Chương 203: 192. The mind

"What the fuck?" Marvin asked, confused, looking over the battlefield. Rey just sighed, while Filip also gazed around with the same shock on his face.

"Don't celebrate yet," I said. The aura was still present, and Myhur clearly felt it too as he slowly turned around, searching for the next enemy. The piping snaked all around us, and the leftover machines didn't make the search any easier, as their shapes cast strange shadows in the flashlights. But there was no movement. For a good minute, we walked slowly, trying to determine where the next attack would come from, but found nothing.

The basement was quite deep, but I didn't see any stairs leading any deeper, nor could I see any hidden passages.

"Okaaay," Filip slowly said. Turning to him, I could see he was observing me almost as much as the room, his gun pointed down, yet his body turned in my direction. Marvin moved in the same way, both tense. Only Rey seemed more or less fine, just vigilant, his eyes on the shadows rather than me and Myhur.

"We should get the technical team here," Marvin proposed slowly.

"Maybe there is something on those PCs." I doubted that. This must have been prepared. I would bet my life there were cameras hidden among all the piping.

"I'm not sure how they worked anything from here," Filip said, looking at his phone.

"I still don't have a signal. I doubt that, whatever operation was going on here, they could have done it without any internet connection."

"Used a cable, most likely," I proposed. According to Q'Shar's research, mana mostly messed with electromagnetic waves. Cables should be more stable. Of course, there were a lot of cables lying around, but I wasn't sure what their purpose was.

"Neeetwork," Myhur muttered from the side, his mossy brows furrowed deeply.

"What?" I asked, seeing some sort of realization dawn on the mycanoid.

"Iiit feels like home," he said, clearly weirded out by his own words.

"What—" I was about to ask, but then realized what he meant.

"A hive mind," I whispered, earning a nod from my friend. I had experienced a hive mind only once in my life, when visiting Myhur's home. My friend's words fished the memory out from the depths of my mind. He was right. To me, it was just the ever-present aura that covered every inch of the hive's territory, but to Myhur, it must have been something different. Sadly, I didn't have the time to ponder the feeling.

The mycanoid's hive mind was part of nature, spreading through spores, fungus, and their dead, but here, if the parasites… My thoughts came to a screeching halt at the sudden movement to my side. I turned, only to see Myhur sprinting right at me as the moss on his body glowed even stronger. I looked toward the other three. Marvin and Filip were next to the PCs, looking over the setup, while Rey hung back. I fired two stored Force spells right into Filip and Marvin, pushing them back toward Rey.

Myhur's foot hit the ground with a loud thud, the sound almost covering the groan of metal all around us. This time, the shift in the aura could be felt even by me. I began casting Dome of Protection alongside Death's Grasp. Another step sounded in the darkness of the basement, this one heavier, as the mycanoid jumped into a tackle. The spells clicked, and I released them one after another with barely a millisecond between them, as Death's Grasp took root around the three men while the Dome slowly materialized.

Myhur's bulk met my side as my armor spell gave way—first the magic, then one of my ribs with a painful snap. And at the same time, the pipe right above me also snapped, announcing a wave of small, white, squirming parasites pouring out, slamming right into where I had stood. The pipes, ceiling, and walls burst, revealing tides of small white bugs squirming everywhere, covering a few meters.

Thankfully, Myhur could sense the hive much better than I could and judged the force of his attack correctly, pushing us across almost the entire basement into the back corner. I gave a quick mental command to my familiar to back away for now. It wasn't made for this kind of enemy. Hell, no one really was made for this kind of enemy. We were in a tight corner, a white sea of small yet deadly creatures all around.

They moved like a single amorphous body, one worm entangled with another, able to rise into the air like a limb one second, only to fall apart the next. The aura, previously spread through every pipe and nook of the facility, now concentrated into one massive white mass. The parasites rose into the air like a wave, ready to drown me and the mycanoid. I cast Dome of Protection the second the creatures rose.

"Aeeegis of Rot." Myhur also used one of his techniques seconds before the wave slammed into us. I could see the mycanoid's spell give almost immediately after the worms just threw themselves into it. My spell wasn't doing any better. I felt like I was back in the haunted house where I met the spawn that started all this. I was much stronger now, capable of recasting the spell while weaving a much more powerful one. The only issue was that I had one more stored third-circle spell, and it was Mind Spike.

None of my attack spells, even Death Surge, would cover a large enough area to kill that many.

