Shadow (5)
"I'm special, special, SPECIAL... Die? Die..."
The grotesquely transformed Black chattered on without pause, even as her body twisted into something new.
I've never seen a Necrofector warp its host this badly before.
To summarize her appearance simply: she looked like a mutated corpse-monster straight out of a classic cosmic horror game set in the void of space.
The yak horns that had jutted from her temples were now bizarrely contorted, and where her hair had all fallen out, two newly-grown eyes had taken root. Her right arm, apparently fused with the summoned Pain Spear, had morphed into a long, spear-shaped limb. And along her left arm, half-formed mouths had sprouted in patches, each of them licking and smacking its tongue.
Thanks to the fusion of her body with the Black Shroud, she was essentially naked — but there was nothing beautiful about it. Only revulsion.
Even for me, someone who actually liked aliens and monsters, her appearance stirred no affection whatsoever.
"Shaaaaaaaah!"
Black — no, the Necrofector — kicked off the ground and lunged at me. She raised her left arm mid-leap, and whips burst from the mouths along its length, surging toward where I stood. The lashes twisted and struck as if they possessed a will of their own, hunting for my weak points from every angle.
I didn't dodge the whips. I dove straight into them.
I blocked the lash flying at my face with my head and deflected the one stabbing for my flank with the shield carapace on my wrist. A few I failed to stop went ravening for my back and legs.
But I wasn't worried.
｢The charcoal-person hurts Big Baby! Not forgiven!｣
The incoming whips froze in place as if nailed to the air — then vanished. It was thanks to No. 26's Binding power, far stronger now than before. The psychic whips raining down at random were neutralized, and in that opening I closed the distance to the Necrofector.
"Die! D-die, sssss, die! Kill!"
She snarled a stream of curses and swung her spear-fused arm at me. I couldn't take that hit head-on. My regeneration trait would be jammed — worse, the Necrofector would drain my life force.
By its very nature, a Necrofector is born when a soul offers its life to the Black Shroud. So the more life energy it steals and feeds to the Shroud, the closer it returns to its original form — the human it was before death. The enhancements remain, while the unstable, corrupting effects steadily diminish.
In other words, the longer a fight against a Necrofector drags on, the worse it gets for me.
I twisted my body hard to the side and slipped past the Pain Spear — and as if she'd anticipated the dodge, she reshaped the spear into a hook mid-swing.
Not a chance.
I had been reading her attacks all along. Just before the hook drove into my thigh, a blood-drinking tentacle shot from the tip of my combat arm and smashed into her flank.
"Eek! Die!"
The enemy was knocked flying by my blow — and her left arm flared with light.
Danger!
I ducked fast, raising the crown-like carapace that swept back from my skull. Thin black heat-rays fired from the mouths on the Necrofector's left arm and slammed into my head.
Ugh!
I staggered back a few steps, saw the heat-rays coming in a continuous volley, and flung myself aside. Five black beams streaked after me, hungering to shred me to pieces.
Thanks to Predation Transformation, there's no cap on her energy output.
Her destructive power had clearly dropped compared to when her mind was intact — but when she could fire that many shots at once, the reduced power hardly mattered. The beams demolished everything around us — houses, street trees, the road, cars — as they doggedly chased my tail-tip.
"Die! Die! D-die, khhk!"
The creature, shrieking in irritation as it sprayed heat-rays, abruptly fell silent. I glanced back to see a purple web binding the enemy fast. The one who'd cast it was No. 26.
When her tentacle twitched, blood geysered from the creature's body.
"Graaaaaagh!"
The Necrofector howled and flexed her arm, and No. 26's binding began to loosen, strand by strand. The instant she saw it, No. 26 switched to a different attack without hesitation — her long tentacle smashed down into the ground and burrowed beneath it.
"I'll kill you, kill you, I'll... khhk!"
The creature shifted its target to No. 26 and tried to fire its heat-rays from where it stood. But the intent never came to fruition — thick tentacles erupted from the earth, lunging for her arm. She hastily retracted her left arm and leapt backward. Even swinging her right arm in retreat was useless; the tentacles shrank away in an instant, and her strike cut nothing but empty air.
