I Only Summon Villainesses

One would think the whips were going for Kassie as they shot forward — in fact, I almost thought so too. But the tentacles changed direction mid-strike, as if they'd recognized something dreadful in the path they were heading. Something that made a cornered human with daggers look like the safer target.

'Well. That's not terrifying at all.'

Each tentacle curled with unsettling independence, moving like they had minds of their own. I was watchful, tense, ready — but it still wasn't enough to prepare me for the devastation that came a few seconds later.

'Oh, you've got to be kidding.'

I saw it coming and got my guard up. Caught Kassie in my peripheral vision as I did.

She was casually walking backward, as if giving me space. As if this was a sparring match and not a fight for my life.

The first tentacle slammed against my crossed daggers with enough force to rattle my teeth. The second followed immediately but changed targets — it drove into my belly like a battering ram, throwing me a step backward. I bent double, spitting water, lungs seizing.

The third and fourth came in that same brutal succession. One hammered into my guard again, tearing my daggers apart with raw strength. The last one caught me square in the face.

The world went sideways. Then vertical. Then my back hit stone.

The tentacles had already twirled again, coiling snakishly in the air above me, tips weaving like they were deciding which part of me to destroy next. I knew I had no time to stay down — knew it with the kind of clarity that only comes when something wants to kill you — so I rolled away on pure instinct.

A smashing sound erupted where I'd been lying. Stone fragments peppered my back.

I didn't try to stand. Just kept rolling. The second tentacle pierced the ground where I'd been a heartbeat before, scattering debris. The Third one, the fourth... Each impact sent tremors through the cave floor, each strike closer than the last, the creature tracking my movement with horrifying precision.

It wasn't until after the fourth impact that I finally sprang up and sprinted to a corner — somewhere the beast would have to turn its bulk to face me. Buy myself a few seconds. Maybe figure out how not to die.

The creature snarled, low and wet, as it retracted its tentacles.

"Hey... Kassie—"

"You're doing well." She said it flatly, like she was commenting on my dancing skills. "Keep going."

"Not with these dagg—"

Before I could finish the sentence, the creature lunged.

I threw myself sideways, feeling the wind of its passage as jaws snapped shut where my head had been. The sound of those teeth coming together was like two stones grinding. I rolled, came up with my daggers raised, and immediately realized how monumentally stupid that was.

Daggers? Against something the size of a small horse with four independent tentacles.

'I really need a change of weapon, dammit!'

I was going to die in this cave because I brought a kitchen knife to a monster fight. Fantastic. Really excellent life choices all around.

But complaining wasn't going to keep me breathing. I circled left, keeping my eyes locked on the beast as it turned to track me. Its tentacles writhed above its back, those crimson tips twitching like they were tasting the air. Testing it. Learning my patterns.

'Okay. Think.'

Four tentacles meant four attack vectors, but they all originated from the same source — its back. If I could get beneath it, or behind where the tentacles sprouted, I'd have a window. A small one. Probably measured in fractions of a second.

Better than nothing.

The beast charged again.

This time I was ready. I waited until the last possible moment — until I could see the individual teeth in that gaping maw — then pivoted hard to my right, letting it barrel past. As it passed, I slashed at its flank. Felt the blade bite into something solid beneath that matted hide. Felt resistance, then give.

The creature shrieked.

I allowed myself one moment of satisfaction.

Then a tentacle whipped around and caught me across the chest.

The impact lifted me off my feet. I flew backward, hit the cave floor, and skidded until my back slammed into a boulder. Pain exploded through my ribs — sharp, immediate, wrong. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. Just lay there trying to remember how lungs worked while my vision swam with black spots.

'One hit. One hit and I'm already—'

The beast was coming.

I forced myself up. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else, someone who'd never learned to walk, but fear is a hell of a motivator. I got my dagger up just in time to deflect a tentacle strike, the impact jarring my arm so badly I nearly dropped the weapon.

Another tentacle came from the left.

I ducked.

A third from above.

I stumbled backward, barely avoiding it, heel catching on loose stone.

The fourth caught my ankle and yanked.

The world inverted. Suddenly I was upside down, being lifted into the air, blood rushing to my head while the cave spun around me. The beast brought me closer to its face — those hollow, weeping eyes studying me with what looked horribly like intelligence. Like curiosity.

'This is how I die. Dangling like a fish on a hook while a nightmare decides how to eat me.'

I did the only thing I could think of.

I threw my daggers at its eye.

The first blade was slapped away with a tentacle, getting lost in the darkness but the second followed immediately and sank into the socket with a wet, meaty sound. The creature screamed — a horrible, echoing shriek that seemed to come from everywhere at once, bouncing off the cave walls until it was inside my skull — and the tentacle released me.

I hit the ground hard, shoulder first. Something crunched. Probably something important. I didn't have time to care.

I scrambled away on all fours, putting distance between myself and the thrashing beast. It was clawing at its own face with two tentacles, trying to dislodge my dagger, momentarily blind to everything except its own agony.

'Okay. Good. Bought myself maybe ten seconds. Now what?'

Now I had no weapon.

'Brilliant strategy, Cade. Truly masterful. Really outdid yourself on that one.'

The beast ripped my dagger free with one tentacle and flung it across the cave. I heard it clatter somewhere in the darkness, the sound distant and final. Too far to retrieve. The creature's ruined eye socket leaked that same liquid darkness as before, mixing with something thicker that might have been blood.

It turned toward me.

One eye was gone, but the other burned with something I could only describe as hatred. Not animal fury—not the mindless rage of a wounded predator. Actual, thinking hatred. This thing was going to make me suffer for what I'd done.

I glanced at Kassie. She hadn't moved. Just stood there with her arms crossed over her chest, watching like this was a moderately interesting documentary.

'A little help would be—'

"You have two legs," she said calmly. "Use them."

The beast charged.

I ran.