The thing that slithered into existence was the size of a horse. Canine in shape and a quadruped— the legs more or less right —but lower, longer, and leaner. That was where the familiarity ended.

Everything else was subtly wrong.

A row of short, powerful-looking tentacles ran along its flanks, while a long, thick tentacle lashed around like a whip where its tail should have been. It had no head, but in its place were slimy bunches of tentacles that exuded a malevolent aura. Overall, the monster in front of them had a strange, slippery feel to it, even merely by sight. It made no sense, but seeing as she was staring down five such monsters, sense was the last thing Tanya was worried about.

“Tentacles,” she muttered, disgust lining her tone. “Disgusting, slimy things.”

She spared a glance towards Zuken. The Banksi looked like a bruised fruit, specifically one that had just spent a small eternity getting tossed around by ferocious tides. The annoyed expression on his face only highlighted his current state further.

“Those things are hungry,” Elena chimed in.

Tanya sighed, mentally counting down from three. It made no sense why she’d announce something like that given their situation, but she’d learned to ignore the brunette’s… eccentricities by now. Obviously those things were hungry and ferocious. If she had to rank the beasts in front of her, they were quite possibly in the top five most dangerous things she had faced till now.

And then, she saw something even more frightening.

Zuken Banksi’s hands were unsteady.

The glowing sigils on his arm still burned their usual eerie brown in the dim lighting of their surroundings, and Tanya was pretty sure that the Earth-type spiritist had a spell or two ready to quickly fire, but his fingers were quivering.

Whatever these creatures were, Zuken was definitely shaken by them. Had he met them earlier? Or was she reading this whole situation wrong?

She performed a quick diagnosis.

Lifeforce: 40

Mana: ?

Tanya’s mouth slightly opened. A mana user? This anomaly had lifeforce and mana users? Anomalies, even Level-3’s for that matter, specialized in either mana or lifeforce, never both. In some rare cases, the anomaly would get lucky and acquire prey that knew rudimentary mana manipulation.

But these creatures? They practically phased through the walls. The stones stretched, the protruding rocks rippled, the entire structure contorted and warped around itself in ways that defied imagination. And this happened each time the hounds entered into a wall or stepped out of them, seemingly from nowhere. It was almost like casting a spell, except the monsters were the spells themselves rather than mere casters.

Just how developed was this anomaly they were in?

“Phasers…” Tanya muttered, biting her lip. “Phaser hounds.”

“Huh?” Elena asked. “You know what they’re called?”

“No,” Tanya breathed out, “but fighting a monster with a name is easier than fighting a scary, unknown beast. It’s martial psychology.”

Zuken arched an eyebrow at that. “So you really think we can take them on?”

Her lips twisted upwards just a little. “We’ll never know if we don’t try.”

As if her words were a signal, the phaser hounds let out a noise somewhere between braying and sneezing and sprayed slimy goop out of their tentacles, their voices little more than mechanical-sounding rasps as they twisted around in an attempt to encircle them from all sides.

Zuken flicked a single finger, and immediately two large pillars of rock rose out of the floor in front of the creatures.

“They can just phase through the rock, Zuken.”

A litany of spikes erupted outward from the pillars.

“True, but only if it’s plain, smooth rock surfaces,” he smoothly answered.

“Looks like somebody was paying attention.”

“Guys, quit flirting,” Elena snapped. “They’re really hungry!”

Tanya was about to snap back at the changeling for her weird, cryptic statements when the hounds decided to mount a frontal attack.

Alright, my turn.

She grinned as she pushed her hands outward, concentric circles of pure energy rotating around them.

“Wind Shear!”

A spiraling harpoon of angry wind exploded out of her palms, accompanied by an arctic-gale howl, and blasted into the monsters ahead. Tanya could see them trying to futilely bob and weave their way out of the gale, screaming as the lashes of wind cut through their slippery bodies. She saw the rocky walls groan and crumble as cracks formed from the vicious onslaught, with spikes and fragments falling down onto the creatures. She saw their vicious tentacles get caught in the high-speed gale and get slashed off from the main body.

Too easy, she thought to herself.

She thought wrong.

Two clumps of tentacles, completely cut off from the main body by the slashes, surfed through the air straight towards her as they sprayed out a pale, viscous liquid. Tanya instantly redirected her attack, and the magical strike sent the tentacles flying in a nauseating wave towards the walls of the cavern.

And then the main body of the hound in question came leaping towards her, slashing an impossibly fast claw in her direction.

Tanya flinched.

Lukas Aguilar liked the Analyze function. He really did. It was a lot more useful than the Scan, which in itself was no slouch either. But there were always moments where he felt the whole Analyze thing was crap.

Exhibit A.

Analyze [Level 1]

Thoggua — Chimeric hybrid of slime-worm and Naegelin. An external layer of slime protects its fleshy interior. It uses the metal on its tails to hunt prey.

Some of that sounded useful.

He trembled at the prospect of putting himself in combat with the monstrosity in front of him. Sure, it was no khorkhoi, but the monster was still easily the size of a rhinoceros. Or a hippopotamus. A large, leg-less hippopotamus with three long and slimy tails, each of which ended in a sharp metallic blade capable of carving through the ground if the constant etching noises were any indication.

Just like that spider-vine creature we saw earlier.

A fat, slimy, deadly hippopotamus. That’s what it was.

It had no face as far as he could tell, nor any eyes for that matter. A single oral opening, lined with fangs, was the only visible thing on its slime-covered body.

“And it's full of flesh inside.”

Flesh was good. Flesh was tasty. Flesh meant roasted meat over a fire and a filled stomach.

Ugh, I really need to stop thinking with my stomach.

