The room exploded.

Shards of Everfrost met whips of white fire in untold numbers, striking one another with enough power that just one collision would have been enough to shake the entire room in its entirety. The shockwaves alone were causing considerable damage to the chamber, and the fractures on the walls and the floor were now getting deeper. Stones splintered, and the chasms on the floor widened.

Had Lukas just been fighting the usual way, he’d have escaped out of their vicinity and attempted to bombard them from afar. In a battle where you didn’t know what the other side could do, trying to get into close-combat was the fastest way to suicide.

Instead, he had drawn on the Thoggua prototype’s instincts — the original source behind the Shatterpoint Intuition skill. A creature that was ‌blind and deaf, and could fight using three extensible tails, scanning the shifts in the earth’s movements to determine the location of prey, and then directing the spear-end of the tails through the fastest and most effective route using Shatterpoint Intuition. He had used those same instincts, only instead of daggers like before, he had conjured two long whips of pure flame and used them as tails.

And it was a bit too much. His mind was already running at maximum capacity, keeping up with Meynte. Power wise, it was the same as Tanya, but he knew very well the firepower the girl packed. Add in to Meynte’s experience at wielding Everfrost, and it was enough to lock him in combat. His eyes, now shining like emeralds, were all too busy capturing the trajectories of the incoming attacks and instantly forwarding the relevant information straight to the thoggua-instinct so that his whips would intercept the incoming barrage. Many a time, it was only after said whips had clashed against the shards that he even realized that he had voluntarily directed it in the first place.

His mind was on fire. Even if he wasn’t directly manipulating motion trajectories, and instead limiting it to a higher version of Shatterpoint Intuition, the amount of information he was processing was overwhelming. Thanks to Prophylaxis, he could physically withstand it for quite a while, and even as he stood there, it was more manageable because of limiting what he actually saw, but the pain was something he could do nothing about.

But not all explosions originated from the clashing Everfrost and fire whips.

“DIE!” Solana yelled a war-cry and rushed at him, only to be intercepted by something else. Something larger, something metallic, something whose roar sounded less like a war-cry and more like someone was lugging a ton of rusted iron over asphalt.

“█████████████████████████████ ███!!”

[PREY] had tried to harm Lukas, and it would die.

It was the closest thing to a thought that [BLOB] could have. Its ‘mind’, which was a little more than a set of minor behavioral patterns, was currently an empty, red haze that could not truly hold any concept save for the obliteration of any foe that stood before it. But piercing that haze now was something that came from outside that programmed inhuman violence.

[PREY] had tried to harm Lukas, and it would die.

A familiar darkness blanketed its thoughts, as the spiritual constitution of a familiar yet unknown monster prototype filled its mind. As its constitution changed, so did its body. Aqāru was a formless medium, readily reforging itself to suit its spiritual state. What had been a semi-solid metallic slime now shifted into a massive, twisted meshwork of tubules and chitinous caricatures, contorting into itself in ways that could only make sense to a twisted mind.

Or an Omphalos.

[BLOB] vanished, and [KHORKHOI] took its place. The metallic strands separated, adding in rock and stone from its vicinity, the anomalous energy altering the constituents to craft a makeshift archetype of the original monster. In less than half a minute, the dense, metallic slime contorted into a thousand pounds of angry monster, complete with its several hundred teeth, spiraling into the depths of its body, the metal crafting its body empowered by the natural energy it had absorbed from the ground just moments before for this very purpose.

The khorkhoi roared.

Every atom of its being sang with brutality, longing to tear the attackers limb from limb and smash away at the remains until nothing was left but a bloody smear on its pincers. [BLOB] did not fear the attacks, even though it could sense each one was a deadly threat. To feel fear would be to value its own existence, and it was not capable of such. Only the commands of Lukas held sway over its urge to destroy, and Lukas had allowed it free rein.

[PREY] had tried to harm Lukas, and it would die.

[BLOB] charged at the [PREY]. The invisible barriers that fell upon it were inconsequential. That they severed away parts of its body were inconsequential. It was a slime. With a natural ease, the torn away parts fused together.

