Chương 193: Flesh-Shaper

Considering the obscene command given by the only fourth creed, the cultists showed surprisingly little reluctance to listen. At least… until the first half dozen fell in various states of brutalisation. Besides the fourth creed, the rest of the cultists' expressions twisted from a resolved determination fear tinged reluctance. Especially the first creeds.

They had been commanded to fight — to measure their opponent's worth — but none of their colleagues had so much as had the chance to land a blow before they became a pile of gore behind the slowly encroaching enemy. Any thought to impress the higher creed for any possible progression opportunities had been stripped from their minds. Nyxala could tell just by looking at the way they glanced to the fourth creed: they wouldn't fight.

Now, they were more concerned about the stronger Bodytwister declaring them cowards than the actual enemy before them. The irregular beat of Nyxala heart thumped with power. O̅s̫stho̲th remained the biggest puzzle on her mind, and she was taking full use of the opportunity to solve it. Each cultist that came her way had been killed in a way entirely distinct from the next. She waited for the Bodytwisters to act.

Not because she was particularly concerned about their numbers or some sort of defensive ability should she rush forward. Only so that she could test her name. The boost given for change, unlike rhythm, was not as affected by sudden pauses in combat. Her name did not reward patience, but neither did it punish it. Only should she repeat an act would she lose the benefit. The fourth creed bodytwister clicked his tongue.

Obviously he wasn't too happy that no more of the first and second evolution cultists were willing to throw their lives away at his command.

"The rest of you then." He flicked his hand towards Nyxala.

"Your showing better not be so poor." Despite his dismissive attitude towards their opponent, Nyxala noticed the man had never taken his eyes from her… from the dark swirl in which she hid. Even if he treated the cultists under his command like disposable rats, he was at his sixth evolution. You didn't survive that long with a complete disregard for the unknown. A safer option would be to flee anything unknown… but one would hardly grow with that sort of attitude. Neither would they be respected.

This time, the third creeds led the charge. There was three of them, and two of those were even at their fourth evolution. Identical to Nyxala's. On paper, that fact, combined with the massive numbers difference really should have left the outcome obvious. Or at least less one sided. But Nyxala found the fight easier than stepping on skitter-spawn. The sizeable crowd spread around her, waiting for the third creeds' to begin.

When one of those at fourth evolution cut through the stitches holding his arm together, she was momentarily surprised by the gruesomeness of the action. He pulled the skin off bone and muscle like it had been nothing more than a sleeve. The muscle squirmed like it was alive, crawling up the bone of his arm until it bunched around his hand. Nyxala was caught staring until the man threw himself forward, an enlarged claw of muscle and fingerbones reached for her. The rest attacked with his lead.

While Nyxala was curious what name ability might come with that temporarily enlarged hand of his — he was clearly aiming to grab her, not strike — her own abilities gave her enough consternation. She hardly needed to waste more time deciphering the names of every cultists she came across. Nyxala rocketed into action. She slipped around the grasping arm as if it were the grasping attempts of a toddler and spat on the solitary bone slipping from the fleshy zipper.

Whether that disabled him or not, she didn't stick around to find out. The second fourth evolution was lingering further away, clearly untwisting her muscles to unveil a cannon of some sort embedded in her arm. It must have been new; the woman couldn't twist her body fast enough for it to be of use. Shoulder crashed into shoulder. Nyxala was not accustomed to being… significantly heavier than someone taller than herself, so she almost sent herself off balance with the impact.

Nevertheless, whatever destabilisation she felt, the older woman felt it ten times worse. Regathering herself, Nyxala kept her momentum. As the woman made a poor show of trying to keep her feet, Nyxala's tail interrupted her again. Feathers struck the back of knees, and when the woman finally fell, it was straight onto the chainsaw. There wasn't much time for a scream as the long blade eviscerated the woman's spine, sending bony chunks raining over the now horrified first creeds. Beyond that, it was almost a chore.

Claws whipped out, slicing clean through one leg and crushing the keratin armour of another. Four rapiers pierced a torso, twisted in the shoulders and hips, then pulled. Nyxala was disappointed when, instead of being torn apart, the man's joints failed, and her tentacles' rapiers simply slipped free. Originally, Nyxala had thought the rhythm boost was a lingering remnant from before her evolution. Much like her Talent was. But now, experimentation showed that it was integral to the boost itself.

Or possibly a result of it. Each time she struck — not always avoiding dips in applied boost — she noticed clear deviations in the rewards given. Combinations still assisted her. It became obvious when she had used both her slime feet to pull an enemy towards her chainsaw while each tentacle supported her tail. It had been probably the most synchronised moment of the slaughter so far. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

That was rhythm: a second dimension to chaos, rather than a separate effect. Purity in chaos? It was an interpretation, but she wasn't sure if that was all the description meant. With the drawn out battle — well, massacre now, considering cultists were only fleeing now — Nyxala had plenty of time to test what the name liked, and didn't. She was allowed a somewhat overarching structure to her chaos, so long as it was impossible to predict. Better if even she couldn't predict what she would do next.

There were limits to that, of course. Nyxala could hardly obscure which were her next targets when she had to close the distance to them. All in all, Nyxala was thoroughly unimpressed by this group of Bodytwisters. Were these even harbingers? Did they really expect to hold this crossroads with strength like this? It wasn't the most important site, but they couldn't control this section of coral if they couldn't stop those they didn't want from moving through it.

