Chapter: 542 – Buckled Down for the Long-Haul

Tala stood at the entrance to the cell, using her threefold sight to regard the woman who was clearly the prisoner held within.

Well, at least one of them.

Terry was standing in a forest, having gone nearly a dozen yards from the long tunnel that breached the cells, meaning that the opening into the tunnel was out of easy sight. It helped that it was among a tangle of branches, not having needed to be against the ground.

Spatial holes, not physical ones.

-Well, this is an extra-physical hole…-

Fair, I suppose? Regardless, it serves our purposes.

Tala’s cloud of bloodstars hovered star- and stoneward of him, and those were the source of her threefold sight around her soulbound companion.

The woman who was walking toward Terry was honestly stunning, appearing to be in her early twenties—if Tala was going off of mundane appearances—athletic and trim, curvy and fit.

Her hair was of medium length and dirty blonde, held up in an artful twist by a whittled stick thrust through at a critical juncture of the various sections.

It was hard to gauge the prisoner’s height given the new environment, Terry’s variable size, and other contributing factors, but Tala would guess that the woman was a bit taller than Tala, herself, while remaining on the shorter side for a woman in the cycling cities.

Her clothing was sparse but present, which was interesting to Tala, given that the woman was alone with only herself in here and had been for centuries.

She supposed that clothing gave a sort of comfort, even if it wasn’t strictly needed. A Refined-equivalent arcane shouldn’t need the environmental protection or support, but Tala supposed that she didn’t actually know, nor was she likely to find out.

The prisoner wore shoes that seemed to be woven from plant fibers, and simple bindings and coverings around her hips and bust of similar material.

Honestly, if the woman had taken off her shoes, the outfit would have reminded Tala of the traditional wedding garb.

On a Reality level—when she examined the prisoner’s reality node—the woman reminded Tala a lot of Mistress Kaeti, the Refined who could replicate herself across a battlefield, albeit temporarily.

This woman seemed… more permanent? More real rather than a mere temporary—albeit solid—illusion? She couldn’t quite place exactly what the difference was, even if she felt like she should be able to. Regardless, the prisoner’s reality node seemed unified with something that wasn’t present… and at the same time it seemed distinct.

Finally, a portion of what she was detecting seemed to click into place and make sense. It’s like my arm. It is a clear part of me, but there is also a distinctness to it when considering it alongside my torso, or even my other arm.

-Yeah, I can see that.-

Still, the prisoner was drawing closer, no hint of fear in her eyes, one hand held out toward Terry. “You’re beautiful. I haven’t seen your kind in ages. Did you get sucked in here somehow? That happens sometimes, but it never has with anything as big or as beautiful as you.”

Terry tilted his head to the side, regarding the woman critically.

Then, in a manner that would have been invisible to Terry without his own bloodstar clouds, a second copy of the woman seemed to simply come into being, moving back the way she’d come, keeping in the visual shadow of the first.

We can’t let her get away. It seems that they might not have long range communication, and that one is going to tell others.

-I’ll let Terry know.-

An instant later, Terry flickered slightly, only noticeable to Tala because of how closely she was watching the whole area.

The secondary woman—who had made it behind some trees and had begun running away on quick, silent feet—fell with a precise slice opened on the side of her neck.

At the same instant, a spurt of blood shot from Terry’s neck, painting the trees to his right.

The terror bird squawked a pained grunt before flickering again, the body vanishing before it could hit the ground.

Even so, the original couldn’t help but notice the blood that had come from Terry.

Tala immediately mirrored her healing onto him, repairing the physical damage, but the game was up, even if only partly.

The prisoner narrowed her eyes. “You’re not a good birdy, are you?”

Terry trilled indignantly.

Tala felt Alat consoling their friend. They all knew he was the best of birds. This woman had clearly gone a bit insane in this cell.

At the same time, Tala saw an eye replicate on the back of the woman’s head—somehow not blocked by her hair—and from that eye’s vantage, it would be easy to see the blood that had come from the other’s neck behind her.

Kill her.

Terry didn’t hesitate, the thought clearly carried instantly via Alat.

He flickered forward, this time void coating his talons. Unfortunately, even as he did, eight versions of the woman seemed to spring outward in opposing directions, leaving the ninth to die by a similar—if deeper—slash to the neck.

Tala healed the duplicate on Terry’s neck, fighting against the void that had been duplicated as well. Yeah, that didn’t do any real good, and it made things harder for us.

The tactic of just healing through Terry’s kills wasn’t going to be sustainable.

One of the eight shook her head even as the others circled, crouching low, arms up as if to corral Terry. “You are a bad birdy. We’ll have to catch you and train you to behave properly.” A light of desire was obvious in all of the eyes regarding Terry. “Your power… it must have let you breach this place, and that means it can get me out. Come willingly, and we’ll treat you like a king.”

Tala almost laughed. It was actually a rather perfect misapprehension. It fit, too, so she wasn’t even that surprised, and it suited their purposes quite well.

There was no reason that prisoners should think their cells would need repair—the information security on that front almost assured that they wouldn’t—so with the exception of the few who fell into terrible powers after learning of the cells, prisoners shouldn’t have any idea that a chance to escape would ever come their way.

But Tala was allowing herself to get distracted.

Terry began to flicker around, slaying the clones with terrifying rapidity and precision. Each cut was in exactly the same place, so the replicated damage didn’t actually harm him more if Tala didn’t heal him.

He was robust enough—and had enough blood and mass—that the bloodloss didn’t truly harm him in the short term, so she left it alone.

Even so, his task seemed endless. For each woman he killed and ate, another would diverge from one of the others, keeping the number at eight.

Worse, the bodies that he ate didn’t seem to contain any real sustenance. They took up space in his stomach, but didn’t seem to have nutrients, or true biological matter that he could pull from.

Tala and Terry didn’t have time to truly analyze the how or what of it—and Alat was otherwise occupied—but suffice it to say, they wouldn’t be refilling their reserves with this woman’s clones.

Because of that, he stopped eating them.

Thankfully, there was something going on with the bodies, because they began rapidly disappearing after barely a minute, except those that Terry had already eaten.

Odd that… Or maybe not? His body claimed them, so maybe they can’t be dispersed? Or something like that…

-Not really the time?-

No other copy had tried to make a run for it, which would be good, except for the implication that the prisoner hadn’t thought such would be needed.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

-We also don’t know why she stopped at eight copies. It seems an odd choice. From the magic we’re seeing, this isn’t taking much, power… somehow, and I don’t see us wearing her down anytime soon.-

Then it’s a good thing that wearing her down isn’t our goal.