"What in the world is that thing?"
Even from a considerable distance, the moment Ryan got a clear look at what the official Beyonders were fighting, he couldn't keep the shock to himself.
Aside from the most basic human silhouette — head and limbs in roughly their correct positions — everything else about the creature seemed to have been churned into chaos by some terrible force. Yet it was still alive.
What should have been internal veins now ran along the outside of its body, coiling around it like vines or tentacles. One eyeball protruded from its back. What looked like brain matter oozed from its left hand. A fully-formed mouth, complete with teeth, had grown from the side of its right leg. Its head was a mass of swollen tumors and exposed musculature pressing up against the skin.
Every part of what had once been a human body appeared in the wrong place — and none of it impeded the creature's movement in the slightest. It was locked in fierce combat with a Punisher ahead of it carrying a lantern and an axe, and a Evernight Goddess officer behind it with a gun.
It was tenacious. Bullets struck it with no apparent effect. Even a direct blow landed on it only slowed it down momentarily. Axe wounds closed quickly — and when they did, the faint white mist briefly visible inside was the only sign anything had happened.
The creature seemed barely affected by the chanting. So the second Evernight Goddess officer, positioned at the rear, whose Extraordinary ability manifested as recited verse, could do no more than prevent ordinary citizens from being woken and witnessing what would haunt their nightmares for the rest of their lives.
It looked, by every measure, like a creature gone wrong in the most extreme fashion — yet the warped power seemed to have changed only its appearance and raw physicality. It had no unusual abilities. It couldn't direct the veins coiled across its surface to reach out and snare enemies. It couldn't stretch its arms like rubber to strike from a distance.
And it was precisely because the creature had no surprises that the two Beyonders engaging it were able to hold the line — methodically sealing off any route it might take into the denser residential streets, steadily pushing it toward the outskirts.
The Punisher moved as though armored, going blow-for-blow with the creature without losing ground; the Evernight Goddess officer could slow the creature when needed, brief as the effect was — enough to force it back or open a window for the Punisher to act.
Ryan edged further away as the creature was driven toward the outskirts in his general direction. With the distance from civilians increasing, the second Evernight Goddess officer gradually freed up, and the Punisher began to press the advantage.
Just as Ryan judged the creature was nearly finished, the Punisher demonstrated that he agreed.
After blocking the creature's attack with his lantern-hand one more time, the Punisher — whose strength had until then been roughly matched with the creature's — exploded with a sudden, terrifying burst of power. The axe came down at tremendous speed and nearly sheared the creature's entire head from its shoulders.
Bang.
The Evernight Goddess officer on the flank timed a shot perfectly. The impact knocked the barely-attached head the rest of the way off.
Not entirely surprising — but not entirely expected either — losing the head apparently only hurt and frightened the creature. It didn't stop it. The moment the head hit the ground, the creature turned and bolted for the open country. Not even the Evernight Goddess officer's ability slowed its flight.
"Damn!"
Ryan immediately moved sideways to avoid being too close to the creature's escape path. What he hadn't counted on was this — a creature without a head, with no demonstrable special abilities, somehow sensing him through the darkness. Even lurking in shadow, he was too close to its line of travel.
Barely seconds after losing its head, the creature locked onto him. Whether it had forgotten the pain or decided he was softer prey, it came straight at him.
"Damn. Damn. Damn."
Ryan ran. He'd watched long enough to know that for all its terrifying appearance, this creature posed a limited threat to him — but an Assassin had no tools for dealing with something without any meaningful weak points. And directly behind it were official Beyonders. If he didn't open a big enough lead quickly, his next stop would be a different city entirely.
He didn't run back into the city — if the creature switched targets mid-chase, the consequences would be on him. He headed straight into open country, trying to put distance between them.
In a wide-open field beyond the city limits, however, Ryan found he couldn't sustain Featherfall indefinitely — and in the end, his own bulk worked against him.
He barely had time to roll sideways before the creature lunged at him.
In the corner of his eye, he caught the creature vanishing into shadow the same way he could — and suddenly understood why it had been able to detect him.
It has an ability tied to shadows too.
That also explained why the Punisher had been holding that lantern throughout the fight.
"This complicates things. On the bright side, at least I don't have to worry about the officials tracking me anymore."
Even without a clear visual on the creature, Ryan's Assassin instincts for danger warned him in time. He rolled forward again, evading the attack that came from the darkness, and kept moving away from the city.
The creature's footsteps made clear it couldn't sprint while merged with shadow the way he could.
After several more rolls and evasions, Ryan concluded that the creature's attack repertoire was entirely physical. Even in the dark, even after losing its head, it wasn't any more dangerous than before.
That settled him somewhat. And with more distance now between himself and the city, sudden interference from the official Beyonders was less of a concern.
He started considering his options.
One forward roll deflected another flank attack. Ryan feinted a retreat, waited for the footsteps to resume, then spun and hurled a stone with Power Strike.
The creature had been running at full speed and couldn't dodge it. But the moment the stone connected, it vanished again — and the stone passed straight through.
So it's not invisibility. It actually merges with the dark. Physical attacks go straight through.
Using his danger sense to dodge the next strike, Ryan now understood why the creature moved more slowly in that state: become shadow, lose your legs.
"No real intelligence, either — doesn't know to save its tricks. Still, you've dumped everything into recovery and survivability and nothing into offense."
That was the problem, and Ryan felt it keenly. The situation was a stalemate.
"I can't keep going in circles with this thing. It doesn't seem to get tired."
The creature's shadow-merging ability was something he actually had a counter for — the sun-domain talisman he'd bought at the Avignon gathering. He hadn't needed it yet; when he'd gone back to check on the grave site, everything had seemed fine.
"But one talisman isn't enough. Even if I force it back into physical form, how am I supposed to finish it off with just a dagger in the time the talisman buys me?"
Ryan's mind worked the problem.