Logan swayed, leaning over and retching, spitting bile and the remains of the green beans he'd forced down his throat hours ago. His vision swam, his stomach sloshing, and his skin broke out in a cold sweat. It reminded him of the last time he'd come down with the flu, and that hell week of recuperation where every time he got out of bed, his legs had felt like jelly and his head stuffed full of mucous.

That answered that question then.

Just like [Liche Devourer], [Life Fabricator] was a no go.

Logan clutched his head, pulling on his bangs as he steadied himself. It was like trying to recover after a bought of seasickness; only this time, the System had ejected him from the ship and transported him to an upside-down rollercoaster. This was way worse than the recoil he'd experienced after deploying [Liche Devourer], using one skill after the other must have stacked the recoil effects.

Haven't learned your lesson yet, human? Samantha DEPLOYS THE SKILLS, you go SPLAT.

Oh fuck, the damn monster had blasted that into his head so loud his ears gushed more liquid, what he suspected was blood. Logan gasped. Holy crap, holy crap.

Watching the charging Rattuspede through blurry vision, he bit his lip, tasting copper, and then deployed [Threshold Shift] to retreat to give himself time to recover. He landed fifty feet away, his feet slamming on top of a tent, his boots crushing the fabric, the tent poles cracking and breaking.

If he couldn't use brute force and [Life Fabricator] and [Liche Devourer] were out, what the hell was left? At least [Threshold Shift] continued to let him retreat and gave him time to assess the situation, but he couldn't continue this way. He didn't have the time or the patience. Retreating wasn't going to defeat the Rattuspede, and like hell was he going to flee and leave Emily and the others when he'd assured them that he'd come out on top.

Shit shit shit, okay, okay. Logan had to look at this another way. In the past, Logan had dealt with challenges and situations that seemed insurmountable and yet he'd found a way through. The solution hadn't always been obvious. Hell, from what he'd done with the tiger dogs in the endurance trial—forcing mold to overtake their circuits—to the insects in the dexterity trial, even using his spatial storage collar as a weapon against the Queen Serpent's minions… none of those were obvious solutions.

There had to be an answer, just like those times.

Brute force wouldn't work, which meant that there was no point in contemplating throwing boulders or dirt at the thing; it would brush it off like annoying pests. His skills were out, but….

[Life Fabricator] and [Liche Devourer] weren't an option, but those were offensive skills that worked by sucking Karma and lifeforce. What about his other skills?

Logan brought up the description of [Foresight]:

[Foresight gives you the ability to see. The skill is limited only in time—600 seconds—and your imagination. Activation limit: once per 24 hours.]

While useful, he didn't see how that would help him. [Foresight] was his ace in the hole when he was in a life-or-death situation. Although he was frustrated because he couldn't see a way to win against the Rattuspede, unless its mental manipulation skill got a heck of a lot stronger, he wasn't in any danger. Danger of being pissed off and aggravated, yes, but not mortal danger. [Foresight] wouldn't work.

On the other hand, [Deepwater Explorer] wouldn't do shit. He wasn't underwater, and it had never been an offensive skill. As for [Mimicry Armour], what was he going to do, give the thing…

Give the thing… armour.

Huh.

Logan squinted, studying the monster, scanning it from end to end. One thing was clear, it was a warped monster, at least two distinct species that had merged to form a new lifeform. Although it looked nothing like a rat, it had either coordinated the sewage rats' attack, or it had control over them. Not to mention that its gross legs looked distinctly like rat legs.

And yet the other part of the monster… Logan wasn't certain, but hadn't he compared it to an earthworm? An earthworm covered in black fur that had hundreds of circular mouths, yes, but an earthworm all the same.

Back when he was a child, playing around the roots of the willow tree at the cabin while it rained, he'd tried to corral earthworms into his hand scooped army trenches. They were the monsters attacking his toy soldiers, and little Logan had assumed they'd die if he buried them in inches of water.