As good as new.

Kill [PREY]

Walls of rock rose from the ground and smashed into it from both sides, utterly destroying every single tubule that made up its physical constitution. [BLOB] could not feel pain, but it damaged the physiological units making up its body beyond repair.

[BLOB] died.

Puppet KHORKHOI Eliminated

…

Create New Instance - KHORKHOI

That did not stop it.

Metal-made flesh reformed.

Territory Creation Active

Puppeteer Protocol Enacted

Monster Prototype Installed: Khorkhoi

Function: Kill Prey

A new [BLOB] stood on its hind limbs. Its mind was an empty program, filled with nothing but violence and a command to ‘kill prey’.

For [PREY] had tried to harm Lukas, and for that, it would die.

Pride comes before the fall.

Hearing it was one thing. Seeing it in action was another. And currently Lukas was getting a front-seat view of the latter.

Empress Meynte was a being of antiquity. A creature that has risen to the apex of her species. A being so twisted that she could Ascend with the End of Potential — Fimbulwinter itself. How someone with Potential could ascend with its antithesis was a question that would forever plague his mind and give him unnecessary headaches, but it wasn’t something to worry about right now. For all he knew, she had centuries to practice, if not more. That much time, even modest talents could grow teeth. Never mind, everything the experience would have taught them, everything she could have found to strengthen herself. Even without the infernal power of Fimbulwinter, even with Tanya’s limited power, Meynte should have kicked his ass.

A dozen times over.

Instead, Lukas, a fledgling fighter with only a few months of experience under his belt, could match him blow for blow.

It wasn’t because of some mystery, or the anomaly’s myriad powers, but because of Meynte’s own over-inflated sense of pride. For someone she called an insect, the Empress wasn’t using her fullest strength, limiting herself to this twisted deadlock. She wouldn’t even fight him in close combat, because that would mean acknowledging him as an equal opponent. The power of a King-class kami lived within Tanya’s body, but Meynte’s pride would not let her use it.

Meynte clicked her teeth in annoyance as she was forced to defend against Lukas’s repeated attacks. She constantly switched from sending rows of Everfrost blades at him to extending out the frigid field around her throne and twisting the environment to her whims. All of this, while remaining seated upon the Throne, coordinating the entire thing with just her mind.

Past the chaos, Lukas noted with delight how Blob was giving the yokai Leader a tough time. Solana’s barriers could give anyone a tough time. Just trying to fight them all would have taken the entirety of Lukas’s attention, or use the full power of kinetomancy against her. He had already done that once before and torn her apart, but she had returned without so much as a scratch.

A frustration that was now Solana’s suffering as the aqāru slime gave her a taste of her own medicine.

Especially after Blob didn’t stop after the first hit tore its body apart. Or the seventh one, for that matter.

“Abomination!” He heard Solana growl. “Accursed thing!’

Blob wasn’t alive, not as far as the definition of ‘life’ went. It was just a myriad collection of skills, anomaly information and monster prototypes. Somewhere in the mountains of chaos within it, Blob had fashioned a primitive mind, one that was absolutely faithful to Lukas. Unlike Lukas, Blob used Anomalous Energy collected from the terrain itself. And much like Solana, Blob had transformed into a creature capable of using the terrain to hunt for its prey, while remaining practically unkillable by normal methods.

And it could enact Territory Creation to neutralize Solana’s attacks, while its aqāru constitution meant that trying to possess it would only get Solana killed for good.

“Constant reincarnation, is it?” asked Meynte, observing the massive slime-beast. “A luxury even I don’t have. Even I have seen no one return from being killed before.”

She cocked her head, and a beam of pure white hurled towards it. It struck Blob head on, freezing it completely. Unlike before, Blob didn’t reform. Instead, a notification popped up on Lukas’s screen.

