I didn’t wait for her to get up. I charged, New Arm still ready to go and keep building its meter. She saw me coming and lashed out with one of her clawed hands, but I ducked under the swing and slid on my knees up to her head.

  I brought my metal fist down like a hammer on her head, and she shrieked in response–the most blood-curdling shriek I had heard for the last little bit. The shriek was mighty, but her head might have been mightier. It didn’t crack at all.

  Her other hand came for me. I snatched it with New Arm, and when she tried to awkwardly attack me again, I snatched the hand too and slammed them into the ground over her head.

  At that moment, my eyes landed on her eyeholes.

  “Don’t say it–”

  “It was the best thing I ever felt,” she whispered, her smile wide and thin.

  I drove my right fist into her face repeatedly as she kept repeating her statement. The face was so damn hard. I switched it up, striking her in the chin to swing her head up, slamming her in the throat, and then punched her in the tit when I could–anywhere–anything that would get some damage done.

  Every time she repeated her phrase, it made me think that she was enjoying this. Her body convulsed as I kept striking her. Her back slammed against the wall of the house. Her feet were kicking on the other side of that wall too.

  I glanced out the corner of my eye. The creature that was drinking water was still there, ignoring this chaos. I didn’t know how long that would last for.

  Urgency building, I grabbed a tit and tried to tear it off. Maybe it worked a little, but my limb wasn’t as powerful as my new one.

  “Damn it!” I yelled, reverting to slamming a fist into her.

  My attacks got wilder. Still gripping her wrists, I swung New Arm into her own head like it was a piston.When she flailed, I swung them back into the ground, and repeated the cycle, trying to get whatever damage I could.

  Then the wall gave way—brought down by her violent thrashing. The way her lower body moved–it was so alien. The impaled foot twisted on itself and lunged at me like a viper. I ducked and rolled away from her, getting further than she could reach.

  Claws gripping the ground, her waist twisted after her feet touched the ground. Groans escaped her as her torso and arms twisted further. It didn’t stop until she was on all fours and poised to lunge at me like a wildcat.

  She suddenly hopped, her body un-twisting, in the moment. Then she lunged and swung, her body moving with unnatural speed.

  I lifted New Arm and guarded. “It’s those damn feet! They’re your main weapon!”

  Her other hand slashed through the air. I ducked under the swing, but she was too fast. She comboed. Her other hand caught me across the chest, the claws tearing through my shirt and leaving behind deep, bleeding gashes.

  I stumbled back, my chest burning with pain, but I didn’t neglect to swing my arm to counter the next strike. The blow connected and she let the world know–

  “It was the best thing I ever felt!”

  I needed to step into it if I wanted to start a combo! I took a single step and delivered a strike to the chest, between pairs of tits. I wasn’t as quick as with Level Flicker, but I was still able to flow into a series of slaps across the wretched face.

  Those slaps didn’t stagger her too much, but they built up the meter quickly. When she swung, I ducked and delivered an uppercut that sent her flying–her body was just that light.

  The creature’s body twisted unnaturally as she flew back, landing on her hands and clawing the ground. Cricks echoed from her elbows. Her body moved with a fluid, almost mechanical grace, her feet twisting and flexing as she balanced on her clawed hands.

  She launched herself into a cartwheel, her body spinning through the air with terrifying speed. Her legs whipped around, her feet snapping like whips as she closed the distance between us. One fast rotation, and she lunged feet first.

  Her intent was clear—she wanted to wrap those freakish legs around me. It was too telegraphed.

  Forget a fist. I straightened New Arm’s fingers in the instant. Forget punching. A moment after those grey feet passed my ears, going in for their blasphemous hug, I thrust my arm forward, aiming for the gap between her thighs. New Arm penetrated, the sensation of ichor surrounding my hand.

  A sickening tear reached my ears as the legs began to wrap around me. My hand was inside that body now.

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  Before the legs tightened further, I took hold of whatever flesh I could and twisted my arm. She shrieked.

  “It was the best thing I ever felt!”

  “Don’t tell me that!” I shouted, swinging her into the wall of the house. The collision was thunderous. But not as thunderous as the subsequent slam into the ground.

  Panting heavily, I lifted her into the air and slammed her back down. Her legs loosened. Her shriek intensified. Those nasty limbs crumpled in on themselves and then pressed against my chest.

  “Shit–”

  She used my body as a surface and pushed off with sickening force. Her flesh tore as she escaped while I flew backward.

  “Why are you so damn difficult?!” I yelled.

  “It was the best thing I ever felt!”