After the rain stopped, his grandfather had crouched down and peered at his mock battlefield. And then educated him. Earthworms couldn't drown. They were fine in water; in fact, it let them maneuver faster. No, the way to kill an earthworm wasn't through water. It was through lack of moisture. That's why when the rain stopped, you'd see dried up, shriveled worms on the asphalt. Earthworms breathed through their skin; they needed moisture to absorb oxygen.

Logan never would have remembered such an unremarkable encounter otherwise, but his memories of his grandfather were precious, memories that stayed with him for years.

It was the System who had shown him a memory of his grandfather. And to encounter a monster that had to be System created? That resembled an earthworm? Logan wasn't superstitious, but even he had to admit that the coincidences were uncanny.

Then again, since when had the System ever helped him? The glitchy AI minion had gone out of its way to make his life difficult, and it never would have given him an easy solution. He could be on the wrong track, and the monster could resemble an earthworm but have none of its weaknesses.

But still, it nagged at him.

If Logan could deprive the Rattuspede of oxygen by blocking its ability to breathe, he could kill it. Kill it naturally.

Forget a superhero, Logan would be a naturalist!

That's if his suspicions were correct.

Oh well, there was only one way to find out. Trial and error.

Shaking off the last effects of the skill rebound, Logan deployed [Mimicry Armour] to reform his facemask and helmet and then dissolved the armour around his left leg. Leaving the whole limb uncovered felt wrong, but the metal inside of his bicep was starting to lose its effectiveness as [Regenerate] continued to regrow skin around the shard.

Scrunching his mouth and wincing, he pulled the shard out of his bicep and then slammed it into the top of his upper thigh.

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"Oh fuck!" he muttered, hissing and blanching. The metal sliced into his flesh like a knife through butter. It felt like a hundred nerve endings were on fire. He'd thought the shard in his bicep was painful; hell, was he wrong.

Ding!

[Idiot's Paradox is level 32!]

Logan rolled his eyes. Well, at least there was one bright spot to this shit.

Deploying [Threshold Shift], he sent himself in the opposite direction behind the monster. The thing was the size of a whale and the weight of its massive body crushed everything underneath it, pulverizing the corpses and tents, leaving a small river of blood in its trail.

Although deploying [Mimicry Armour] was as easy as breathing, and he'd used it before to protect Shoot, was the skill powerful enough to cover a monster this size? He knew the skill cost Karma, but Logan had increased his Karma pool to 3,600 and his regeneration rate was sitting at 587 Kama per minute.

Still, it was something to keep an eye on. He felt sick enough as it was; he wasn't looking forward to adding Karma deprivation on top of it.

Logan eyed the back of the Rattuspede. He would need a hell of a lot of sand to do this, but lack of sand wouldn't be a problem. Although he'd cleared out a ton of material from his storage collar when he'd dumped the dirt on top of Mia and Charlie back in Australia, Logan had tunneled through two cliffs back in the tactician trial in the fight with the blobs. Logan wasn't short on material by a long shot.

What are you up to, human? purred the Rattuspede, its body stilling as it realized that Logan was no longer in front of it. Samantha can tell you are up to no good. Such effort, all to fight Samantha? Samantha can be forgiving, Samantha can be lenient.

"Oh yeah?" said Logan.

Of course! Samantha is hungry, and although you smell enticing with your tangy sauce coating, she can give up a meal if it means that you will leave. Samantha has no fight with you! The Rattuspede's tail twitched in excitement. She only wants to chow down on the human pig flesh!

"Interesting proposition. You'd just let me leave?" Logan took a step back, his gaze glued to the thing's tail. This was going to be difficult as hell, but he wasn't getting anywhere by staring. Logan willed out a pile of dirt the size of a small hut and deposited it in the middle of the clearing about ten feet away, directly out of the monster's line of sight.

The pile was dirt more than anything, but it had enough sand that he could work with it and mold it into what he wanted. Deploying [Mimicry Armour], Logan raised a bucketful of the material into the air, forcing it to hover. There was no sense starting with something small; if he did, he'd be at this for hours.

