Chapter 705

*So. What do I know? Bugger all really. How do you kill something that survives getting its head cut off? If it regenerated that would make some sense but it first disintegrated before coming back. Does the damage even mean anything to it? I know it costs me demonic energy to regenerate but in a prolonged fight, as long as the damage isn’t too bad I can just keep going.*

Kat moved to the sound of the wind once again, getting used to intercepting the monster. Kat decided to see what happened if she slashed at the thing’s face. She wasn’t prepared for the jaw to open wide, and then the cheeks to split open so it could keep going. Kat’s fan cut through the back of the monster’s throat as it clamped down on her arm. Unlike before, Kat felt it crunch through the bone, ripping half of her arm off as it fell to pieces.

Kat ignored the pain and moved swiftly, picking the discarded piece of her arm back up and letting join back to her body. It was mostly intact if you ignored the area it had been sheered off and Kat wasn’t willing to risk the idea she couldn’t regrow a missing hand. At Rank 1 she couldn’t regen lost limbs, and at Rank 2 she hadn’t asked again. Kat didn’t want to find out how much of a limb needed to be missing to be considered ‘lost’ so this was the best option.

*So. Don’t stick your hand in the monsters mouth. Even if you can cut its head in half, it’ll bite down on your arm first. Good to know. Really good to know. What would be better though is a way to defeat the dammed creature, and I mean that in both the figurative and likely literal sense.*

Kat heard another attack and went for the tried and true strategy of blocking the mouth with a sideways fan. It failed. Clearly the monster was ready, it simply opened its mouth wider, before clamping down on her fingers. Kat punched a hole straight through its chest in retaliation. Kat was about to pick up her missing digits but found them to already be quickly regrowing and decided to let that play out.

Perhaps a mistake because the monster came in for another attack. This time, Kat wasn’t taking any chances. She waited for it to appear, attacking in the somewhat simplistic way it always did before stepping to the side and swiping her fan straight through its neck. This didn’t stop the head flying towards Blue at all though. Kat grabbed the excess of flowing hair on the monster and hurled it back into the darkness letting it splat against the black wall and be reabsorbed. Kat glanced down at her hand.

Kat’s ring finger had managed to completely recover, though it had only been sliced in half. The rest of her fingers were most of the way to being back, now existing up to the final join except for her thumb which had completely regenerated. Kat glanced at the floor where her fingers had fallen and noticed that her thumb seemed to be rotting into a pile of black blood.

.....

Before she could take that in properly the monster attacked again, this time coming from a downward angle and launching itself up, perhaps hoping Kat’s legs were less agile then her hands. Sadly for it this was not the case and Kat simply sidestepped it and kicked the head straight of its body with a smile.

*Ok. So this thing isn’t all that smart, or just doesn’t know how to attack any other way. It’s always in a perfectly straight line once it leaves the darkness and while it can manipulate its mouth quite a bit, that’s seems to be the limit to its advanced thoughts. It doesn’t even try to use its arms or legs for anything. Then again, they aren’t really all that tough.

What I want to know... is what’s happening to my fingers. That thumb melting... is it because of the rot from the monster? Or because it destabilised after I got my finger back? Some method to prevent being cut in half or something and regrowing a whole extra Kat perhaps?*

The monster came in again, Kat had to rush around Blue this time, but it was no issue. The monster was aiming for Kat’s midsection now and she raised her leg to deal with it. The monster tried to open its mouth wider to take out Kat’s entire leg but it couldn’t quite manage it. Sensing its failure the monster tried to tilt its head to the side and take a good chunk of Kat with it, she just moved in sync kneeing it straight on the nose and sending it flying back.

“Any ideas how to beat this thing Blue?” asked Kat to her fae friend.

“I’m working on it,” said Blue in response. “I don’t have any great guesses and no idea at all what this thing could possibly be but it has to have a weakness... I think,” Kat had to move to intercept an attack once again and Blue flinched away from the gore instinctively. “We could try to run I suppose... but I don’t know exactly how this darkness that surrounds us works...”

Kat dealt with another attack by putting an arm in the way only to follow up with a punch to the side of the monsters head causing it to basically explode from the force. Seeing a chance to test some things Kat summoned and threw her two fans to either side of the room only for them to run into something and clatter to the floor.

“Well that’s out,” grumbled Kat as she summoned them back to her hands.

“Wait, can you throw them that way?” asked Blue pointing somewhat to the front of her.

Kat shrugged and waited for another attack. Directly below her foot this time. Easily dealt with by making use of her wings. The monster wasn’t really going for Blue anymore, its focus was squarely on Kat. One more attack down meant a bit of breathing room so Kat threw her fan in the direction indicated by Blue. To her surprise, it kept going quite a while before it hit a wall about two hundred metres in that direction.

Kat was ready when the monster appeared again. She wasn’t entirely prepared for it to be right above her head. Luckily for Kat, the ceiling was actually quite high so her slight shock from the exact angle the monster had chosen still gave her enough time to dodge to the side and take it out once again. Once it was down, Blue dashed forward and Kat followed heading down the path they couldn’t really see.

Kat heard the monster launch another attack from behind them and she threw her fan straight at the monster. It just opened its mouth, swallowing the fan whole. Shit, probably should’ve opened that. Kat let her arm come out to catch the things jaws, she didn’t think she quite had time to sidestep it and better a chunk of arm then something much worse. Once the jaws were locked around her forearm Kat slammed her free hand onto its head even as Blue kept running.

Kat quickly caught back up just in time for Blue to run straight into something. As Blue started to topple over, Kat heard the rush of wind and saw the monster trying to come up from the ground where Blue was about to end up. Kat slowed her perception of time and shot her tail out to catch Blue. She managed to just barely get it wrapped around her before yanking her away just as the thing’s jaws clamped shut on thin air.

The only difference was instead of fading back into the ground, this time the monster stood on the floor twitching slightly as its long hair flowed around it. “Blue, what do we do?” asked Kat hesitantly.

Blue summoned a magic circle, pooling energy into the construct ready to attack. “Kat... I need you to distract it for just a few moments...” said Blue as she stared the thing down. Kat gulped but nodded, ready for whatever it was going to pull off.

The pair were tense, staring down the monster as it continued to twitch in place. Both of them could feel somehow that things were different they just didn’t know why. Kat glanced at Blue again and saw a complete magical circle glowing a bright blue so she just returned her gaze to the monster. Waiting for it to make its move.

Kat was almost disappointed when it just sunk back into the floor, returning to what it knew. Kat waited. She listened. She heard the slight sound indicating it had reappeared, and she struck. Kat was told to distract it this time so instead of going for the kill Kat slipped around the monster just barely before wrapping her arm around the thing’s neck, trapping in in a choke hold.

Seeing the monster bound Blue unleashed her spell. Not in Kat and the monster’s direction, but off to the side, where whatever she’d run into landed. Kat watched as a glowing blue blob of water raced out towards... a wooden chair? Kat didn’t know what to think. That was until the thing in her arms started screaming.