TTT Vol. 1 pt. 33

The soul beast might have had me trapped underneath her paw, but she didn’t do anything to stop my tentacles.

And I was in full fight or flight mode at that point.

Flight meant abandoning Niko.

Fight meant potentially saving him.

Therefore, it was time to fight.

I took one of my new sucker tentacles and opened it up before shoving it around the beast’s maw, closing it as tightly as I could to keep her from using her fangs. At the same time, my tail tentacle wrapped around her other front leg to try and keep it under control. I wasn’t concerned about her back legs at the moment.

All but two of my remaining tentacles wrapped around her leg that was on top of me. If I could keep her mouth and front legs locked down, I would be relatively safe and buy Niko a chance.

So, with my last two tentacles, I gave him an order with my board.

RUN, BE CAREFUL.

DON’T GO TOO FAST.

DON’T LOOK BACK.

PARENTS WORRIED.

Niko looked like he was in shock and couldn’t move. “Bu-but—what—what about—"

So I smacked him in the face with the board before writing a new, single word on it.

NOW.

With tears in his eyes, Niko picked up his gear and ran in the direction that I came from.

All I had to do was buy him some time. Potentially a lot of time.

The guards were probably on their way out so, depending on how fast they worked, he might not even have to make it all the way back on his own. They might already be halfway to us.

But I was up against a predator.

A hunter.

Even if I swung back at full speed, she would probably be able to catch up to me and take me out.

But I also knew that the chances of me defeating her in a fight were extremely low. She was too big, too powerful, and intelligent. I wasn’t fighting a simple beast. I was fighting an actual, living being. I was up against somebody who could adapt and strategize just like I could.

Lada gave me this board… but I might not ever see her again if I don’t do everything I can.

I gripped the board by the handle as tightly as I could before smashing the rectangular top against the ground, breaking it off from the wooden handle and leaving me with a jagged, sharp handle.

I swung the stick directly at the soul beast’s head. If I could get her brain with it, I’d win no matter how much bigger and stronger she was.

But that didn’t work.

I wasn’t letting her pull her head away from me, but I couldn’t stop her from bringing her head even closer. She avoided my attack and waited until my tentacle holding the handle was right above her head before thrusting her head upward against it, knocking it out of my tentacle.

Alright. Now what? Come on, think. Don’t get too worked up. The moment I start to panic is the moment I lose. I have to stay calm. Observe the situation. Analyze it. Run a test. Repeat until I win. Just like the old days. If I could beat diseases, I can beat an oversized hound.

I felt like a different person. Figuring out how to defeat the soul beast made me feel like a completely different man compared to when I fought that first beast and the one who attacked Lada.

I felt like my old self.

I’m pinned down in a stalemate. Letting go of any of her limbs will give her a chance to attack me. Escape isn’t an option because I have no doubt that she’s faster than me, and it would put Niko in danger. I have no weapons, and weapons won’t be effective against her in the first place. I can tell that she’s more experienced in fighting than me. Up until now, my go-to strategy has been throwing objects or getting the drop on my enemy. Neither of those are options here. I have to try something else.

Unfortunately, that was far easier thought than done.

I wrapped my free tentacles around her neck and squeezed as tightly as I could, but that did nothing. Her neck was too thick and my tentacles too weak.

And I wasn’t the only one trying to gain an advantage, either. She flipped herself forward using her back legs, catching me off guard and throwing me into a nearby boulder. I wasn’t ready for it, so my tentacles came loose from her, too.

The good news was that being thrown into a boulder didn’t actually hurt that much.

The bad news was that a worrisome amount of blood was leaking out from the hole she tore through my body.

Even if I win… I probably won’t make it back. And if she gets even one more attack in on me like that, I’ll probably die in an instant. There’s no room for even a single error here.

I would protect Niko no matter what. It didn’t matter if I barely knew him. He was a child. A pure, innocent, child. He deserved to grow up and live a happy life.

Right after me and Lada officially become a thing… damn it.

Even so, I couldn’t help but to feel sad. Disappointed. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to survive and make it back to Lada and spend the rest of my life with her.

