Jay surged forward towards the large, shadowy form. She saw no reason to wait for whatever monstrosity the Playwright had conjured to attack first. With her hand axe already raised overhead, she brought the lethal implement down onto the skull of the figure as it violently broke through the doorframe of the bar it had been inside. Jay made sure to activate her Break the Bulwark skill as well, since she wanted to be certain that if the creature had any defensive spells protecting it, they wouldn’t hinder her blow.
The axe head bit into her target, but not as deeply as Jay had expected. She could both feel, hear, and see that her attack had connected, and had even cut through a thick layer of flesh, yet the bone of the creature’s skull had resisted the raw power of her normally devastating strikes.
A sudden reaction from the figure forced Jay to pull back as it swung its arms in two wild haymakers. The creature was fast. Extremely fast. It swung its arms with almost as much speed as Jay, which felt like it should have been impossible considering how much her speed had increased thanks to her recent switching of duplicated passive skills. Jay could avoid her opponent’s attacks since they were the unskilled movements of an untrained fighter, yet for the next several seconds she had to put significant effort into not being struck. Her attempts were not helped by the choking gas that blinded her vision of anything more than a few feet from her. Jadis fervently wished that Severina was there to clear the obscuring fog, but she would have to make do without.
Jadis also wished that Voss’ backup would arrive soon, since her Dys and Syd selves were running out of bindings to secure people with.
Dozens of Rufus-shaped men were pouring out of the yellow haze. Half of them proved to be illusions, disappearing the moment they were touched, while others were more clone bodies that exploded into flesh-dissolving acid when she drew near. She couldn’t attack the Rufus imposters, though, since some spoke in the voices of regular people, and likely were just innocent bystanders who had been caught in the crossfire.
At least the eight elite fighters that Voss had gathered for her were doing their jobs well. As much as Jadis hated Odilia, there was no denying that she was a powerful and competent combatant. The Valbjorn was putting down one Rufus after another, making sure that none who exited the fog in her area got more than a few steps before being captured. Seeing her at work, along with the other elite soldiers who were doing just as well, Jadis figured it was probably about time she moved one or both of her other selves into the toxic mist to provide backup to her Jay self.
The shadowy figure was proving to be even tougher than she had initially thought.
Darting back from another sweeping haymaker, Jay counterattacked with a fast swing of her axe. The blade caught in her opponent’s left forearm, once again not cutting through the creature’s bone. Before she could pull back, the enemy reacted with an abrupt burst of speed that caught her completely off guard. Suddenly displaying a far greater level of skill than it had shown a moment before, the monster twisted its arm and yanked the weapon out of her hand. In the same spinning motion, it whipped its full body around in a spinning kick that caught her in the knee, sending her falling to the ground.
Jay reacted to the attack before her back had even hit the stone by kicking out with her left leg, intent on striking her enemy in the stomach. The form sidestepped and caught her leg, in two hands, then bodily lifted her up in another spin before tossing her away in a violent surge of power. A second later, Jay crashed through the wall of a nearby building, tumbling across the floor for a couple of yards before she managed to halt her momentum.
The throw hadn’t hurt her too badly, but the fact that the monstrosity had both the speed to keep up with her and the strength to toss her around the same way she normally did to her enemies was deeply concerning. Not for her own safety, but the safety of Thea and Bridget. Thea could certainly handle a hit with her massively increased defenses, but she wasn’t invulnerable. And Bridget was even more at risk, since she didn’t have the Fortitude that the shieldmaiden possessed.
Jadis had to make sure that this foe focused on her and her alone.
Jumping to her feet, Jay saw that she had been thrown through the wall of the hotel across the street from the bar. Inside what looked to be a dining room, the air wasn’t choked with the yellow cloud, though some of it was seeping in through the Jadis-sized hole that had been put in the wall. There were a couple of therion mercenaries inside the room, but Jay could see that they were already rushing out, so she didn’t pay them any attention. Instead, her eyes were set on the hulking figure that shoved its way through the breach she had made with her body.
