Chapter 191: Expedition

Well, at least I managed to leave Goob behind, Calvin thought as they trekked through the jungle, looking for the most elusive monster he’d ever heard of.

Other than that though, all of Calvin’s close friends had been more than eager to follow him into a potential death trap. Calvin could understand Baroke’s decision making process, given the guy’s justifiable overconfidence, but the others…

Calvin glanced over his shoulder, noting that Kala, Ella, Nadia, and Learner were all still in place, trudging behind him with various degrees of discomfort.

When did it become such a taco fest? Calvin wondered. Not that I mind, but still…

That’s normal for your age and how central you are to the plot…My plot!

Calvin ignored Elliot’s slowly growing laughter and double checked that everyone was there before he faced forward again.

It was noted that the monster had vanished people when those around them took their eyes off them for a second.

Which was why Calvin had placed everyone, in no uncertain terms, in order of how disposable they were to him.

Learner was at the back, of course, but she didn’t seem to mind being first in line to be eaten. Aoehe, Ella’s tall, thin father was next, marching along behind them without any sign of discomfort, at ease in the jungle. His Chained spirit flanked either side of him, making sure the aging Maje was protected. Baroke was in the middle, a bit irritated at being labeled more disposable than Calvin’s wives, but also utterly confident that he would be fine.

Next was Ella. Rather than bicker over who was more disposable, she simply shrugged and said it was good it gave her a chance to protect the little princess and her poeor.

Kala’s relationship to the two of them had subtly shifted since the three of them had taken the Guya together. Calvin and Ella were driven by instinct to be protective of the slender princess, while she was more than eager to please both of them.

Okay, it’s not that much different.

Kala just enjoyed being able to know how both of them were feeling when she was away dealing with statescraft, bustling back and forth between Mujenan and Calvin’s March.

And finally, Calvin took up the lead, his fine-tuned senses hopefully able to spot danger before it reared its ugly head.

He wasn’t taking any chances, though. Calvin had also used Chimera to create a swarm of floating Nadias, each about the size of a Tarak by wrapping a Nadia body around a Refraction spinner’s flight organs. He also added antennae, lure sensors and the sensitive fingers of a Spinner, including the respective lumps of brain that processed those inputs, otherwise she’d probably just devolve into a twitching mess on the floor.

The Scout Nadia was born. The wasp-antennaed swarm of sadomasochistic fairy-looking women had the role of roaming ahead while also keeping watch on the five of them.

This was because of the reports that no one had ever seen the monster take anyone, implying that it either wouldn’t or couldn’t kidnap people while they were under observation. Hence Calvin put them all under Nadia’s observation. Thousands of eyes at once. The chance of everyone present blinking at once was practically nil.

Quantum monster. Elliot said with a chuckle. It’s not there if someone is observing it.

You know something about it? Calvin asked.

No, no, I just thought it was a funny idea…Although if that were the case, if would make it very difficult to pin this creature down.

Hmm….

Calvin retreated into his thoughts as they clomped through the woods, periodically checking in with Nadia.

If Elliot’s joke is spot on and we can’t directly engage with it due to some kind of weird dimensional fuckery, how do we engage it?

The most obvious answer seemed to be traps. Traps weren’t observers, per se. the question was, how to trap something that vanished like that? Either it was invisible, it teleported, or it shifted between dimensions. Calvin’s thoughts came full circle, back to the Brain Worm. That was fairly good at shifting between dimensions, and the Refraction spinner’s blades messed it up pretty good.

Some kind of bomb, perhaps? Calvin thought, eyeing a nearby Nadia flitting past him. the one-foot tall girl caught him looking and stuck out her tongue, giving him the finger before flying away, joining the Swarm of Nadia.

His first gambit could involve packing Nadia’s summon with enough raw dimensional juices from the Spinner’s glands that when she detonated, she would mince everything in a twenty foot radius. Similar to what he did with the serial killer, but vastly more powerful.

I’m sure Nadia doesn’t mind being used as ordinance. She’s special like that.

Calvin wasn’t sure what the trigger might be, though. Perhaps some kind of trigger based on the sensitive skin on a Spinner’s fingertips.

Those fingertips could feel fluctuations in space, after all, which meant the explosion could be keyed to trigger in the teleporting or shifting scenario, but not the invisible scenario.

Honestly an invisible creature would be the easiest to deal with, anyway. Invisible implied it was still in existence, and if they put shrapnel through it, it would die. No, the dimensional shenanigans were the problem to deal with.

Calvin was beginning to ponder a design for a Nadia-Bomb when a tap on his shoulder caught his attention. He glanced over a spotted Nadia settling down to perch on his shoulder like a pet bird.

“Big ugly a quarter mile that way,” Nadia said, pointing off to the left. “Coming towards us. Looks like it’s got Baroke’s scent.”

“Hey!” Baroke said, scowling.

“Strongest Body, strongest scent,” Nadia said, another one of her bodies wrinking her nose as she poked Baroke on the shoulder until he waved her off.

