A violent wind erupted, scattering splinters of debris in every direction.
There stood an enigmatic woman, her eyes calm and unshaken, like the still surface of a moonlit pond.
Amidst the chaos that had turned the rocky tunnel into a battlefield, this breathtaking beauty dominated the dreadful scene, her obsidian sword—seemingly forged from living shadows—gleaming menacingly in her grasp.
With a clean vertical slash and a merciless thrust, Lycrane struck the gut of the monstrous infant. She stepped back as its belly split open, spilling steaming flesh and tangled intestines across the stone floor.
Just as I thought it was over, the blood-soaked entrails convulsed and slithered like thin, grotesque serpents.
In the next instant, they burst, spraying acid-like liquid straight at us, smoke hissing from the stone where it struck.
I side-stepped, rolled over, only to feel searing heat on my left leg. A splash of the greenish-yellow liquid had eaten through my boot, burning into my skin and flesh, searing its way toward the pale bone beneath.
I gnashed my teeth, sweat falling from my forehead as I tried to hold back a guttural scream from pain.
I looked up in a fluster and searched for Lycrane.
To my surprise, she was already charging at the monstrous infant once more, her shadowy blade and her cold, midnight blue eyes painting the very image of a reaper born of hell.
However, just then, a sudden thought struck me.
'Why is she struggling with a monster like this? Stronger than any I've seen, yes, but is it really that strong? For an SSS-Rank like her?'
As I questioned myself, the tunnel suddenly trembled. Small boulders rained from above, cracks groaning through the stone.
I got my answer.
If Lycrane went all out, this entire tunnel would collapse. It was already crumbling beneath the infant's onslaught. While Lycrane herself would likely survive even if buried alive under the debris, I certainly wouldn't. I was just a C-Rank fresh graduate. I'd die without question.
Realising what was what, I forced myself to act.
Despite the burning agony in my leg, I staggered upright and bolted in the direction we had come. If I could make enough distance, Lycrane might finally fight at full strength without worrying about my safety or the fragile walls overhead.
But before I managed more than a few steps, the blood pooled across the floor rippled unnaturally.
It converged as if pulled by unseen hands, rising to form a barrier of liquid crimson before me. Reflected in its glossy surface, my own face stared back. My stomach churned.
"Blood manipulation?!" I cursed, glaring back at the monstrous infant.
Before I could form a plan, sharp spikes burst forth from the barrier, piercing into my abdomen. I doubled over, tasting blood. Another spike thrust through my mouth, shredding my jaw and jutting from my cheek.
"..."
You'd think I died then and there. But I didn't. It appeared that just a bloody spike through the jaw was not enough to kill a human being.
Somehow, even as my mind buckled under the strain, I clung to my sanity, the pain coursing through every vein.
A guttural scream tore from my throat, ragged and raw. The spikes slowly slithered back, leaving a gaping hole in my face where torn flesh struggled to cling to fractured bone.
Seeing this, my head started to go numb, and a nauseating wave crashed over me, caused by the incessant pain from getting my face bloodied and butchered.
Right when I was about to lose consciousness a sharp Ethereal voice echoed inside my head.
"Are you okay?"
It was a woman's voice.
I quickly realised who the sharp voice in my head belonged to.
Misendere Lycrane, the SSS-Rank Swordsaint.
She must have some kind of spell for direct communication.
"Yes, I think, I'm ok… what is that?" I replied in my head.
"That's a 'shapeless'. It's a B-Rank monster. The woman from earlier was a "mother of shapeless"."
"Uh, okay… I don't know what a 'shapeless' is."
"A 'Shapeless' is the manifestation of one's deepest, darkest fear. When you touched that Mother of Shapeless, the unborn inside her womb latched onto your subconscious. It took form from your most primal fear."
'My most primal fear? A giant baby with tentacle hands, split head and acid-intestines? That can't be true. Can it?' I pondered what Lycrane just told me. Thinking there was no way that thin, whatever it was, could be the thing I fear most.
I held back my suspicion and asked what really mattered, "How do we kill it?"
Lycrane's voice paused as I tried to adjust the dangling piece of jawbone that clung to my left cheek, stuck to my skin and flesh.
'It hurts!' was the only thought blaring in my head.
"Killing it is no problem. Just wait. Stay alive. I will finish it promptly."
Another acid-drenched tentacle lashed at me, forcing me back. "Stay alive?" I muttered bitterly, surrounded by writhing tentacles in front and a blood barrier that spat spikes.
…
Just as I was thinking of a way to die as painlessly as possible, I saw Lycrane suddenly appear out of thin air, no more than four meters from the monstrous infant.
I froze in awe as her blade ignited with a dark-blue radiance. She sank into a stance, waiting as countless tentacles lunged toward her. Then, with a sudden motion, she vanished, sword cleaving in a single line of light.
Her blade flashed, cutting in a straight line, as she disappeared from where she stood and reappeared behind the monstrous infant.
The sword flashed, cleaving through the neck of the monstrous infant with ruthless speed. A deep rumble shuddered through the tunnel, but not enough to bring the ceiling crashing down and bury us alive beneath a mountain of stone.
'Why didn't she unleash that strike before?' I thought to myself, still feeling the unbearable pain.
Lycrane seized the infant's split head and wrenched it back. I could only watch in disgust as the infant's head came out, cut from the neck, blood gushing out from the wound in its neck.
She tossed the severed head aside with cold disdain, then turned to me with that same unearthly poise.
Seeing that, relief washed over me. I staggered forward, muttering to myself.
'So it's finally dead. Well, of course—it was up against the Swordsaint herself. In some way, I almost pity the poor thing.'
Such were the thoughts of a 'me' who was so foolish that he thought everything was alright even though he knew something was wrong.
Something so elaborate couldn't possibly be my biggest fear.
Suddenly, the ground two steps before me trembled, and a dark tree root shot forth at an incredible speed. It pierced my left leg, tearing out a big chunk of flesh.
I turned in horror toward the infant's corpse. From its neck wound, gnarled tree roots writhed outward, burrowing into the stone floor.
I never really gave much thought to it.
But if I had to choose, I'd say that the thing I most feared was a kind of monster that can't be killed or defeated, no matter what.