Chapter 134 “Feast in Fire”

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With an unparalleled mastery of her weapon, a meteor dog, Shirley’s fighting style was a testament to raw power and surgical efficiency. Her movements were executed with a freedom and fluidity that betrayed her unshackled spirit, making her a force to be reckoned with.

As she readied herself, a shadowy figure stepped forth from the inky blackness, seemingly jarred by her presence. They had labeled her, erroneously, as a “summoner girl”—presumably one who would abhor the visceral engagement of close combat in favor of arcane incantations from a safe distance. Yet shattering that misconception like glass, Shirley unsheathed Dog, the chains glistening as they caught the scant light. Her stance solidified, heralding the commencement of a bout fought at perilously close quarters.

With a flick of her wrist and a surge of her muscles, the chain linking Dog groaned under the immense strain and unleashed a devastating blow. The dark figure, caught square in the impact, was catapulted through the air, spiraling uncontrollably until it collided with a flame-engulfed building. The collision triggered an eruption of smoke and embers, a pyrotechnic spectacle that marked the figure’s temporary defeat.

Breathing a slight sigh, Shirley felt a moment of puzzlement wash over her. “That’s it?” she murmured, her hand still tightly gripping Dog, her senses ever vigilant. She started to articulate her disquiet, “Why do I feel like—” but was sharply interrupted. A warning resounded from Dog’s chain in an ethereal voice: “WATCH OUT!!!”

A shiver of pure tension radiated through her being as Shirley glanced downwards. Her shadow, once an unremarkable silhouette, now looked thick and viscous, like molten tar. Before she had a chance to react, something snaked out from the darkened ground—a whip-like entity that lashed toward her neck with a murderous hiss. She managed a frantic dodge but not without cost; a deep gash was sliced into her arm, sending blood spurting out in an arc.

Grimacing with pain, Shirley backpedaled quickly, only to be gripped by a chilling realization. A fragment of her own shadow remained anchored in place, unaffected by her movement.

That was the moment her world twisted on its axis. Emerging from the ground was the umbrella man, a figure so eerie and unnatural that Shirley felt her stomach churn in revulsion. What made her skin crawl further was the recognition that the whip-like entity was, in fact, a writhing tentacle extending grotesquely from beneath the assailant’s overcoat. The idea of being touched by such a vile extremity nearly pushed her to the brink of nausea.

Yet, there was no luxury of time for revulsion or fear. Emitting a low, almost inaudible growl, the umbrella man lunged forward, spewing forth an array of wriggling tentacles that spread like the arms of some nightmarish octopus. Shirley knew she was in the battle of her life, and with Dog in hand, she steeled herself for the unspeakable horrors that awaited.

With a keen sense of urgency vibrating through every nerve, Shirley whipped Dog’s chain into a defensive arc. Just as she did, her peripheral vision caught a blaze of green—emerald flames that leaped through the air with a surreal intensity.

In that transitory blink of an eye, the umbrella man halted, arrested in mid-lunge as though petrified by an unseen force. Seizing the moment, he vaulted backward into a cloak of thick, inky fog billowing from his eponymous umbrella. Though he let loose a series of guttural howls that spoke of unfathomable rage, the viridescent fire seemed almost sentient, pursuing him relentlessly. It was an unyielding blaze that the umbrella man’s dark smogs couldn’t suffocate. The emerald fire appeared almost sentient, seeking out its target with a homing precision and setting alight anything it came into contact with.

Pulled by an invisible thread of curiosity, Shirley’s eyes darted to the source of the phantasmal flame. There stood Duncan, eerily silent, his presence almost spectral. In stark contrast to his tranquil facade, the environment around him was a theater of chaos. Starting from his locus and fanning outward, an otherworldly green glow inundated buildings and streets. Not consumption, Shirley realized. Contamination! Duncan was infecting the very sinews that held this dream world together.

“Is this the limit of his power or merely a glimpse of his strength?” Shirley pondered, her mind momentarily staggered by the scope of Duncan’s prowess.

She had little time to dwell, however. With the umbrella man thrown off balance by Duncan’s ethereal assault, an opening appeared. With a battle-hardened focus, Shirley mustered all her strength, her slender frame belaying the enormity of her might, and hurled Dog forward.

Her chain whistled through the air, and the meteor hammer connected. The sensation was unsettling: the umbrella man felt less like a solid object and more like rotting flesh. However, rather than being felled by the impact, the monster commenced a grotesque transformation.

It started to disassemble itself, like an amorphous blob of fetid slime splintering into disparate parts. Its burnt and misshapen appendages twisted and contorted before disintegrating into myriad directions still untouched by Duncan’s haunting green fire. As they dispersed, a bone-chilling symphony of screams echoed through the air, warping the very fabric of the dream world. The fragments seemed to dissolve, integrating themselves so seamlessly into the dreamscape that the line between entity and environment blurred.

