Monday, May 27, 2024

Page 3597

It was a testament to how utterly infuriated Morgunov must have been, the fact that he was resorting to his power like this for attacks. Typically, the Mad Demon only liked to use his inventions in combat. As a matter of pride, the Prime had been told.

Thankfully, Gohvis-Aeha had something of a counter for that particular ability. His hyper-refined somatosensory system. The mechanoreceptors and thermoreceptors of his body may have merely been psychic imitations of the Prime’s, but thanks to the passive telepathic link that he could establish with every living body in the immediate area, they might as well have been real. And more attuned to the environment than ever. Only the Prime himself would have superior senses, and only when not maintaining so many projections on the network.

The Mad Demon’s power gave off slight environmental cues via heat and vibrations when activating on a given location. At an elemental level, the chemical reactions that the man was provoking may have been impossible by conventional standards, but they were reactions, nonetheless. And Gohvis-Aeha could sense them.

He could, therefore, also intercept them before they skewered Germal through the spine or skull; or captured him in an electrocuting cage; or torched him with roaring flamethrowers; or riddled him with bullet holes from primitive firearms.

It was like trying to swat a neverending swarm of flies. If those flies had learned to harness human weaponry.

And as the days drew out, the tactics naturally became more complex, as well. Morgunov increasingly sought to create distractions--or use distractions being provided by the damn feldeath--in order to land a much more devastating blow on Germal.

Truthfully, Gohvis-Aeha did not know if he could keep this up. The only saving grace here seemed to be that the Liar was a bit more evasive and durable than even the Prime had realized. Though, of course, Koh did quite a lot of heavy lifting there, too.

The Maneater of Melmoore was performing well, but that was no surprise. If anything, it seemed to him that Koh might’ve actually been holding back, somewhat. It made little sense, given everything he’d come to know of the very strange circumstances surrounding this battle, but when compared to some of the Prime’s sparring sessions with Koh in the past, Gohvis-Aeha could not dismiss a certain sense of confusion.

But there was hardly time to dwell on it. And there was already plenty of confusion circulating from other sources during all this madness.

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