Chapter 40 – Tannhauser
Slade got rekt by his younger zombie self.
In a near-death delirium, his mind was reborn by letting go of his lingering attachment to his past as a human.
He turned the tables against his opponent by shape-shifting into his slime form and swallowing it. Rather than absorbing the zombie, he cleaned it up from Griscent’s influence to send it back to battle.
The duo was ready to face Griscent one more time.
Integral Convergence was Griscent’s most destructive attack, but also tragically telegraphed after seeing it once.
“Tan’, dodge!” Slade said.
The knight threw the slime sideways while dashing in the other direction.
The island was too large for Griscent’s beam to cover its entire span. Still, they avoided the attack in the nick of time.
When she saw that, she slithered back in fear but her tentacles touched the edge of the mechanical island.
She tried to jump from the island to escape, but quickly reconsidered when she glanced at the unfathomable red sea.
Slade crawled up the island. “She has no confidence in close combat! Corner her!”
Griscent separated her main body from the overheated tentacles. She stood at the top of the slanted glass disc in her almost naked human form.
Her hands laid on the lumps of flesh and were set ablaze by a white flame. The cut-off tentacles turned into armed women that charged on the knight.
Resorting to sending illusory fighters again, she pointed forward. “Go, my minions!”
The sand priestess, the pit fiend and the blade dancer charged towards Slade’s knight.
The elven twin short swords whistled as they danced. “Didn’t you enjoy my body?! You’re not getting anywhere for the next five hundred years!” The elf panted heavily, ready to become a sex offender.
She leapt at Tannhauser. Her tempest of blade carved countless scars on his armor.
He had no weapon to block the assault, yet he stood his ground, ready to deliver a counter punch.
But the pit fiend pressed the attack. She sprung behind the Bladedancer and ignited her whip. “Haaaa!”
BAM! A thunderous sound resounded.
The flaming whip struck Tannhauser’s breastplate in a burst of fire.
Tannhauser was knocked back before he could punch the elf. He probed his fissured chestplate. It didn't bode well for the rest of the fight.
“Slade! We are allies, so let’s fight against Violet together! If you’re too stuck to your morals to defend your interests, you’ll keep getting crushed by others,” Griscent said.
The sand priestess lunged at Tannhauser, clawing his face… in vain. She was a non-combatant, after all.
“Www-wait nya~!” she begged.
The knight flipped her off the glass disc.
The cat woman tumbled to the sea, crying in disgust as she splashed around.
“It’s no longer about morality, Griscent. I just want to smack you for being troublesome,” Slade said.
Tannhauser’s breastplate and armguards crumbled from the enemy's relentless assault. Only his torn tracksuit and shoulder plates were left.
Slade felt sorry for him, now that he just looked like a drunk slav wearing a knight helmet.
First, we need a weapon! After shapeshifting and purifying Tannhauser, I feel a bit out of juice though.
When Griscent threw zombie Slade during the first seconds of arriving, it left a trail of blood on the glass. It was something that he could try to absorb, unlike the neutral scenery or the enemies.
And so, he jumped on the blood. The liquid burnt in white flames that he collected into a harmless fireball.
“It worked! Tan’, take this!” he shouted.
The worn-out knight slid back, high-fiving Slade to catch an unshaped flame.
Using alchemical synthesize, the slime sprayed water on the glassy ground, zoning off the pursuers. “I swear it’s not cum.”
“Futile!” The pit fiend waved her burning whip.
The burst of fire blew away Slade’s water into steamy clouds.
Shit, I should have gone with oil!
The blade dancer dove straight at Slade, her swords tracing an unreadable path into the fog.
Slade jumped back to dodge.
The blades were about to intersect him, but a wooden spear thrusted into the elf’s stomach.
“Verdant Mercy,” Tannhauser said.
The spear bloomed into vines that coiled around the blade dancer.
Clang! Her swords fell on the glassy ground.
The elf was on her knees, unable to fight and tied in vines. She twitched in pain from the impact in her abdomen.
“D-did you have to tie her like that?” Slade asked.
The teary elf was gagged in a tortoise shell bondage.
Tannhauser dodged the issue by pointing his index finger at the pit fiend. “You’re next.”
“Oh! Hum… Yes? Are you into flogging too?” the flustered demoness asked.
"Huh?"
Griscent pinched the bridge of her nose. She might have forgotten to change her minions’ mentality from being thirsty courtesans to warriors. “Stop flirting, useless pawns!”
Tannhauser walked closer to the swooning pit fiend and smacked her butt. “Sorry Slade, can you deal with Griscent by yourself? I can’t approach her without risking being corrupted but I’m going to put my life on the line to stall them for you.”
Griscent opened a rift to another dream, giving up the fight against Slade. “Why do I keep getting rejected? The mother pillar, Slade and even my own minions...”
It was shocking that she gave up an one-on-one fight against the slime, but she might have run out of mental strength after replaying his memories and creating all those dream props.
The conflict shifted in Slade’s favor for the first time, and power fed ambitions. He wanted Griscent to follow his will. Her abilities and insight were too precious to let her go.
Slade jumped on his knight. “Tan’! Launch me!”
Before Griscent could step inside the rift, the slime crashed into her face.
“Strike!!” Tannhauser shouted, applauded by the pit fiend.
Unable to get Slade off her head, Griscent stepped back in panic and they plummeted together in the red sea.
She gasped for air, swallowing water. “Save me! Ack!”
This was the end. She could no longer fight.
Slade’s smug face popped up from the water. “It’s natural that the loser listen to the winner, right?”
Now was the second phase of the battle, which was... TALKING!
“Gubububu… (Is it really the time for that?)” she said, drowning.
Slade shapeshifted into a pool float. “Get on.”
On the other side of the slanted disc-island, the minions played together carelessly.
“Hmm~”
“That’s the spot! Oh, yes!”
“Meeow~ , you’re so dexterous, mister Knight!”
Griscent and Slade floated away, ditched by their own creations.
Griscent curled up, shaking in fear. “Where are we drifting to?”
“Nowhere in particular. Are you scared?”
“Of course, I do not know what lurks beneath.”
His :3 smile appeared next to her face to comfort her fear of the unknown. “Heh. Don’t worry, I am here.” He forgot about spanking her.
She dug her nail into him. “Whose fault do you think it is?”
“Stop! Stop! I’m going to pop and we’ll drown!”
She lay on Slade, staring at the ceiling. “Now what? Are you going to kill me when I release you from illusions? Or are you planning to brainwash me to be your puppet?”
He only wanted one thing from her, and that was her loyalty. But to grab it, he needed to understand her deeper motivations, not just her surface methods. “Tell me about your goal, about the mother pillar, and the beholders’ final evolution.”
The description of the skill ‘prison of illusion’ mentioned the evolution. He also noticed her obsession with the mother pillar hanging at the center of the ceiling.
“Do you know the purpose of beholders?” she asked.
"No idea!"
Griscent laughed in bitterness as she was cornered to expose her vulnerable self. She would never share her shameful truth if it weren’t for her loss. It was easier to fight than deal with emotional pain.
Resigned, she pointed at the giant shadows walking in the distance.1Reminder of chapter 38: “The mind flayers created us as tools. The pillars of eyes are in fact… self-maintaining bio computers.”