Though he was sure he could find more beasts if he looked harder, Elach found his focus drawn instead by the weight and actions of this effigy. He chained himself higher just in case it kept growing, but the land mass was utterly drained of Issi as the effigy reached a solid sixteen feet tall. The walls collapsed, no longer supported by the thing’s Issi as it reached down and placed a tightly woven paw on the cart. It didn’t seem as if there was an absurd power behind the blow, but the cart shattered as if it were made of thinly spun sugar.

The effigy seemed to recoil at the destruction, as if it didn’t know its own strength, then let out a roar like a gale force wind ripping through a forest, uprooting young trees and falling ancients. It expected something to sate its hunger, and found only disappointment. The tightly woven stalks shifted to expose a vein of the dark, thick liquid running through the center of the effigy’s back where its spine would have been, rippling with Issi as it expanded and pushed through the stalks. A spine of vicious spikes now sat along the effigy’s back, like dark yellow needles, the Issi around them shaping into something like a shark’s fin that twitched and shook as if it were picking up on something. Then it turned its head upwards.

Spheres of the dark yellow Issi popped haphazardly through the effigy’s head, a smattering of eyes that looked more like the boils of disease than any eyes Elach had ever seen. It was as if someone had removed all of a spider’s eyes and stitched them randomly onto the arachnid’s head, then poured Issi into them until they were bulging and sickly yet somehow functioned. They had no pupils, but they were locked onto him nonetheless.

Another roar and a deep crouch preceded the effigy launching itself directly into the air at Elach, a maw filled with dripping dark yellow needles opening underneath him like a bottomless pit. With a thought he chained himself off to the side, the effigy sailing through where he was and snapping its jaws shut with a dry, crunching smack that sprayed Issi everywhere. In the moment of hesitation that followed the attack, Elach watched as the effigy reshaped itself. The tightly woven stalks burst apart, revealing a thick line of dark yellow Issi sludge speared through a heart-like mass of Issi that was so concentrated Elach shivered as he remembered the feeling of barbed needles.

“Never saw a beast with its container exposed like that.” Elach mused as he chained further away, the effigy landing with catlike grace from its monstrous jump. He shook his head. “No, that doesn’t make sense. Containers don’t work like that. So what is that thing inside that… thing?”

Issi snaked out of the heart-like mass and into the effigy’s shark-like maw, still closed for now, but ready to attack at a moment’s notice. Elach set a chain close to the ground in anticipation of whatever attack was coming, his fingers outstretched and twitching to pull him down at a moment’s notice. The effigy began emitting a low-pitched rumble, Issi pressing down on Elach from all sides, trying to get in and do to him whatever the effigy had done to Y’talla and Flow. He pushed it away with a thought, but this rumbling was insistent. It insistently bore down on the barrier of his skin, the technique breaking down as the pressure grew stronger, until Elach let it in with a grimace and hummed to try and break it down before whatever technique was in the effigy’s maw brought him down.

A roar of victory followed near immediately, and the technique was unleashed. Elach bit down on his tongue as a swarm of needles blasted out of the effigy’s maw, turning his head away as countless tiny pinpricks embedded themselves into his skin. And with them came the effigy’s spined muscle overstimulating Issi.

Everywhere a needle struck Elach felt burning pain. His muscles overtensed until he felt like they were going to snap his bones in two, involuntarily curling into the fetal position as he desperately worked against the relentless assault of needles and Issi. He reached for his bond, for any help from Y’talla or Flow, but it was as blurry as ever. They weren’t getting any better, even with the distance from the effigy.

A bloodcurdling scream ripped itself out of his throat, travelling through clenched teeth as Elach desperately ripped at the burrowed needles of Issi with his mind. The effigy’s assault waned, no new needles embedding themselves in him, the technique’s Issi fading away to nothing. But in its place, something new. The speared heart travelled up the spine and towards the mouth, cascading with Issi that crashed into itself and signified only one thing; a finishing blow.

With his jaw already clenched from the pain, Elach tried to tune himself into the creature’s Issi heart. He could barely focus through the onslaught of Issi, and he was nowhere near clear-minded enough to create any more chains. All he had was the one chaining him to the sky, and another one ready to materialize and bring him to the ground. If he used that one now, he’d just be making himself an easier target. No, he needed to dodge the final technique. If he was lucky, the effigy would be weakened after firing it. And yet, he’d done nothing to hurt it. He hadn’t landed a single blow; hells, he hadn’t even tried, so it had no reason to expend everything it had. It was his only hope, but if he was in any other situation, he wouldn’t bet anything on the effigy’s loss.

