Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2 (48 page)

Eric removed his cloak
and said, “Sorry, are you okay?” Zettai leaned up, smiled, and glomped him. “Owowowowowow!”
She jumped aside and bowed her head repeatedly by way of apology. Then her eyes
widened in fear and she pointed urgently behind Eric.

Bones gathered into one
place and connected, body tissue flew back into place over it, and skin
returned to cover it up. Before their eyes, Mr.15 reconstituted himself down to
the mask on his face. Despite seeing monstrous wolves regrow limbs, the sight
still made Eric's skin crawl. He waved Zettai away and she obeyed, picking up
her skirts and hiding behind a vat.

He wrapped himself in
his Shadow Cloak and whispered the words of his next spell. Mr.15 activated the
Genocide of Darkness once again and it scorched both the cloak and Eric
himself, but with heroic focus and his stolen divinity, he kept himself hidden.
Mr.15 kept the light running and spoke of his plans for Eric’s friends: he
would use Tiza for breeding stock, Nolien as raw materials, and Basilard as a
punching bag. Then he detailed the many invasive and demeaning experiments he
had planned for a certain elf girl once Nulso finally captured her. All the
while, the overhead crystal filled the room with light energy that burned
Eric’s mind and soul.

He did not rise to
Mr.15’s bait. He kept his breathing steady, his feet silent, and his mouth
working on the spells he needed to end this fight. When one was finished, he
sent it into position and began the next one.
Almost there…Just a little
more…

“I suppose you don’t
know what we have planned for your beloved queen, do you? Her reign is finished
and there will be a new king in town. I imagine it’s happening right now. When
it’s over, she’ll be lucky to eat out of Nulso’s hand.”

“MAGE RENDAN!”

Six Wind Hand spells
fired from their locations around Mr.15. Eric had spent the last couple minutes
generating and arranging them. The first one rushed from underneath Mr.15 and
punched him in the nuts. A second pocket of air formed into a fist and nailed
his chest. He was too stunned to dodge and it knocked the air clean out of his
lungs. Two more struck him from either side of his head and then a fifth under
his chin. A final one lifted him up and tossed him into a vat.

Liquid mana splashed as
he sank to the bottom. Immediately, it began to mutate him. His last sight before
it corrupted his brain was a clone of Haru.

“Nice combo,” Tasio
said. He was floating above Eric’s head. “It’s poetic.”

“I was trying to wash
away the necrocraft regeneration. Anyway, you were no help.”

“Oh woe is me! I am
eternally unappreciated!”

“Uh-huh.”

Zettai left her hiding
place and ran to Eric. She stopped at his feet, clasped her hands at her chest,
and looked up adoringly at him.

“I don’t remember you
being this popular on Threa…”

“Shut up, you useless
bystander.”

Zettai winced as
another spark lit up her left arm. Eric put his own around her and smiled
comfortingly. She pressed against him as he led her to the exit.

“Time for round two,” Tasio
said.

Eric stopped. “What do
you mean?”

“Don’t you know? The
final boss of a dungeon
always
has more than one form, and this is
especially likely when it’s guarding a princess or some other important lady.”

Inside the vat, Mr.15’s
body quadrupled in size with the force of a cannon. Liquid mana flew everywhere
as the vat exploded. Eric tightened his grip on Zettai and wind-jumped to avoid
the tide. Then he put an Air Disk between them and the exploding and/or moving
floor. Over one hundred cubic units of liquid mana repeatedly mutated it.
Zettai clung to him and he leveled his staff at the creature.

Although Mr.15's mind
was now in chaos, there was a strange uniformity about his body. Its legs were
strong enough to support its frame and long enough for deep strides. The arms
were just as thick and muscular with a chest great enough to support such a
system. It was covered all over with a blue pelt whose hairs twisted and
squirmed. Out of its back, sides and neck grew a dozen dripping tentacles and
each one terminated in a claw. It leered through stalk eyeballs hanging out of
its head.

The stalks swept the
room while the tentacles and arms rotated. A chaotic spark swept it from head
to toe and it threw out all its limbs, roaring with its three mouths. Zettai
squeezed Eric for security while he himself lost control of his bowels. The
stalks centered on them and the mouths drooled. Tasio played a brief tune on an
ocarina, then shouted, “BOSS FIGHT! The Crimson Killer – Kierdos!” 

