Threads of the Soul

Chapter 481 - 481: Powerless

With his spear in his left hand, Seth kicked off the ground and leapt clean over the crowd of escaping prisoners. His spear launched from his hand, sailing through the air by nothing but brute strength.It stabbed into one of the Hollows, sending it flying back into another which got skewered by the spear and carried by the momentum, then so on until four of the Hollows were impaled on the spear and pinned against the floor.

But even that wasn't enough to stop them. They wailed and struggled on the spear, fighting and clawing against each other as they tried to pull themselves off. Killing a Hollow was painfully difficult.

They were sort of like vampires. Usually cutting off their head would work, but if there was some that would endure through that if they had consumed enough. The drained energy would keep all the parts alive independently, until you hacked away at them enough to destroy them.

Burning them was viable, but the same issues occurred. Sometimes they could endure and unless you could incinerate them, that just made a burning hollow come lunging at you instead of a normal one. Less than ideal.

Against these creatures, Seth was rendered completely powerless. Any attempt to attack them from a distance with his threads -whether binding or controlling something- would only serve to feed them. Any attempt to escape with his soul form would make him even more vulnerable to their attacks.

Even Omelette couldn't use his fire against them, as he burned souls. It was how he could choose what to omit from the attack, but against something that was literally soulless how could he burn what didn't exist?

But just because he was powerless, doesn't mean he was going to run away. Powerless had been how he had started, as that cowering man hiding beneath desks. Sure, he was doing what he could to survive and there was nothing wrong with that.

Yet how could he look himself in the eye and say he had improved as a person if that was what he reverted to when he was stripped of all his fancy powers? After everything he had been through, there was no way in hell he was going back to being that scared little coward.

Besides, just because he was powerless didn't mean he was completely unarmed.

With a flex of the false muscles in his right arm, a blade erupted his palm. He cleaved through the neck of a Hollow as he fell passed it, rolled across the ground and sliced another one from crotch to cranium.

As the Hollow halves split apart and flopped to the ground, Seth couldn't help but laugh to himself at his own stupid pun. Unarmed... Hehe, It was just too good.

He rushed over to his spear, cleaving the heads off of the Hollows with his arm sword, spewing fire over the ones that still moved before pulled the spear from the wall with his hand, like a normie. It felt... wrong.

A monstrous roar echoed out as a shadow appeared above him, but instead of a Wyvern diving down, it was a muscular behemoth with jet black skin. It crushed a hollow under foot from its landing, smacking a few others away with wild swings of its hands.

Another Hollow lunged towards it, its mouth stretching wide open as it tried to slurp up the beasts soul, but the Behemoth simply clamped his hand over the Hollows head, before clenching his fist. The head popped like a grape.

The Behemoth rose to its full height of 8 foot and turned to face Seth. It had no eyes, as the top half of its head was nothing but bulging bone as a defensive plate.

"Woe, Go down further and check for anyone that needs help. Prisoners and Guards alike. If you see anything other than Hollows, come back immediately. I don't care if you can handle it on your own, just come back.

Okay?"

Seth glared at his massive little brother as he threw his spear through another Hollow. Yes, the Behemoth was in question was Woe in his full 'defensive' form.

How it connected to his mutation, Seth had no earthly idea, but according to Woe it helped him withstand Heteromorph types more which made sense, as it was his main weakness. However he could only shift into it when he had absorbed enough mana which seemed... counter productive to that goal.

Honestly it seemed like a bit of a strange mutation, but that was the randomness of evolution after all. Throw it all at the wall and see what survives.

At the very least, with all of the mana filling the air, Woe was sucking in enough to constantly fuel his transformation, even fighting against the magicless Hollows.

Woe nodded quickly and disappeared down the tunnel with a few more powerful leaps, shaking the ground and crushing Hollows with every landing. Landings that made Seth glance nervously at the roof, watching for any sign of it coming down to meet them.

He really hoped that whatever built these tunnels did so with structural integrity in mind, and that Woe was smart enough to remember where they were. Only a complete idiot would fight deep underground and constantly damage the walls enough that it caved in on him.

And Seth wasn't going to let that happen to him any time soon.

Within the large chamber, where all of the miners were still running as they desperately fled, Ava had been left all alone. It wasn't dangerous where she was, as the Hunter had put her away from the crowds before going off to join the battle against the exponentially growing number of hollows.

She sat with her back against the wall, her hands clutched against her chest, as she shivered in fear. Everyone else was fighting while she was... She was useless, she knew that and wasn't afraid to admit it. But she hated it.

All of her life she had been protected and looked after. It was the Apocalypse for gods sake and this was the first time she was encountering real monsters. Even in the initial days, at the very start of it all, she had been protected by her schools teacher.

Her Sister, Her brother, Even the Lightbringer - even if it was just to keep her as a resource - all she had ever been was the meek princess that was looked after. Hiding in other people's shadows.

Yet sitting here, in the thick of it, all she could bring herself to do was shiver in pathetic fear and hide, utterly powerless to help. It was sitting there, watching everyone else fight, that she landed on one particular sight that squeezed her frail little heart.