Her perspective of strength hadn't become that twisted, surely?

"Enough of this." Finally, when half of the cultists under his command were dead, the fourth creed finally stepped in.

"Grant them the opportunity to show potential, and they waste the favour. Inept. The lot of them," he grumbled under his breath low enough that only Nyxala was likely to have heard him. He raised his voice to continue.

"It'll be enough. Watch, and learn how a proper Bodytwister fights." Nyxala slowed as the last of the cultists slipped past their superior. He didn't particularly look like he would protect them, but he was at the sixth evolution; not someone she could simply ignore, whether he would willingly protect those behind him or not. She swallowed. Belatedly, she realised she'd eaten more human. Nyxala wasn't even sure exactly when she'd taken the bite in the battle; it had been that natural.

Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to choose another mouth as her next mutation… Well, it hadn't grown in yet, so she didn't have to worry about a second jaw taking sneaky bites whenever she wasn't looking. She glared at Curious suddenly. How dreadful would it be if her tentacles ever happened to grow their own mouths. The tentacle twitched, then twisted and stabbed the tip of its rapier through a bit of human thigh. Nyxala found the flesh before her face as if in offering. Curious was bribing her?!

She gasped in indignation. Was it trying to distract her from the thought, or encourage that future? The rapier lowered. Oddly, the bit of leg meat had disappeared. It wasn't until she swallowed again that she realised Curious's sneakiness. She glared again. As the Bodytwister adjusted his stance, ready to take Nyxala on, she had to wonder if he would have been more or less inclined to attack if he could see her form.

He'd seen a lot of his underlings die at what he could only tell was a shadow with a very bright centre, and yet he was still willing to fight? Was it just arrogance? Surely someone only at the sixth evolution couldn't just assume they were stronger than a being they knew nothing about? Maybe the man could punch much higher than his own evolution, much like Nyxala and Lysyra? It might even explain how the man's creed was so divorced from his evolution.

While it was common at the higher ranks for evolution to outpace creed — a cult assigned rank could only reach ten, while evolution was theoretically endless — for the low creeds, the difference was rarely greater than one. It wasn't unreasonable to assume the man prioritised his own growth far beyond any loyalty to the cult. That meant he might be significantly more dangerous than those Scriptures she'd recently hunted. Nyxala's new mutation spread out from her sphere of churning dark.

The cultists reacted immediately. The dozen reaching shadow tentacles were impossible to miss as they crawled over the fleshy fortress. Only the fourth creed didn't move. He stood still, even as Nyxala's shadow connected with his. She wasn't really sure what to expect — the mutation guidance could hint at what she should try, but it hardly answered the 'what' question — but his reaction was obvious. Up until now, the Bodytwister had shown no visible concern.

But Nyxala's shadowy touch had him visibly shivering and twisting his brows in unconcealed trepidation. He could feel the touch, but she could feel a whole lot more. Nothing purely comprehensible. It was like looking upon someone's reflection through the ripples of water… only, the reflection went a whole lot deeper than just appearance. She couldn't make sense of it. All she could guess was that she was feeling the man's shadow, which in itself was a simple footprint of his being. But even then…

she felt like she could do more. There was a gate she couldn't unlatch. His shadow was linked to the world in a way Nyxala had lost. A person's shadow was a bridge. What exactly that meant… or how she could take advantage of it, she didn't know. Her name sense couldn't pass through her shadow, so it wasn't his soul the shadow connected to. Probably. But… why had he felt it at all? Lysyra hadn't. What caused the difference in reaction? Nyxala wasn't given any more time to consider.

The Bodytwister, disturbed by whatever it was he felt, acted. Surprisingly, Nyxala felt the motion through the shadow an instant before reality moved. A ripple shot out from his cloak obscured feet through the fleshy ground. There was barely a moment to take in the rising wave of Otherflesh before it suddenly exploded around her. The ground rose under her. The ceiling dropped to meet it. She was going to be crushed. Well, she would have been, if she wasn't so quick. Of course the man had to be a flesh-shaper.

That was why he'd acted so cocky before the weaker cultists; this fortress was his domain. One he could twist to his whims. As the space between her and the remaining cultists closed like a gash sewn together, Nyxala finally stopped playing with her food. Nyxala beat her wings, whipped her tail, and with an O̅s̫stho̲th boost at the highest she'd ever achieved, rules stopped working. Her body crashed into the bleeding wound of a wall.

Instead of snapping her neck, or coming to a deadly halt as the flesh closed in on her, reality bent to accommodate her. For an instant the natural laws ignored her. And an instant was all she needed. She appeared on the other side of the fleshy wall. The Bodytwister didn't have so much as a millisecond to be surprised before his head found itself no longer attached. No more cultists dared attack her. They fled with less grace than a horde of rats.

Glancing over her shoulder at the corpse — still standing where his legs had apparently fused with the fortress — Nyxala couldn't help but grin. There was a deep gash that stretched along the fleshy ground. Once she'd hit the peak of her boost, there was no time between when she could slip past reality. O̅s̫stho̲th was proving to be very impressive. She'd had her doubts, but losing those three incredibly valuable names had been worth it. Nyxala raised her head, eyes gleaming. A dozen were on the run.

Her hunt was not yet over