Cythraul watched in horror at the monstrosity in front of him. To his side, Rupert gaped in astonishment at the monster's tendrils that gyrated in the air. He subconsciously lowered his longsword.

It attacked. Despite still being locked in the chair, a tendril fired out. Cythraul reacted late, and tried to sidestep, but it struck at him with supersonic speeds. It speared him in the hip, though, fortunately it was not serious. It pulled back, writhing, and initiated a follow up attack.

Cythraul awoke from his bafflement, and he unsheathed a sabre of incredible quality from his waist. He quickly forced Malevolent energy through the blade while chanting a spell.

“Miasma.” An amaranthine smog glowed from his sabre, then pervaded the tent. It formed a cloud before him just as the tentacle was about to begin its violent melee. It whipped down on Cythraul and passed through the fog on its descent. The fleshy tendril rotted and decomposed before him.

The tendril withered; pieces of shrivelled meat fell to the ground. Rot travelled up the tendril to its source, the main body. It reacted quickly. A second appendage shot out from the monster’s neck, and severed it before the rot reached the body.

“Sabre’s Rigour!” A judge gasped. It was one of the eight great aristocratic heirlooms. Magical gems encrusted the hilt, and the blade itself was made from a beast’s keratin that extended out from a bony core.

“Focus on the fight!” Rupert shouted; fear instilled his words.

As his words resounded, horrifying screams erupted throughout the tent. Death was abundant. Tentacles shot at the crowd, wounding or killing nearby officers like a sickle cutting through grass.

A ranked officer, the insignia of a knight on his chest, channelled energy through his claymore. The chant of a spell was on the tip of his tongue. However, before he could cast his Malevolency, a tendril whipped down on him at a fatal speed. An explosion erupted, dust thrown into the air. The knight was crushed, wrecked, beneath its force.

Reacting to similar events, Rupert, Cythraul, and the judges channelled their spells.

“Enhance!” Rupert and the three judges casted. It augmented their agility, dexterity, and reaction speed.

“Augmentation.” Cythraul chanted. He commanded his energy to surged throughout his body, enhancing every faculty of strength within him. Cythraul’s augmentation spell had greater efficacy than the other’s enhance spell. He was able to use this to formulate a strategy within his mind to destroy the monster.

“Rupert, I’ll deal with the tendrils. You and the judges find a way to kill the main body. Guards, get the officers out of the tent!” Cythraul ordered. As he spoke a tendril, that had been curving a wide arc, speared towards his heart. He effortlessly dodged it by stepping diagonally and turning his body, letting it pass his torso.

He severed down, his blade still covered in the miasmic smog, through the tendril’s flesh. A burst of blood erupted from the cut, though it slowed as the rot infected it. The strength holding it up evaporated as it was cut from its source, and it fell to the ground withering away.

Rupert glanced at the judges, who nodded in response, then dashed towards the abomination. A tendril shot at him at a terrifying speed. He reacted in time, cleaving at it, and cutting it in half.

However, the limp fleshy pulp pounced from the ground, firing at a judge like an arrow from a bow. He failed to react in time and flinched awaiting its blow. It was knocked away as the judge next to him spun his staff around his body and pummelled it down with herculean strength.

The other judges acted in coordination. They chanted a spell, “Burst,” and burnt it to char in a fiery inferno.

With the judges defending themselves, Rupert called out and directed his Malevolency into his longsword. “Fire.” Flames crackled and danced as it coated his silver blade. He sliced into the air causing a blade of fire to emerge. It shot towards the monster, though the monster sensed it.

Tendrils fired from every direction carrying men and women it had previously speared through. They coalesced, forming a meat wall to defend against the spell, using the bodies as the first line of defence. The flames instantly burnt the corpses to blackened skeleton.

However, it was weakened, and the tendrils smothered the blade until it was snuffed out. Black soot charred the tendrils, they were burnt by the heat, though they weren’t incapacitated.

“You need to get closer!” Cythraul yelled. He had split his attention, watching Rupert and the judge’s offensive while engaged in combat. He was unable to assist more than give orders from afar.

