Chrysalis

Somonax’s face is twisted into a permanent grin, her needle-pointed teeth as long as a man’s arm flashing in the red light. From her back, the thousand wires spring, each connected to one of a thousand blades.

I’ve used almost all of my Altar energy to tie down Torrifex and Pyrixan for the moment, but I’m doubtful those two bombs will be strong enough to kill them, which means I need to make the most of this two-on-one time I have with this demon of endless slaughter.

[Alright, Al. If you’ve got anything left to give, you better give it now. I’m going to run in and see what I can get done.]

[I will try.]

I’m keen to give him a motivational talk, a bit of the ol’ ‘there is no try’ stuff, but I don’t have it in me right now. I knew running headlong into the tier eight demons was going to be tough, but right now, I feel like I’ve unleashed everything I have and they’re just taking it. Once my Altar runs dry, they’ll be able to squash me like a pancake at festival time.

Time to go for it!

Somonax grins… or… just maintains her normal expression, as I turn and rush directly at her, launching a barrage of compressed stone spears as I do.

Those blades make quick work of the projectiles, shards of stone go flying in all directions as each spear is detonated when cut. I knew she’d be able to defend herself, all I wanted to do was tie down at least some of her limbs as I made my approach.

Dash!

I lunge forward with all my speed the moment I pass within the range of her wires, and it’s a good thing I do. From a dozen different directions, hundreds of those gleaming red blades slash down and the best direction for me to dodge is forward.

Even so, I get a few slices on the rear-guard for my trouble.

commercial zone?! Doesn’t matter,

even moving her body at the moment, because she doesn’t have to. I can’t hurt her unless I get closer, and doing so plays right into

future-sight antennae are on fire as I receive tingling warnings of hundreds and hundreds of individual movements at once. Even with so many brain constructs to process the input,

The closer I get, the faster

the test. I didn’t harden my defences this much to shy away

Here we go!

to bite. Immediately, a rain of blades comes

Oof!

from Al, spearing toward the demon. Somonax tilts her head and gathers her blades, parrying at the last second, slicing through the

A chance!

VOID CHOMP!

and begin to

THUNK!

come down together, concentrating their force on a single point as they attempt to stab through my carapace. The force of the strike sends my legs splaying wide and the underside of my carapace slams into the ground,

her trouble, the demon has managed to sink her weapons almost thirty centimetres into my carapace, almost enough to get through, but nobody wins a

you grinning

but I don’t get the

about wildly until I realise where the enemy went. She’s above me! She

air, Somonax pulls her thousand blades together, forming them into a gigantic point that

that dodge was. Not only

I can