The Issi froze for a moment, and Elach knew that was the only chance he had. His fingers curled inwards as the ground rose to meet him, a loud boom echoing out from where he’d just been. His chin slammed into the ground, the unforgettable feeling of a shattering tooth stabbing into his gums multiple times over, but he was alive. For the time being. He sent a tidal wave of Issi to dislodge the needles in his system, the utter pain of barbed Issi being ripped away shattering another tooth as he bit down harder. The metallic tang of blood met his tongue, shards of bone slicing into his mouth as he screamed with the expulsion of countless Issi needles. It was as if every inch of him was being scoured with a molten razor, shredding his muscles and wherever it was his Issi travelled through as he scoured himself clean with force of will alone. It took no more than ten seconds, yet he’d be feeling this for months to come. Acts of desperation always had consequences.

Trying to push himself off the ground failed. His muscles were listening to him, and they were trying, but they were way too weak to support him. Just tensing them resulted in stabbing pain, and Elach had to resort to looping chains under his arms to pull himself up like a fleshy puppet. It was a long and arduous process, with a gratuitous amount of cursing and stifled screams of pain, but he eventually got himself situated in a way that he felt… not comfortable, but not in screaming pain. He would take it.

By the sole fact that he wasn’t dead by now, Elach knew the effigy had used all of it’s Issi on that last attack for some unknown reason. He twisted in his chains, his muscles aching at even that minimal movement, turning to face the motionless straw monstrosity. A long dark yellow needle extended from its maw, the tip dripping with Issi that splattered to the ground just inches away from Elach, its Issi stretched thin to keep the needle extended and the main body formed. He would have laughed if his throat wasn’t so constricted he could barely breathe. He would have smiled if his lips weren’t cracked and bloody, his teeth in shards and all the muscles in his jaw overworked and locked tight. Hells, he barely felt the joy of being alive through the pain of existing.

Why had the effigy gambled everything on that one attack, Elach wondered? It obviously had the upper hand, yet that last attack had taken everything out of it. An ultimate technique wasted on a crippled opponent. Elach felt his Issi trying to get at his wounds, and he had no reason to stop it. He wasn’t going anywhere for a good long while, and with an infusion of transcendent Issi, he made sure the effigy wasn’t either.

Minutes dragged by as Elach felt his Issi knitting the horrible internal damage the effigy’s needles had done. The pain wasn’t anything he hadn’t felt before; if anything, his Issi sort of dulled it. Yet it was a constant reminder of the immobile danger that stood in front of him. He had to find a way to kill this thing. Y’talla and Flow didn’t get any better over the course of the hours-long recovery process, and neither did the effigy. They were tied to it somehow. Almost as if it had forced a tainted bond through its hypnotic Issi.

The light of day had dimmed to dusk when Elach finally left his chains. He wasn’t ready; his teeth were still a mosaic in his mouth and his muscles shrieked in protest with every move, but he was almost empty. Which meant his technique chaining the effigy in place was almost up. He couldn’t afford to wait another minute. His arms hung at his side as he limped up to the effigy, looking up at the thing’s freakish head with a wicked needle jutting out for a good thirty feet. A drop of Issi hung in place at the needle’s tip like a drop of blood being squeezed out of a pricked finger, emphasizing exactly what the effigy had wanted to do; run him through with the needle, inject its Issi until Elach was good and paralyzed, then… then… Elach cocked his head to the side in thought.

Then what? Was it going to leave him there as a grim warning against anyone that dared to brave the first zone of the eleven through twentieth floors of the pillar? How would that help train new practitioners? The yellow grain didn’t fit at all with the aesthetic of the rest of the zone, either, which didn’t seem like something Hoalt would put in place, especially since the butcher had said he wouldn’t have any trouble with anything up to zone… something. Not zone one, that was for certain.

And that Issi. It was unlike anything Elach had felt before. As if it wasn’t even alive, driven solely by an urge to destroy and consume. Consume. Was that what this thing was trying to do? Paralyze him like a spider does a fly, dissolve all his innards, then suck them out through that needle? No, that didn’t feel quite right. Elach wasn’t as injured as he’d expected, and his organs were certainly still solid, but something inside of him still ached like nothing else. It stung whenever his Issi touched it, leaking out into the rest of his body where he had to reabsorb it to keep from wasting.

The effigy was trying to drain his Issi. That settled it; there was absolutely no way this was a test for beginner practitioners. Something had happened here; either the effigy had wandered in from a more dangerous zone, or someone had brought it here. Someone who was infiltrating the pillar and wanted to slow anyone down who was sent to stop them.