Chương 213: 201. Baseball

My two spells met the creature's head, shredding everything above the collarbone, tearing the flesh into ribbons. If there was any pause in the enemy's movement, I didn't notice. I used the attack as a distraction to silently command Sally. Right when the magic cut the body, the hand holding the gun rose and fired a few shots with perfect accuracy. I dodged to the side, raising a Shield spell while simultaneously weaving the Wailing Armor as I moved.

The sound of the stingers tearing into the asphalt of the parking lot met my ears. The missing appendage didn't seem to bother the man as he tracked my movements with ease. Not thinking much, I used a stored Cutting Storm, firing it at his hand. The spell proved to be effective as he simply took the attack, letting it tear through his arm as well as the weapon.

By the time I finished casting, covering myself with the armor, his head was back on his shoulders, the flesh weaving itself back into the same smiling visage it had worn when ripped apart. How many times he could do that, and what was causing the healing, were the questions I needed answered. I could feel magic flow from the growths on his body. But whether attacking them was any good was another matter.

"You're looking at my children?" he asked, lightly slurring the words, using his remaining hand to touch the growths on his body.

"Hard not to," I replied, preparing Deep Rot to probe one of the sacs.

"They're pretty disgusting. Who's the mother?"

"Oh, you're about to meet her," he replied after a slight pause. This time, the attack came in purely magical form, but, to my surprise, it originated from one of the tumors. It was Mind Spike, the same spell I used. The magic was hard to defend against, so I simply brought up my mental defenses, taking the sharp pain head-on, and fired Deep Rot into the lower rightmost sac.

For the first time, he defended as a Shielding spell appeared, but I was not done weaving, and the moment his spell blocked mine, I followed up with a Mind Spike of my own, once again targeting the same sac. The shield he used was for magical and physical attacks. Mind magic wasn't part of it, but before the spell connected, he made a small movement, twisting his torso at the last moment, letting the spell hit the sac beside it. I could feel it slam into iron-like mental defenses before dissipating.

But the slight wince of pain didn't escape my eyes.

"You seem like an overprotective parent," I said as both of us prepared our next moves.

"You should let your children experience magic. They won't learn otherwise." This time, there was no conversation as he cast. Mana flowed from another sac, and this time a gaseous, greenish, undulating projectile tore at me. Using Force, I flung myself to the side, firing a few simple Pierce spells to force him to defend and move.

Sadly, it looked like the sacs didn't get in each other's way when casting, as the shields were quickly brought up at the same time as more projectiles materialized, this time alongside mind attacks. I once again flung myself out of the way, looking to the side to make sure I was in the correct spot as I swatted away a tendril of foreign consciousness trying to invade my head. I let tattoos show on my hands before swiping my forearm in the gore left on the ground where his head had been shredded the first time.

Now to buy myself time for casting. That proved easy as, before he could launch another strange attack, Sally exploded from atop the van, jumping high into the air and ramming headfirst into the man from the side. An armor spell shone on his flesh as he was launched back. I gave Sally a quick command to keep him away with her tentacles and began weaving my curse. Sally closed the distance before the enemy picked himself up and prepared for another charge.

The doctor, or rather the growths, was quick as another projectile materialized, but Sally was even faster. Keeping her body low, she jumped away from the attacks as the greenish arrows exploded into the ground in small puffs of gas. I felt a mind attack through our shared connection, but her mind simply led to mine, and, knowing what I would be dealing with, I swatted the attack away, not letting it disturb my casting.

Sally raised the tentacles into the sky and then shot them forward at the doctor's chest like black whips. The tendrils of my familiar's flesh traveled through the air with a low whistle and connected to the target. The first two lit up the armor the doctor was using, while the third one shattered it, landing firmly across the man's stomach, aiming at the lower row of sacs.

