As the sounds crept closer, I reached for my pants.
Sothing big slamd into the shelter hard enough to make the whole thing fold over on itself, tangling us in the wreckage.
"Nope," I said, grabbing my spear instead. "Guess my dick’s fighting today too."
I crawled out from under the broken fra, dragging a strip of torn blanket off my shoulder as cold night air slapped every part of I would have preferred covered. "Damn, you’re... big?"
The girls forced their way out behind , all three naked, tired, and sohow still more ready for a fight than I was with a weapon in my hand. Reika’s tails puffed out. Celeste snatched her bow from the wreckage with a look on her face that promised violence. Valka ripped her chain free with a sharp tal clash that cut straight through the wet humming noise coming from the monsters.
Two massive blue-green slis sat on top of what used to be our shelter. Their bodies pulsed as they devoured leather, wood, rope, and the remains of our little fire. Every piece they swallowed lted into them with a soft hiss, disappearing like the shelter had never existed in the first place.
Then both slis turned toward us.
I tightened my grip around the spear. "They ate our shelter, bro. Who fucking does that?"
One of the slis rolled forward with a heavy, wet slap.
"Fuck these guys," I said, lowering my spear. "Let’s see what this does."
[ Valka’s Mana Chosen ]
[ Dark Affinity Added ]
[ Warning: Overuse may result in exhaustion ]
"More than I already am?" I muttered. "Valka, what is dark mana good for?"
"I use it for torture," she replied, no joke in her voice.
I looked at her, my face of disbelief at her answer was easily spotted.
She looked back at the slis before adding. "It is also very good at making things stop moving." She said, sohow making it sound like a bad thing.
"That would have been the less terrifying answer to start with." I joked, turning my attention back to the slis.
The dark mana crawled up my arm before I could ask anything else. It didn’t feel like Reika’s ice or Celeste’s fire. Those had weight, heat, direction. Valka’s mana felt like sothing cold had reached under my skin and grabbed the bones directly, turning the head of my spear black.
The closest sli launched itself at us with clumsy aggression.
Celeste fired first, her arrow punching into the thing with a burst of red fla. The sli barely cared. The fire sank into its body, flickered once, and vanished beneath the surface.
"Oh, that’s not what we wanted now is it?" I yelled to Celeste. "Fire might now work, they appear to be made of liquid,"
Reika threw both hands forward. Ice ripped across the ground and climbed the sli’s body, locking half of it in place. The monster kept dragging itself forward anyway, tearing through the ice with its own weight.
Valka moved next. Her chain snapped out, wrapped around the frozen part of the sli, and tightened with a sound like stone cracking under pressure. Black mana spread from the links in jagged veins, crawling across the sli’s surface. The humming noise turned sharp and ugly.
"Now, Adrian," Valka said.
I didn’t think. Thinking would have made realize I was naked, freezing, exhausted, and about to stab a giant sli with magic I had just learned existed. So I ran in, balls to the walls.
The ground was slick under my feet. My first step nearly killed . My second got close enough for the sli to swing a thick chunk of itself at my head. I ducked under it, scread sothing that was probably not heroic, and drove the spear straight into the black veins Valka had made.
The dark mana bit down. That was the only way I could describe it. The spear didn’t pierce the sli so much as punish it for existing. The whole monster clenched inward around the point, its body shaking as the black veins spread faster. Then it burst, cold sli splattered across my chest, my face, and several places I did not want monster sli anywhere near.
"Gross," I said as I stood there dripping, breathing hard.
The second sli answered by throwing itself at Celeste. It didn’t roll or crawl like the first one. It bounced once, compressed its entire body, then shot forward like a wet cannonball. Celeste tried to move, but the ground under her feet was coated in sli from the first burst.
"Celeste!" I yelled trying to reach her in ti.
Reika moved first. Ice snapped across the dirt, catching Celeste by the ankle and dragging her sideways just enough for the sli to miss her chest. It still clipped her shoulder and sent her spinning into the broken shelter pieces.
"Reika is sorry!" Reika shouted.
"Apologize later!" Celeste snapped, grabbing her bow with one hand while trying to push herself up with the other.
The sli turned on her again.
Valka’s chain cracked across its side, but the links sank halfway in and stuck. Her eyes narrowed.
"It is absorbing impact."
"That’s a really shitty feature," I said, wiping sli out of my eyes.
The monster surged forward, dragging Valka’s chain with it. She planted her feet, muscles tightening, but even she slid a few inches through the mud.
A panel flashed in front of .
[ THREE-SIGNATURE SYNC AVAILABLE ]
[ REIKA | CELESTE | VALKA ]
[ WARNING: USER BODY MAY NOT HANDLE FULL OUTPUT ]
"No ti for the warning label," I muttered.
I grabbed the connection inside my chest and pulled.
[ Three Signature Sync Successful ]
[ Dark Affinity Compatibility: Low ]
[ Stamina: Critical ]
"Critical how?"
My knees answered before the system did. The last sli rolled toward us, bigger now after eating half the damn shelter.
I didn’t think. Thinking was for people wearing pants and making good choices.
I pulled Valka’s mana into the spear until my arm felt like it was full of rocks, then charged straight at the ugly blue-green bastard.
"Eat this, you holess jelly fuck!"
I slamd the spear down with everything I had.
The sli caved in, hardened for half a second, then burst outward in a massive wet wave. Sli splashed over the trees, the dirt, the girls, and every exposed part of .
[ Mana Depleted ]
"Oh," I said, wobbling. "That’s probably bad."
Then I was t with the hard ground below.
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