Chapter 192: The Echo And The Bad-Things

Chapter 192: The Echo And The Bad-Things

It started with the grinding of stone. Not in the world, but in my mind. Like broken stone-spikes sliding against one another, each crumbling into ruin. I sunk mental fangs into the image, holding fast to the sounds. They were important. Necessary.

They were The Golem.

Something pierced my scale-flesh, pushing through the flames that surrounded me.

Resistance: [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate I] Increased.

[Piercing Resistance - Intermediate II] Acquired.

I writhed, almost losing my grasp on the summon in the midst of my pain and surprise. It had been a long time since my resistances last increased. Then again, it had been a long time since I had been so vulnerable. So alone.

The piercing limb pulled free, leaving a gush of [Poisonous Blood] to trickle down my scale-flesh. I curled in tight, hiding my uncovered length behind a wall of ore-flesh. I bit down on my tail, the familiar motion enough that I could hold on to the focus I needed. My wound itched, already beginning the slow process of pulling itself back together again.

Then, just outside of the [Chrono Fire] that surrounded me, something formed.

A Core.

It was wispy. Ethereal. Tendrils like smoke spread from the edges of its form, each undulating and twisting upon the next. Looking at it, I almost lost my concentration.

The orb flickered, a few tendrils disappearing.

I focused again, and they popped back into existence.

A few of the bad-things, spooked by the appearance of [The Golems Echo], moved to approach it. A wayward limb pushed through its wispy exterior.

PAIN.

I flinched. The ghostly thing flickered again, more severely this time, before I managed to regain my focus.

Then, with a stream of images, sensations, and instructions that I could only attribute to an instinct, I forced [The Golems Echo] to move. The phantom tendrils stretched out, reaching for stone. The stone warped, changed by their touch, before being pulled inward. [The Golems Echo] began to take shape, armored in newly-hardened stone.

[The Golems Echo] froze as I almost lost my concentration. A few of the bad-things fell upon it in a chittering fury, shattering its outer shell of stone in the moment of weakness.

I refocused, and the Echo came back to life. Whatever form of life it actually had, at least. Surprised, I had almost lost it. Kills made by [The Golems Echo], unlike the converts created by [Spore Puppeteer], counted the same as if I had done it myself. I hadnt expected that.

It meant that I could use it as much as I wanted. As long as my concentration held - which, as I realized yet again when the Echo suddenly stopped moving again, was harder than it sounded. In the middle of a fight, I probably wouldnt be able to do it. Not yet, at least.

Hidden within the ground, however, was hardly the middle of a fight.

[The Golems Echo] jerked forward as it bumped into a bad-things abdomen, the stone barrier suddenly opening up like a giant maw, revealing a brief glimpse of the ethereal Core within - before snapping closed again. The bad-thing burst; its flesh spurted streams of fluid, more than a few drops crashing into the barrier that was [Chrono Fire]. The fluids nearly froze as they reached the flames edge, caught within the powerful slow-spot the area had become. Then, the flames guttered out, and the bad-things blood fell.

The world went dark just as the thought-light flickered once more.

Experience Gained!

With no light to see by, commanding the Echo was harder - or it should have been. It would have been, if I wanted it to keep fighting. I didnt. Not right away. Instead, I had it perform another blind roll, crunching a third bad-thing under its length.

Experience Gained!

Its ghostly tendrils stretched out, gathering and shaping stone even as it moved. Its form grew under my command, becoming ever-larger. My focus began to waver, as if each new bit of stone was another weight that my will was forced to carry. There was a limit to how powerful the Echo could become - and that limit was me, I realized.

Hissing, I bore the weight. Compared to the weight of Mothers will pressing upon me, it was nothing.

I/The Echo shifted stone, sculpting a new shape. One that she would have hated, that would have made her spit and roar and scream.

The outer edges morphed, smooth stone becoming scale. The ball stretched and flexed, forming into carefully-twisted coils. A snake was born - and atop its head-scales, the Great Core rested.

Its/my new tail reached out, covering the crack where I hid. Pushing against my scale-flesh. My excitement mounted, nearly ruining everything. [The Golems Echo] almost winked out of existence before I could test one of the ideas that I had been most excited to try.

Focusing again, I pushed back at the stone - not with flesh, but with mana.

With the [Little Guardians Focus].