obvious.
But the one shrieking in excruciating pain was not me.
｢Kiiiek!｣ ｢Kiiiek!｣
The faces that shared their senses with the host let out a chorus of screams. Blue blood and spermaceti oil streamed from the creature's thick skull, punctured by my horns.
To the Pale Mask, my horns were probably no bigger than needles — but that changed when they came backed by a devastating impact.
Writhing at the unfamiliar, searing agony of the two gashes torn into its head, the creature thrashed. I locked my combat arms tight around its skull to keep my embedded horns from slipping free.
｢Kiiii,｣ ｢Kiiii.｣
Judging the situation hopeless, the Pale Mask lashed out at me with the stingray-tail-like limbs bristling across its body.
Just as a stingray's tail carries venom, those limbs were armed with a poison potent enough to be called a deadly toxin — none of which worked on me.
It seemed the creature had decided that knocking me away came before stinging me. Its limb, thicker than my own body, came swinging down.
'Ckh!'
So this was what it felt like to be hit by a truck? My body, slammed by the creature's limb, was launched into the air and sent flying far away.
｢Kiiii.｣
The creature watched me hang in the air and gaped its mouth wide open.
A Pale Mask can compress the digestive fluid stored in its body and fire it as a breath weapon of tremendous destructive power — strong enough to melt through even the hide of a young adult Amorph.
In that instant, dozens of translucent energy bolts came streaking in from the other side and hammered into the Pale Mask.
｢Kiiii?!｣
｢Don't bully Big Baby! You bad person!｣
No. 26's furious thought-waves blazed. Having landed safely, I turned toward the direction of the attack.
She had hidden herself behind a rock on the beach and was firing energy bolts with her tentacles.
*She's grown again since last time.*
That technique was Demon Crash, a signature ability unique to the Sea Demon. It was the second Sea Demon skill No. 26 had mastered, after Fear of the Deep.
*The power falls short of the Sea Demons I used to know...*
The original version of Demon Crash dealt tremendous damage while inflicting a random assortment of short-lived debuffs. No. 26 was still young, and for whatever reason, she couldn't match that level of output yet.
*Still, the message came across loud and clear.*
｢Kiiii!｣ ｢Kiiii!｣ ｢Kiiii!｣
When an energy bolt struck one of its eyes, the creature shuddered violently. Furious now, it switched its target from me to No. 26.
The enormous head swung away from me toward the other enemy — and just then, a new combatant entered the fray.
The head of an eagle on the body of a lion beastman: Mother of the Sky. In her half-beast form, she kicked off the beach sand and leapt up onto the Pale Mask's back.
A golden short spear gleamed in her hand.
*The High Priest's Golden Spear? So Adhai handed it over.*
Before we descended into the deep sea, I'd passed my backpack of spoils to Adhai. Mother of the Sky had clearly asked Adhai for equipment to deal with the Pale Mask.
*Clever.*
Unable to properly use Deification, her only means of dealing meaningful damage to the creature's thick hide was that shining spear.
The Pale Mask shook its body in irritation, but Mother of the Sky's stance never wavered in the slightest.
｢Hah!｣
With a short battle cry, she carved a great swath through the creature's hide.
Blue blood fountained from the wound, and the Pale Mask buckled in agony. Its limbs flew at her, intending to shred her to ribbons.
｢Me,｣ ｢you,｣ ｢support.｣
Adhai plunged down from high above like a raptor stooping on prey. At the same moment, Mother of the Sky — who had folded the Golden Spear down into its compact form — launched her body toward where Adhai was descending.
In a beautifully timed catch, Adhai snatched Mother of the Sky up with all four limbs and soared skyward. The Pale Mask's limbs missed them by the breadth of a single sheet of paper.
｢Hop on for a minute.｣
｢This,｣ ｢letting it slide,｣ ｢next time,｣ ｢no.｣
As Adhai climbed, I saw Mother of the Sky land lightly on her back with an easy, fluid motion.
