I never thought that I would curse a bad-thing’s lack of legs, but there I was. The stupid limbs were horrible, sure, prone to bumbling and stumbling about in response to the smallest of hazards, but there was one thing that they excelled at.

Being terrible for swimming.

I could imagine it easily; a giant bad-thing, a leviathan of the depths, restricted to awkwardly flopping its stupid feet to propel itself forward. I might have been able to outswim something like that.

A shadow spilled over me, blocking much of the mana-water’s radiance. I twisted slightly, peering upwards. A bubble of air spilled from my nostrils, floating upwards.

The leviathan, regrettably legless, stared back. It was large, more than deserving of the name that I had given it, measuring the length of not-Needle many times over from tip to tip. The bad-thing’s head was bulbous and rounded, with scraggly tendrils growing from its underside. Those same tendrils undulated near-constantly, twisting about with enough variation that I knew it wasn’t the mana-water forcing them to move. They were limbs, in a way, and much more useful ones than the legs I wished it had. I had already seen more than one swimming bad-thing get caught within the tendrils’ grasp.

A series of fins jutted from the bad-thing’s flanks, the source of my ire. Each was large enough to fling the creature speedily forward, and there were more than enough of them to make some redundant.

It wouldn’t be crippled so easily.

The tail was finned as well, shaped so that it undulated up and down rather than side to side as mine did.

Mine was clearly better, but that was little solace. Also, I couldn’t help but think that the leviathan was just plain ugly. Its flesh was coarse and rotted, its face was stupid, and…

And the lack of oxygen was really starting to get to me.

I could only hold my breath for so long.

I was starting to think that exploring the mana-water lake had been a mistake. It seemed like a good idea at first. I was slithering proudly from my recent victory against a colony of many-legged bad-things and the fights that followed. I had confirmed that there were no Ascended in the immediate area by pushing as many Trait Points as I could into [Ascended Sense], advancing it as a safety measure during the life that was most likely to become a false-life anyway. Then, after days of blind wandering through the darkness, underneath an alcove that spanned one edge of the massive cavern, I found a river of mana-water; it flowed in a torrent unending, spilling down into a hidden lake below.

When I chose to explore its depths, preparing an Echo-Focus to bring along with me, I hadn’t expected a bad-thing of the leviathan’s size. I certainly hadn’t expected multiple of them, the lake of mana-water being some sort of horrid nest for the creatures where they could grow fat off the meat-flesh of innocent snakes and less innocent bad-things.

But even though the Echo-Focus was utterly dwarfed by the leviathans, that wasn’t the biggest problem.

No, the biggest problem was that the Echo-Focus apparently sank like a rock.

I probably should have expected that.

Silt drifted upwards with every slither, the Echo-Focus’ stone coils stirring the water. The debris covered us in a cloud, dimming the light of the mana-water even further. With a series of commands, I gave my instructions to the Echo-Focus.

I needed air. I needed safety. In the depths of the mana-water lake, with such a large bad-thing waiting above me, I would get neither.

That didn’t mean that I was willing to go quietly.

I curled inwards, biting down on my own tail and releasing a flood of life essence, the altered mana twisted into shape by [Life Essence Manipulation] to form [Life - Vitality]. The drops of vitality ran down my length, already working to repair flesh damaged by lack of air. My first ability, [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail] hurried the process along, paired with [Guardianlink]’s connection to the Echo-Focus below me.

All three abilities combined to keep me going for a little longer, but only that. After making sure that I wouldn’t be easily dislodged, I threw my vision into the [The Golem’s Echo], just as I had done in most of my battles since.

The world shifted, and I found myself looking through the Echo’s eyes. Feeling with its senses. Falling further into the instincts and memories that [The Golem’s Fading Heart] provided.

Becoming the Echo, or as close as I could manage.

An almost imperceptible weight rested against my head-scales, lodged in the gap between scale and Core. I/The Echo pulled at a section of the silt around me, trying to shape it into bindings that could secure my real body’s scale-flesh to the stone-flesh of the Echo-Focus. The mana-water stymied my efforts, pulling sections of silt away before they could be hardened against flesh.