"Fear?" I shouted to the mycanoid, squashed against me in the small spell. He shook his head.

"Many minds, part of a whole, not afraid," he quickly said. I recast the dome once again. I could cast second-circle spells nine times. I had already used three, and now I was casting the sixth. The worms converged on the dome, trying to literally worm their way inside, biting with their countless mouths as the miniature teeth produced a horrid scraping sound against the spell. I couldn't see anything beyond the white wall in front of me.

"Reeeady," Myhur said. I nodded at him. He cast another Aegis of Rot in front of us, covering the area between us and the worm wall. I let the dome crack, and before recasting another one, I fired off Death Surge, directing it forward rather than all around so as not to hurt Myhur. I wanted to buy some more space and, most of all, to see what was going on. Were there any spaces without the worms? Were more pouring inside? But as my spell met the white wave, the magic seemed to seep into it.

It killed many, sure, but the effect just spread around the bodies, dampening the spell, barely opening a hole immediately covered by the squirming bodies. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"Deeeath Attunement," Myhur bellowed from beside me.

"Fuck," I swore, casting another dome. I was down to five spells as the wave hit once again, the aegis stopping it for but a second.

"You got anything?" I asked as I was going through my options. The worms were naturally resistant to death spells. The hive mind's aspect countered any mind magic, and the sheer number of enemies rendered any soul attacks useless. The only option was fire magic, which was the weakest in my repertoire. That and eldritch magic, whose effect would be a gamble, especially with Myhur this close.

"Give. Come. Join." Words suddenly echoed in our brains like a sound wave loud enough to rattle the walls of my mind palace, allowing me to hear them even without breaching the fortress of my mind. The presence concentrated and pressed against our minds. I was pretty sure it was doing the same to the three outside, as I could feel them struggle against Death's Grasp. But that got me thinking. Why not just finish the job and come back to us?

It could break the dome spell, but it was keeping the pressure on us at the maximum, so far not letting up even to finish a simple kill. And if it was doing that, then that meant we could hurt it somehow. But how? I cast once again. Four left. Myhur screamed from beside me in his language, most likely fighting against the same presence in our minds.

"Myhur!" I shouted and grabbed his cap, something generally very rude, but I didn't have the time.

"Hive mind. How do we kill it?"

"Caaan't," he answered on instinct. I cast once again. Three remaining.

"Not kill, then," I corrected myself, realizing it wasn't the time for him to wonder about committing taboos.

"How do we find the central mind?" I asked.

"Ava—Aaaghr." I knew there had to be something, as the pressure on my mind lessened, concentrating on my friend as he screamed once again. I needed to let him think. I needed to lift the pressure, even for a second. Fear wouldn't work, not normal fear, maybe not even fear of death, as the things were part of a whole, part of something that wouldn't die with their demise. But fear of the unknown? If the thing could sense through those creatures, then it should work. The only issue was how to direct the attack.

I needed to use the energy in its purest form or use it to attack a mind. The issue was that Intone Last Syllable, the spell that was supposed to do the job, would also take Myhur out. Squirming Void wasn't primarily a mind attack, and Utterance to the Anger of the Young had a singular target. I just needed to shock it. I felt the dome crack and was about to recast the spell when an idea struck me. I was working on a spell like that. A simple blast of energy.

A spell that came to me in my dreamlike visions, piece by piece. One I almost grasped while lying unconscious under the Vatican, covered in blood at the doorstep of the singularity. I couldn't perform it normally, as releasing enough energy for it to be deadly from my flesh was an issue, but now, with the staff. I called upon the magic. The energy flowed into the staff rather than into me.

I connected in a strange, deep, almost personal way and guided it into the otherworldly cube crowning the staff, now fully revealed by the tentacles covering it. The dome cracked, and the wave flowed. The words came to me in the trance as the energy erupted from the staff.' Rend.' I commanded in both tongues, and a small, singular blast of abyssal magic left the staff. Its effect was amazing. It didn't simply kill the enemy but twisted it into a form incapable of life.

I saw the small parasites fall to the ground, some turned inside out, some with growths spilling through the skin like popped kernels of popcorn. But the shock worked its magic as a wail sounded in our minds, followed by a second of silence. Looking to the side, I met Myhur's glowing eyes.

"Maaain mind not here. For that many children, an avatar's needed. A control node," he shouted before the pressure descended once again.