Instance of Monster Prototype [KHORKHOI] deleted from Accessory Heteromorph

Damn it. He should’ve known. Everfrost was the End of Potential. Skills, soul prototypes — they were all crafted out of Potential. Getting hit like that had dealt no damage to the aqāru slime, but it had disintegrated the Monster Prototype Lukas had installed into it. He was lucky that the Omphalos within him had copied all the information from within Blob after the Rollback Protocol had accomplished.

Solana took the opportunity and rushed at Lukas, her body looking less bremetan and more like a twisted fusion of bat, slime, and a decaying corpse. Lukas dodged the blast of force she shot at him and terraported to the right, sending a blast of pure flame at her. Solana screeched and dodged it, not knowing that Meynte was right behind her.

A wall of pure ice intercepted the blast. But in that exact moment, he installed a new prototype within Blob, and the slime roared to life.

Territory Creation Active

Puppeteer Protocol Enacted

Monster Prototype Installed: Bylestyr

Function: Kill Prey

What had been a dripping mass of metallic slime was now an eight-foot tall, hulking behemoth. Instead of charred flesh, ichor and bone, the monster was a meshwork of metal, rock and crimson flame. Its eyes shone with a mad, crimson, almost primordial madness, contrasting with the glacial surroundings.

It raised all four of its massive arms, its large, serrated teeth looming over its jaws, dripping thick, liquid fire to the ground. Fire formed it. Fire exploded outside it. Fire was it.

A second later, two copies of the original guy’s stone club lay impaled on the floor next to it.

“█████████████████████████████”

The bylestyr grabbed it almost unconsciously and belched a torrent of crimson at Meynte. Now ‘alive’ again, Blob resumed its charge with all the bloodlust of the bylestyr and rushed at the Empress, armed with one of the crudest and most brutal weapons ever fashioned. This time Meynte didn’t stay on her throne and instead stood up and met its blows head on, with a dozen frost stalagmites arising out of the terrain—

— and nearly fell forward as Lukas threw a kinetic blow at the throne. Given the infuriated look Meynte gave him, the blow had to have fractured the throne, however slight.

“Now we’re even,” said Lukas.

Meynte was not amused.

[BLOB] was not a protector. It was a killer and had no other purpose. It could protect, in a sense, as it protected Lukas, by destroying everything in the area with the slightest hostile intent towards him, until Lukas gave it the order to stop. And as there was not one thing in this area that had not shown hostility to Lukas, it would kill and kill, and kill, until there was not even one living thing standing to harm its protectorate. Lukas had not ordered it to the contrary, and there were only two moving things within the field of its senses that presented a threat to Lukas.

Both of them would die here.

The greatest threat that stood out the most against the violent red mist that was the bylestyr’s mind was the black-haired flappy [PREY]. The white-haired [PREDATOR] was closest, so [BLOB] roared and launched successive blows at it, only to rush face-first into a wall of ice and jagged frost blades jutting out of it. The hoarfrost touched its metallic body and was instantly shattered by the momentum of its attack, the burning flame within its body exploding in reaction to this world of cold and ice. The frost blades dug into its body relentlessly, but were shattered with a single swing.

“Uppity thing,” claimed [PREDATOR].

“Meow!” said Blob.

More frost blades were hurled at it. [BLOB] ignored it and threw a single fiery club at the white-haired one, just in time to see Lukas being attacked by the black-haired [PREY]. Instantly, the mechanics within its mind changed.

The [PREDATOR] was more dangerous to it, but not to Lukas. Decisions made, the bylestyr changed course and rushed towards the former. It was quick, and agile, but [BLOB]’s speed was a match for her. She leapt forwards and backwards and hit it with attacks from all sides, but they shattered to the swings of its monstrous weapons. The only problem was its size… the [PREY] was using its smaller height against it. She could pass more quickly, gain more distance, but her attacks felt less potent, her defenses no more use than a pebble. All [BLOB] needed was to keep her in range long enough to land even a single blow. It would be enough, and it was only a matter of time until that blow landed. It just needed to keep swinging and—

There!

[BLOB] opened its maw and let out a torrent of burning crimson.