The six fingers crawled with speed toward Caspian. When the beast was in close contact with him, it raised one of its fingers high into the air and swung it downward.
Caspian raised his sword horizontally to shield himself from the incoming finger that was as large as a tree trunk. The finger hit his sword with force, and the collision rang like a bell struck by a hammer.
The force drove him to one knee, and his boots slid backward across the ground.
"Damn!" Caspian hissed. He tightened his jaw and used all his strength to hold off the weight as the finger pressed down, trying to crush him through the blade.
He rolled sideways just before the weight overwhelmed him. The finger smashed into the ground and cracked the floor.
Before he could regain his stance, a second finger lashed in from his blind side. Caspian's next reaction was purely instinctive.
Instead of retreating, which would have been futile against the beast's reach, he planted the tip of his blade into the ground and used it as a pivot, vaulting upward. He flipped over the incoming finger and landed behind the six-fingered beast.
Caspian slashed one of the beast's fingers at the joint. The cut was not deep, yet it was enough to draw black blood.
The six-fingered beast screeched in pain and launched a third attack. It was a vertical overhead smash intended to pancake Caspian into the cold earth.
Caspian brought his blade up in a high guard and shielded himself against the smash.
"You have to try harder to get me." Caspian's eyes locked onto the creature's big, milky eye.
But Caspian had made a fatal mistake. He was treating the beast like a swordsman who fought with one weapon at a time. He didn't realize that the creature's anatomy allowed for independent, simultaneous movement.
While Caspian was locked in a power struggle with one of its limbs, the beast swung its fourth finger from the side.
Caspian never saw it coming. The finger slammed into his stomach, sending him ten feet into the air. He became a small projectile hurtling through the air until he collided with the far wall.
Caspian fell to the ground and curled into a ball. The pain was unimaginable. He tried to inhale some air, but found it difficult to do so. He could only make a faint sucking sound.
'Get up,' his mind screamed at him. His body refused to acknowledge the command.
He could hear the thump-thump-thump sound of the six-fingered beast approaching him.
Caspian's fingers twitched against the hilt of his sword, which lay just inches from his reach. The simple act of moving his arm felt like trying to lift a mountain.
Violet, seeing that Caspian was on the floor, threw the tip of her whip upward and used it to latch onto a pillar. She then sprinted three steps up the pillar before jumping off into the air. She unlatched her whip from the pillar and aimed a deadly strike at the beast's large eyes.
The beast anticipated the attack and stepped back. The beast casually dodged the strike that could have blinded its eyes by an inch. Then the beast simply opened two of its central fingers like a pair of giant shears and caught the whip.
Violet's eyes widened. Her weapon, still tethered to the monster, kept her hanging in midair. Before she could release the handle, the beast delivered a vertical blow with its index finger at her.
The strike smacked her ribs and shoulder. Violet let out a strangled, high-pitched cry of agony as she was swatted out of the air. She crashed onto the floor several yards away.
Irin watched as the only people he knew who could stand a chance against the beast were all knocked down. To make matters worse, Levi's unconscious body lay beside him.
He couldn't just sit there. He couldn't watch his friends, the people who had protected him, get slaughtered while he hid like a coward.
"Hey! Over here, you freak!" Irin roared while picking up a metal rod from the floor.
He broke cover, charging across the open floor. The metal rod felt heavy and useless in his hands. Yet he mustered every available strength in him to drag the rod. He was ready to drive the rod into whatever part of the beast he could reach.
He was halfway across the distance when he heard a voice.
"Irin, stop!"
Irin turned toward the voice only to see Caspian struggling to stand up while he held his sword in his right hand.
"Go back," Caspian ordered as he walked towards the beast.
"Go back and keep an eye on Levi. If anything were to happen, you're the only one who can take his body out of here alive."
Irin looked at the monster, then back at Caspian's serious expression. Irin dropped the rod and ran back.
The six-fingered beast sensed Irin was retreating and picked up a piece of concrete and hurled it at Irin.
Caspian ran with speed and intercepted the stone, standing between Irin and the stone. Just before the stone could hit them, he bisected the stone into two equal parts with his sword. The two halves of the stone whistled past his shoulders and fell to the floor.
On seeing that its attack had failed, the beast grabbed a handful of sharp construction sticks nearby and began hurling them like javelins in rapid succession towards Caspian.
Just like a storm, the sharp stick rained down with speed on Caspian. He cut one apart and barely deflected the second one. The third one almost pierced his shoulders, but Violet's sudden voice saved him.
"Caspian, bend down," her voice came. Caspian bent down; the stick flew past him.
Violet, who had now fully recovered, stepped in and stood in front of Caspian, who lay flat on the floor. She used her whip to deflect every stick that was flying towards them.
Every time a lash from her whip met the incoming flying sticks, a discharge of high-voltage lightning splattered and burnt the sticks into charcoal.
Caspian regained himself, and both of them joined hands to defend themselves.
For hours, the six-fingered beast kept raining many sharp sticks at them in perpetual motion. Every missed projectile that hit the surrounding environment struck with a force that punched holes in the ground and shattered anything it came into contact with.
"We can't keep this up!" Violet said, snapping her whip to intercept a cluster of three stakes that nearly took off Caspian's ear.
"That's true!" Caspian yelled, parrying more stakes in a spinning maneuver that left him gasping.
"We're playing its game! The beast wants us to keep defending ourselves until we get tired. We're burning out while the beast is just getting started!"
"Do you have any suggestions?" Violet asked.
"We fall back to the staircase!" Caspian signaled toward Irin, who was hiding behind him.
"We take cover, catch our breath, and strategize. If we hit the beast simultaneously from two different angles, we can force the beast into a defensive mode. We will gain the upper hand! We won't give the beast any chance to throw another pebble!"
"Fine!" Violet yelled back. "On three, we move!"
They began the grueling retreat. For every two steps backward, they had to swing, parry, and lash out a dozen times to keep themselves safe.
Step by agonizing step, they drew closer to the staircase while the beast continued to rain multiple projectiles of sharp sticks at them.