Theo had never felt anything like it.

That was an indictment, not praise.

The closest analogue that he had experienced was dunking his head underwater at the baths, but even that didn’t capture the truly horrific parts of the experience.

It was suffocating, slimy, and cold. He wondered if this was what drowning in day-old oatmeal felt like, if that oatmeal smelled like death. He kept his eyes closed, and tried to ignore the squirming sounds of wet flesh slapping against wet flesh that filled his ear.

And he was drowning, or at least he would have been, if not for Endless Song.

So he had air, as long as he didn’t run out of mana.

He let out a probing sweep of Meditation, but found the flesh around him to be completely devoid of mana. In fact, any he left out was quickly absorbed and taken somewhere. Theo had no idea where the mana went; it seemingly just disappeared, whether used or transported secretly he was unsure.

Either way, it seemed he was limited to whatever mana he had remaining. He’d used quite a bit of his reserves out there on the backfires, but there was enough left that he wouldn’t run out of breath for at least a day or two.

The way his clothing was starting to dissolve indicated there was a more pressing deadline.

He tried to focus on sending off a backfire far enough away that he wouldn’t be affected.

He willed the mana, but the moment it left his skin it exploded.

Which wasn’t painful, merely stinging against his reinforced skin. There was also a ripple of pressure that washed over him, the only aftermath of his backfire he could notice, with his senses affected the way they were.

Theo’s fingers were free for a moment, clean and dry, before the vacuum was filled up with more flesh.

He tried it again.

Once more, his backfire detonated prematurely, unravelling the moment it left his body.

So that wasn’t going to be the solution to his escape.

Another tactic, then. He reached out, stretching his arms and legs, starfishing as he tried to simply punch his way out. His limbs glided through flesh. It was the sensation of moving through slime, rather than stretching rubber. In other words, he was already deep enough that he couldn’t reach the end of the flesh.

He sent out another sweep of Meditation, using the fact that the outside air had some ambient mana compared to the void of the flesh to figure out how far he was exactly from the surface.

He was maybe two body-lengths inside.

Theo lurched, as all the flesh around him shifted. It occurred to him that, with him no longer acting as a distraction, the monster was likely heading straight through their defences.

With renewed urgency, he half-dug, half-swam through the flesh.

Even with his affected senses, even as he scooped past flesh and made his way forward, he had a feeling he hadn’t moved at all. Meditation confirmed it.

With every motion of his body, the flesh around him flowed to reverse his progress.

His body tensed, and his jaw clenched involuntarily.

It is often in moments of despair, of understanding the futility of existence does one find the stubborn arrogance to carry on; not because of strength or hope but because of the inertia of existence and the unwillingness to fade into nothing.

Theo wasn’t going to be trapped here and die while this abomination wreaked havoc on everything and everyone he had ever known.

He shifted his mindset from escape to elimination.

How could he destroy this monster?

What were the weaknesses that it had?

It wasn’t that he thought strength couldn’t exist without fault, but more the fact that he was in a unique position and he would do his best to take advantage of it.

Theo mulled over how it had fought so far.

The abomination didn’t avoid damage or attacks, it absorbed them. The flesh that was damaged broke off, completely unimportant. It didn’t need to move fast, for there was nothing that actually harmed it.

And there was enough flesh that it was unfeasible to eliminate all of it.

But was rotting flesh all that existed in this mass?

He wondered where Guiding Will had gone – was he still somewhere in this mess? Or had his body broken down and become yet another sacrifice to this monster?

Theo flared Meditation, searching for anything that looked differently to the cold void of dead flesh in his mana sight.

There was a faint glow nestled in the heart of the beast, the phantom outline of a ghost lost in the fog.

Nothing else stood out to him, so he re-oriented himself, and began to swim towards that point.

In trying to address a new goal, Theo found the solution to an old one. The moment it became clear that he was headed towards that point, the flesh around him shifted.

It no longer counteracted his movements. It pushed him out entirely.

Theo emerged, vomited out like dinner after far too many drinks.

He managed to land on his feet, dripping and sticky with foul flesh.

He inhaled, ignoring the fetid slime that stuck to his body even now that smelled of corpses (which was entirely accurate for its source). It was the best breath that ever entered his body.

Looking around, he found himself closer to Union City. Their forces had fallen back, and the only ones doing battle with the mass up close were the nettles and thorns and roots of The Woods. Everyone else peppered the abomination with attacks at range.

Even at a distance, their faces were haggard, drained, and coming to terms with their defeat at the hands of this unstoppable object.

At least, until they noticed his presence on the battlefield once more, and hope was no longer a once-forgotten stranger.

As he wiped placental afterbirth from his skin, he found the flesh mountain attempting to keep its distance from him, while also advancing on the defenders.

Theo moved directly in between, and for a moment there was a stalemate as it paused, inertia causing ripples to travel across its surface.

It was this, more than anything he had seen with mana sight, that confirmed what he needed to do.

He remembered the faces of all those counting on his success. Mana sank into his skin, turning the battlefield into a desert as he replenished his supplies. He took in one last breath of fresh-enough air, ran at the flesh mountain, and dove back in.