From Moving Crates to Killing Gods-Chapter 110: Slaughter

I took the cube into my inventory.

The tremors were no longer just vibrations I felt through my boots. They had turned into sound, a low rhythmic percussion coming from below and ahead, the kind of noise that got louder in a very specific direction.

Toward me.

I had a handful of moments before they surfaced. Silver serpents were fast on the ground and faster underground, dirt did not slow them down. Outrunning them to escape was not a strategy I was willing to bet my survival on.

I activated Sense.

Ten. I could feel ten of them already near me, their bodies moving at angles that were converging on my position. Not scattered, not random. The pack was hunting with coordination even without the Acolyte. Maybe the final instruction from the Acolyte still resided in their subconscious.

Or they were just angry.

Either option was bad.

I crouched and picked up a small rock from the ground. It would be my weapon against them.

The closest serpent was the nearest presence in my Sense field, its body moving fast and direct. I found the center section, the vital mass region, and built a rough mental box around it. Not precise, not the clean surgical targeting I would have preferred. A chunk, that was enough for now.

Switch.

The rock disappeared.

Something arrived next to my right hand. It was warm and moving, a section of silver serpent body still moving, still alive. The surface of the cut was already beginning to react. A new head was attempting to form from one end, the process I’d seen back when I first killed a serpent.

I did not give it time.

I extended Sense forward. And reached the second closest serpent, which was closing fast from a different angle. I focused on the upper half of the living chunk that sat to my right, already at my hand’s reach and built a second box against the center section of the approaching serpent.

Switch.

Another chunk of serpent body arrived, this one moved only for a moment, then went still. The remaining parts of both serpents that sat to my right lost cohesion within two seconds, dark liquid spreading across the pale ground, silver material settling into shapes that no longer moved.

Two down.

Then three serpents broke the surface simultaneously. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

One came from behind me. The other two erupted from the ground to my left and right, moving with the immediate committed speed of something that had decided the approach was finished and the killing could begin.

The one behind me was already lunging at me, its momentum carrying it into the air, jaws open, the gap closing faster than I could track with my eyes.

I closed my eyes.

Sense was already on it.

My right hand was still touching the remnant chunk of serpent from the last Switch. I focused on the open maw of the serpent lunging from behind me and I created a mental box.

Switch.

The serpent’s lower maw arrived in my right hand.

Above me, the rest of the serpent’s body completed the lunge it had already committed to, carried forward by momentum that no longer had the bottom of its head attached to it. Its upper section passed over me, without any fangs and an open maw it barely missed me, the body carried by momentum through the air overhead.

The other two were already in motion. Left serpent had fully lunged. Right serpent was coiling to strike.

The mawless serpent was still in the air above me, its middle section about to pass through my arms reach.

I acted by instinct, following what I felt was the only possible way I’d survive the attack.

My mind assembled four shapes simultaneously.

The maw in my right hand. The middle section of the serpent above me. The center mass of the left serpent mid lunge. The center mass of the right serpent already coiling.

I pressed my right hand against the bottom of the body passing overhead.

Double Switch.

The serpent above me split. Its upper section carried forward with all the momentum it had built, shooting ahead through the air like something launched rather than something falling, silver scales and dark blood falling from the sky as it went. The lower section shot in a slightly different direction, already still.

The two serpents at my sides convulsed simultaneously. Both of them shuddered, the spatial displacement tearing through their center masses without caring about silver scales or resistance. They each completed about half of what they had been attempting before the motion became disconnected and meaningless.

They hit the ground and did not get up.

Dark liquid fell from the air where the upper section of the overhead serpent had passed, spattering across my shoulders and arms in a wide radius, still warm.

I stood in the middle of it with different parts of five serpent corpses around me.

I threw the chunk that I was holding in my left hand. I didn’t feel confident on doing more double Switches at all, I’d probably succeeded only by luck.

Sense was still reading the remaining five serpents underground, and their movement pattern had just changed. They were no longer converging in a tight formation. They were spreading.

The Acolyte had been dead for less than ten minutes and whatever instinct remained in the pack felt like it was already loosing shape.

Five left. No cube. No barrier.

Just Switch, a few slices of silver serpent meat, and whatever rocks I could grab.

I didn’t trust another ability to fail me, so I pulled out the yo-yo. The boon had been masking the actual cost of using Switch. A millionth of the initial cost.

I didn’t know for how long I’d be able to keep this going, but I sure wasn’t risking my life on it.

I snapped it out once, fast, then tucked it back into my pocket.

If anyone saw me, they’d think I’d lost it... and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

I was covered in dark blood, the ground around me a slaughter.

Then the ground cracked.

A wide ring around me split open as five sections of the wasteland floor gave way at once.

I tightened my grip on another rock.

There was no barrier.

And nowhere to run.