- Content Warning: Violent scenes ahead -

"Foooooooooood!" The creature screeched as its smaller forelimbs moved to open the carapace chest dangling beneath the abdomen, the mandibles around its mouth rubbed together in glee.

This Null Space beast was a creature of two halves. In one moment it was moving slowly, its limbs jerking about in unnatural ways, and then all of a sudden it managed to get itself together and was moving at lightning-fast speeds.

In a moment, the chest was open and the beam had been launched my way. I couldn't dodge, if I did Rin would be right in the line of fire and I had no doubts that she wouldn't weather the blow nearly as well as I would.

The beam lanced through the air and I brought my sword down to meet it. While the Null Space creatures I had encountered so far devoured manna and had none of their own, the only thing in this universe that could create a beam attack like that was manna itself. My theory was that, after consuming the energy, the creatures would repurpose it for their own use.

Luckily for me, my theory bore fruit. On touching my sword, made from the claw of a Null Space Invader, the beam parted like the red sea and gouged itself into the metal of the walls behind me.

The creature cut off the attack and swayed side to side as if it were measuring me up and rethinking its strategy. This thing was smart, too smart for its own good.

"Understaaaaaand," it chittered, "You protect…"

"Damn," I muttered under my breath. The creature had been way too fast to figure out that I was trying to keep Rin safe, both because I didn't want a living being to die under my watch and because I really wanted to get the mystery rewards that the quest for keeping her alive would give me.

I was going to have to go all out.

And with that thought, everything fell apart.

Something changed in the way the Null Space spider was holding itself. It had been tall and obvious with all of its movements so far, but all of a sudden its stance was low to the ground and it exuded predatory danger.

It lashed out fast with its tail, and I was just about able to keep up with it to deflect the strike with my sword. But by the time the attack was over the creature was already moving. Its long legs launched it through the air, not at me, but at the ceiling above me. I loosed an energy beam, but the creature didn't even bother to try and snack on it, it just wove past the blast with a spin and tried to skitter above me.

Well, I wasn't going to let it get past me that quickly. I cancelled gravity on the tips of the spider's front two legs and watched them skitter helplessly for purchase, before leaping upwards with my propulsion and raking my sword across the creature.

But the alien had been waiting for a move like that. Its tail moved again. Placing the majority of its weight on its back legs, the creature's tail lashed out and wrapped around my sword arm tightly. It was enough that I could feel the pressure through my corona shield, but not hard enough to do any damage itself.

The small forelimbs peeled back its chest cavity once again to reveal the roiling mass of orange energy inside.

There was no way I was going down so easily.

I formed a manna construct in front of me, a small but incredibly dense cylinder of energy, and shot it as hard as I could with propulsion at the back legs of the creature. My plan worked, the metal exploded with force and sent us both clattering back to the ground.

My plan might have worked a little too well, however, as now our staircase was exposed to the raging storm outside the megabuilding. Water from the ocean below sprayed up into the room and wind howled into the space. At the very least it had surely been destructive enough to alert Yr'Arl upstairs that a battle was taking place beneath his very feet. Backup, at this point, would be very much appreciated.

I got back to my feet heavily, barely able to catch my breath before the creature was on me again, clearly sensing my weakness.

I lifted my sword just in time as it stabbed forward with its tail, barely able to deflect it off to the side. With my off hand, I drew my knife in a desperate move and lobbed it toward alien's mouth with a burst of propulsion, but it merely swayed out of the way as if I had done nothing at all.

With my hand out in the open, the creature twisted so its spinnerets were facing me and blasted me with a jet of its webbing. My hand was stuck down fast, and no matter how hard I pulled it stayed that way. Before I could bring down my sword on the webbing the spinnerets struck again, and my sword hand was stuck to the wall as well.

"Shhhhhh," It hissed, "Waaaatch now… Faaaaaailure."

It swayed as it moved, leisurely, as if it had all the time in the world.

I couldn't do anything. All I could do was watch.

The Null Space spider approached Rin, who was now screaming in her binding. It was over so quickly. It stabbed its forelimbs into her stomach and pulled with barely any effort at all. Rin came apart at the middle like gum, her flesh stretching to keep itself together but ultimately failing and snapping apart in a spray of blood and viscera.

There was a clatter at the stairwell, I turned my head and saw Yr'Arl through my tear-stained eyes. He sent his manna constructed suit of armour forward to rip my hands free of the webbing, but it was too late, the spider had already skittered away out of the hole I had made.