"The mind's avatar," I repeated to myself as the wave formed again. I cast once again. One secondary charge was left before I had to burn my third-circle mana. The wave pressed upon the spell. I closed my eyes, replaying the fight we'd had when we entered. There was something there, something not right. The attack, the strange standing zombie-like creatures, their movements. The spell was cracking as rotting energy flowed from Myhur by my side. He was preparing something now that the pressure let up slightly.

And then it struck me. The shot Marvin took from the stairs. The beings hadn't dodged; rather, they had just charged forward, taking the attacks upon their strange bodies. But once, one of them had dodged. There had been the creature that jumped aside even though its back was turned, alerted by others from the hive. It had later gotten lost in the chaos, lying with the rest of the bodies. But had my attack landed on it? I didn't remember.

I began weaving my most complicated spell while giving a command to my familiar, hiding among the bent metal in the ceiling. The last casting of the dome finished. I would make my attack, but to do so, I needed to approach the enemy. I couldn't sit here with Myhur.

"Iii can take it," Myhur shouted, reading the look on my face as I looked at him. For a second, I hesitated. Then I saw the moss grow on his body, longer and lusher, as his aura flared. I smiled. It was a third-circle technique. The wave broke as I once again used Rend to blast a hole, then I immediately cut off the abyssal presence. This time, the hive recovered almost immediately, apparently capable of adapting even to abyssal spells. But all I needed was a line of sight. Blink.

I reappeared on one of the boilers, behind the wave. The bugs froze in place; whatever was controlling them was surprised. I swept my gaze over the bodies and noticed one of them watching me. The creature smiled as our eyes met, then jumped up as the tide of worms shifted back to me. I had three more casts of third-circle spells. Half of the creatures stayed behind, trying to pin Myhur. The other half redirected at me. I began calmly weaving my spells as the hive rose up, ready to crush me.

Feeling the magic concentrate around my hands, those pinning Myhur joined the mass of the wave, pushing it faster onto me. A mistake. Before both my spells finished, Myhur's martial technique activated. The wave revealed him standing on both legs, left hand in front with open palm, the right hand drawn back, fist chambered next to his hip.

"Aaaaaa!" he bellowed like a war horn and moved his right fist, striking the air. The movement was slower than a normal punch, as if dragging the hand through water rather than air, but finished before the wave could cover me. For a split second, there was nothing, a strange stillness, and then everything in front of his fist erupted into moss as the plant grew from anything capable of holding roots. The back of the living wave bloomed with greenery, freezing the construct in place for a second before it separated.

It was the second I needed. I fired an upcast Death's Grasp to make sure it would grab the creature's squirming body, no matter how strong it was. The skeletal hands erupted from the ground, securing the victim in place. I had them focus on the torso and the neck, making sure it wouldn't use its flexibility to move the head out of the strike's way. Then, betting on physical destruction, I summoned the Bone Spear and, readjusting it toward the enemy's head, fired the projectile.

The shot was perfect, right into the middle of its tumor-filled forehead. That perfect placement turned out to be a mistake. The moment the projectile manifested, the creature raised its hands up to its head, grabbing at it as if it had a headache. I thought it would try to protect the skull, but instead, it did the opposite. The moment the spell flew, it ripped its own head in half, revealing a strange white, pulsating construct inside, filling the brain like a living sponge, moving with the halves of the skull.

My attack passed through empty air as the thing's triumphant smile was still visible on the split halves of its face. The wave tore free from the moss and came down. The hive mind was focused on experiencing my demise, as I could feel its mind licking at my senses as it struck into me with all its might, paralyzing me, making sure I wouldn't escape. It was focused on me. It wanted to taste my death. It was so focused that it didn't see my familiar using its tentacles to climb across the ceiling above the creature.

And like a massive black spider, Sally was right over the enemy. The moment I fired my attack, the familiar tensed and, using all its appendages, launched itself downward like a missile right into the monster below. Before the wave fell, Sally turned the worm master into minced meat, striking it with enough force to lodge herself into the ground, headfirst. The wave lost its coherence and dropped to the ground as the worms began to crawl around, unorganized. The ever-present aura of the hive mind was now gone.

But I was also sure we only killed a node, an avatar. Of what, I had no idea.

"Jesus fucking Christ," I heard an irritated groan, and when I looked to the side, I saw Rey pinned along with the rest by my skeletal hands. The man's sour face did bring a smile to my face. I had never had a battle like that before.