A wave of sheer horror swept over Shirley. Her grip on Dog’s chain tightened, her knuckles whitening, as she confronted the disconcerting reality: the umbrella man had become one with the surroundings. Yet, as she braced for another surge of attack, she observed an unexpected dynamic. These scattered remnants weren’t reassembling for a renewed assault. They were fleeing, scattering to the four winds to avoid the inexorable advance of Duncan’s cleansing emerald flames.

The scene unfolding before Shirley’s eyes was the stuff of nightmares—akin to watching a frenzied swarm of cockroaches scattering from a rotting heap, their antennae twitching in visceral panic. Duncan’s verdant flames were the relentless exterminator in this tableau of horror, chasing down each fragment of the umbrella man with remorseless fury. Some pieces managed to evade the relentless advance, skittering into shadowy corners and derelict buildings, but others were not so fortunate. Engulfed by the emerald blaze, they were either consumed entirely or transformed into something far more horrifying.

The turn of events was so rapid, so engulfing, that Shirley struggled to process the magnitude of the catastrophe unfolding before her. Initially, she had thought that the ethereal flames would merely incinerate these fleshy remnants. But reality proved far more twisted: some fragments, warped by the flames, turned against their own kind in a gruesome spectacle of cannibalistic frenzy.

With calculated finesse, Duncan escalated his containment strategy, erecting a formidable barrier of blazing emerald fire that encircled the area. Those remnants not yet absorbed in the grotesque feast were now faced with a binary choice—either be incinerated by the flames or try to penetrate the scalding enclosure.

Duncan, perceiving Shirley’s mounting distress, sought to assuage her fears. “Do not fear,” he murmured, his voice a gentle balm. “Creatures like these fear fire the most.”

Remarkably, his words did instill a semblance of peace within Shirley’s agitated heart, though her hands still trembled subtly on Dog’s chain.

Turning his gaze back to the harrowing scene, Duncan flinched at the disconcerting sounds of crunching and tearing that emanated from a crumbled structure. “I must admit, this has become far more gruesome than even I had anticipated,” he confessed.

Gathering the shards of her courage, Shirley eked out her agreement. “Ya… it’s quite… unsettling.”

Striking a cautiously optimistic note, Duncan assured her, “But the end is almost over.”

As if on cue, the dissonant symphony of devouring flames and carnal feasting started to diminish, giving way to a solemn aftermath: the ashen residues that were all that remained of the vanquished.

Witnessing this, Shirley instinctively stepped back, eager to avoid even the remote possibility of contact with the incinerated remnants. “Is it truly over?”

Duncan’s response was fraught with unsettling ambiguity. “Not entirely,” he admitted.

Confused, Shirley followed Duncan’s focused gaze to a quivering blob of the umbrella man tucked away in a gloomy corner. Just as the blob appeared ready to make its desperate escape, Duncan arrested its movement with a mere flicker of his green flame.

Drawing on the weight of his years and experiences, Duncan began to explain, choosing his words deliberately for Shirley’s edification. “I’ve been around long enough to hear a multitude of tales filled with horror and the bizarre. They’ve imparted one invaluable lesson: when you’re faced with an enemy that can fragment itself, always presume that the menace you initially encountered is but a shard of a more extensive, ominous whole. That way, there’s always room for a sequel in any sufficiently twisted tale.”

With a calculated air of finality, Duncan extended his hand, fingers poised like a conductor ready to summon the finale of a grand symphony. The moment his fingertips made contact with the quivering remnant of the umbrella man, it burst into a blaze of viridescent fire.

“I’ve always had a particular disdain for sequels,” Duncan declared, his voice steeped in palpable contempt. “They’re rife with tropes—shadowy puppeteers, manipulating fates from behind the curtain. And let’s not forget our beleaguered heroes, who inevitably find themselves ambushed, deceived by the very forces they believed they had mastered.”

As if on cue, the engulfed fragment emitted a gut-wrenching scream, its anguished cry reverberating through the air like the final, tortured gasp of an insect caught in a sadistic pyre. And then, with an abruptness that jolted both Shirley and Duncan, the flame guttered out. What remained of the lump seemed to wobble on the brink of annihilation, its spasmodic movements eerily evoking the erratic lurch of zombies from the silver screen.

Pleased yet intently focused, Duncan retreated a step, his eyes locked onto the now smoldering, near-annihilated morsel that had once been part of a more monstrous entity.

“Return to whence you came,” he intoned solemnly, imbuing his words with a resonating authority that seemed to vibrate through the very air, “and deliver my ‘gift’ to whatever malevolent force commands you.”

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