Chapter Sixty-Six - Stop Playing With Dolls

The only thing still standing was the cultists main building, while Locke waited for his mana to recover he scanned the building from the outside, just as before he could still feel that immense sense of discomfort and disgust, but now that he was standing next to the building the feeling was even greater.

"It's like standing beside an open latrine, a latrine in one of those horrible truck-stop restaurants, filled to the brim with human waste on a hot summer day..."

'The worst thing is knowing you're going to have to go in there!' Tia replied, mocking Locke.

Locke swore under his breath, but there was no choice in the end, he took a deep breath and meditated deeply, draining the surrounding mana like a siphon, forming a maelstrom of visible mana.

'My control has increased once more...' Locke thought, the speed at which he drained the mana around had become absurd, he was like a black hole attracting light, when he felt that he had already completely recovere, he raised and prepared to enter.

Locke walked to the entrance of the building, despite the horrible feeling that the building gave off he wouldn't give up, he could also feel the barrier that surrounded the place, his eyes sparkled as he studied the mana structure, it didn't take long for him to know exactly what that he needed to do.

His claws hit a spot on the door, the barrier began to behave violently but Locke didn't care, he pushed harder and harder, keeping his grip on the small gap and, giving a strong tug, he created a huge tear.

Locke entered in a hurry, he took a deep breath and invaded the building, the feeling that crossed his body was like diving into the dirtiest water ever, soon he found himself in the same entrance hall of the building that Durand and his agents entered.

"For Christ's sake! This place is even more disgusting inside!" Locke had to force himself to stop the pharyngeal reflex.

'Yuck! You'll have to take a good shower before you enter our home!' Tia said through the mental link.

"Happy thoughts!" Locke said to himself. 'Remember, it's not the worst place you've ever had to go! Remember your janitorial jobs…" He began to calm down.

'Those aren't happy thoughts...' The fairy commented stoically.

Locke ignored the comment and looked around, the interior of the building reminding him of the small dimension the ghost girl and the teenage girls had been trapped in, but on a much larger scale, at that time he had to trust his instincts to move, but now for him the structure of that space was completely clear, it was just interconnected dimensional pockets, he could clearly feel the way in which they interconnected and interacted with each other.

The pockets had the characteristic of affecting the perception of whoever was inside them, causing people to wander lost in circles until they found the entrance to the 'next area', but to Locke the entrances were as visible as a spotlight in the dark, even with the huge number of them he decided to go with the ones that gave off the most of that bad feeling, whatever it was he needed to sort it out once and for all.

Locke flew through the rooms without difficulty, the place was full of apparitions and traps, but none of them were made to deal with an opponent like him, he could see the mana circuits that made up the trap easily, avoiding them without any difficulty, with the non-magical traps he didn't even need to dodge, he just crossed them with indifference, the iron spikes, the sharp arrows, the poison darts, none of them could even cut through his scales, so he didn't miss a second and just went through them.

Locke also encountered monsters along the way, he ignored the small apparitions that tried to stop him, while slashing with his claws those who got too close, he simply continued forward.

At one point along the way, Locke sensed a strange mana coming from one of the exits, the mana completely out of step with the environment he was in, rather than the pale and dead mana of the wraiths or the rotten evil aura that came from all the corners of the room, this mana was... clear and warm, didn't look like the kind of thing that should exist around there, Locke suspected that this mana belonged to one of the Bureau agents, he decided that since it was there, it wouldn't cost nothing confirm, maybe even give a help.

After crossing a few more 'rooms' Locke soon found himself in a place that resembled an endless series of rooms and corridors, the roof was too low for him to fly well so he was forced to run, he could hear a loud combat noise and he ran towards the battle, soon he saw a group of soldiers being led to the corner by a group of creatures with an appearance of a poorly made puppet who slightly resembled children.

Locke watched for a moment, the soldiers were fighting bravely, but the number of monsters was too great, every time one of the 'children' got close enough, a creature that looked like a humanoid centipede would partially exit a portal and attack the soldiers. , trying to snatch them up before returning to the hole he came out of, Locke's arrival caught the attention of both the soldiers and the 'children'.

The soldiers were startled by the sudden arrival of a huge humanoid dragon-like being, thinking it was just another enemy, it didn't help that Locke was covered in his frightening and powerful black mana, the 'children' went crazy with Locke's arrival, running all in his direction, Locke ignored them completely as he stared at the ceiling, he could feel the creep hiding there and controlling that bunch of puppets, but unlike the soldiers Locke didn't wait for him to put one of his many disgusting limbs out, Locke just flew up.

"Stop playing with dolls and face me like a... thing, you weirdo!" Locke exclaimed.

Instead of hitting the ceiling, Locke dug his claws into the invisible space, which cracked and tore, he easily opened the dimension in which the worm hid and invaded the place, it was another dimensional pocket, but different from the others this one it seemed to be mobile, inside it lurked a creature born out of a world of nightmares, its shape resembled a mass of human trunks attached to each other, forming huge 'centipede tentacles' with millions of arms on all sides, ending in a 'tube' of meat that resembled a lamprey mouth.

