Chapter 24
Eight Limbs Part 4
The monster took a second step.
FWHOOOOSH! Another flare roared from the floor, climbing like an incandescent tide.
The wall trembled, and again the officer raised his arms, forcing the energy to triple the thickness once more. The veins in his neck stood out, and a gasp escaped his lips, but the cube held.
The monster didn't stop. It advanced calmly, indifferent to the chaos it caused. Each footfall was a new blow of fire, a lash of heat that whipped with the force of a red-hot hammer.
Third step. The wave rebounded off the cube, tearing off green sparks that floated in the air before extinguishing. The officer swung his arm again; the wall's thickness swelled once more, but his breathing grew harsher.
Fourth step. The fire covered everything, so dense that for a second the inside of the cube was plunged into a blinding glare. The officer gritted his teeth until they creaked, forcing the wall to reinforce itself again. Sweat poured from his forehead, staining the floor under his boots.
Fifth step. Another flare. The cube tripled again, but now the vibration didn't fade: it remained latent, as if the structure itself were on the verge of collapse.
Each new wave convinced him more: he wasn't getting out of there alive. The smoke outside thickened the air until it was unrecognizable, and with each flare the glow enveloping the hall became more unbearable, as if the fire wanted to pierce even the cube's protection.
The officer, panting, tried something more. Not just tripling, but quintupling the wall thickness. He gathered energy in his arms, clenched his fists, and pushed outward with a contained roar… but it was useless.
There wasn't enough time, the creature was advancing faster and faster, and each of its steps was another wave falling immediately. There was no respite between attacks.
"How much longer can I hold…?" he thought, teeth clenched to the point of pain. The question hammered inside his skull, growing louder, until he could almost hear it over the fire's roar.
In the midst of that hell, the officer tried to mentally prepare for the inevitable. His gaze darted from one corner to another, desperately seeking some way out, some crack that could offer him an escape.
But there was nothing. Everything he could see beyond the green walls was wrapped in flames: reddened columns, collapsed beams burning like torches, the floor turned into a tapestry of embers.
The heat suffocated him, and just as the idea of the end began to solidify in his mind…
THUMP!
A brutal blow shook the cube. The impact reverberated through the wall to his left, sending waves of energy through the entire structure. The glow vibrated with a sharp hum, and for an instant the officer thought the wall would shatter.
His body reacted before his reason. He turned immediately, eyes wide open, surprise mixing with pure adrenaline. His hands instinctively dropped to his belt, taking a drawing stance, body leaning forward, ready to respond to whatever had struck his refuge.
At that moment, two things surprised him, one after the other…
The first: the brutal sensation of emptiness at his side. His hand closed on air, where he should have felt the familiar hardness of his weapon's hilt. He turned with an instinctive start, quickly patting the scabbard area… but there was nothing. No sword, no sheath. Nothing.
A chill ran down his spine.
"When did I drop it!?"
The question drilled into his mind as he searched frantically with his eyes, as if it would suddenly appear among the floor's flames or magically stuck to his belt.
Then, a memory ignited, cruel and clear: the moment he dodged that table thrown by the fish monster. The jump, the fall, the impact against the debris…
"It must have been then!! Shit, I didn't notice!" he thought, clenching his teeth so hard his jaw cracked.
But his expression changed upon seeing the second thing that surprised him: the fish monster.
The memory of that creature—so fierce, so impossible to contain—was still fresh in his mind. And yet, what he had before him wasn't the same enemy as before. The being burned entirely, as if its own body had been condemned to a punishment.
It convulsed violently, its scorched fins flailing in clumsy spasms, its moist gray skin peeling away in shreds under the fire devouring it. It rolled across the floor with dull thuds, leaving grooves of ash and blood in its wake, crashing against columns that vibrated with each impact.
It jumped, thrashed, twisted upon itself like a fish pulled from water.
It seemed to be trying to tear its skin off with bites, slamming against anything it found, as if the pain were unbearable.
The officer watched it from inside the cube, eyes wide open. That thing, which minutes ago had finished off his companions, was now consuming itself before him.
It was obvious. It was suffering.
"Ha… ha…" The laugh was forced, harsh, barely a growl disguised as mockery. The officer twisted his face into a grimace, as if laughing was the only thing left to keep from breaking completely.
But the sound died instantly.
FWHOOOOSH!
Another wave of fire assaulted him, striking the cube violently. The structure trembled and contracted, forcing him to raise his arm again and force the energy to triple the thickness. The green flash illuminated his sweaty face, revealing the brutal effort marked on his features.
"Shit… why did it have to be eight…?" he thought, his mind racing as fast as his heartbeat.
"Is it a first-grade…?"
The idea froze his blood. If it was, if he truly faced an aberration of that level, there was no chance of defeating it alone. It was only a matter of time before…
Sweat ran down his temples in warm streams, sticking his hair to his face. The drops blurred his vision, stung his eyes, but he couldn't wipe them away. His hands trembled, still raised before the wall that hummed with a deep vibration.
