Black ink poured out of in a violent surge, spilling across the ground and rising into the air like sothing alive. It moved with intent, tendrils snapping outward and wrapping around limbs, torsos, trunks, and tusks of the behemoths and began feeding.
Their mana and vitality siphoning by the tightening tendrils, the ink pulsing as it absorbed what it touched.
The behemoths roared and thrashed causing earth tremors, their trunks whipping and tusks carving deep trenches into the earth as they tried to tear free.
But the more they struggled, the more the ink fed.
It grew thicker, denser, darker, strengthened by the very energy they used in resistance. The runes on their tusks flared as they attempted to discharge another blast, but the mana required for it bled away before it could gather properly.
The first of them faltered.
Its massive fra shuddered, skin sagging unnaturally as vitality drained out at an accelerating pace. Flesh withered. Muscles collapsed. Within seconds, the towering beast was reduced to exposed bone, its skeletal structure still wrapped in writhing black tendrils.
And even then, the feeding didn't stop.
The ink burrowed into bone, consuming structure, breaking it down piece by piece until there was nothing left to hold shape. The skeleton fragnted, then disintegrated entirely, leaving only a faint scattering of dust that was quickly swallowed into the black mass.
One by one, the behemoths fell.
Each collapse was faster than the last, their imnse forms dissolving into nothingness as the ink devoured everything they were, leaving no corpse behind, no remains to mark where they had stood.
The matriarch stood there, watching the last of her herd dissolve into nothing, her massive body going unnaturally still. Visible shocked by what she was seeing.
In the span of seconds, her entire herd had vanished, erased by sothing she likely considered insignificant—a goblin.
And from the way her massive fra had gone unnaturally still, it was clear she was still trying to wrap her head around that reality.
I t her gaze without flinching.
There was sothing in her eyes now that hadn't been there before. It wasn't anger, or caution, or even disbelief.
It was agony. At the loss of her herd.
She exhaled slowly, a heavy, rumbling sound that carried more weight than her earlier roar, and when her eyes locked onto again, I grinned at the raw fury it held.
I had told her what I sought—power—and I had told her how I intended to obtain it, but pride, territory, and instinct had chained them in place which was understandable.
But consequences existed, and in this case, they couldn't have been more vivid.
The matriarch let out a sharp, piercing blast from her trunk, the sound slicing through the clearing like a blade. At the sa ti, her tusks flared, the etched runes igniting with violent brilliance before unleashing a torrent of focused beams in rapid succession.
This wasn't the scattered barrage from earlier.
This was concentrated.
Each beam tore through the air with terrifying velocity, fast enough to shred trees behind into splinters before the echoes of impact even settled.
But speed alone wasn't enough.
Before the first beam could reach , I triggered [Swap] and space inverted.
In the blink of an eye, I switched positions with her.
The beams struck true. Just not where she intended.
Her own attacks slamd into her armored hide at near point-blank range, detonating against her flank in a violent chain reaction. The runes along her tusks flickered wildly as the compressed force rebounded through her body, tearing open fresh wounds where her own power t her flesh.
The ground shook again, but this ti it was from her stagger.
I reappeared where she had stood monts earlier, watching the consequences of her own aggression unfold with cold focus.
I had already used [Swap] once.
She should have anticipated the possibility of using it again and adjusted accordingly. A creature of her level, especially one who carried herself like a sovereign, should have been capable of that kind of foresight.
But grief does strange things to even the most dominant beings.
The smoke thinned, revealing her still standing.
Barely.
Her enormous fra was now glowing with a faint crimson hue, the veins beneath her marble-like hide burning brighter as raw power poured out of her in unstable waves. The air around her warped, not violently, but with a steady distortion that made the clearing feel smaller than it actually was.
Then I felt it.
A pull.
Subtle at first, then undeniable.
It was as if she had beco a living magnet and I was nothing more than a shard of tal caught within her field. The force wasn't explosive or abrupt; it was constant, insistent, drawing toward her center with increasing strength.
I planted my feet and resisted, muscles tightening as I tried to anchor myself in place, but even then, my body slid across the torn earth inch by inch.
"What is this?" I muttered under my breath.
So sort of movent restriction skill?
Not quite.
I tested it imdiately warping a couple inches backward.
My abilities were still responsive, and my mana flowed without interference. There was no suppression, no binding effect locking down my power. It wasn't a cage.
It was attraction.
The matriarch lifted her trunk again and unleashed another compressed blast toward , the beam cutting through the air with lethal intent.
My first instinct was to step aside, to reposition.
But the mont I shifted my weight to move, the pull intensified.
Instead of stepping away from the incoming attack, my body was dragged toward it, as if the blast itself were aligned with the center of that gravitational force.
Oh.
That was… interesting.
The phenonon wasn't random. It was directional. The pull wasn't just toward her. It was toward the point of greatest pressure she was creating. If she attacked in a straight line, that line beca the strongest axis of attraction.
I almost laughed.
"Amusing," I said quietly, even as the beam closed the distance.
Because while the ability was clever, it relied on one key assumption.
That I would respond in a conventional way.
User Comments
0 comments from readers