'That's definitely the most disgusting thing I've ever seen…' Tia commented.

"I…I don't even have a comment… Come on, let's just burn this thing…" Locke replied.

The creature's 'tentacles' began to move and ran towards Locke, which exposed the monster's 'core', the place where all the tentacles came out, was just a huge mass of pale flesh with a gigantic, bizarre eye.

'That's it! I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight…' Tia commented in a disgusted voice.

Locke didn't disagree with the fairy for a second, but he needed to focus on fighting the bizarre creature, he dodged the lamprey mouths that tried to devour him and easily escaped the millions of arms that made up the tentacles. The creature's size made its attacks slow and easy to dodge, and Locke escaped without the slightest worry, the huge eye in the creature's 'chest' followed his movements and the creature looked desperate, it seemed to want to devour Locke in any way possible.

Locke analyzed the creature while dodging its attacks, the creature didn't seem very smart or skilful, its attacks were all simple and easy to dodge and the monster didn't seem to have many abilities beyond that. This surprised Locke, the amount of mana he felt coming from the creature was huge, big as his own mana, but the creature didn't seem to have any control over it, he soon got tired of dodging.

When the next attack arrived Locke didn't try to dodge anymore, he let the 'tentacle' curl around his body, the millions of arms held him and he didn't try to let go, the creature started to tremble, which Locke interpreted as its form of express is glee, one of the mouths approached Locke and began to expand, opening wider and wider, as if it wanted to swallow Locke in a single bite.

'EEEEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!' Tia exclaimed through the mental link. 'I gonna pucke! For all that is most sacred, just put an end to this disgusting thing!'

Locke smiled, his mana exploded and black flames ran all over his body, this was another one of his new creations, based on the same principle of shadow armor he had created this flame armor, an armor whose whole concept was not protect, but instead turn his whole body into an offensive weapon, for some reason, the first time he used this spell, Locke was tempted to yell 'flame on!'.

The black flames spread across the centipede tentacle easily, all the creature's mouths roared together in pain, and the burning tentacle began to swing violently, releasing Locke's body.

The creature seemed to want to extinguish the fire by swinging the tentacle, but the flames continued to spread and consume its flesh, the monster then began to beat one tentacle against the other, which caused the fire to spread to more tentacles, eventually to creatures made a decision, he plucked his own flaming tentacles and threw them through the space he inhabited, wishing to keep those painful flames as far away from his body as possible, in his despair he ended up forgetting the true origin of the flames in the first place.

Before the monster could even remember its existence, Locke took advantage of his lack of attention to move closer, he positioned himself completely behind the creature's body, parallel to its one eye and focused its flames, he then lunged forward, his incandescent body became a missile of living black flames, hitting the creature's unprotected back.

The fire burned down a path with violence, and the creature roared in pain once more, its many mouths screaming in a desperate cacophony, Locke was invading its body from behind, ripping and burning its giant interior, when Locke felt it had penetrated enough, he curled himself into a ball and strengthened the flames, sending them everywhere.

Locke's mana always had the characteristic of being violent, every offensive magic he used was hard to block and are 'corrosive', Locke's own mana had the characteristic of feeding on the surrounding mana while growing violently, that huge monster had a lot of mana but no control, all that wasted mana was there to be fuel, and Locke's power fed on it as he cooked the creature from the inside out.

The vitality of the monstrosity was enormous, it thrashed and fought like crazy as it tried to pull Locke out of it's body, it's centipede tentacles with their lamprey mouths began to dig into it's own body as they struggled to tear out the violent invading enemy that was consuming them for inside, in a desperate attempt to survive.

Locke waited patiently inside the creature's body while its flames did the dirty work, he even used the spirit drain on the surrounding flesh walls to regain his own mana.

After about twenty minutes the monster couldn't take it anymore, black flames came out from all its mouths, its flesh had exploded in some spots and the whole dimension stank of burning flesh, finally its huge eye exploded in black flames and its movements started disappearing, his body began to char and crumble to pieces and Locke leveled off again.

'Man, your growth rate is almost a cheat!' Tia commented.

"Hey, most of these fights I didn't start!" Locke replied. "The least I can do is be the one to finish them!"

With the creature's death the dimension started to become unstable, Locke could feel the walls cracking and collapsing inwards so he jumped back to where the soldiers were, as soon as he left the whole dimension broke like it was made of glass, disappearing completely from existence as if it never existed.

In the corridor the soldiers watched with curiosity the group of fake children, after the dragon man disappeared through the portal they all seemed in a trance, and now they had all fallen and transformed into what clearly resembled more a doll than a human infant, the soldiers nudged them with concern, waiting for a new portal to open over their heads at every moment.

Soon a black sphere began to manifest in the hallway, expanding and revealing the humanoid figure of the dragon man, one of the frightened soldiers couldn't hold back and fired at Locke.

The bullet hit him in the face, bouncing away without injuring him, but this enraged Locke.

"Whattaf*ck!? I save your ass and you shoot me in the face? In the f*cking face! What the f*ck is your problem!?"