The monster in the sky was unlike anything Kain thought he could be expected to see. Its body was a rectangle 30 feet long with its corners rounded and navy blue in color. The only things that stood out from the creature’s geometric body were the many circular mouths that looked like those of squids, the one dominant eye that took up most of the front of the creature, and the flood of ears that littered the creature’s body.

The thing dove down at Kain and Luna as they prepared to fight it off, raising their shields. It slithered side to side like a snake through the air, which seemed to make it go even faster. As it was about to crash into the ground, Kain aimed his gun upwards and shot. With a hiss, the metal bolt that was about 4 inches long flew upwards at the beast. In response, the mouth closest to the large, dominant eye gaped even wider and from it shot a long, spindly tongue that grabbed the bolt out of the air right before it could hit the eye. The two dodged out of the way just as it came careening down to the dirt. The impact kicked up a cloud of dust that blinded the two, and Kain stood on guard for its next attack.

He did not have to wait long, as three spindly tongues shot out from the dust and rushed Kain, quickly followed by the rectangular body of the creature. He raised his energy shield and fended off the first two tongues, forcing the third to catch a bolt out of the air by firing at it. The tongues pierced a few inches deep into the shield but were stopped after that, and Kain threw the shield to the side, taking the tongues with it, and dived out of the way of the main body of the beast. It crashed into the cave, causing the ceiling of the cave to collapse in the process.

As Kain dived out of the way, half a dozen tongues shot out at him from the beast’s passing side. He shot at one with his gun, which it reflexively caught, he fended another three off with his energy shield, and drew his giant dagger to hack at a fifth; despite his efforts, the last one stabbed at him with at a blinding speed, aiming for his temple. Just as it was about to hit, Luna’s warhammer head crashed into the tongue’s side, slamming it to the ground and causing dark blue -almost black- blood to spill from the appendage and seep into the soil. Before long, however, it seemed to simply evaporate. The mouths of the creature roared, letting loose a sound that was much more normal than they expected, sounding like the roar of a lion combined with the squawking of a bird.

[Thanks. Do you have any clue as to how we are going to fight this thing? It catches my bolts without even thinking and its tongues are extremely tough; I’ve barely made a scratch. I think that our only advantage is that the thing has to put a lot of effort into piercing our shields. You have anything?]

[Well, I know that it’s smart. It attacked me right when it landed and kept the pressure up right up until it charged you. I think that this thing is either smart, or each tongue has a brain, which I don’t think is impossible. Do you have a plan?]

He shrugged. [Rush it and while you keep the tongues distracted, I try to put a bolt through the thing’s eye? Honestly, that’s all we can do now without doing anything too risky.]

She nodded just as the creature brust from the cave and charged them once more. They both threw themselves to the right, fending off more tongues along the way, and charged at the now stationary monster as it was turning toward them. A dozen tongues lashed out at the two, cutting into their energy shields when they attacked from the front and getting thrown about when they attacked from the sides. Kain let loose his third bolt as they closed in on the creature. Despite the narrow distance, the bolt was caught once again by a tongue. They retreated, backing up and fending off the tongues as they pushed their way forward. The creature followed them, inching forward at the same rate they backed up.

Kain looked at the tongue that had just thrown down the bolt and looked at Luna. [Try to hit it with a wind blade or something. I think that it reflexively catches stuff that’s thrown at it out of the air.] Luna curtly nodded and wove a new attack together, one she called an air bolt. It worked under the same principle as the wind blade, but made the pressure release much more concentrated on a single point. The pressurized air shot out, flying at the creature, but was immediately intercepted by a tongue that tried to grab the air. It failed, but was able to block the attack by moving a tongue in front of the bolt, stopping it in its tracks. Though the bolt was stopped, the creature’s tongue was impaled by the air movements, which leaked nearly black blood that almost instantaneously evaporated.

The thing screamed in rage and made its fastest charge yet, barreling toward the duo. In response, Kain hesitated for a moment. He wanted to end this, so he charged instead. The beast, flustered by the unexpected action of its prey, hesitated as well. Kain pressed the gun up to the eye of the creature and let loose his forth bolt that drove itself directly into the creature's large eye. Now that he had gotten closer, Kain noticed that the eye of the creature was taller than he was. Despite its size, the creature reared up, shrieked in agony, and lashed out. Kain used his energy-reinforced legs to jump over a whipping sweep from one of the tongues, but in the process was left wide open. Nearly another dozen tongues stabbed at him, four of which were blocked by the shield, another two were hacked at by his giant dagger, and one more was occupied by the placement of his fifth bolt. Despite his best efforts, however, he was unable to keep up with the barrage alone. The last five stabbed at his back, but were blocked by the timely intervention of Luna and her two shields.