"Ahh… how badly everything turned out. And all because of a stupid table…" he thought bitterly. The irony burned him almost as much as the heat.
"Hanz…" he murmured, turning his head slightly toward where the burly man should be. The word came out broken, dragged by the smoke. But the flames covered everything; there was nothing but a blinding glare and pillars of fire devouring the space. No silhouette, no sign of life.
A shadow of sadness sketched across his face, forced to coexist with the combat's tension. For a second, the weight of loneliness fell fully upon him: the idea that there was no one else, that his voice was lost in a void of fire and ash.
The flares gave no respite. Each wave hit the cube with growing violence, enveloping it more and more, as if burying it in a bottomless, burning ocean. The wall's hum reverberated in his bones. His breath was barely a thread.
And then, without warning… they stopped.
The silence was so abrupt it hurt. It wasn't a clean silence, but one filled with crackling, the sputtering of embers, and the crunch of wood still being consumed. But compared to the relentless roar of the fire waves, it seemed an absolute void.
The officer closed his eyes for just a second, seeking in that fleeting darkness a respite that didn't exist. When he opened them again, reality hit him full force. A twisted grimace formed on his face: there was nothing to interpret, nothing to guess.
The monster was right in front of him.
Its gigantic body filled the space beyond the wall, so close that every incandescent crack in its skin burned like live coal in the officer's sight. The flame of its "head" flickered with a savage brilliance, and every time it stirred, the air inside the cube vibrated as if about to ignite as well.
Only the green wall separated them. A cube formed by three layers of thickness, which until moments ago had withstood the impossible. But now, with the creature motionless before him, that defense felt like mere glass about to turn to dust.
The officer swallowed, his throat dry. The irony wrenched a bitter smile from him that he couldn't contain.
"Haha… and now how do I get out of this alive?" he whispered, his voice hoarse, as if speaking to himself more than to his enemy.
A deep growl shook the air. It wasn't an animal roar, not even human: it was the vibrant bellow of an open furnace, as if the creature's innards were a burning crucible. The sound pierced the cube's walls, resonating in the officer's bones, who felt every vertebra respond with a dull echo.
The green wall trembled under that vibration, emitting a deep, threatening hum, like glass on the verge of fracture. Even so, the officer didn't step back. He planted his feet against the floor with stubborn determination, tensing every muscle in his body. Sweat ran down his forehead, but he didn't blink. He knew that if he showed the slightest hesitation… he would die.
And then, in the corner of his eye, something stole his attention.
Behind the burning giant, between tongues of flame licking the air, the fish monster was still moving.
Twisted, broken, it remained alive against all logic. Its body burned in convulsions, and yet it dragged itself as best it could toward the destroyed door, leaving behind a viscous trail that sizzled upon contact with the embers.
The officer looked at it for just an instant, without fully turning his head. That detail, that fish's obstinacy to reach the exit…
He had no time to react.
A dry snap announced the inevitable: a burning arm pierced the wall as if it were soaked paper, effortlessly, tearing the green energy into shreds of light. The officer barely had time to turn his head when the incandescent hand gripped his entire head, closing over his skull with the force of a burning press.
"—Ghkkk!"— The groan was choked, smothered under the weight of that claw. His body reacted on instinct: his hands immediately rose, clutching the fiery arm in a desperate attempt to pry it off.
The contact was instant agony. The skin of his palms ignited as if he had pressed against red-hot iron. An unbearable pain shot through his nerves to his shoulder, wrenching a choked scream from him. His fingers convulsed, but the burning forced him to let go abruptly, with an involuntary spasm.
Gasping.
He looked at his own hands and a chill pierced his chest. They were red, almost glowing from the heat, the skin blistering and peeling off like dead scales.
Every breath trembled in his throat; the mere touch of air against the exposed flesh was torment.
The officer half-clenched his fists, trembling, as if trying to squeeze them was the only way to remember he still had them.
The monster lifted him without the slightest effort, as if his weight were no more than that of an empty doll.
The officer felt his stomach flip in an instant; the world around him accelerated without warning. The flames, which before surrounded him in constant waves, were now just red lines, blurry streaks stretching before his eyes. The floor receded at an impossible speed, while his neck cracked under the pressure of that incandescent hand holding him suspended.
A brutal dizziness struck him. He lost his sense of up and down, as if the entire hall had suddenly flipped over. And then he understood: he was upside down, hanging in the air, trapped like prey about to be devoured.
There was no warning, no roar, no preparatory gesture.
It threw him.
The officer was flying.
There was no up or down, only an uncontrolled whirlwind. His body shot out like a projectile, spinning aimlessly. Each turn was a stab of vertigo: fire on one side, darkness on the other, repeating relentlessly. The air pressure ripped his breath away, his muscles didn't respond, it was as if he no longer belonged to himself.
THUMP!
The impact stopped him abruptly. The pain spread like a shockwave through his side, but what bewildered him wasn't the impact itself, but the sensation: it wasn't stone, nor wood, nor metal. He had crashed into something alive.