All the many tentacles
reared back and shot forward, but only one reached Eric. The others went above,
below, backwards, left, right, and even into itself. Monsanity made it clumsy.
So many new limbs and a shift in sensory input would drive an intelligent creature
to confusion, let alone one only possessing base instincts. These instincts
told him fresh meat was directly ahead of him, so it lumbered in that direction.
 

Hopefully, the
liquid mana washed away the necrocraft.

Eric dipped his staff
into the liquid mana, absorbed a teaspoon’s worth, and fired it as a single
mana bolt. The recoil was greater than any spell he’d ever cast, knocking him
of his feet. It caught Kierdos in the chest and knocked him over, but four of
the tentacles balanced him. The other eight grasped for Eric and Zettai.

Eric jumped around to
avoid them and used the vats for cover. The tentacles smashed them, dumping
more liquid mana on the floor and mutating themselves in the process. Zettai
stumbled over the edge of the Air Disk and Eric steadied her. This gave the
tentacles an opportunity. Four of them grabbed his limbs and pulled him spread-eagle
while the other four pounded every surface of his body.

Zettai wasted no time
watching in horror. She scooped up some of the liquid mana, drank it, and let
loose a mana beam from her corpse-like arms. It severed the tendrils and freed
Eric. He dropped from the air black and blue while she sank with fatigue and
winced as another surge passed. He cast a second Air Disk for her to stand on and
she moved to it.

“Get out of here now!”

She looked at him with
sad eyes.

He projected his
barrier to keep the tentacles at bay, but it cracked by the fifth strike. He
grimaced, then released the mana in his crystal as a mana barrage and they
retreated to the main body.

“I'll be fine. I
promise.”

She bunched up her
skirts, removed her heels, and threw them at the monster. It paused and its
eyes tracked their path in the air all the way to the base of the stalks. It
wailed in pain.

“Nice shot.”

Zettai blushed and
shrugged.

“Now go.”

Suddenly hesitant, she
wavered back and forth until the monster screeched. She made up her mind,
leaned up, and pecked his cheek. Then she hiked up her skirts and ran toward
the exit.

The wail changed pitch
and, suddenly, every clone jumped out of its vat regardless of its state of
development. Most of them surrounded Eric, but others targeted Zettai. They
blocked the exit and moved behind her to cut off retreat. They raised their
weapons and prepared spells. Tasio floated above it all and munched popcorn.

Eric dashed his staff
across the floor, held it over his head, and released it as a mana barrage.
Countless bolts pelted the clone army; blowing holes in chests, knocking heads
off, dismembering. The least developed of the clones fell right away, followed
by their stronger counterparts, until only the best remained. It was a
slaughter. Faced with so many dead bodies, the Kierdos did what any monster
would do and ate them one at a time. Eric and Zettai were forgotten.

One look was all it
took for the clones to break ranks. As soon as they saw their monster of a
father eating them, every single one of them ran away. Like the monster, they
ignored Eric and Zettai in favor of the exit. Eric lifted both Air Disks so
they wouldn’t be trampled by the stampede of mutating humanoids. She waved him
forward, beseeching him to leave with her. Eric looked back to the monster.

“If it was anyone else,
I'd leave him be.” He walked forward. “He’s nothing but a mindless monster now
and thus no threat to anyone.”

As if to prove this
point, the beast stuck its head into a vat like a farm animal at a trough.

“However, I can't risk
him waking up from this. He’s too dangerous to Basilard, Kasile, Annala, this
forsaken country, and me.”

He gathered liquid mana
into his staff's crystal and compressed it.

“So I'm going to kill
it.”

Even directly in front
of the Kierdos, it did not notice him, so he stuck his staff into its upper
mouth as it ate. Then he released the compressed bolt and made its head
explode. With a flick of his arm, Eric flung the gore off his staff.

He made it five steps
before the beast stirred and stood up. He looked over his shoulder. Its head
had reconstituted into a new shape; a mixture between human, wolf, and zebra. It
snarled.

“I'm gonna need more
firepower.”

