Eldritch Exorcist

I dodged two more attacks and blocked a rock flying at my head with a Shield as I made my way to the place where I first cast the grasping hands. The parts of the flesh the creature tore off itself were still lying around.

I blocked another attack and smeared some of the blood over my tattoos.

Blindness of the Seven Hells.

The casting would take a few seconds. I chose the anchor as the face located near the enlarged leg. I could see it focus on me each time the creature used any martial technique.

I used third-circle mana for the cast and started to weave the magic.

The mutant took this as a cue and got closer, ready to rip me apart. I got ready to run but noticed I was slowly running out of spells, and dodging the barrage while one of my casts was taken by the curse might be deadly.

So I prepared Force in a dual cast with the curse and, instead of running, closed the distance, slowly etching the curse into the flesh of the face.

I got within the reach of the hook. I heard the ominous whistle as the swing came at me from the side. I cast the Force spell and slammed myself into the creature's guard, hitting my shoulder into its chest and slamming my knee into the face near the leg.

The mutant gave an enraged, gurgling howl.

Mana covered its body, and its movements became quicker and stronger, but I could still react to them.

I felt the spell seep into the twisted flesh as the face by the shoulder tried to bite me.

I moved to the side, out of its reach.

It tried to move back to get me in front of the long arm, but I kept my place in its guard.

The anchor was set.

Another soul bird materialized, but just as it did, a mouse jumped from my robes and into it, canceling the spell.

The curse slowly seeped around the eyes as I guided the magic.

The right shoulder shone with mana and slammed into my side. I was still keeping up the curse, so my shield was not quick enough. My armour broke. The creature chained the attack into a knee toward my ribs.

I sidestepped it, still keeping out of the reach of the hook.

It smoothly changed the knee into an elbow to my head, which I barely dodged, almost losing my footing.

The curse was complete.

But as I finished, I saw the faces on the flesh smile. It, too, completed its trap.

The right arm shone with mana, the left with lightning, while another wave of soul magic materialized in front of my nose. It had me boxed in.

No movement forward or backward.

It had me.

Or so it thought.

It forgot about one more option.

I used my last stored second-circle spell, Force Control, and threw myself into the air.

The thing turned to me as the flesh around the eyes of the leg-face swelled. A third-circle cast of a curse like that was a nasty sight as pus started to show.

A distorted, inhuman wail came from the mouth. I could see it activate some technique, but the body didn't attack in turn.

Good, so they didn't share thoughts. Its mobility was gone. Finally.

I cast another Death's Grasp. This time, there was no movement technique to run, and the spell bit into the flesh as the creature screamed.

Now was the time to finish it.

I let the eldritch energy flow through me as I spoke the blasphemous words, calling upon my god.

Squirming Void.

Five tentacles of dark, pulsating energy materialized out of an otherworldly magical circle in the air. The beautiful whispers and the haunting song accompanied them. But I ignored those.

"Crush," I commanded using both tongues.

They shot toward the target with a speed and verve I hadn't seen from the spell before.

They closed around the mutant and pinned it to the ground, like a fly caught by a giant hand, the mouths in place of tentacles opened, biting into it.

I used the time for a cast of the strongest Bone Spear I could muster.

I was finishing it when the mana that previously only covered the flesh exploded out of the creature. To my horror, or as close as it could get to horror, it ripped apart the tentacles.

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At least a fourth-circle technique.

So the fucking thing was still keeping trump cards.

But my magic materialized with the mutant still lying on its belly. I aimed it at the higher part of the spine under the skull.

Ready to deal the killing blow.

And it was then that a fourth face on its back, one I had not seen before, opened its eyes.

It was half-hidden by the mass growing out of the thing's ribs.

It met my gaze.

My mental defenses did practically nothing as something extended itself to me. I didn't know which circle that spell or technique belonged to, but I didn't have the time to ponder.

I felt a powerful enemy at the gates to my very mind.

The scenery before me began to blur and squirm like a mirage as it changed. Whatever had just attacked my mind got past my defenses easily.

Not a good sign.

I picked up new sensations as the scent of smoke and blood reached my nose. I felt something hard in my hand, but to make it worse, I didn't feel my own spell. I flexed my will to release the Bone Spear, hoping it would activate, and focused on the illusion.

I was standing in the middle of a burning house with a broken sword in my hand. Around me lay corpses, and screams echoed in the distance.

The roof of the house had collapsed, and in the massive hole right over me, a person was levitating. He was an old man in black robes, but I wasn't paying him any attention. My focus was on the burning structure.

Two wooden beams to my left still stood in the fire, another poked through the flames a bit farther away to the right, and something that looked like an altar stood directly behind me.