Tendrils speared the floor, forming seismic fractures that trailed a wake behind Cythraul. He agilely weaved his way around the tent, avoiding the tendrils that chased behind, strategically forming clouds of miasma in vital positions.

They checkered the tent, slowly constricting the monster’s ability to instinctively fire out linear or direct attacks. Instead, it forced the tendrils to snake around the clouds, or attack from great heights. Either way, it significantly delayed the speed which attacks reached Cythraul, Rupert, or the judges.

As he danced his way to their starting position, he sensed something change. He instinctively leaped towards his right, and was catapulted away, landing before a cloud of his own miasma. As he landed, he felt a seismic wave wreck through the floor, causing cracks spread beneath him.

He vaulted, propelling himself back into his fighting stance, ready for a second attack. However, it did not come readily. A colossal tendril had pummelled the earth like a hammer, disregarding the clouds of poisonous smog. It sought to destroy Cythraul at all costs, and it paid the price for missing.

It rotted at an accelerated speed as it was engulfed by multiple clouds of miasma. A singular tendril quickly severed the bulking flesh, spewing ink-like, poisonous blood onto the earth.

It sensed Cythraul’s movement and began to coalesce a second tendril made up of tens of newly grown flesh. As it had begun to reform itself, Cythraul channelled his Malevolent energy.

“Plague!” Cythraul raised his sabre, and a black hue glowed around it. The sounds of hissing resonated, then what looked to be a black fog spewed from the sabre. It hissed and crackled as it flew towards its enemy. The colossal tendril hammered down from the sky but was intercepted by the fog.

They were magically fabricated insects, and he created such a density of them that the horde appeared to be a corporeal haze. The appendage lost momentum as the insects gnawed on its flesh, then collapsed onto the ground. No clouds were nearby, they had been blown into new positions from the previous attack.

The judges took their chance, they each channelled their Malevolency through their staffs, forming their most powerful spells.

“Magma!”

“Volcano!”

“Combustion!”

Each attack shot out towards the abomination. However, it reformed its tendrils at a terrible pace. They surrounded its whole body, forming layers upon layers of fleshy defence. A kaleidoscope of lights surged towards the monster, and the attack exploded through multiple layers of its appendages.

Blood and gore splattered the tent like a painter covering a canvas. It wouldn’t be wrong to assume that the tent was now crimson due to the horrific mutilation that occurred within it.

However, it was not enough. With its supernatural regenerative abilities, it could sustain prolonged combat. Its offense and defence was continuous despite the appendage's repeated destruction.

The monster ignored Cythraul, shooting out a dreadful number of tendrils that targeted the three judges. Most snaked between the clouds of miasma that constrained the tent, others attacked from above, raining down like a barrage of arrows upon the judges.

Unfortunately, with their previous attacks, the three judges had burnt their Wick’s out. The spells required far more energy than their primary combat spells and were only reserved for last ditched efforts to obliterate their targets.

Their failure was unexpected. They had run out of Malevolent energy and weren’t able to defend themselves. Cythraul tried to save them, running at a superhuman speed due to augmentation. He shot out miasma before the nearest judge, but the rest were too far.

The tendrils pierced through the hearts of the two exposed judges. Though they were soundly eradicated afterwards as innumerable tendrils speared through all parts of their body. Nothing was left untouched.

The remaining judge survived due to pure luck in his positioning, being the closest to Cythraul. The tendril had to pass through a cloud of miasma to strike him. It dissolved before it could reach him.

The deaths of the two judges had left an opening for Rupert to strike. With his agility boosted to a supernatural level, he evaded the sparse tendrils that plunged towards him like arrows. He closed into the monstrosity and plunged his sword deep into its stomach. Sword pierced through the body and out the other side of the chair.

An odious smell escaped from the cut, pervading the tent. The monster spasmed, its tendrils slammed the floor around it, heaving dust into the air. Rupert was forced to temporarily withdraw as he wouldn’t be able to survive a hit from those countless tendrils.

The monstrosity picked itself up from the floor, supported in mid-air as some of its tendrils acted as stilts. It was no longer stationary, and with it, its manoeuvrability increased as it could dodge in every direction. Its manacles could not shackle it anymore.