“Are you sure? It is more consistent than your brain. No useless tangents either.”

Lukas rolled his eyes, before focusing on the creature in front of him from his crouched position. The monster was barely eight feet away, slowly gobbling up an azolg it had sliced apart with its vicious tails.

That thing has got to weigh at least three thousand pounds.

He’d read the parable about David and Goliath. Who hadn’t? The famous story about an underdog managing to win despite overwhelming odds. Hollywood had shamelessly adopted it to showcase how large and powerful monsters could be defeated by seemingly tiny, weak, yet unafraid heroes who played to their own strengths and cunning to persevere through overwhelming odds.

But that’s all it was. A story.

In reality, if your enemy weighed twenty times more than you, it meant you left the realm of real combat and were now in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. And since it was real life, Jerry always had the short end of the stick.

It was simple logic, really. He had a pet cat, and not once did it come home with mouse-afflicted injuries.

Lukas rapidly shook his head, refocusing on his plight. “I really have to fight that thing?” he whispered, trembling as he tried to convince himself it was merely because this particular part of the anomaly was extraordinarily cold for some reason.

“It is as good a target as any.”

“Has anybody ever told you that you’ve got a lethal sense of humor?”

“Several times,” the goddess quipped, not skipping a beat. Clearly someone had no qualms entertaining herself over his silly survival-related troubles.

“Believe me mortal,” the goddess continued, her tone somehow even more smug, “seeing you go through this anomaly has been the best entertainment I’ve had in eons.”

I thought you were trapped in a pendant for eons.

“Precisely.”

Remind me again why I’ve got to fight this thing and not… y’know, just take the weekend off and go vegan or something.

Inanna snorted in his mind.

“Because it is a perfect opportunity for you to practice your newest acquisition.”

And I can’t just keep practicing it while I’m munching on moss because…

“Because moss is not deadly enough. Even for you.”

“Right…” Lukas breathed, glancing at his makeshift pocket— a slime-membranous pouch he’d crafted earlier. Contained within were two flints for lighting fires whenever he needed to. Under most circumstances, fire would have been a useful aid. But here, in the middle of an underground forest, setting off a fire with no way to control it was the last thing he wanted.

The only other thing in his possession was a small assortment of fangs he’d collected from his recent kills. Their metal composition reminded him of steel, only lighter and stronger. Apart from using it as a throwable dart, not that he had any skill at throwing with accuracy, it served as a good blade to rend meat apart and light a fire with the flints.

Both were useful in their own ways, but currently, as he was face-to-face with a gargantuan beast that could flatten him if he wasn’t careful, they were completely inapplicable to the situation. And since he’d lost his sole remaining azolg-tail during an earlier fight, having used it as a substitute for his own arm, he had no other weapons to fall back on.

Not that he regretted the action. He’d much rather lose a severed tail than an arm, especially since the arm was actually his and bodily attached to him.

Any last words of wisdom before I get sucked into this hilariously one-sided battle?

“Don’t be killed.”

Giving up on the divine entity residing in his head, Lukas began to pool lifeforce into his hands, feeling the raw power of a Burst turn his palms into veritable weapons on their own. His leg muscles tense and coiled, Lukas slowly stood up, ready to leap away at the slightest indication of hostility from the mammoth beast.

It didn’t react.

He put his left foot forward, with the pace of a snail and the patience of a saint.

Still no reaction.

Sighing, he stepped with this right foot this time, but inadvertently hit a tiny pebble that lay on the floor in front of him. The pebble rolled forward, bouncing on the floor once, then twice, then hitting a crevice before shooting up into the air and—

Three blurs shot towards him.

Lukas pumped lifeforce into his legs almost instinctively, leaping backwards mere seconds before a pair of tails slammed in front of him, digging into the very ground where he stood a moment ago. Scrambling backwards as soon as he was out of range, he sighed in relief before looking back towards the damn pebble that nearly got him killed.

There were now two pebbles.

…

Lukas swallowed. He supposed it was a testament to his experience that he didn’t just stand idly and gawk at the scene. That would have gotten him killed for sure.

“What did you learn?”

It senses movement, or maybe vibrations.

The way the tail had sliced through the pebble with pinpoint precision was humbling. It spoke volumes about the metal’s sharpness and ability to cut through almost anything Lukas could have thrown at it, as well as the thoggua’s ability to sense vibrations around itself.

And the beast had three of those tails.

And yet, despite all that, the creature hadn’t sensed him stepping ahead earlier, so either the sensing had a predetermined range, or it just grew gradually weaker with increasing distance.

The trouble was figuring out which.

“What will you do?”

Well… Lukas exhaled, the only things it has going for itself are those tails. Remove them from the equation, and I’ve got myself a full meal.

He eyed the creature.

For days.

The real question now was how.

He’d need something to take the blow from one of those tails, something to give him enough to slice through the appendage. The metal was tough, but a good hit from his lifeforce-enhanced palms would probably be enough to sever one at the base. But even then, it’d take a miracle, considering he was standing in an underground forest with limited terrain for agility and no extra azolg-tail to fall back on.

And then he needed to perform the same miracle two more times.

At this point, he might as well try to breathe fire.

“That can be easily arranged, though the pain wouldn’t be worth it. For you, that is.”

You’re being particularly unhelpful.

“Whatever you do, remember that you can use your new skill only twice. Any more and you risk your life.”

You’re just a bundle of joy today, aren’t you?

Inanna ignored him.

“Okay,” Lukas breathed. “I’ve got this. I’ve got this.”

Pumping lifeforce into his legs, Lukas dashed towards the thoggua—

And promptly slipped on a patch of slick moss.