She's grown so much.
Sea Demons can freely modulate the size of their tentacles as they wield them. No. 26 had already shown impressive control before. Maybe that was why — even after her growth, she was deploying them in combat without the slightest strain.
While the two of them traded blows, I moved fast, closing in on the Necrofector. The moment she touched down, I inhaled deeply — and with the exhale, a long torrent of flame seared across her face.
"Kyaaaagh!"
A Necrofector takes only half damage from every type of attack — but that doesn't erase the pain. Wrapped in fire from head to toe, the creature clutched its head and thrashed.
Scorching agony hurts that badly, I hear.
Then all four of her eyes snapped toward me through the flames. Reflection activated, and the fire rebounded, spreading out between us. Exploiting the moment her focus was consumed by the blaze, I drove the bone-blade arms on my back toward her shoulder.
Or rather — I tried to.
The instant one of her four eyes fixed on my bone blades, another Reflection shimmered into being in midair and knocked my attack away. As the strike from my back-arms was deflected and my body wobbled off-balance, the Pain Spear came screaming at me, trailing black smoke and crimson fire.
The spear's target: my hand.
With my tail still lost and unrecovered, my remaining weapons were my three combat arms and the bone-blade arms on my back. She meant to disable the combat hand I used most often first.
But there was something she didn't know.
Just before the spear-tip skewered my palm, my hand glowed violet. The spear passed straight through it, like a blade slicing through heat haze.
"?!"
Her mind was gone, yet even she seemed genuinely taken aback — her eyes went wide. I straightened the claws on my intact hand and raked her from below, upward. Unfortunately, this attempt failed too. She leapt back and threw up Reflection, and my blow ricocheted off in some random direction.
Whips burst from her left arm, striking for my arm — but No. 26 blocked them. While the binding held the creature's arm fast, No. 26's tentacles struck for the back of its head all at once.
"You! You damn, b-bastard, d-dog, dog, mongrels!"
The Necrofector let out a furious howl and tried to fire heat-rays from her left arm. I whipped my head down hard, slamming my horn into that arm. With a sickening crunch, the enemy's arm bent at a grotesque angle.
With her heat-rays jammed, she kicked out at me instead. Whether it was due to the trait she'd carried in life, the Necrofector's raw strength was by no means weak. My abdomen caved in, and my body was flung backward. The Pain Spear came flying in right after, and I barely managed to raise my combat arms from my crumpled posture and block it.
That's the second attack I've allowed already.
The enemy's power had grown far stronger than before. That last strike had sheared my arm's shield carapace nearly in half.
"Wh... wh... what is... what even...?"
Her mind seemed to be returning — for an instant, a light flickered back in her eyes.
"I-I'm special, special, special-special-special-special..."
Perhaps she hadn't yet absorbed enough life force to suppress the instability — her eyes clouded over once more.
Melee won't be easy.
In close combat, there would inevitably be moments I couldn't dodge her attacks. And every such moment made her stronger, faster.
But leaving it all to No. 26 won't work either.
She has no means of landing a truly effective blow on the Necrofector. Snapping its neck with binding, like she did against humans, doesn't work here. If she were fully grown, maybe — right now, she simply lacks the power.
The sawtooth tentacles are a double-edged sword. She could wound the Necrofector with them, but if it grabbed hold of one instead, the damage to her would be severe. And unlike me, No. 26 has no hard outer shell — even a casual blow from the Necrofector could be fatal.
I'll have to change my approach.
At first I'd planned to disable the left arm, her most dangerous weapon — but from what I'd seen, that was easier said than done. Even mindless, she understood her own weaknesses with perfect clarity.
No more time to waste. I'll stake everything on this attack.
"Now die! Die!"
She charged at me, baring her teeth like a rabid dog. The spear she swung flared into its hook shape, meaning to pin me to the ground. She was faster than before — I escaped her strike by a hair's breadth. Kicking the hook buried in the earth to break her stance, I used the opening to glance at No. 26.
Sensing my gaze, she gave off a brief pulse of light. Whatever the plan was, she'd follow it.
Good.