Like hammers, the appendages pummelled the ground, some disintegrating as they touched the clouds of miasma. The force of its blows spread out unevenly within the room, creating seismic fractures in the ground. However, it was strategic. The force of its assault had dispersed the remaining smog within the room. The space was no longer constricted.

“Next time attack the heart! I’ll create an opening for you.” Cythraul shouted. He took a deep breath in, then channelled his Malevolency through his sabre with his exhale.

“Scourge!” Cythraul commanded, burning a large portion of his Wick to channel this spell. A Tyrian purple vapour engulfed Sabre’s Rigour.

Cythraul dashed towards the monstrosity. Tendrils rocketed out towards him from all angles, whipping down with herculean strength. He evaded by retreating, leaping back at the moment they speared his empty position.

As they started to recover from attacking air, Cythraul leaped forwards and cleaved down upon them. An incorporeal replica of Sabre’s Rigor flew out, severing down. Like a spectre, it passed through the tendrils.

He watched as the tendrils withered all the way to the source immediately. The monster lost control of these appendages, and they collapsed to the floor, kicking up dust into the air. Inside, rot had spread within, annihilating anything living. It was a vicious plague that he had created.

The monstrosity could no longer tolerate Cythraul, the main offender within the attackers. Like ballista bolts, a cluster of colossal tendrils cascaded down towards Cythraul. Undoubtedly, its wreckage would be fatal if it made contact.

However, Cythraul would not allow it. He detonated the rot within the tendrils, spreading its infection towards the main body. Magically fabricated parasites and insects propagated at a horrific speed. They grew from the initial infection that incubated their production within its vector.

The insects stayed to annihilate their tendrils, and the parasites entered the blood stream, reaching its heart. The blood pressure pushed the parasites around the body, entering every tendril, where upon Cythraul commanded them to act.

The parasites paralysed the tendrils that aimed at him, and they fell limp to the ground with a crash. The monstrosity fell with the appendages. Its stilts that had supported it collapsed to the ground, being eaten from the inside out.

Rupert took this opportunity and charged towards the paralysed monstrosity. He chanted out a spell, burning a portion of his Wick.

“Inferno!” He channelled his Malevolent energy through his body, creating a molten hellfire that lined his longsword. The extreme heat of the fire singed his black hair and eyebrows.

Rupert reached the monster and thrust his sword into its heart, where its Malevolent faculties operated. It seared straight through, and it discharged a putrid smell of burnt flesh.

Not leaving his chances to fate, Rupert withdrew the blade from the abomination's chest and hacked at the countless tendrils that formed from its neck. A piscina of blood formed at his feet from the tendrils that he severed until it could no longer initiate a second counterattack.

“Bloody hell!” Cythraul cursed. “What was that?”

“I’m not sure…” Rupert responded.

“It was a rhetorical question,” Cythraul said. “Looks like I am going to have to fight on the frontier after all. Damn my luck…”

“We all were anyways,” Rupert looked at a guard who had fallen on the ground and ordered. “Round up some men and tally the causalities. Send the survivors to the medics and the dead to the morticians.”

The guards began searching for survivors within the corpses that littered the room. The officers that were alive flooded into the tent from outside, their temporary insanity gone. Rupert was suspicious about that, though he could not understand why.

Cythraul walked over to the monstrosity’s corpse and began a thorough search of it. He had to sift through blood and gore to see if there was a medium that enabled her ‘God’ to continuously speak to her; and what he suspected was to possess her.

Rupert eventually joined him after he dealt with stabilising the army.

With the effects of ‘Augmentation’ still activated, Cythraul used his supernatural strength to rip open its chest and ribcage for access to the heart.

Despite the mutilation from the sword, the heart was still attached. Cythraul cut it free and analysed it see if there was a structural difference, and there was. There were runic symbols that were engraved on the outside of the heart itself, and inside there was a black crystal.

Rupert gasped, it identical to the black crystal, the onyx, he saw inside the illusion attached to the bracelet.