But if I didn’t defeat the soul beast in front of me, it would be more than Niko in danger. Everybody would be in danger. Soul beasts had the potential to rapidly grow stronger depending on who they killed. If she was able to ambush one of the older guards of the village who would surely have a high level, she would instantly inherit that level from them upon killing them.

This isn’t just for Niko. This is to protect everybody who has shown me kindness and accepted me. Lada, Korova, Granny, Kresimir, Mirna, Dobrin, Niko, and everybody else.

The soul beast lunged at me, scratching her claws against the boulder just after I dodged out of the way.

I needed to keep moving, so I swung from tree to tree in a circle around her.

If I looked like I was going to run then she would probably just go after Niko, so I had to make it clear I planned on staying. I had to make her think that I planned on staying.

“Swing around all you want,” she said. “You’re the one who is going to bleed out. Not me. Or perhaps you are trying to put on a show in your final moments?”

Screw you.

“Unfortunately for you, I know what you’re trying to do. It won’t work.”

Turning her head to the west, she took off after Niko.

I had no choice but to go after her and grapple onto her back legs with my tentacles, but I did exactly what she was hoping I would do.

She turned around and swiped her claws through two of my arm tentacles, severing them from my body.

Shit!

I lost control of the slashed tentacles. All they did was writhe around in excruciating pain.

I had to use two of my leg tentacles to tightly squeeze around what was left of them to try and stop the flow of blood through them. It worked, but it took two more of my tentacles out of action.

“What even are you, little tentacle?” she asked me, bringing her snout right in front of my body.

She could have killed me right then and there if she wanted to.

The fact that she wasn’t meant she was underestimating me. She had full confidence in her ability to kill me whenever she wanted to… and I had confidence in her ability, too.

That was why I had to take advantage of her confidence.

“There is no beast like you around these islands. If there was, I would know. Yet here you are, and you’re just like me. A soul beast.”

Well, not really. We don’t know what I am.

But it made sense for her to assume I was one.

“Not only are you a soul beast… but you are a soul beast who has gained the trust of those people hiding in their village. What do you think about working together? If you lure them out and I finish them off, we’ll both grow stronger than if either of us worked on our own.”

I did my best to act like I was thinking about it before nodding.

“You are a horrible liar.”

Yeah, I know.

“It is insulting how stupid you believe I am. First with the rock, then with my offer—as if I would trust you to change sides so easily.”

I think I have an idea. If I run away… I can get her to chase me, wait until she’s jumping between islands, and wrap her up. I could try ruining her jump and making her fall.

“Not knowing what you are only makes me even more curious to find out what you taste like,” she growled at me.

She then brought her maw closer and closer, opening her mouth wider and wider… until she lunged at me.

I waited until the last second to dodge so that she would be committed to her attack, but it cost me another tentacle. Her fangs tore right through it.

But I didn’t need it.

I hurried to the edge of the island with her chasing behind me and swung over to the next island.

“You won’t escape!” she shouted at me.

Not trying to.

She reached the edge of the first island and jumped toward me.

Now, just wrapping my tentacles around her in the air wouldn’t do anything.

I had to wrap one back around a tree on the first island and reel myself in toward it, wrapping the rest of my tentacles around her while we were both in the air. I needed to cancel out her momentum so that she wouldn’t just land on the other island. By canceling it out, I’d get her to drop straight down.

For the first time in the fight, I had the upper hand.

I canceled out her momentum just like planned. She had no choice but to fall straight down rather than finish making the jump over to the next island.

But she managed to wrap her legs around my tentacle in such a way that I wasn’t able to pull them back without her. With two tentacles around the tree and the rest around her, I was forced to lift all of her bodyweight while clinging to the tree for my life.

“Did you really think you would win?” she asked me. Even now, her voice sounded no less confident than usual. “I have spent my entire life among these islands! This is my home! You can’t defeat me in my own domain!”