In gryphon form, Mother of the Sky was far larger than Adhai — but in her beastman form, as now, she was not.
The gryphon beastman riding a dragon of space drew her spear once more.
｢Kiiii!｣ ｢Kiiii!｣
Every time the dragon closed in on the sea monster, Mother of the Sky swept the spear in a great arc. Gold light flashed and faded, each flash leaving behind a deep, vicious gash.
With the Pale Mask's Hypnotic Wave barring Adhai from attacking directly, she had apparently chosen to support the others, just as she was doing now.
*Not bad.*
Without a word having been exchanged, she was, as ever, exceeding my expectations.
She made aggressive use of her flight speed, striking and darting away at just the right moments to line up clean openings for Mother of the Sky. Finding her a nuisance, the Pale Mask curled its wide-spread side fins upward, trying to crush her out of the sky.
*I can't allow that.*
I churned through the sand with my combat arms, racing along the beach. Closing the distance to the Pale Mask in an instant, I heaved my upper body high and brought it crashing down on the creature's skull.
｢Kiiiek?!｣
My body's length and weight weren't even half of the creature's — but that didn't make me something to dismiss. The Pale Mask staggered badly under my body press.
But my attack didn't end there.
Holding that same posture, I seized its head with my combat arms to pin the body in place, then wrapped my tail around the creature's skull.
Then I flexed the coiled tail and began to squeeze, the way a python constricts its prey to snap its bones.
As my compressing body ground against the creature's skull, it let out a hideous, spine-chilling grinding sound.
｢K-Kiiiek!｣
The creature shrieked at the agony of its skull creaking under the pressure. As it thrashed, the surrounding waves roiled up into a surging tide. The stilt houses along the beach were swallowed by the Pale Mask's waves and dragged beneath the sea.
｢Kiiii!｣ ｢Kiiii,｣ ｢Kiiii,｣
The parasitic faces covering its body unleashed a concentrated barrage at me, desperate to protect their host.
*Useless.*
｢Kiiiek!｣ ｢Kiiiek!｣
But shockwaves alone couldn't stop me. Far from loosening my grip, I tightened it further, and the creature's scream climbed into a falsetto.
｢K-Kiiii.｣
It seemed to realize its head would burst and kill it at this rate, because the creature chose another approach.
Abandoning its shockwave barrage, it kicked off the seabed with its fins and began driving forward at speed.
Its chosen method: slam me, still latched onto its head, directly into the ground.
A fifty-meter sea monster charging across the sandy beach at full speed — driven by nothing more than the single-minded intent to crush me, clinging to the tip of its skull, flat into the sand.
*I can't let it — ugh?!*
I was hardly going to sit there and take it, so I hurried to unwind my body — but the creature's limbs coiled around my combat arms and my head.
I tried to respond by tearing the Erosion Tentacles from my back, but this time the creature was a hair faster than I was.
Its skull struck the bare ground. A violent shock slammed through me as well, dangling from the tip of its head.
'Ckh!'
Cracks split my head carapace, and the scales covering my body tore away. Some of the claws studding me from end to end shattered, and one of my combat arms snapped.
Serious damage — though not as severe as it could have been.
*...That was No. 26.*
The flow of psychic power I could sense from a distance was unmistakably hers. Thanks to her Binding, the force behind the Pale Mask's slam weakened in the instant it drove me into the sand.
Without it, I wouldn't have walked away with this much.
｢Kiiii,｣ ｢Kiiii.｣
The creature raised its head high to finish me off. I was not about to eat the same attack twice, so I hastily unwound my body and put distance between us.
*It cost me more than I expected...*
But the exchange hadn't been all loss. Thanks to that grapple, I had dragged the creature out onto land.
Half of the creature's whale-and-stingray bulk now lay sprawled across the beach sand. As its very shape suggested, its body was built for the sea, not for fighting ashore.
｢Grrrrr.｣
I felt my broken arm knitting back together under the effect of my Regeneration trait as I raised myself up.
Now, round two.