The man managed to lower his hands in a desperate attempt, saving the growths from bursting but sacrificing both his arms in the process, one of which had just barely regrown a second ago. Sally began whipping her tentacles in a maddened dance, jumping around like a massive, violent pinball, constantly changing the angle of attack, keeping the doc on edge and distracted as I extended myself and dropped the spell right into his mind. I was curious about it. How would he react? Was he still part of the hive?

The curse began working as I felt it anchor itself and sink into his eyes. A simple Illusion —the hive, or whatever his mind remembered as important, would show itself, ready to re-embrace him once again. It would not be much, as the second-circle spell did not allow for anything but a still image, but it should be enough. Sally jumped back as I prepared another Pierce, ready to begin bursting the sacs one by one, eager to keep the man alive for questioning.

Then the man stiffened, his eyes losing focus as he looked at something over our heads. That was the second I was waiting for. I aimed dual-cast Pierce spells, as well as one stored in the staff, into his lower abdomen and fired at the evenly spaced tumors. But something living on his body sensed the danger, and before the spells could meet their target, one of the sacs in the upper row burst. From it, thin, see-through arms extended as if someone had grafted an overturned spider into his flesh.

One of the appendages, in the same motion that burst the sack, cut off the doctor's own head, while the remaining ones bit into the concrete, trying to move him out of the way of my magic. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The movement managed to save two of the three sacs, as one got grazed while the third one burst completely, revealing a white, pulsating tumor, now with a massive hole courtesy of my attack. But my mind was not on that.

It was on my curse. My spell was gone, not only the part in the flesh but also the anchor in the mind, or at least most of it. The head began to grow anew, but I realized this wasn't actually a healing process. Each time a part of him died, something new took its place, with part of another mind replacing his. I stopped Sally from attacking and observed, sensing the flow of mana as the creature healed. The lower sacs were taking care of his body.

They stitched it back together and were most likely responsible for the reflexes, strength, and other strange bodily powers the man possessed. The remaining upper-right sac provided magical power, while the rest of the hastily grafted ones were purely offensive. So the plan was to get rid of the upper ones first, then the lower, and see what was left to interrogate.

"How about we stop?" I began speaking, seeing he didn't attack.

"You give up, and we can talk it out. You tell me all about your queen, have a nice night out—you, me, my abomination, and your tumors. How about it?" His reactions were strange. The angry expression came with a delay, as the eyes remained animalistic and slightly empty. He seemed to have lost a good part of his intellect. The new mind was not very talkative, as I could sense another attack coming. I decided it was time to stop experimenting and go for the big guns.

Looking back to make sure Josh wasn't looking, I tugged on my contract with the ancient god. After sending an image of the maneuver to Sally, I got into position. Once again, the creature attacked, but Sally drew its attention, going in for the melee as the upper sacs shot magic at me, trying to keep me occupied. I used Dome of Protection to finish the spell, and the moment the gaseous projectiles broke it, I invoked the ancient name, first of the goat, then of one of her children.

Utterance to the Anger of the Young. A horrid chorus of goat screams rang out as the many-hooved legs impacted the enemy's very soul. Receiving a blunt attack like that was a shock even to the strange creature. But that was only a part of it. I was the pitcher, and Sally was the batter as she used her tentacles, swiping in a wide arc at the chest of the enemy, propelled right at her.

The combined force of my spell meeting Sally's tentacles allowed for even the blunt tendrils to tear through the flesh and any armor before the creature could put up any defenses. The fleshy tendrils managed to turn the sacs into paste, except for the one with the spider legs, which was set deeper and higher in the flesh. I winced at a psychic scream the attachments gave off before going silent. Yet not all went according to plan.

Apparently, one of the sacs was a suicide weapon of sorts, as it burst into a cloud of dark green gas, enveloping both me and Sally. Force. I immediately used the spell to fling myself in any direction out of the gas, not breathing any in. But it turned out not to be simple poison. It was a disease. The moment the cloud touched my skin, it tried to invade. The sensation was strange. I could actually feel something alive, a plague spell, trying to worm into my body. And I didn't know how to defend against it.

