Chapter 245: What’s that over Yonder

As Kat looked around at the snowy landscape, looking for anything that might give away what they were looking for, Ki started to say something. However, before she could even get the first sound out a deafening boom sounded from somewhere.

Kat's ears rung as she tried to steady herself. Pushing demonic energy to her ears to help recover, let her feel that she was actually missing her eardrums. The ringing continued as they were quickly regenerated.

While this was happening, Kat's vision was also slowly recovering. The disturbance caused by the roar had made her vision swim slightly, but her eyes were better off than her ears. They managed to spot the faint shadow of something moving at the extreme range of her vision.

Even with Kat's improved eyes, the details escaped her. It looked to be a human sized figure, but the sheer distance away implied it was something much larger. *Is that thing getting closer?* Kat narrowed her eyes and tried to get a good look at the thing, but with the distances she was working at, it was hard to determine if it was moving at all.

Then, as if it realised it was being observed, sped up drastically, leaving no doubt as to the likelihood of its movement. Kat could see the figure rapidly increasing in size, first to twice her height, then four times, and further still.

As the figure got closer, the details grew clearer. It was another figure reminiscent of the ink golem found in the Autumn section of the scene. It had large stocky limbs even as it sprinted at breakneck speed. Its 'skin' was a constantly shifting mass, dripping towards the ground, but Kat could not make out if any was actually left behind.

That was where the similarities ended. Instead of being black like ink, this golem was instead a strange blue, it was surprisingly bright, blending in with the snow better than it should have. The colour was something around a bright aqua, it had a clear dash of green in it. This was the trend for most of the body, but there were two exceptions.

The first of these was the head, instead of the smooth rounded surface Kat expected, it was a sharp angular thing, more like two triangles sticking up from the neck area that had joined in the middle. It was a much darker blue than the other areas making it more like the black you'd expect, but with a slight coating of snow that seemed to stick on it at various places almost making it look diseased.

The second deviation, was the massive club that rested on the figures back. As it was running Kat could only make out the hilt and the start of the structure to identify that it was in fact a club and no other weapon. The hilt, though to call it that might be misleading, was a dark black that absorbed light, the same as any other Nightmare, but the rest of the club, presumably, was a glowing neon green.

The colour change wasn't gradual, it was a sharp line that separated the two colours, and neither dripped like the figure that wielded it. Both sections were completely smooth, and somehow looked… sharp, to Kat.

*How does that even work? How can it look sharp?* But even as Kat thought that question she was forced to avert her gaze as her eyes started to burn. She didn't notice at the time, but had she looked at her eyes, Kat would have been able to see minute cuts that had started to form on the surface of her eyes. As a demon though, her eyes didn't bleed and her vision remained mostly untouched.

While this was happening, Minor had fallen to the ground. Once she had realised the danger, she had thrown a pile of snow over herself mostly to block her ears which were bleeding. Counter to this, Ki stood tall, while the 'breeze' moving her sakura tree seemed to increase slightly.

Ki's mouth moved, perhaps in an attempt to say something or rally their spirits, but Kat's ears were still recovering completely and whatever sounds Ki made were completely drowned out. Minor sat in the snow, and made no movement indicating she had been heard either.

Ki seemed to notice this, and simply crouched and sharpened her gaze. Watching the titan approaching them. Kat too, watched as its size never seemed to stop increasing. It now towered over everything except the sakura tree, easily a few stories tall.

As the creature approached even closer, Kat's eyes picked up something strange while she was pointedly looking away from the weapon. The chest section of the golem was oddly smooth. The dripping sections seemed to avoid one particularly small patch about two third of the way up its chest.

Whatever it was however, blended in well, and was coloured exactly the same as the 'flesh' that surrounded it. Another point towards it being something noteworthy was that when Kat cast her gaze around, she found Ki's own gaze locked on to that very same section.

As the creature approached, deep thuds started to resound, and shortly after that, the ground started to shake. The snow started to jump every time the thing took a step. At this point it was vast, taking up most of Kat's vision if she was looking straight at it. Minor, had managed to get up, as well, though it she still had trails of blood running down her ears.

*I can only hope that Minor is able to use her fancy powers to heal herself a bit otherwise we are in for a rough time. I should also probably get some height. I don't want to get crushed under foot.*

"I'm taking to the skies, does one of you want to come?" asked Kat

Ki shook her head "I must remain grounded to stay connected with the tree, but I suggest you take Minor"

Kat nodded, and headed for Minor, who bent herself sideways, so that when Kat picked her up, it was easier. Once she had Minor in hand, Kat stomped into the ground shooting off into the air and spreading her wings.

Kat flapped her wings as hard as she could trying to gain as much height as she could. *Do I want to aim for that funny spot or go all the way to the head? It's a blob monster, so I'm not sure how much taking its head off will actually help, and I mean… I don't see any eyes on the thing but… maybe it's worth getting as high as I can, I can always drop down…*

*But then again* Kat looked at her rapidly climbing height, even as it made a minimal dent in the height of the golem, *can I drop as fast as I can fly? I mean I think so… but clearly some strange magic phenomena is what lets me fly… so maybe I am faster than my terminal velocity?*

*Except… I don't remember that? Wait…* Kat scoured through her memories rapidly but was unable to recall it. *Damn, I might just be looking in the wrong place, or I might have forgotten it. I think it was over a year ago that I learnt about it in class*

Kat couldn't help the chuckle that escaped her lips. *Ha, a year. I feel like I've done so much in the last month that a year ago seems like an age ago.* Kat shook her head and focused on the golem again.

It seemed to be slowing down, or at least, its apparent height wasn't changing as much as it was before. Kat was above head height now, and looking down at the golem provided nothing new, except for confirming the fact that the thing's weapon was a club, and that the rest of it was in fact green.

Just as Kat was averting her gaze from the weapon, the golem moved. Its hands moved with agility a behemoth of its size should have been incapable of. Drawing the club in one swift movement it swung towards Kat making use of the extra reach to launch an attack at her.

Kat's eyes went wide, as she started to shoot off towards the side, but trying to dodge a weapon the size of a house was a trying task, especially at the speed it was travelling. Kat managed to just barely clear the area of impact a moment before it would have collided with her…

But it didn't even matter, at that size the air pressure alone was a decent attack. Despite her dodge, Kat felt like her back was smashed with a sledge hammer, she felt the bones in her wings shatter as the leather tore in places.

Kat grit her teeth and stifled a scream as she started to fall towards the ground. Forcing as much energy as she could into her wings, she felt them starting to heal on her back. It wasn't a pleasant experience, Kat could feel it as every splinter of bone crawled its way back into place through her body sending new waves of pain across her mind.