They stepped deeper and deeper into the dissolving area of the world. At first, Victorian was cracking jokes as usual, then he talked less and less, until the entire expedition marched in a strained silence. Their armours glinted in the light of a distant sun, an intense display of details between the reduced trees.

Apexus picked up a familiar sensation. The raw magic of the Omniverse, the same kind of essence that he had once used to train his Flow Manipulation, filled the air with traces of magic that his skin could pick up, like he had been able to detect enchantments on items before.

There was a sudden transition where the forest returned to details – too many details. Where the bark had been unnaturally smooth on one tree, the next one's was so riddled with nuances that it hurt the eyes. Needles and leaves shifted in non-existent breezes, the tree itself moving in the force of its empowered individualism. Each branch was an expression of the beauty of nature, without any concept of modesty, and the result was a cacophony of details that confused all those that looked upon it.

Victorian drew his sword. The weapon's reflection shifted in his quivering hand. He continued to lead, to step closer and closer towards the falling lifeblood of the Omniverse.

Then it was his lifeblood that poured from his throat.

The Shapeform had dropped from the trees, obscured among the overwhelming details of the branches. Perhaps it had been a monkey once. If such was the case, it could no longer be discerned. It was a three-legged thing of smooth, dark brown. The bottom limbs held up a cylindrical mid-section. The top sprouted a mouth whose triangular teeth opened and closed, fitting into each other with unrealistic, mathematical accuracy. A pair of arms extended at a 90-degree angle, the elbows bending with no care for the limitations of the joints it must have once had. The claws at the end of the five-fingered hands had been reduced to knives, thinner and sharper than a razor blade.

Those knives had carved through Victorian's throat. The man screamed, a final act of his vocal cords, before the infinitely narrow cuts manifested from the shifting flesh.

Discipline kept the order alive in the first seconds of surprise. Apexus leapt into action quicker than that, crashing into the Shapeform. It was like slamming into a stone made of meat. Like the outside, the organs of the creature had been reduced to a point of nonsense. The foot that struck the chest, the hands that caught the side of the head both felt a layer of fat and meat over a solid core of bone.

The Shapeform took the pummelling without a single sound. It did not bleed, it did not scream, Apexus continued to lay into it all the same, bruising it with Rippling Palms and cutting it with the Slicing Stream.

Aclysia hastened to Victorian while Apexus took care of the enemy. Other healers within the forces were preparing to heal their leader. Light in the gentle green of a spring's first leaves shone on his throat. Victorian raised a hand and pointed above them.

The guardian angel dodged on instinct. "No!" she declared, when she realized that, in saving herself, she had doomed another.

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The healer was enveloped by a form of wicked black. Teeth and thorns arranged like the petals of a chrysanthemum closed and crunched. Legs like an unholy mixture of plant fibres and insect limbs lashed out, gripping branches for stability or slamming into the chests of other knights. Korith and Reysha blocked and dodged the strikes that came for them, managing to make it to Aclysia's side.

More Shapeforms dropped out of the trees. None of them were the same, yet none of them could be called individuals either. Their ongoing reductions had left each of them a diminished form in their own way, but there was nothing to them outside of rudimentary curves and angles. Tails and legs were all reduced to stiletto like points that they balanced upon. Hands were claws or needles.

At the centre of this army of unbecoming things, the Parasyte sat. Its flower-like maw spread again, dropping blood and guts unto Victorian. The leader of the expedition did not have to witness the horror for long, as his own life was snuffed by the same instrument a moment later.

The knights of the expedition screamed, amping themselves up to face the foe. They charged, formation broken, chain of command lost, doing all that they could do. The Parasyte and its Shapeforms remained silent. There was no voice to speak, no will to break, just the eternal purpose of those that lay outside the Omniverse and those animals and monsters that had been reduced to be more like it.

A final slam of his palm turned Apexus' target into an explosion of black dust and heat. He turned around, took only a moment to scan the situation, then threw himself into the fray. His party did the same.

It was not that their enemies were sturdier than anything that they fought before, it was that they were entirely alien. The way they moved was unintuitive, rigid like hinges yet unlimited in its angles. Although so much of them was plain and smooth, their extremities were sharper than anything they had ever come across. Worst was the lack of sounds and reactions. It was impossible to estimate how much damage was dealt against such opponents.

The claws of a Shapeform raked over Apexus' chest. What sliced skin and bones so horrifically clean in a human was harmless to the slime. His liquid origin knitted the damage back together too quick, leaving him effectively undamaged. Realizing this, he threw himself into the fight even more brazenly.

The Parasyte had enough of a mind to realize the ineffectiveness of its minions against this threat. The voidborn thing used its eight tendrils to swing from branch to branch. The downwards pointed maw opened up to crush and devour the slime the same way others had been struck.

Apexus was overwhelmed by the speed of the thing. Through telekinesis, he managed to push away the creature as he took one half step away. It was enough to save his torso, leaving his arm to be ripped from its socket instead.

Korith leapt in at that moment. Her heavy hammer struck the exposed top of the Parasyte. The creature was pushed down, but did not fall. It retaliated with a swing of a tendril, sending Korith flying. A Shapeform descended on her, forcing her into that fight first.

Simultaneously, Reysha cut through one, then another limb of the creature. Each strike required her to Overplay the Edge to saw through it with whirling teeth of Ki. It left her heaving and the Parasyte without reaction.

Flying from one knight to another, Aclysia attempted to provide aid as best she could. The tides of the battle and the number of enemies did not allow her this. One after another, the knights fell. They took with them several of the Shapeforms, but it wasn't enough.

The last of the members of the expedition fell, leaving the Inevitable party alone with an injured Parasyte and four more Shapeforms. Three Shapeforms, after Korith crushed the one she had been fighting into dust.

Reysha was breathing heavily, Korith and Apexus still had strength, and Aclysia still had mana. Apexus considered whether they should just run. There seemed to be no point to fighting this, besides risking their lives against a fraction of a force they could not beat.

That was when the demons arrived.

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