Hard, heavy, but alive.
The collision was so brutal that for a second his own body dragged the other with it, both falling entangled. He felt tense flesh under his shoulders, solid bone resisting, and a shudder that confirmed what was in front of him wasn't a wall, but another being.
Confused, panting, he barely had time to think:
"What the hell…?"
But an instant later it overwhelmed him. The momentum hadn't disappeared, and though his body was no longer colliding fully, he ended up bouncing off that being, losing all sense of control. He spun over and over, dragged by the inertia.
And then, the world changed abruptly.
An icy current pierced him like a stab, wrenching a sharp gasp from him. He went from the scorching, suffocating air to the wet edge of the exterior storm. The contrast was so violent that his burned skin reacted with a new pain, as if the rain itself burned to touch him.
CRASH!
He hit the ground. Bounced once, twice, until his body finally slid a few more meters, rolling uncontrollably. The terrain was no longer the same: rough, irregular, soaked. Under his scraped cheek he felt the mix of icy water and damp wood.
He lay still for a moment, breathing with difficulty, dazed, while the storm roared above him and every raindrop felt like a cold nail driving into his reddened skin.
"—Khff…!"— A cough shook his chest like an internal thunderclap. Each jolt made him burn inside, but at the same time he felt that with each spasm he expelled a little of the fire that had been devouring him.
Slowly, he lifted his head, trembling.
He was outside.
The thick smoke was behind him; now it was the rain that surrounded him. He was on the ship's deck, sprawled on the wet planks that creaked under the storm's weight.
Thick drops hit his face one after another, mixing with sweat and running over the open wounds on his hands, extinguishing the smell of burnt flesh that still pursued him.
He breathed deeply. Once, twice. The salty, cold air filled his lungs, harsh but clean, without embers or ash. The difference was so violent it shook his bones: his whole body trembled.
Before him, motionless on the deck, a few meters away, lay the fish monster.
Its grayish skin was blackened, covered in cracks that still smoked like dying embers.
Its whole body gave off a stench of charred flesh that the rain couldn't erase, and every drop that hit it raised a new faint hiss, as if it still burned inside.
The officer blinked incredulously, rubbing his eyes with his injured hands, not quite believing what he saw.
"Is it dead…?" he murmured, his voice broken by the cough.
He crawled forward a little, breathing with difficulty, eyes fixed on that motionless silhouette that had finished off his companions minutes before.
"Did it really… die like this…?"
With an effort that wrenched a choked groan from him, the officer pushed himself up.
A trembling hand braced against the ship's planks, and the water running under his fingers, cold and constant, anchored him to reality.
He took a step forward, without thinking too much. Every movement hurt; his muscles responded slowly, as if made of rusted iron.
The sound of rain and waves crashing against the hull mixed with his irregular breathing.
His free hand rested on his own chest, crumpling the destroyed uniform, charred and soaked.
Another step.
Finally, he stopped before the blackened corpse. He remained there, upright but with his head bowed, the rain falling fully on his face, running over his forehead, cheekbones, chin.
Every drop returned him to the present, but also marked the sepulchral silence of the moment.
The fish monster didn't move. Only smoke and steam escaped its twisted body, mixing with the storm's mist.
Suddenly, geometric figures began to materialize on his skin. Triangles, rhombuses, interlaced lines of a translucent green shone upon contact with the open wounds, spreading over his arms, chest, face marked by fire.
The light pulsed weakly, like an artificial heart, and with each flash the burning consuming him diminished a little.
The blisters stopped smarting, the pressure in his muscles eased enough for him to stand without trembling so much.
It wasn't a complete healing, but a respite: just enough for the pain to no longer dominate him.
The officer remained still, eyes fixed on the blackened corpse of the fish monster, while the geometric shapes traversed his body.
He could have felt relief. He could have collapsed, grateful. But he didn't.
What emerged inside him was different. A bitter confusion. A knot of emotions strangling each other without letting him think clearly. The void of fatigue filled with rage, and with the rage came something darker: a visceral hatred that didn't quite fit in his mind.
His breathing accelerated. His jaw cracked as he clenched it.
He didn't understand where this internal storm came from, but he felt it as strongly as the real storm surrounding him.
His mind was a chaotic swarm, a labyrinth of emotions blinding him more than the smoke or rain.
"Pathetic animal…" he whispered, his eyes sunk in shadow, his voice hoarse, more worn by rage than fatigue.
"If you were going to die… you should have done it alone."
His words dissolved in the humid air, carried away by the incessant drumming of rain against the deck.
No scream, no roar, no crackle of fire answered. Only the cold, methodical rhythm of drops falling on wood and burnt flesh.
That silence, after the tempest of flames and roars, was unnatural. The officer remained there, immobile, feeling that every drop hitting his face was a mute accusation, an echo repeating his own failure.
For an instant, the world reduced to him and that blackened body. The storm itself seemed to hold its breath.
And they seemed to hide what might have been tears.