Chapter 40: Chapter 38 – Blood Lust

The first thing I felt was my head go blank and feeling drain from my face. I stumbled forward, blood gushing out from the severed stump where my arm should have been. I desperately gasped, sucking in breaths as the world became muted and fuzz plagued my vision. I felt Licht's voice but couldn't register his words. The next moment-

I seared the bleeding stump of our arm with fire magic and removed Iris from the driver's seat. She couldn't cope with something like this just yet, but I had that experience. I willed our body into movement just in time to leap away from the incoming tentacles, crashing to the floor. The pain wracked this girl's young body, but I grit through it and broke into a sprint after climbing to my feet.

Fighting wasn't an option anymore, we had to escape. Recuperate. Another tentacle came shooting past, grazing our neck and shedding even more blood. I quickly created a vibrating mana blade with my hand and swung up swiftly, slicing through the slimy and rubbery tentacle, but not severing it completely.

I saw the crustacean-like Deep One sluggishly inching closer to keep us in range of its tentacles. Whatever it's long, chitinous body is attached to on the ceiling, it is evidently not particularly fast. I suppose it's an ambush predator.

"Shnk!" I twisted my body just in time for ohe of its slimy spears to embed itself in the rock, dipping under it. My objective is the hole we came from, it would be difficult for it to catch us in there. And so, while dodging over rubble and escaping the immediate range of the monster's tentacles, I reached the antechamber we were in.

"...Where is it..." The small passage we had come through was no more. It had collapsed. And it occured to me, the pile bunker... The force and sound must have collapsed the passage we came in from. Shit. For the first time in a long while my blood ran cold and time slowed as my head spun for an answer to our problem.

"...Only one option left then." I thrust my one hand into Iris' bag and took out the prosthetic arm. Maybe, just maybe, this was more than a prosthetic. I attached it to the stump and channeled magic into it, when, after a tense moment... A hot, searing pain shot through our arm. It felt like something was infiltrating our body, and the flesh was being torn. "F-Fuck...! Even this is... A bit much for me..."

Then, a hum, as blue light coursed through the metal arm, and I could feel it. I could flex the arm and hand, move and turn it, just like our original arm. Iris' consciousness was still foggy, so I had to stand in for her this time. I turned halfway, and locked my eyes on the horror creeping ever closer, its tentacles sliding about the rubble probingly. Our mana... Was still nominal. I could feel it in our body.

The knowledge was directly transmitted to our brain, so now my earlier thoughts had changed. We had a chance. This arm was indeed more than just a prosthetic. I returned to the center path of the audience chamber, facing down the monster that had approached within the range of it's tentacles.

Perhaps it sensed my renewed fighting spirit, as it didn't attack straight away. We stared eachother down, and I made the first move, channeling a formation of mana darts and launching them at the many eyes of the creature. It shifted Its body up, successfully avoiding the darts, but I had already begun sprinting at it.

The creature thrust several of its tentacles down at me, which I skillfully dodged, grabbing one with our new arm, the claws digging in as i channeled magic to heat the palm to an extreme degree. The heat evaporated it's mucus and began cooking the tentacle, causing the tentacle to tremble and the creature to shriek with pain. 

The cooked flesh granted a proper handhold, which I exploited to beging pulling. The strength of this new arm was unmatched when paired with primal enhancement, resulting in the tentacle tearing and stretching, before being completely ripped apart. The monstrosity flailed while sending multiple spikes out at me.

I dodged once more and formed a mana blade with my right hand, slicing up and through the tentacles, which spurt out black blood. I immediately dissipated the blade and sprung towards the creature, which was backing away surprisingly nimbly. I suppose the vertebrae it hung from was packed with muscle to allow for rapid movement within a limited area. The number of tentacles left was... 6, one if which was already partly damaged.

As it began to retract higher towards the ceiling, I took aim with the grappling hook and shot- successfully hooking onto one of its chitinous ridges. I reeled in the grapple as the monster took this opportunity to sling more tentacles my way. Being unable to effectively dodge mid-air made my brain spin up into overdrive once more.

I kicked forward to swing my mass, barely avoiding the first spike, then I batted away the next two tentacles, deflecting them with our new cybernetic arm. Then, as I felt the first one attempting to wrap around my body, I grabbed onto it and fried it like before, ripping it apart with sheer strength.

While it was still recoiling with pain, I seized the opportunity to climb back onto the back of the creature. At this point, my magical light could illuminate the remainder of the beast's body. The Chitinous vertebrae extended up into a wide, flat shell, with thick, sharp, insectoid legs sticking out the side and burying into the stone ceiling, which was pockmarked with countless narrow holes. So this it how it moved about... 

But enough observation. I willed my arm to open up, and revealed within was something reminiscent of a cannon barrel. I slowly gathered mana and pressed the barrel against the abomination's chitin, before blasting into it- The mana cannon erupted as a beam of condensed magic pierced straight through the creature, shredding and evaporating its insides with hyper accelerated mana particles. With one last shrill scream from the creature, it ceased movement and slowly fell from the ceiling.

I jumped off and sat on some nearby rubble, taking in a few deep breaths and deactivating primal enhancement. Iris has gone to sleep, trusting in me to finish the fight, but as I am not fond of controlling a female's body... I leaned back and heaved a sigh. Our body was absolutely wracked with pain once more, especially this new arm, which had reverted to its original shape... Our mana was nearly drained. Guess it's time to sleep... Handing over control to Iris once more. She'll wake up in her body again.