Anything ~ 41!

“I’ve never tried fried human before! Food!” The excited cry went out, and a chorus of bloodthirsty cheers followed just behind. Luke looked at the lightning shapes coming toward him and began swinging his left arm around, and around, windmilling his Chain-blade Rope.

As the next wave of unicorns arrived, he expanded his Rope out as quickly as he could. Doing this meant that the damage potential decreased drastically, but direct damage wasn’t what he was going for. His weapon materialized just in time to take the lead horse in the knee. The unexpected blow sent it off-course and tumbling as it tried to fix its trajectory; but instead put it directly in front of the next attacker.

The triple-helix of the first overlapped with the next, sparking the change from a pretty rainbow to a bolt of plasma that connected both creatures. Lightning flashed prematurely, charcoaling both the creatures in an instant. Their bodies went flying into the ranks of their fellows, causing a panic as the death they saw became a possibility for them. A solid two-thirds of the charging unicorns cut off their connection and dodged away, creating a wall of lightning that didn’t hit them - instead taking the unicorns right behind them in the face.

Luke watched as a good chunk of the horsies either turned skittish or started smoking. As the wall of light blocked their vision, he used this chance to reposition himself to best hunt down the woefully low-combat-experienced creatures. The unicorns that had attempted to avoid death were his first targets, as he didn’t want them to be able to get any distance from him and recapture their resolve. His fists began flying; each hit with his left would flay large chunks of meat off his target, and each strike with his right shattered bones like a blacksmith dropping a hammer on twigs. Suffice it to say, against the unarmored targets, each and every strike was death.

Notifications came and went, but he didn’t care. These beings wouldn’t be giving him Potentia, and he wasn’t getting hurt even accidentally. In under a minute, dozens of once-beautiful creatures had turned into meat, horn powder, and glue material. The lead warrior unicorn bellowed, and the remnants returned to his side. “Assez! Zis is a Domain! You‘ll never leave alive, ztop zis lutte inutile!”

“Speakin’ all fancy-like isn’t gonna slow down your beating.” Luke warned the creature as he moved toward them. The last time the beasts had gathered in a formation like this, they had activated the domain; what was coming now? “All it's gonna do is confuse me, which’ll make me want to hurt you as I beat you down.”

“You…” Francois blinked several times, words having failed him.

Coral took over, the lead magic-user knowing exactly what to do. “Good. Very good! I’ve always wanted to see what this would do to the someone, but never had a chance to do the testing of it. Brothers and sisters! Final Formation: Happy Fun Times!”

“Not happy fun times!”

“Oh, no!”

“Please no, Grand-”

“I said do the Happy Fun Times!” For the first time, the deep voice broke as the creature screeched at its subordinates. The unicorns started to move reluctantly, and Luke broke into a sprint. He needed to make use of their unwillingness to activate whatever was being set against him. The Murderhobo Bum Flashed twice during his sprint, but before he could close in fully, all of the unicorns shot into the sky as if a harness had closed around them and yanked them upward.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Luke turned and ran away as fast as he could. “If I can get to the Zone boundary, maybe they won’t be able to follow across. Make it too expensive to use this Domain again, they’ll be exhausted, and-”

His mad dash was interrupted by reaching the edge of the sphere of light - specifically by running into it at full speed and bouncing off like he had found a mountain with his face. Moving with the painful motion, he ended his new experience on his feet and looking back at the creatures coming after him.

Coral was motionless in the air, staring at Luke, as the others swirled around him and painted out incredibly intricate artistry. “You were an impressive specimen, but there will be another. Eventually someone will come, they will be taught our ways right away, and will release us from this glorious world so that we may expand through the multiverse!”

“Gonna be a few million years.” Luke snorted with a half-smile. “I saw the trees. Not many visitors in the big blue.”

Seeing that Coral was now too focused on his spell to speak, Francois nodded angrily at the reminder; then tossed its head arrogantly as it realized it was agreeing with its enemy. “By zen we will have expanded through all ze upper Zones, and begun our descent into ze deepest expanses of ze world! Zis place creates creatures every day. After a million years, we will have spawn pools throughout ze mana pools, we will have a never-ending stream of friends to bring wiz us when we finally open a door! Perhaps we won’t even need a person, as natural gates happen!”

“You know, I’d love to see that.” Luke deadpanned as the art fully formed into a gigantic smiley face. The features of it could be drawn by any child: a simple circle with dots for eyes, a curved outline of a mouth with two ‘dimples’, and a triangle for a nose. The rest of it, the shading, cross hatching, fanning techniques, highlighting, contouring, and isolation methods… when it was all brought together, it made a lifelike and grotesque visage that stared at him with a creepy smile no matter where he went.