  I landed on my feet. She hit the ground hard—forearms first—then planted her feet and spread her legs.

  The ballgown-like skin garment spread outward like the petals of a grotesque, gray rose.

  I hated my eyes and their incredible ability to see in low-light. At the center of the bloom was its ichor-covered groin. Something black protruded from the wound—a fleshy, pulsating organ, veined and glistening with purple streaks of ichor.

  It looked like the most grotesque cannon that would be unwelcome in even nightmares.

  I instinctively raised New Arm, but then I recalled a detail from earlier.

  The organ pulsed, and a jet of ichor erupted from its center, hurtling toward me with terrifying speed.

  I dove to the side, the home behind me erupting as the high-pressure beam of ichor struck. The smell was nauseating, like plastic being burnt by acid.

  I was glad I didn’t guard. Not only was it not a thin stream, but it was stronger than the previous stream that was able to damage New Arm.

  Eyes back on the creature, I made a choice–run. I couldn’t approach her with the speed of that beam. I’d be bisected in an instant. My best shot was to survive because of the few seconds that sheer distance afforded me.

  Another jet of ichor shot past me, narrowly missing my left shoulder and piercing into the side of a nearby building. The house in its entirety crumbled due to the two holes the ichor punched through it. I ducked behind another home, my chest heaving, and risked a glance back.

  She was still there, her grotesque cannon aimed in my direction, her legs splayed like the legs of a spider. Her dress billowed around the cannon, the tattered fabric moving as if alive.

  “It was the best thing I ever felt,” she rasped, her voice echoing unnaturally in the empty village.

  Annoyingly creepy voice aside, this thing could track me.

  I bolted from cover as another jet of ichor tore through the wall behind me. The ground shook with the force of the impact, and I stumbled, barely keeping my footing as I sprinted deeper into the village.

  The streets were a maze of now-crumbling buildings, the left-behind remnants of daily life, and overgrown moss, the air filling with that synthetic scent. I ducked and weaved, using the buildings as cover, but the creature’s tracking ability was bordering on mythic. Jets of ichor flew past me or over me, each one closer than the last. One grazed my old arm, the ichor burning through my sleeve and searing my skin. I hissed in pain but didn’t stop.

  “Come on, come on,” I muttered, my eyes scanning the surroundings for anything I could use. “You’ve got to have a limit, right!?”

  The beams stopped reaching me, even though the sounds of buildings crumbling still echoed. Maybe I had finally reached it–the limit of her range.

  I rounded a corner and skidded to a halt–the sight before me astounded me.

  “The town center…”

  My eyes were glued to the central fixture, the obsidian obelisk, and the incredible sight at its base.

  “A crater?”

  The obelisk stood in the center of a crater deep enough that it could swallow up two of the round houses stacked on top of each other.

  “I didn’t know these things extended so far below the surface.” My eyes snapped to an unnatural shadow at the base. “A hole.”

  “This will be a blade you’d be proud to own.”

  My soul chilled. I turned to my right and cursed myself. I hadn’t noticed because of how still and grey it was–how it just blended into the dreary environment.

  It was as massive as a wall, its upper body bulging with grotesque, overdeveloped muscles that seemed to strain against its gray, sagging skin. Its shoulders were hunched, giving it a lumbering, almost apelike posture, and its arms were disproportionately large, ending in hands that looked like they could crush stone. The right arm, however, wasn’t a hand at all—it was a hammer. A massive gray hammerhead with specs of black rust was fused seamlessly into the creature’s flesh. The hammerhead was pitted and scarred, with scraps dangling like tattered cloth.

  Its lower body, by contrast, was small and almost comically undersized, its legs thin and spindly, barely able to support the weight of its monstrous torso. It looked like the “hunter-type” in that sense. The creature’s skin hung loose in places, particularly around its jawline, where it formed a tattered, beard-like fringe that swayed slightly as it moved. Its face was a mask—hollowed-out features, sunken empty eyes, and a jagged slit where a mouth should be. Smoke lingered on its body, the smell of molten metal mixing with that synthetic stench all these things had.

  “This will be a blade you’d be proud to own,” it repeated, its voice deep and gravelly, like the distorted voice of an old blacksmith.

  The words sent a chill down my spine, not just because of their meaning, but because of the way they were spoken—like a craftsman proud of his work. I couldn’t help but keep thinking of the blacksmith at the village. Even distorted, I could hear it–the echoes of his pride.

  “Heh… So I guess you were the one making the bangs, huh?”

  “This will be a blade you’d be proud to own.”

  I grimaced. “What are all of you?”

  The creature’s hammer arm twitched. I knew what would come next.