By the time that my scale-flesh was properly secured, the concealing cloud of silt had drifted away. The leviathan had moved closer.

Then, in a burst of speed that I/The Echo couldn’t hope to match, it darted downwards. Mana-water visibly surged behind its fins, and more than one swimming bad-thing was sent tumbling backwards behind it.

I/The Echo thrashed, throwing up another wave of silt. Every bit of it was haphazardly hardened with [Clay Crucible], forming a hole-ridden wall of silt-turned-stone that floated just above my/The Echo’s stone-flesh. The leviathan shattered the brittle wall with ease, but the impact slowed it enough that I/The Echo could slither aside enough to reduce the damage of its bite. Teeth scraped glancing blows against stone scales, scraping along the edges and forming shallow grooves.

I held my breath - or I would have, if I wasn’t already doing that. The light of the Echo-Focus held strong, the damage small enough to avoid any problems. My/The Echo’s length twisted, and stone fangs tore through the coarse flesh of a fin. Blood mixed with water, adding streams of crimson to the brilliant blue of the lake itself.

Before it could escape, the surrounding mana-water chilled and cracked as its heat was forcefully absorbed, the Echo-Focus’ deeper reservoirs allowing [Illusion Spark] to work more effectively. It wasn’t enough to truly freeze the surrounding mana-water; there was too much for that.

It was enough to freeze the nearest bits of flesh, leaving the bad-thing with an even larger injury as reward for its efforts.

In response, the leviathan bit down again, catching a wider swath of stone-flesh. Teeth broke against stone, and stone broke against teeth. The light of the Echo-Focus flickered, shuddering erratically. I waited for the end.

And then the stupid thing swam away, its fins easily moving it out of range. I/The Echo thrashed desperately in the silt, mana-light still flickering. Bits of silt filled the wounds, healing wounded stone-flesh. The mana-light steadied again, the mana-water leviathan watching from above.

Without the ability to swim, I/The Echo couldn’t even reach it, stuck on the silty bottom of the mana-water. It seemed to realize that.

I threw my senses back towards my flesh-body, ignoring the momentary disorientation of the swap as best I could. My body burned with lack of air, an odd feeling given the terrible cold of the surrounding water, and I desperately sent another flood of life essence rushing down my length to repair the damage that holding my breath so long was causing.

It was a losing battle. Already, I was beginning to see specks of black creep into my vision. And still, the leviathan blocked my path.

I could have tried to escape, to distract it with the Echo in the hopes that my smaller form could slip past unnoticed - both by my current enemy and any of its brethren lurking in the depths.

I probably wouldn’t have made it. The lake was deep. Without the extra healing provided by [Guardianlink], I would never reach the surface. My body would give out long before then.

The massive bad-thing rushed forward one more time, and I made my decision. I willingly fed stone-flesh to its gaping maw. Just as before, teeth shattered, and a giant mass of stone with it. The light of the Echo-Focus flickered violently.

In the days since my last shed skin, I had fought battle after battle. I couldn’t always summon [The Golem’s Echo], not with the strain the summon’s continued existence caused. Often I could only bring it into reality once in a day, and not for overlong. Because of that, I tried to combine it with [Little Guardian’s Focus] as much as possible, leaving a new [Little Guardian’s Focus] by my side when it finally faded.

And sometimes those battles shattered enough of the Echo-Focus that I realized something - just as I had learned in my initial attempts to create one, when a [Little Guardian’s Focus]’s shape was wrong…

The mana inside it reacted explosively.

The Echo-Focus shuddered. Shattered. Burst. A wave of stone and light cut through the mana-water, a leviathan’s blood in its grasp. My own blood was carried alongside it.

Just before the world faded away in full, the thought-light flickered.

Experience Gained!

Level up!

1 Trait Point Gained.

I’d take that as a win.