Her enemy was a true monstrosity. Humanoid in form, it stood as tall as she was, though its torso and limbs were much thicker than hers. The reason for the extra width seemed to be that the creature was made out of at least three different men who had been… melted together. At least, that was Jadis’ best attempt at describing what she was looking at. The monster’s head had three sets of eyes, three noses, and three mouths, all squeezed together onto one lumpy skull. She could even see different hair colors and skin textures on the horrifying face. When the amalgamation of man flesh stomped towards her, Jay noticed that every visible part of its body was made from the pieces of more than one source. Each finger looked like three separate fingers that had been fused into a single appendage, and the fingernails had formed solid shells on the tips. The stretched and torn fabric of the abomination’s shirt and pants showed that the muscles of its arms and legs bulged and rippled from having too much flesh confined under mismatched skin.
Despite his bulk, the Amalga-man didn’t lumber. He stepped carefully, almost gracefully, into the room in a trained way that Jadis recognized as someone who had extensive combat experience. Almost uncaringly, the abomination pulled the axe out of its left arm and tested its weight. The moment the metal had cleared its flesh, Jay saw the wound on its arm mend as meat and skin melded back together in an ugly scar.
“Pretty woman,” the creature said in a thick-tongued voice. “I eat you now.”
“Not before I break you in half,” Jay growled back.
“Perhaps,” the creature responded in a completely different voice that was far more refined. “You had best make this a good fight, for all we have sacrificed to make this happen.”
“Enough talk,” a third voice spat out with malicious eagerness. “I want blood!”
Amalga-man hurled Jay’s axe back at her, which she countered by tossing a nearby table into the air, creating an explosion of splintered wood. Dodging to the side, Jay avoided the charge that had followed the axe throw and slammed her right fist into the abomination’s side, full force. Like a trained boxer, Amalga-man dropped his left elbow low and blocked the punch from hitting his ribs. The blow still sent the fused foe flying and he crashed through several chairs and tables before making a giant dent in the far wall, but he immediately recovered in time to dodge Jay’s follow up aimed at his lumpy head.
Ducking under her left jab, the cultist punched her in the gut hard enough to knock her back, though not off her feet. Sidestepping and giving ground, Jay dodged and blocked several more expertly wielded punches and jabs that aimed for both her face and torso. Their exchange was inhumanely fast, with the staccato beat of their fists creating a rumble that vibrated the air. While she was still faster than Amalga-man, Jay found that his expert skill made it hard for her to avoid his attacks completely and even more difficult for her to effectively counterattack. At least with just the one body. That was a situation soon to change.
As Jay ducked under another right jab, she switched tactics and punched the stone floor as hard as she could. Her guess that the hotel had a cellar proved to be right as the floor crumbled under her blow, creating a large hole in the floor right under the abomination’s distorted feet. Stumbling as he tried to regain his footing, Jay lashed out with both fists while still in a crouched position and brought them together against her foe’s right knee. The thick, malformed bone of his kneecap shattered with a satisfying crunch, though the crippling move wasn’t without its cost.
In the same instant as she delivered her double-fisted knee strike, the fused cultist punched down with his left arm, hitting Jay’s upper back between her shoulder blades. The blow was unexpectedly painful, and Jay could feel something sharp pierce her skin and scrape against her spine.
Rolling to the side, Jay instinctively avoided the next attack before it landed. In the next instant she was on her feet a couple of yards away from her foe trying to spot the weapon she hadn’t seen on his person before.
“Haha,” the thick voice laughed in dull giddiness. “Bones good.”
“Blood!” the manic voice cried out at the same time. “So warm! So fresh! Give me more!”
Amalga-man’s mutated left fist had several long, jagged bone spikes sticking out of the knuckles. Each one was dripping with blood, though if it was all hers Jay couldn’t say. She would definitely need to get checked for diseases later, that was for sure. At the same time as she noted the spikes, she saw the cultist’s knee shift and snap back into place, the damage she had done almost immediately undone.
Before either the cultist or Jay could lunge towards each other in renewed combat, three arrows simultaneously pierced the hulking man’s chest. Jay glanced over for the half-second it took to see three therions standing by the door to the dining hall with bows in hand. Already they were drawing another volley of arrows to fire, though they didn’t get the chance.