It was purely physical. Instead, I just stirred the mana in my body as I felt my healing factor awaken and actually fight the invading force. In the same second, I recalled Sally, who also launched herself out of the cloud. I cursed, worried about her state, but soon realized she was fine. Apparently, the magic could not invade a body put together with eldritch powers. After a short struggle, as I stirred my magical power, I could feel the disease give out, pushed out by my own mana.

If I had not been ascended, that might have been deadly, I realized, feeling the magic move like measles out of my body. I then brought my attention back to the green cloud slowly dissipating into the surroundings. The magic obscured the enemy, and when I realized what was going on, it was almost too late. The spider-like appendages were apparently still alive, and, as a last desperate act to reach Josh, they launched the broken flesh at the van with Josh inside.

The body flew out of the cloud, through the air, and slammed into the side of the car with a wet shriek, leaving a sizable dent. In the same motion, the legs attacked the vehicle, trying to reach the boy inside. But by the time they worked their way through the metal of the door, my staff was pointed at the dead center of the spider-like legs as Bone Spear launched itself right into the middle of the thing, tearing through a tire in the process.

Only once the whole projectile lodged deep into the asphalt of the parking lot did silence descend. The critters and animals around still hid, leaving the air unnaturally empty of sound, disturbed only by my even breath and the sound of someone hyperventilating coming from inside the car. I approached the van and looked through the window to check on Josh. He was all right, breathing a little too quickly but whole, and relatively unharmed.

"You good?" I asked, knocking on the window. He flinched before seeing my face. There was a moment of consternation, as his mouth hung open, before his hand slowly lifted up, giving me a thumbs-up. I shot him a smile that was hopefully not maniacal and turned to my enemy. Terry was in bad shape, literally, as I was pretty sure a human body wasn't supposed to fold like that. I slowly approached him.

I could see why the protection of the sacs was needed, as the additional organs inside them began to oxidize slowly, like watching metal rust in real time. Inside the growths, I could see the remains of strange creatures attached to the flesh. Thankfully, the man, or what was left of him, was still alive. I wouldn't be getting much out of him, but I doubted there was much left in the first place, judging by our final, rather one-sided conversation.

I extended myself toward his head, trying to invade his consciousness to read the current stream of thoughts. The task proved to be both hard and easy at the same time. His mental defenses were in shambles, exhausted and destroyed, a patchwork of consciousnesses fighting against one another. But getting inside and trying to read his current thoughts was rather strange. The stream of consciousness was annoyingly hard to decipher, as it simply wasn't all human.

Whatever it was that replaced his mind, piece by piece, clearly didn't think the same way humans did, as the ideas came in sensations, colors, and a language I couldn't decipher. Thankfully, there was still something human about the man, and a few images popped into my mind. There were two main things. One was Lazarus and some mantra about the miracle of said saint and helping realize it. The man felt like a fanatic. The other part was just pure hatred toward a priest.

The visions were barely readable and came in flashes intertwined with the other consciousnesses, but what worried me was that, in the few I could decipher, many silhouettes could be seen. Their faces were undecipherable aside from the priest, who clearly pissed the man off and was the focus of those dying visions. The sharpest detail was the man's light, easy smile. Then the images began fading as I pulled myself out of the dying mind.

I straightened up, deep in thought, absentmindedly petting Sally, who pushed her now-horned head against my side.

'Were those visions real, or were they a trap? Was he conscious enough to fake his stream of consciousness in the first place? And who were those people he thought about?' My thoughts were broken by my phone vibrating. I was about to ignore it, but heard Josh pick up his phone inside the van. The timing couldn't have been a coincidence, and as I pulled out the device, I saw Rey's number on the screen. I picked up the call and was greeted by Rey's hastily spoken words.

"Watch out, we had a breach. Someone hacked your car's GPS tracker," he spat. I felt my eyebrows float up to the middle of my forehead.

"Yeah. No shit," I answered, looking at the mangled corpse.