SYSTEM ASCENSION

[New Notification: You have been detected]

The moonlight faded. One second there were thin white shafts of light cutting the dark. Next, something moved across the ceiling cracks above and covered them whole.

The shriek died, but the heat didn’t. In fact, it got hotter.

The clusters pulsed faster. It wasn’t reacting to them this time, but to the thing lurking in the dark.

Dust and rock grit rained from the ceiling. Kael grabbed the edge of the broken shelf, knuckles white. ”Elias—”

”Quiet,”

His eyes were locked on the black pool.

The surface bulged, a dome of water, rising thirty feet high. It held its shape for a second before it burst.

Water crashed back down, and it stood there.

Forty feet tall if it was an inch, hunched under the ceiling it had eaten the moonlight through. Its skin was wet stone and stretched leather, gray and cracked.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

Its torso was a patchwork. Faces. Arms. Legs. Whole upper bodies stitched into its hide with thick black cords. Some old, desiccated, and some fresh.

Kael’s breath hitched. ”It... stitches people to its body. Elias, that’s not a Null! That’s a death bag!”

”Kael. Back up. Get on the highest rock. Now.”

”Elias, you can’t—”

”Observer only.” Elias stepped to the edge of the shelf. Water boiled around his ankles. ”I’m facing it alone.”

The moment Null lunged, Elias slipped beneath its enormous arm and drove his fist into its side, the impact laced with raw energy forcing the creature several steps sideways through the water. Its feet crashed down hard enough to send waves rolling across the cavern, while the stitched bodies covering its torso jerked violently with every movement.

”Okay!” Kael shouted from the rock behind him. ”That actually worked!”

The system alert popped.

[Alert: Secondary Target Lock Detected]

[Null Attention: Split – 78% Primary / 22% Secondary]

”Secondary? Kael.” He almost sighed in irritation. ”Why are you shouting?”

”Because I’m encouraging you!”

”You’re drawing attention.”

The null roared and charged.

Elias stepped aside at the last possible moment as its enormous body crashed into the cavern wall. Rock exploded from the impact, filling the air with dust.

Elias didn’t waste the opening.

His right hand extended toward Null.

”Void Erase.”

A thin black line appeared across the creature’s forearm.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then a small section of its flesh simply vanished.

[Xp: 55/100]

Null recoiled.

Elias narrowed his eyes.

The ability still had the same limitation.

Void Erase could remove what he targeted, but the larger the object, the more difficult it became to erase completely. Null was far too large to simply disappear, and trying to erase its entire body would drain him before he could accomplish anything useful.

So Elias changed tactics.

He moved closer. His hand swept through the air.

A line sliced across Null’s arm, and it was gone.

Another cut across its shoulder. He used the ability like a blade, only that whatever part he cut is gone forever.

Small pieces vanished wherever his ability touched them, forcing the creature backward as Elias repeatedly carved away at it.

Null swung its arm and Elias ducked. The strike passed over his head and smashed into the cavern wall.

Elias stepped forward and placed his palm against the creature’s side.

”Void Erase.”

[Xp: 90/100]

Another section disappeared.

Null screamed and lunged at him, but he was gone.

Kael leaned over the edge of the rock.

”Is that sheath?!”

Elias didn’t answer.

”You’re actually cutting a forty-foot monster apart with your hand!”

”Kael.”

”Right, right. Quiet.”

He folded his lips and then spoke again.

”That’s still really impressive, though.”

Elias’s eye twitched.

Null suddenly turned toward Kael and charged at him.

”Holy shit! Okay, I’m going to assume that means move!”

He jumped down just as Null’s hand swept through the place where he had been standing. The broken shelf shattered.

Kael landed in the water, rolled, and scrambled several steps back.

”I hate missions!”

Elias appeared beside him. ”You volunteered.”

”Aak! Don’t scare me like that!”

Elias ignored him and raised his hand.

”Ability activate.”

The air around him shimmered, then weapons began appearing.

A long spear formed first, followed by several short blades, heavy axes, curved swords, and enormous metal spikes that hovered around.

Kael stared. ”You’re making all of those?”

”I’m buying them.”

”Sarcasm. Right.”

Elias stepped forward and the weapons shot past him, to the Nulls.

The spear struck first, followed by the blades and axes, each one embedding itself into Null’s massive body before vanishing into the darkness of its flesh.

Null staggered as it kept coming.

He created them faster than he could throw them, filling the cavern with flashes of metal as weapons tore through the space between them.

Null swung wildly, smashing several weapons from the air.

Elias created a massive hammer, caught it and swung. The hammer collided with Null’s chest.

BOOM!

The creature was driven backward.

Kael stared from behind a pillar.

”Okay, I take back everything I said.”

Elias glanced at him.

”About what?”

”You’re definitely not normal.”

Elias created another blade.

”I never claimed to be.”

The null suddenly ripped one of the weapons from its body and threw it.

Elias tilted his head. The blade passed beside him and embedded itself into the cave wall.

Kael pointed.

”That was almost your head!”

”I noticed.”

”You could at least react!”

”I did.”

”You moved your head two inches!”

”It’ll grow back anyway.”

”GROW BACK?! What are you, a PLANT?!”

[WARNING: NEUS ENTERING PHASE 2 – COMPRESSION]

”Huh?”

[THREAT LEVEL INCREASING]

Elias exhaled. Watched thirty feet of monster condense into twenty. Watched the Mawlurker limbs fuse, thicken, claws merging into blades.

”Of course,” he said to no one. ”Phase two. Just what I needed.”

”You’ve got this! Probably! I’m manifesting! Not interfering! Just manifesting!”

The screen blinked.

[Alert: Secondary Target Lock Detected]

[Null Attention: Split – 60% Primary / 40% Secondary]

”I’ll shut up! I’ll shut up. Geez!”

Elias didn’t even dignify that with a look.

Neus dropped from the ceiling, now standing around double Elias’s height, back hunched.

Elias planted his feet.

”Come on then, you stitched-up leech.”