“Non. I refuse. Beg for your life as you wish, but Happy Fun Times will not be survived by ze likes of you.” Even as the Francois spoke, the other unicorns that had created and shaped the face fell from the sky like rain, exhausted to the point of unconsciousness. Just before hitting the ground, they were pushed upward by hard light and gently deposited on the invisible ground.

The Murderhobo was about to sprint over and get some free progress for his little quest, but the white light that had covered the ground bubbled up and ejected the fallen ‘corns from the Domain. That was when Luke noticed that the walls were starting to - very slowly - close in. He cupped his hands and shouted at the final opponents in the small arena. “Boo~o~o.”

“I care the not for your cow noises, you’ll be dead momentarily.” Coral faded into obscurity as the colors of the smiley face deepened around it and turned from rainbow-helices into a proper spell. “I hope you are doing the getting of the ready for some fun.”

The mouth of the face split to show shifting and coruscating mana, then bellowed at Luke so loudly that his ears tried to bleed. The Murderhobo tightened his facial muscles, and the drop of blood that had started to ooze out of his left ear was sucked back in.

“That’s better.” Luke grumbled at his body that had almost taken damage from mere noise. He looked up at the face and started thinking about the best way to slap it down, when he noticed that Francois was still out of the spell and staring at him. A thin red light was coming out of his horn, traveling across the ground and coming to rest on the Murderhobo. Just as the little light touched him, the mouth moved back and forth, then made a *hkwochh* sound, like someone getting ready to spit-

Luke Bum Flashed away, turning the motion into a sprint at his highest speed as the face ejected a loogie of iridescent ooze. It splashed against the floor and wall as if a pond had been deposited, and a thin wave of the goo went out in all directions. A tiny droplet managed to land on Luke’s heel, and his speed increased by ten percent.

Damage taken: 8 corrosive! All armor durability reduced by 1!

“That’s a new damage type.” Luke snarled as he continued sprinting. “I hate new damage types unless I’’m the one using them!”

“You shall have ze Happy Fun Times!” The huge face elongated into a smile at the unicorn’s words, and Coral was audibly chuckling inside the huge face as if Francois had made a joke. “I suppose if you refusez, I will just need to enjoy myself.”

“This thing needs to die. Evil goats and celestial feces, I want to kill it so hard.” The Murderhobo spoke calmly as he continued running in circles around the area at top speed. He Flashed up and over the goo as he fully circled the slowly-shrinking Domain.

“Have you ever had ze opportunity to play a staring contest?” Just as Francois’ statement ended, Luke turned at a ninety degree angle and ran across the open ground, a blinking red light trying to lock onto his moving body. A wash of molten earth followed the targeting beam on his trail as pure heat shot from each of the eyes in a straight line; following after him as rapidly as the eyes of the spellform could move along the blinking red trail.

Unfortunately for Luke, the goo from the first attack was still present, and the snot-spell got on his feet as he dodged the death beam.

Damage taken: 4 corrosive! All armor durability reduced by 1!

“Not wearing armor, so ha. Tale that.” Luke sped up by ten percent once more, and found that he was now able to maintain his lead slightly better. The realization gave him an idea, and he started moving in a large circle once more as the heat beams finally petered off.

“Sadly, I know zat my compatriot has not ze strength to continue like this for much longer without his support squad.” The unicorn’s voice actually sounded a little sad as the nasty face opened its mouth and eyes as wide as they could go… then the face started changing, going from a strange template of a face to something else. “I zuppose we must thank you fo ze help in testing this. We have learned much. Let’s start ze… finale!”

“This soon? He must be just barely holding this Domain together. In that case…” Luke put his sketchy plan into place, actually thankful that the Domain space was shrinking at a now-visible rate. He ran as hard as he could, coming around and dipping a toe in the goo as he sprinted; which increased his speed by ten percent. The transformation above was also increasing its speed, and appeared to be drinking in the white bubble holding the area in a cohesive shape; Luke’s next cycle around the sphere took only a few seconds.

On his third go-around, things started to get weird. Weirder. The skin of the face vanished, and revealed a deep glow that reminded Luke of the sun on his home Plane. Petals like a flower appeared and rose up around the edges of the face like the mane of a lion; all as the eyes and smile grew wider. Coral’s voice was now the one that could be heard, and the words themselves made Francois go limp. “Super… Friendship…”

“Ah. I have failed. I go now to ze end, knowing that we shall perish together.” Francois was intoning, his horsey face calm as he watched his death approaching. “Coral, may your next Lancier learn from my mistakes.”

Luke’s foot hit the goo one last time, and he changed courses, using his momentum and increased speed to rocket up the side of the Domain. He already knew that the wall was physical, at least enough to block him. Now he was either going to find a weak spot and escape, or attack the face from above. He looked over and saw that there were rainbow-veins crawling across the face, creating a caricature expression similar to what someone would show when exerting maximum force.

“…Blast!”