Vogue was instantly sent flying like a baseball hit by a bat. His body spun through the air, completely out of control.
"Bang!"
His back collided heavily with the concrete garage wall with devastating force, creating a massive dent in the structure. Cracks spiderwebbed out from the impact point. His spine should have shattered, but his dragon physique kept him alive. With his pain nullification numbing the agony, he managed to begin recovering imdiately.
But at that mont, more than thirty tentacles surged through the air in a coordinated strike. They moved as one, like the fingers of a giant hand closing into a fist. They imdiately stabbed toward him, intending to pin him to the wall and finish what they’d started.
"BANG!"
A massive explosion rang out through the entire garage as the wall completely shattered under the combined impact. Chunks of concrete and rebar flew in all directions. Dust and debris filled the air, covering the spot of the explosion in a thick cloud that made it impossible to see.
After a few seconds, the dust began to settle slowly. Through the haze, one could see that the tentacles were trembling violently, shaking like they were trying to pull away from sothing but couldn’t.
At that mont, a being that was neither fully man nor beast could be seen gripping the thirty massive trunks of the evil tentacles with its two hands. The creature was holding them in place through sheer physical strength, muscles straining.
The being had a massive silver wing sprouting from its right side, the feathers gleaming even in the darkness. A curved horn grew from the right side of its head, pointing backward. Moreover, the being’s entire right side was covered in beautiful silver dragon scales that reflected light like polished tal.
The being’s right arm was entirely beast-like, transford into sothing between human and dragon. Instead of a hand, it had a dragon’s paw with razor-sharp claws that dug into the tentacles, preventing them from escaping.
The being embedded partially in the shattered wall grinned, showing teeth that were slightly too sharp to be human. It tightened its grip on the trunks of the tentacles, claws sinking deeper into the corrupted flesh.
That being was Vogue. He had transford into his half-dragon form!
His appearance was fearso, standing at over two ters tall with one side completely transford. His right eye glowed with golden light, while his left remained human. The contrast between his two halves made him look like sothing from a nightmare.
"My turn," he said, his voice deeper and slightly distorted by the transformation.
"Pain Nullification Effect: Overwhelming Agony!"
This was one of the hidden abilities of his Pain Nullification talent. While he couldn’t feel pain himself, he could transfer the sensation of pain to others, and not just normal pain. He could inflict the accumulated agony of all the damage his body had absorbed and negated over ti.
The effect was imdiate and devastating.
A thousand-mouthed shriek rang out in extre pain as Vogue transmitted the full force of his talent’s ability into the tentacles. The creature, whatever it was, suddenly experienced every injury Vogue had suffered since gaining his power. Every bullet wound, every broken bone, every burn, every cut, all of it compressed into a single mont of unbearable suffering.
The entire garage shook violently from the ear-piercing sound that echoed through the hotel and likely the entire block. Cars rocked on their suspensions. Cracks appeared in the remaining walls. Windows shattered throughout the building.
Vogue snorted and imdiately activated Ti Decay while maintaining his grip. The tentacles began to age rapidly, the flesh withering and drying out. The green color faded to brown, then to gray, then to black. Within five seconds, thousands of years of aging had passed.
The tentacles crumbled into ash and dust, disintegrating completely as if they’d been dead for centuries. The ashes fell to the ground in piles of gray powder.
Vogue stomped his foot against what remained of the wall, and it shattered completely. He launched himself forward, his silver wing flapping once to increase his speed by more than three tis. The boost of aerial mobility combined with his ground speed made him move faster than the eye could track.
He imdiately appeared before the source of the tentacles, ready to finish this fight. But what he saw made him pause for just a fraction of a second in pure confusion.
It was a child. A young child, no more than one year old based on appearance.
The child stood there on unsteady toddler legs, completely naked, with a cute frown on its small face. Tears welled up in its large, innocent eyes. It looked like any normal baby, chubby and helpless, the kind of thing that would make people want to protect it.
But Vogue’s enhanced senses told him the truth. This thing wasn’t human anymore, if it ever had been. The tentacles had erged from its back, and he could sense the wrongness radiating from its small form. It was a monster wearing the disguise of an infant.
Vogue didn’t hesitate for more than that single mont. Sympathy would get him killed. He imdiately slashed his blade in a horizontal arc aid to decapitate the creature’s small head in a single flash.
His machete whistled through the air, moving faster than sound.
"Whoosh!"
The blade cut through the air, creating a visible distortion in space from the sheer speed. But instead of hitting the baby, the blade actually slashed through empty air as the creature jumped upward with impossible agility. It landed steadily and directly on the flat edge of Vogue’s outstretched blade, balancing perfectly on the tal surface.
Vogue was slightly stunned as he watched the baby stand on the sharp edge of his machete, walking unsteadily on its two chubby legs as it moved closer toward his hand. Each wobbly step should have been impossible for sothing that appeared to be a one-year-old child, yet it moved with perfect balance.
"Gugugaga?" the baby said, tilting its head to the side with an expression of innocent curiosity. Its large eyes blinked at Vogue as drool dripped from its mouth.
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