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The real trouble with Koh was how resistant that big furry body was to all manner of attacks. One of Morgunov’s favored approaches when dealing with powerful close-range threats was to use integration directly on their bodies in order to fuse limbs together--or organs, even. Or, perhaps, to convert chunks of their body into completely different compounds. Even servants with quite strong passive soul defenses could not ignore such attacks completely, not when Morgunov was able to lay his hands on them. And when combined with few centuries’ worth wrestling practice, as well as the Demon’s Grip on both hands, Morgunov usually loved to deal with big brutes who just wanted attack him head on.

But Koh was an annoying outlier. Not only was he durable in the extreme, even by old servant standards, he also seemed to be packing some kind of extra resilience to Morgunov’s integration-based assaults. They did nothing to the mutt.

Was there some unknown protective factor causing that? Or was it just very impressive passive soul defenses? They would have to be truly exceptional indeed, if that was all it was. Superior even to his own, Morgunov knew. On par with Sermung’s, perhaps. Which seemed unlikely.

Regardless, the dog couldn’t be ignored. Morgunov had to let things get messy. Koh barreled into him, and the Mad Demon took it while sliding backwards, not letting himself be toppled over. He caught the animal by the neck, even as huge teeth dug into his shoulder, instantly threatening to sever his left arm.

A throat punch softened the dog’s grip, but it still didn’t let go until he hit it with a second one. And even then, the beast went straight back to mauling him.

Controlling those deadly jaws was priority number one. Allowing himself to get bitten gave too much advantage to Koh.

They hit the ground this time as they wrestled. This wasn’t good, either. Koh’s size gave him another advantage here. Needed to get back on his feet as soon as--

Morgunov saw the Nightspinner on the ceiling, already descending on them. There was no time to dodge.

This wasn’t going to feel good.

Kallmakk body slammed them both, and an earthquake split the entire cavern in two.

Black smoke blinded him, filling his vision and even his mind. And there was pressure. From everywhere at once. Not unlike being at the bottom of an ocean, which he’d experienced a few times.