There’s no fear in her voice. She’s either sure that I won’t let us fall, or she has something else up her… right. Feathers. She most likely has some sort of gliding capability. Even if I were to drop with her, she might be able to build enough speed to glide upward and cling onto an island with her claws. I don’t know how effective of a glider she’d be, but if her species is native to these islands, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve adapted to live among them. The only way to make sure that she dies… would be to drop down and constrict her until we both die together. Even if she breaks free, it won’t matter if it’s too late for her to gain enough speed to come back up.

My heart felt like a dagger was being twisted around inside of it. But, at the same time… I felt proud of myself.

She’s too dangerous to let live. Nobody else has to be at risk of her if I take her out. And even if I die here… it’s fine. I’ve only been around this place for a couple of weeks. They’ll forget about me in no time. Lada will move on and find some other nice guy from the village. Niko will grow up to be a good man. Granny will find somebody else to shout at all the time.

The idea of squirting water at Lada and making her shirt see-through popped into my mind again for some reason.

Damn. I’m going to regret never getting to… wait. I’m an idiot! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?! Why am I giving up so easily?! I’m supposed to fight until I can’t! Isn’t that what I promised them? I promised them that I’d do everything I could! Damn it, I want to hit myself right now!

I didn’t know what promise I was thinking about or to who I made it, but I knew that it was important to me.

I brought one of my remaining sucker tentacles back up to my body since all it was doing before was grappling onto her. It wasn’t one of the ones she was holding onto, either.

Next, I opened my torso up and dipped the sucker tentacle into my pit of what I still assumed was meant to be my stomach acid. Extremely corrosive stomach acid.

With the stomach acid held within the sucker tentacle, I returned it to just above the soul beast’s face.

Then I aimed for her left eye.

Having no idea what I was capable of, she just stared at the tentacle waiting to see what I was going to do with it. She probably anticipated me trying to smack her with it, so she would likely dodge at a moment’s notice.

Instead, I did what I tried out with the water in the pond.

I shot a pressurized jet of the acid into her eye.

A pained yelp left her mouth. Amidst her barks and cries, she shouted, “It burns! What did you to do to me?!”

I went back for more.

If I could blind her then I wouldn’t have to worry about getting back to the top. Even if I brought her with me, she’d be blind. The guards would easily be able to kill her and I wouldn’t have to fall into the endless sky.

Just before I could get her other eye, though, she let go of me. She released my tentacles, causing me to miss and spray her in the side instead, and pointed herself straight down to gain speed before holding her arms and legs out to her sides. That revealed a sort of elastic skin between her limbs and her torso, and she used that to generate lift to get back up to the underside of the other island. From there, all she had to do was dig into it with her curled claws.

“You bastard!” she screamed at me. “Don’t think that this is over! I will come for you! I will tear those Chosen you care so much about to shreds in front of you, and you’ll be powerless to stop me!”

Without saying anything else, she climbed her way to the top if the island and fled to the north.

Running away in that direction was fine. That wasn’t where Niko was.

Everything suddenly hurts a lot more than before.

Knowing that the fight was over allowed the adrenaline to wear off. Though, I was in so much pain that I was pretty sure I couldn’t even feel all of it. Most of my body just felt numb. I was probably in shock and my nerves couldn’t keep up with the sensations.

Shit.

It took all of my energy just to reel myself in to the tree I was wrapped around. And when I did reach it, all I did was fall over with my back against the tree.

At least I took an eye out. That’ll give the others more of a fighting chance. But me… I don’t think I’m making it back.

It became hard to keep my eyes open.

Sorry, Lada, but I couldn’t risk letting another kid die. No child should die at such a young age. Please forget about me and find happiness with somebody el—

“Tentacles!” a young voice shouted out.

Niko…?

Niko ran over to me with his gear. “You did it! But—but… you… I—I’m going to take you back, alright?! Don’t die! Please don’t die!”

You little brat. You never actually left, did you?

“Hold on! You’ll make it back and I’ll tell everybody how cool you were! Please—please don’t die!” Niko’s voice broke as he begged me to survive, tears running down his cheeks.

I raised up a single tentacle to wipe his tears away before nodding.

Well… I don’t want to be somebody who makes little kids cry, so I guess… that I can try to hang in there for as long as possible.