Once the two had converged, the ‘face’ of the creature pushed under them, and flew upward, catching the two on its eye. It then began to climb upwards into the sky at high speed. It soon broke past the tops of the trees, but it still flew higher. It flew one mile high, then two, then five, then further. All the while, it was attacking Kain and Luna with its tongues, stabbing and slashing and sweeping the area above its face. The two were so preoccupied fighting off the tongues that they had no time to attack the face of the creature, so they continued to fly higher and higher. They slashed and hacked at the tongues, but were making little progress. Eventually, after many, many more miles of high speed flight, they managed to sever one of the tongues. The beast roared in pain and threw them off, sending them careening down into the ground.

Kain looked around, but could not spend any effort to absorb their surroundings. Luna had somehow gotten thrown off of her deer skull, but was still keeping them close to her, despite the fact that she could not reach them at that moment. Kain watched the ground approach, trying to think of the most surefire way to survive, but was ripped from his thoughts as the giant rectangular creature dove for them once more. They had no way of escape. They were tired, worn out, and were unable to use their weapons properly. Kain couldn’t use the giant dagger in the air, Luna couldn’t use her arsenal while they were falling with her because of how far away they were, and Kain only had one more shot in his bolt gun which they knew did not have enough power to kill the thing. He was at a loss. But before he could consign himself to his fate, an idea formed in his mind. That idea grew to a plan, but it was reckless. He was entirely unsure about what would happen, as he had never tested using the items before, but he needed to try.

He ripped the amulet off of its chain and held it in front of him and his mind plunged into it. He looked around the space, searching for one thing. ‘Is it getting smaller in this place? Maybe the stuff I brought in here is taking the space that was part of this center area and using it to store everything else. Wait, that’s not important. I need to find it. There it is.’ He drew a box into his area of control and opened it. ‘So, red, blue, green, yellow, orange, or purple. Which one? Screw it, I’ll take two. Let’s go with the blue and purple ones.’ He selected the items and, without further hesitation, mentally commanded them. They vanished from the space and Kain’s mind followed.

The first thing he saw was the large beast barreling towards him with its mouths open. Only two of the tongues were open, and they were wrapping around the two items Kain had sent flying out of the amulet. He grabbed Luna in his arm, holding her tight, and aimed at one of the items he had thrown -the small glowing blue gem in the glass box- and fired.

An explosion burst out of the gem, which was soon followed by a second explosion. As soon as he heard the thunderous crash, he funneled as much energy as possible into his cloak’s energy shield, making it as wide, tall, thick, and dense as possible. Despite the measures, he and Luna were pressed by the shield, which was thrown into them as a result of the blast, and were sent flying. Kain curled into a ball and tried his best to keep them both safe. Soon, he felt himself crash against something. It was not nearly strong enough and shattered, but it did slow them down enough that they could eventually come to a stop on the oddly cold and smooth ground.

After a few seconds, Kain opened his eyes and looked around. They were in some kind of large room, about fifty feet across. There were ornately carved pillars that held the roof up above them. He looked around and saw that the wall opposite them was made of some sort of swirling glass that had an entire ten foot section shattered, its shards littering the floor. From beyond the window, he saw the beast falling from the sky. The entire front half of it was blown to smithereens, leaving only the back half. Similarly to its blood, the skin, flesh, and organs of the creature were all evaporating, turning into vapor. He unsteadily stood, feeling burning pain shoot up his entire body. He was not used to pain, but he had a decent pain tolerance, so he knew that he was hurt. ‘Ow… Looks like Luna’s okay though, just closing her eyes.’ He walked, unsteadily, to the broken window. ‘Where the hell are we?’ He looked out of the window, gazing at the complex environment below.

All around him, there was a massive cityscape, all sprawling out and around. He was a few miles near the edge, but the city stretched out as far as his eyes could see. There were buildings of all shapes and sizes, from massive high rises with octagonal bases to normal two story buildings with square foundations. He sighed and sat down, looking out into the city and stroking Luna’s head. He had a feeling that This place would hold so much for them to find, and he began to anticipate it. To his surprise, he was excited to pick apart these ruins. He was excited to find some new stories to tell.

*=====*

AN: Alright, now we get into the Soul City Arc. However, now I think is as good a time as any to put to words what you should expect from me here. I am doing this for fun and to improve my writing. For that reason, it would be appreciated for anyone to give some feedback. One more thing, I am going to move my upload time to 7:00 in the morning ET, though viewers from other sites will not have been working with my prior schedule. Thanks, Quickman.