The colossal Puchi burst up through the earth. Madwolf sprang backward through the rubble flung into the air, his face twitching.
He had seen plenty of giant monsters. He had even crossed blades with great dragons. But this thing in front of him... a Puchi?
Its tentacles were thicker than the towers in the distance, and the shadow cast by its cap could swallow half the city.
A Puchi more than ten times the size of a great dragon?!
He leapt to the side of his two adjutants. "Pull out of the city! Get everyone out, as fast as you can!"
One adjutant, his face smeared with ash, glanced at the burning city and answered with some difficulty. "Marshal, the army is all still..."
"You pack of fools! Take out as many as you..."
A vast shadow blotted out the sunlight that had been on them a moment before.
No. 4's tentacle came crashing down like a toppling mountain range.
[Swift Rend LV10]
Madwolf crossed both claws and met it head-on. Five sharp arcs of light slammed straight into the tentacle.
The tentacle, thicker than a house, split clean in two down the middle and dropped out of the sky, crushing who knew how many unlucky souls where it landed in the city.
But a second tentacle was already right behind it, and it swatted Madwolf into the ground like a fly.
Rubble sprayed in every direction, and the ground caved into an enormous crater.
"Smack-smack-smack you!" No. 4's three tentacles took turns coming down, hammering away at the spot where Madwolf had landed.
Each blow came with a shudder of the earth. Under the pounding of the tentacles, the whole district gave way: houses collapsed, foundations sank, and dust surged outward in great waves.
"Marshal!" Two werewolf subordinates who hadn't yet gotten far were choking on the dust, eyes screwed shut, but they still threw themselves desperately toward the crater.
No. 4 noticed them.
"Smack you two as well!"
A tentacle swept across at them. Tall as a city wall, it came sweeping in, and though the two werewolves reacted in time, there was simply nowhere to dodge.
At that critical instant, Madwolf burst up out of the ground.
His left arm hung limp at his side, looking dislocated. With his other hand he seized both werewolves and dragged them out from under the tentacle's shadow, not stopping until he'd bolted several hundred meters away.
But when he looked back, he found that one of the werewolves had had his lower body smashed to pulp, a bloody ruin, drawing in far less breath than he let out.
Madwolf's throat bobbed. He set the faintly twitching body down with care and told the other werewolf, still on his feet, "Go. Get the troops out, all of them!"
The werewolf's lips trembled. He cast one glance at his comrade lying all but silent on the ground, then turned and ran.
But No. 4 had no intention of letting him go. A tentacle lifted again, taking aim at the retreating figure.
This time Madwolf didn't go to save his subordinate. Instead he worked his arm as he ran, shoving the dislocated bone back into place with a click, then followed the scent, fixed on Inanna's position, and charged in a wide arc around No. 4.
He made no attempt at all to hide his intent, so No. 4 promptly pulled its tentacles back and brought them all slamming down on him.
But once Madwolf saw that the tentacle he'd torn open, wound for wound, had already mostly healed, he stopped trading blows with No. 4 head-on and chose instead to dodge the tentacles with nimble, darting movements.
No. 4 brought all four tentacles down at once, like swatting at a cockroach it could never quite hit.
Seeing him draw closer and closer to Inanna, No. 4 had no choice but to roll its massive body around and plant itself between Inanna and Madwolf, like a mother hen shielding her chick.
"[Split Shadow]!"
Madwolf split into two, circling in from the left and right at the same time. The two figures were identical, down to the same scent and even the same simulated magic. There was no telling which was real.
"Can't hit you, can't hit you..." No. 4 flailed its tentacles in a panic, but no matter how it tried, it couldn't match the speed of those two figures.
"Oh, right!"
It stopped attacking and rolled its body, bearing down on the Pink Puchi.
Not to actually crush her, but to tuck Inanna away inside its belly.
Then, with practiced ease, No. 4 curled itself up, turning into one super-enormous ball of mycelium.
Watching No. 4 give up on counterattacking, Madwolf saw no reason to hold back. His claws came down like a raging storm.
Every swing of his claws left several gashes, each more than ten meters long, across No. 4's mushroom flesh.
But No. 4, now balled up, would roll a little each time it was wounded, pressing the injury against the ground beneath it. With its formidable regeneration, by the time it had rolled half a turn and the pressed-down section came back into view, the torn wound had long since been filled in by fresh mycelium.
No. 4 could take the punishment, and the nimble Madwolf wasn't taking any real hits either. But the demon troops in the city who hadn't managed to withdraw in time were the ones who suffered.
Wherever the giant Puchi ball rolled, even the foundations buckled and collapsed. Aside from the few who could fly, everyone in the ball's path was crushed into the ground.
The army's losses were catastrophic. Madwolf's eyes looked ready to split with rage, yet there was nothing he could do. For the moment he didn't even dare keep attacking.
But the instant Madwolf hesitated, No. 4, which couldn't land a hit on him anyway, started rolling around even more gleefully.
The demons throughout the city scattered, screaming, their lives staked entirely on which way No. 4 would roll next.
Madwolf roared and lunged again, hoping to draw No. 4's attention back to himself. But No. 4, having already realized there was nothing it could do about Madwolf, simply ignored him outright and rolled toward wherever the demons were thickest.
No. 4 crushed them until the demons no longer dared to gather in groups at all.
Madwolf chased along the bloody trail No. 4 left behind, the rubble under his feet strewn with the broken corpses and severed limbs of the soldiers under his command.
"Damn you, stop!" he bellowed from behind.
And No. 4 actually stopped.
That left even Madwolf stunned. For a moment he didn't dare move, afraid of provoking the giant Puchi ball into rolling again.
After a good while, Inanna poked the upper half of her body out through a gap in the Puchi ball and relayed a message on behalf of No. 4, who could only speak within the mycelial network. "Um... the glorious No. 4... No. 4 is this one here." Inanna pointed at the Puchi ball. "No. 4 says: if you stop dodging, it'll stop crushing your men."
With that, not waiting for Madwolf to answer, Inanna ducked quickly back inside, lest she be caught by a surprise attack.
No. 4 wasted no time either. The moment Inanna had pulled back in, two of its tentacles rose high and came smashing down at Madwolf.
Madwolf's eye twitched. He looked at the shadow overhead and, in the end, slipped aside, clear of the tentacles.
No. 4 drew its tentacles back.
And No. 4 started rolling again.
Helpless, Madwolf gave chase once more, his face contorted, fury blazing inside him. And still there was nothing he could do.
Madwolf might have seemed powerless against No. 4, but this was just as much a last resort for No. 4 and Inanna.
Clearly, Madwolf was the core of this mist illusion. Until he was dealt with, the Mist would not disperse. What they were doing now amounted to nothing more than stalling and keeping him tangled up.
As time dragged on with the core still unresolved, their situation could only grow more and more dangerous. In theory, at least.
In fact, though, as masses of demon soldiers were crushed to death, the illusion actually grew blurrier and blurrier.
When No. 4 finished its fifth pass rolling through what was now a ruined city, a final furious roar came from Madwolf behind it, and the scene all around at last fell apart, reverting to nothing but mist.
Before long the mist dispersed, and No. 4 and Inanna found themselves in open country about five kilometers from where they'd started.
"We actually made it out! Wonderful, Pink Puchi!" No. 4 threw its body open with a cheer.
A moment later Inanna crawled out from inside No. 4 as well, though she was in far worse spirits than it was.
"Yeah... wonderful... urgh..."
(End of Chapter)
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