“What’s it look like?” Calvin asked, brows furrowed as he ran through the list of monster he knew inhabited the jungle.

“Oh, it’s about a hundred feet long, armored, segmented, with big old pincers at the front.”

“A Kugeya?” Aoehe asked, his grip on his obsidian club tightening. The Maje’s Chained Spirit took position between the Genosian and the oncoming apex predator, the two identical bodies raising their bows, eyes scanning the surroundings.

“Does your party have the strength to ward it off?” Aoehe asked, his hands raised cautiously. “I need to know before I use more Bent.”

“Oh right, you haven’t seen me for a while, have you?” Calvin said, glancing back at the shaman.

What’s it been, a year and a half?

“You want me to handle it?” Nadia asked.

Strictly speaking, Nadia probably could handle it. Her fingers were capable of making blades of dimensional force that would shear apart any solid flesh, no matter how armored, because it wasn’t cutting matter so much as it was separating it.

A swarm of Nadia’s could probably reduce the Kugeya to chunks before they even saw it.

“No, I want to try something first. Can you guys step back? Nadia make sure you don’t look away from anyone.”

They took a few dozen steps back as the sound of the approaching Kugeya began to become more and more apparent. Thunderbolt cracks of overloaded branches and the hissing of leaves shaking against each other by the thousands gave away the Kugeya’s approach.

“Baroke, can you spot me?” Calvin asked. It would be incredibly stupid if this failed miserably and he wound up getting smeared on the forest floor.

“Sure,” The seven foot tall archer stepped forward and unslung his weapon, putting a single Abyssal Steel arrow on the glass bow’s string, holding it there with a relaxed grip.

The crashing through the forest became louder and louder, until it sounded like they were in front of an approaching tornado, trees thrashing against each other violently.

The Kugeya burst through the treeline as Calvin placed one finger on the copper stud on his belt, another on the loadstone Elliot had showed him how to make.

I hope this thing’s mass isn’t too high…oh, right.

Lightning Breath.

38/47 Bent remaining.

This wasn’t an actual Ability, merely a combination of two castings of Trait Doctoring and one cast of Shifting, In essence mimicking a true Ability at the cost of three Bent. Calvin had asked Elliot to make the System report the use in a more concise way so his mind wasn’t being overwhelmed with notifications every time he did it. It wasn’t helpful in the thick of combat.

Assuming this works and I ever want to do it again. Last time, Calvin had presumably only kept his tongue intact because of his super-human Endurance.

The massive insect didn’t hesitate, plowing forward at terrifying speeds, heedless of the fact that it had suddenly gotten a bit lighter.

Calvin drew mass out of the ground, and out of the Kugeya itself, blowing the air in front of him with all the force his lungs could muster, before selecting the air in front of him and applying the effect of all three Abilities.

He had to lighten the Kugeya, because otherwise the creature might not even flinch when sixteen thousand pounds of electrified air slammed it in the face. It was that big.

The whirling cloud of crackling air caught the massive creature across the mandibles, mere feet away from Calvin’s body, it’s claws nearly disemboweling him.

Then the sheer weight of Calvin’s breath slammed into the creature and send it tumbling backwards, lighting coursing around the creature’s thick shell as the insanely heavy air swirled around the hapless creature.

While its face was sent backwards, the rest of the huge monster’s body maintained momentum, continuing mindlessly forward and tangling up with the rest of the creature. More and more of its body coiled up around it as its head writhed in the center of the slowly dissipating cloud of lighting.

When the cloud was completely gone, the humongous Kugeya was rolled up into a smoking ball, curled around itself in a defensive position, not moving a muscle. The ball of muscle was massive, standing over twenty feet tall, and partially charred, especially around the head and eyes.

Calvin couldn’t see much of the head area, but what he did see what black and sloughing away.

The creature was obviously dead.

A streak of light reflected off of Baroke’s arrow as it shot outward at mind-boggling speeds, penetrating the center of the Kugeya’s death-coil and exploding the creature outward in every direction, showering the two of them with warm bits of insect goop, muscle and chiton.

It rained viscera down like a fall shower, beginning suddenly and ending just as quick, leaving Calvin standing there, plucking a tiny bit of the creature’s shell out of his hair and glaring at Baroke, who looked as cheerful as ever.

“Boom, saved your life.” Baroke said, putting his fists on his waist and overlooking the damage he’d wrought with a bright smile. “It twitched. You didn’t see it from where you were standing, but it was getting ready to jump ya.”

Gradual Multi Shaping

37/47 Bent remaining.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Calvin said before dunking himself in a stream of conjured soap and water, then dismissing it a moment later, leaving himself relatively clean and dry.

“Hey, what about me?” Baroke said, holding his gunk covered arms out.

“We have to disguise your natural musk,” Calvin said with as much seriousness as he could muster. “Can’t have you luring in maneaters from far and wide, so covering your odor with the scent of an apex predator should go a long way towards keeping the local wildlife away from all of us us.”