“Stay out of it!” Amalga-man snapped as he picked up a table and threw it at the trio with splintering force.
Jay didn’t have the time to check on the fate of the three archers. Using the moment of distraction to her advantage, she charged the fused man and tackled him by putting her shoulder in his stomach. Carrying him forward like a runaway freight train, Jay crashed through another wall, then another, before ending up in an alleyway behind the hotel. As soon as she was outside, she threw Amalga-man against the building on the other side of the alleyway with enough force to send spiderweb cracks across the whole surface.
With a primal roar, Jay threw a punch at the man’s multi-faced head. Once more displaying a burst of unexpected speed, the cultist managed to turn his head to the side and avoid the blow. Using the new position against her, he slammed his right elbow to the side of Jay’s head. Unfazed, Jay responded by doing the same to him and used her own right elbow to break one of the abomination’s noses.
The elbow strike wasn’t anything that her foe hadn’t shown that he was more than capable of handling, but that wasn’t the point. The purpose of the blow was setup for the next. Only the next wasn’t coming from Jay.
A giant-sized axe slammed into the monstrous man’s shoulder from above as Dys landed in the alley next to Jay and her opponent. The strike caused the cultist’s body to bend at the waist as cracks formed on the cobblestone street under his feet. Blood poured copiously from the huge wound made in his flesh, and yet…
“Bone strong!” the fused man laughed. “Bone strong!”
Grabbing hold of Jay’s arm, the abomination swung her around to slam against Dys. With her coordination boosted by refracted mind, Jadis was able to work together with herself to keep the body blow from tangling her limbs together, but the move quickly turned the fight into a confusing melee as Amalga-man pressed the attack. Jay and Dys struck the cultist multiple times with her fists and boots, but Dys was unable to put her axe to work thanks to the close quarters combat not giving her any room.
Stone shattered around them as three bodies tumbled through the alley in a mindless brawl. Flesh was crushed and reformed continuously as Jadis struck her opponent, yet nothing she did seemed to stick. His punches and jabs hurt her, but not in any way that she couldn’t handle. The scrum was a stalemate, at least for a few seconds, though Jadis had confidence. She was still fighting with one hand tied behind her back, since her Syd self was dealing with fleeing Rufus imposters. Not for much longer though, as her Jay and Dys selves maneuvered the fused freak towards her third body.
Getting her arms around the brute’s neck from behind, Jay choked the cultist while Dys grabbed at her axe to pull it free from his shoulder. She managed to get her hand on the shaft; however, in the next moment, Amalga-man picked his feet up from the ground and put them to Dys’ chest and kicked as hard as he could. The effort sent Dys flying down the alleyway while also slamming Jay’s back into a wall at an oblique angle. The shock of the collision wasn’t enough to loosen her grip on the man’s neck. What did the trick was when the monstrous cultist caused six-inch-long bone spikes to erupt out of his body like a reverse pin cushion.
Jay threw the man away from herself, causing him to bounce off a corner of another building. She noted that as soon as he was away, the man withdrew the spikes back into his body. She wasn’t sure why he wouldn’t just keep fighting with the sharp spikes extended, since they were certainly effective at causing her damage. Possibly they interfered with his movement, though Jadis didn’t have the time to consider the reason for long. Amalga-man shot back towards Jay with a mix of laughter and snarls.
As he reached her and they locked their arms in a grappling crush, a serrated spearhead pierced the amalgamation of several cultists in the side. Jadis was so focused on her enemy she hadn’t even noticed her ally approaching. Thea had arrived with shield raised and had managed to jab the cultist with her poisoned spear.
“Fuck off!” the abomination screeched before kicking Thea away.
The blow sent the smaller woman flying like she weighed nothing. She would have hit a stone wall and possibly gone through it, except that the direction she had been knocked towards was the best possible way she could have been sent.
“Gotcha,” Syd said as she caught Thea midair.
As she set her lover down, Syd kept her eyes on her two other selves and the resumed battle with the amalgamation abomination.
“You better leave this one to me,” she told Thea.
“No, I don’t think that would be fun,” Thea said with a nasty grin.
Before Syd could react, Thea exploded in another blast of toxic gas.
214