The monster roared and
knocked Eric off his feet with its fury. Then it pounced. Eric blocked with his
barrier, but the monster’s head sailed through it as if it weren't there. The
only reason its two sets of teeth didn't snap shut over his neck was its
confusion over the neck disappearing.

Eric pressed the
advantage his invisibility gave him by pushing his crystal into the monster’s
bulk. One quick breath later, he drained mana straight from the monster’s body.
He compressed it inside the crystal and then fired it. He blew off a large
chunk of the monster, but the rest of it attacked him. One of the arms punched
him in the stomach and then the tendrils raked his back.

He recloaked himself
and put some distance between himself and the beast. Before anything else, he
healed his injuries. The liquid mana provided plenty of fuel to keep him away
from Death’s door. Next, he drew in enough liquid mana to fill the crystal to
full capacity. Then he braced himself against a ruined vat. Finally, he took
aim and fired a solid beam of high-grade mana that fried Mr.15's entire body
and broke every vat behind it for several yards, drastically increasing the
level of liquid mana on the floor.

Eric shuddered and fell
to his knees. His Shadow Cloak unraveled as his spirit tired. His Air Disk
dimmed as his support for it diminished.

Did that do it? Is
it dead?

More vats cracked and
mutated. Some were starting to stir and move. Dead and partially eaten clones
stood up, mutated, and merged with the stone beneath them or each other. It was
a chaotic primordial soup. It was so disgusting it made Eric throw up, and even
his vomit mutated and started moving around on its own.

The Kierdos itself was
regenerating. All around Eric, monsters arose from the same high-grade mana
whose use exhausted him. He could regain his strength by drinking it instead,
but it might turn him into one of them.

“Tasio! He –” He broke
off. Tasio raised an eyebrow. “No, you’re not going to help me, are you?” Tasio
shrugged. “Fine!”

He breathed deeply,
felt the flush of mana re-energize him, and enacted his final plan.

First, he filled his
crystal to the absolute limit with liquid mana. While it charged, he ran
through the area to stay ahead of the clones, avoid the Kierdos, and dodge the
living vats. When it was full, he moved to something solid and took aim; not at
the head monster, but at a wall. Focusing all his willpower, he fired and broke
through all the way to the outside. Fog and moonlight streamed into the chamber
and illuminated the liquid mana on the floor.

He leaped for the new
exit as tendrils attacked from all sides. The monster reached to stab him from
four directions, but he deflected with his barrier; by projecting it at the
right moment, it worked to smack the claws away. Then he jumped through the
series of holes into the outside, with the Kierdos right behind him.

 Breathing in the pure
and undiluted Fog was the most exhilarating thing he'd ever experienced.
Immediately, he felt full of energy as if he were fresh from a long rest. It
was such heady stuff that he almost forgot about the monster chasing him.
Instead, he spun about and grabbed one of the tendrils racing towards him.
Grinning wildly, he pushed off the ground and yanked the monster forward and
off balance. He himself landed on a rock outcropping and laughed bellicosely at
the clumsy monster. Then it took its own breath of Fog and renewed power surged
in its limbs. Eric fell on all fours to avoid its slimy claws.

Gotta get away!

He jumped aside as the
claws lashed and tentacles struck. His Shadow Cloak was no longer any use. The
Kierdos was empowered to find him by blood. It took another deep breath and
charged. Faster than ever, the tentacles dug into his shoulders. Eric screamed
as they reached deep enough to grab his left shoulder blade and wedge in his
arm. Their grip was a vise.

Eric held his staff
high and the crystal sucked greedily. Two more tendrils grabbed his legs. The
crystal continued drinking. The remaining four dug into various parts of his
body with un-resistible strength. He bit back a scream and retained his focus,
even as he was reeled in. The monster licked its lips. The crystal crackled and
arced with energy. Eric took aim.

“THIS ENDS NOW!”

He launched a beam so
gargantuan it dwarfed the Kierdos and consumed it. The light was so bright Eric
had to close his eyes, but he still heard the Kierdos howl as the beam vaporized
it. When the crystal finally ran out of power, the monster’s body was gone.
There was nothing left but scant ashes. Eric dropped to his feet and his legs
shook, trembled, and finally collapsed.