Baroke’s eyes narrowed. “Touche,” he said with a scowl. “But seriously, give me the damn soap and water.”

“Please?”

“Hmm…I don’t know if it’s worth a Bent.”

***Aoehe, Genosian Maje***

Ella’s father watched the friend’s antics, his jaw slowly hanging open in amazement. He had heard of what the Juntai could do from other tribes, but while it looked similar to the description, it was also vastly more powerful, dealing lethal damage to a charging Kugeya and bringing it to a halt in an instant.

Last he’d seen, the boy could only make copies of things that already existed, but…watching the black-clad girl emerge from green smoke in greater numbers than any Maje could possibly summon…and the way she floated, those antennae that reminded him of an insects…

This boy was doing things Aoehe had never dreamed of, and he was fairly sure it involved Chained Spirit. But the number of summons…

The lightning…

Aoehe was overcome by ambivilant feelings: He had to admit the boy was stronger than any Maje he had ever seen before, most likely he was an Aiaka. His strength might actually be able to deliver his tribe from the clutches of whatever nightmare stalked them.

On the other hand, he’d obviously stolen the Genosian’s sacred Ability, reserved for Maje and passed on from father to son for a thousand years. Calvin had changed it until it was barely recognizeable, but Aoehe could tell by the way the tiny flying woman behaved that there was a thinking spirit in there, rather than a summoned puppet.

He had also obviously taken the role of Ella’s Poeor, and yet he was taking advantage of the Guya dynamic to two-time his daughter! Three timing, if you considered his lusty Chained spirit, who seemed eager to sexually assault anyone around her who showed weakness.

Aoehe was a logical man, though, and the opportunity to save the tribe was not outweighed by his disapproval of the young human leading them.

So he kept his mouth shut, and only spoke up when they needed directions to the Genosian camp.

***Carem, Brain Sucking Parasite***

“What do you mean there could be more of you!?” The officer kicked Carem in the side, scowling.

The man might seem to be angry, but he was actually experience a rush of pleasure and satisfaction from beating on the helpless mutant. Carem could tell. His mind-reading dish was picking up the emotions clear as a bell.

The emotions were mostly natural, too. About eighty percent of the man’s sadistic satisfaction arose from believing that Carem deserved whatever punishment he got. The rest was prompted by Carem.

He needed a way to get repeat customers, and while the rotation of officers tasked with watching him were very much on guard for any sudden sympathy any of them might show towards their captive, the opposite was not true.

That’s where Carem found an opening.

He inflamed the satisfaction the man felt when hurting him until it neared sexual pleasure. All the while the other guards ignored the man’s wild excess, even going so far as to allow this particular officer to stay a little longer, volunteer a little more often so he could get in there and really hurt the butcher of so many defenseless women.

Idiots.

Maybe he couldn’t make the officer submit to him, but he could make him believe a lie wholeheartedly, if the man was afraid it might be true.

“It’s true,” Carem coughed, tasting blood in his mouth as he struggled to speak. He didn’t have to act that struggle out, either, the beatings had been over the top recently. Carem was half afraid the man would get carried away and wind up killing him, but even more afraid he’d spend the rest of his life in this hole.

“I might have” he heaved in a shuddering breath. “Dabbled a bit when I was younger, back when I wasn’t sure the people I ate became copies of me. I let a few of them go until I realized I’d been fooling myself…literally.”

The Guardsman’s gaze turned murderous, and for a moment, Carem thought he would simply snap Carem’s flimsy neck and be done with the whole mess.

“Tell me everything,” He said, peering down at Carem with a scowl.

Carem started lying his ass off. If the guard could feel Bent, he might have noticed the trail of invisible energy rear up behind him like a snake with a splayed hood, focusing all of its energy in the back of the man’s brain.

The amygdala, Carem knew from his tiny snippets of foreign knowledge he’d peeled out of the Ilethan princess’s brain. Seat of fear and anxiety.

Carem dampened the man’s desire to use a lie-detecting Ability, boosting his credulity while simultaneously inflaming his guard’s fear and paranoia, carefully doing a little bit at a time, in such small amounts that his System didn’t immediately shut it out.

All the while, he spun a carefully crafted tale of dozens, possibly hundreds of mutants living in Allast, preying on the citizens therin.

Fear and paranoia did the rest.

“Son of a bitch!” he shouted, smacking Carem hard enough to loosen his teeth, flooding his mouth with even more blood. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier!?”

“You never asked?” Carem said, raising a brow.

The officer brought his hand up, considering striking Carem again, before he thought better of it.

“Damn. I’ll be back.” The guard muttered, standing and leaving the cell, presumably to tell his masters what he’d learned.

And now, we wait, Carem thought to himself as he relaxed in his chains. He made deliberate eye contact with the next guard who walked in, gathered up all the blood and saliva in his mouth and pursed his lips before he jetted it out of his cell.

The red liquid traveled an impressive six feet before squarely onto the man’s boots.

Nice shot! Carem chuckled to himself as this newest guard went for his cell door, presumably to pick up where the last man had left.