I rolled my feet and sprang backward. The creature reshaped the hook in the ground to snatch at my ankle; when the attack came to nothing, it clicked its tongue. That click told me its reason was definitely returning.
But I wasn't impatient.
The creature raised its left arm to fire heat-rays at me at range — and at that moment, the ground behind it split open, and tentacles burst forth. No. 26's tentacle coiled around the Necrofector's left arm.
The creature moved to repel it with Reflection — but in that same instant, shards of rebar strewn beneath the shattered road flew up and buried themselves in its eyes.
"Kyaaaaaagh!"
They had been meant to pierce through, no doubt, but its resistance stopped them short of gouging the eyes out.
"Shaaaaaaaah!"
Struck in its most vital point, the creature loosed a sound that could have been a scream or a bestial roar, seized the tentacle with its right arm, and ripped it away. No. 26's body shuddered at the agony of raw flesh being torn — so hard that even I, held in her tentacle, could feel it.
｢It's okay! Doesn't hurt at all!｣
With that cry, she tensed the tentacle and hurled me high into the sky. The direction she threw me: straight down, above the creature's head. As I flew toward my target, I twisted my neck to aim at the crown of its skull — and unleashed the Psychic Breath I'd been holding in reserve.
"What—?!"
Judging this dangerous, the creature tried to lunge backward —
｢Not going anywhere!｣
No. 26's binding, poured out at full power, jammed its movement. It lasted only a fraction of a second — more than enough time for the Psychic Breath to reach it. The creature stared at No. 26 in disbelief, but it was already too late. The dragon's fire coiled around the Necrofector's body and consumed it utterly.
The enemy is faster than projected!
Code Red, still firing anti-air rounds at the target overhead, found cold sweat running down her face without her realizing it. The plasma-condensed tungsten rounds fired from her coilgun were certainly large compared to ordinary bullets — but in this darkness, they were far from easy to spot. She herself could detect and steer the rounds thanks to her Psychic Control Web, but the enemy had no such luxury. The space city's night was artificial, and therefore relatively bright — yet dodging every single shot the way that Green Galagon did was anything but easy.
Code Red had fought a Galagon before, alongside the other Shadows. But nothing had ever been as quick, as terrifying, as the green devil she faced now.
Urgent support required!
She had already tried invoking Spiritual Attunement several times to forcibly summon Black. Every attempt had failed. No response whatsoever came from Black. That pointed to only one conclusion: Black had entered Necrofector mode.
"Tch."
A red glow lit up on the coilgun — a low-ammunition warning scrolled across the readout. The creature had closed to a distance where even an ordinary civilian without abilities could see it with the naked eye. The mounting disadvantage stirred the emotions that slept buried inside her. The fear of defeat.
Emergency withdrawal!
She flung away the useless coilgun and focused her mind — severing her Spiritual Attunement to Black in order to summon her comrade, Code Blue. It was an action that should never have been taken under any circumstances, but the terror of death, a sensation she hadn't tasted in so long, had stripped her of her composure.
A green meteor streaked toward the glowing purple halo above her head, fast.
Still have margin.
She had calculated the Green Galagon's speed while fighting it just moments ago. At that velocity, it could not reach her before Code Blue was summoned. That was what she believed — but she had overlooked one thing. The Green Galagon had not yet been flying at full power.
"?!"
The creature's wings blazed green, and its speed surged far beyond anything before. A shockwave erupted behind its rapidly accelerating body. A thunderous boom split the air, and every window on the Monument's outer wall shuddered. The creature that had closed the distance in an instant folded its wings sharply back against its body. With its surface area drastically reduced mid-acceleration, its speed became that of a true comet. The windows of the fiftieth floor — home to the observation deck — shattered all at once under the shockwave, and the chairs inside went spinning in every direction.
Misjudgment.
Code Red closed her eyes as she stared into the violet pupils that had arrived at her face before she knew it. The Green Galagon tore her body to pieces — and then, without stopping, punched straight through not only the observation deck but the entire floor.
Perhaps a coincidence. The moment the Green Galagon spread its wings above the Monument, far away in the distance, another dragon's fire was blazing brilliantly into the night.