They all corresponded to the placement of trees and a boulder where I'd stood before falling into the illusion.

I inhaled sharply. The smoke had a note of birch.

So it was an illusion layered over what I was seeing. The opponent managed to tap into my senses but not overtake them.

And that meant—

I looked down and noticed there was a sizable body in front of me. A massive greatsword was sticking out of its back, to the right of the spine.

So I'd released the spell, but the delay allowed the creature to move slightly.

"Why did you do this?" someone screamed.

Wait—no. I screamed. The voice came from my position, from my mouth, from the me in the illusion. I felt the anger that was supposed to be mine.

So, it was using its own traumatic memory for the spell, judging by the intensity of the emotion.

"Your father killed her! Then almost killed my Sally!" roared the man in the sky. "And he got what he deserved. You could have stayed silent. You could have let it go. You could have lived in peace! But you chose this," he said as he pointed all around himself.

I looked at him and did a double-take as I noticed something. A weapon in the man's hand. It was a long dagger with a hook at the end of it. The color and material seemed to match the butcher's hook currently in the mutation's hand.

Was that the Butcher himself?

But that didn't matter. I needed out of the illusion and back into my mind before the monstrosity in front of me picked itself up from my attack.

"They were innocent!" the illusion-me shouted. "My father…"

I stopped paying attention and focused on the placement of the beams, on the smell of birch in the smoke.

But I didn't want just out of the illusion, I wanted back into my mind. So I focused on something more. The mismatched feeling, how much I didn't care for the illusion's author, and how devoid I was of fear in the presence of the man in the sky.

Those discrepancies were more than enough as the spell cracked, and I was back in my own head.

I looked to the tower in the middle of a black lake representing my mind palace and saw a man, or rather, a thing, trying to break down its doors.

It was a representation of a consciousness that a part of the mutant projected into my head. It looked as if someone grabbed a human and ripped him in half, not sideways, but front to back, separating the face and chest from the back. The front part was currently scratching and punching at the doors to my mind palace.

The worst news was that I could sense its strength, and it was much higher than mine. Not very smart, but powerful.

A part of the spirit of an ancient mage. If I couldn't fight it head-on, then outsmarting it was the only option.

It was my mental landscape. I flexed my will and materialized an illusion relatively close to the creature, and after adjusting the voice, made it shout at the soul. "Your father died a dog's death. Just like you."

The spirit froze and then turned to see an almost perfect projection of the very man holding the butcher's hook I had seen in the illusion.

"He called your name when I ripped out his soul," I made the man say.

And it did the trick as the thing roared.

The illusion could move at a similar speed to me since it was my consciousness puppeteering it, but that wasn't a problem as it dived into the water, falling deep as I opened the path.

The creature fell after the man, and I after it.

We went down. The invader seemed eager to follow the projection. The battle instincts were most likely telling it that it was doing great, opening a path to the deep parts of the psyche.

Time didn't have much meaning here, so it was hard to tell when the creature realized something was wrong.

The intruder tried to slow down its descent, but I just slammed into it and grabbed the projection, using all of my mental strength to hold onto the powerful opponent. We were almost there.

We both fell into a massive field of grey.

The thing got up and was ready to pounce, but it froze, turning its back to me, trying to look around, searching for a way out, I imagine.

Well, good luck with that.

"Come on, don't be shy, have a look," I shouted as I attacked the creature, keeping the wall of darkness at my back.

It turned, but froze once again, barely managing to throw a punch. I dived under its hand and grabbed it in a chokehold. Holding on with all my strength, I started to drag the panicking spirit toward the darkness.

It was half frozen in fear, half trying to fight back clumsily. It couldn't focus its mental energy, and that was a death sentence in a mind battle.

It started to dissipate, screaming, shouting unintelligible words as the half-ripped person finally changed into a shapeless blob of mental energy.

I took one last look at the beautiful, singing, inviting—

I turned and left the space in haste.

Arriving back in the real world, I was greeted by an unnerving whistling sound of the hook flying straight at my chest. I dodged back, almost getting grazed by the weapon.

But before I could do anything else, I faltered as a mixture of headache and weakness assaulted every nerve. My mind could barely command my body.

The mutant chained the swing into a backhand fist, slamming its arm into my ribs. I flew away as I heard a crack of bone, and now the headache was joined by a sharp pain in my chest.

I rolled to the side and got back up purely by instinct.

Looking ahead, I saw the mutant try to get to me, only to be stopped by the sizable Bone Spear in its body, getting caught on a tree. It tried to rip it out, but the spear had small hooks along its length.

But to my surprise, it just kept on pulling on the weapon, as the spear slowly left its body, accompanied by sizable hunks of flesh.

I saw the tissue start to squirm as it healed.

This didn't look good.