Logan ground his teeth as he concentrated, forcing the material to fly over to the monster's tail. Back when he'd first completed this with Shoot, it had felt unnatural as if the sand wanted to flee and return to Logan and latch onto his exoskeleton; that same feeling was back, only worse. Before, he'd wanted to protect Shoot, but this time, he had nothing but disdain for the Rattuspede. [Mimicry Armour] was a skill that at its heart, was intended to protect. Intrinsically, it fought, not wanting to be associated with something that was contradictory to its nature.

And yet, this was his skill. Logan was the master here. It would obey.

Setting his jaw and planting his feet in a wide stance, Logan forced the sand over to the Rattuspede. With a blink, he molded the sand to the monster, forcing it to cling to its back. To the Rattuspede, it would feel like dirt, falling dust. He wouldn't turn it into armour yet. No, not yet. First, he needed to cover the body as much as he could.

Sand grain after sand grain, he latched them onto the Rattuspede. It was as if the monster had rolled over onto a beach, a fine layer of sand clinging to its fur.

With a creaking sound, the Rattuspede lurched and then turned around to face Logan. His heart racing, Logan deployed [Threshold Shift] and sent himself in the opposite direction away from the pile of dirt. Logan didn't want it to get sight of it. So far, he was still in the clear.

STAY STILL, commanded the monster, its tone full of annoyance.

Logan reeled, his head growing fuzzy. With an alarmed surge of adrenaline, he slammed his fist into the shard of metal in his thigh, forcing it so deep it must have struck bone. Oh fuck oh fuck, ow. Giving the monster no time to adopt, he scrunched his nose, sending more and more sand over to latch onto its fur. He'd covered the tail and half-way up the top of the monster; its black fur covered in sand that shimmered in the sun.

Samantha is trying to have a conversation, human! Why must you wiggle around, never in sight? Samantha's patience is vast, but it has a time limit, and you are about to hit it!

Logan scoffed. "You don't want to fight me, you said it yourself! I think you'll tolerate a lot to avoid a fight." If nothing else, at least the damn monster was lazy. This one didn't care for leveling up, all it wanted was to feed. After all, it had let the sewage rats fight the soldiers, hoping they would take out the main resistance. If Logan could keep it talking and distracted, all the better.

With another blink, Logan sent himself in the opposite direction, closer to the head of the monster, then repeated the same process all over again, trying to be as gentle as possible, layering the sand like sprinkling dust, unobtrusive. He'd covered the whole back of the thing! What had to be a mini hill of sand!

There was only one problem.

Logan had covered its back and tail, which was the monster's blind spot. And yet, the belly full of mouths was bare of sand. Unlike the rest, Logan knew it would notice something was up if he started to cover it in layers of sand.

That was the best he was going to get. Already, the Karma strain was immense:

1800/3600.

1600/3600.

1400/3600.

With a gasp, Logan collapsed his armour and let it dissolve into sand. He needed every bit of Karma at his disposal. His breathing increased, and he felt a fluttery feeling in his chest. This was the first time he'd gone without in the middle of battle since he'd received the skill. Although he was wearing his khaki, sweat-soaked clothes, he felt like he might as well be naked.

It was now or never.

With a moue of concentration, Logan latched onto every grain of sand covering the Rattuspede, merging them, forcing them into a patchwork quilt, transforming the sand into flexible sandstone. Plate after plate, he sculpted it, from its tail to the base of its spine, to the bulbous round head.

Ding!

[Mimicry Armour is level 4!]

Logan disregarded the System message, his entire attention on one thing. His Karma pool.

Oh fuck!

600/3600.

400/3600.

200/3600.

He was seconds away from Karma depletion! Spreading the sand was one thing, but maintaining the armour and keeping it formed was depleting his Karma so quickly his pool couldn't keep up!

Clenching his fists, Logan extended his senses, deploying [Liche Devourer] past the Rattuspede, past Emily and the others, past his Wisteria Vine, all the way behind the wall. His senses felt stretched like pulling on a rubber band, the ends fraying, but Logan disregarded it, his head feeling like hot pokers were stabbing him behind the eye. One after another, the remaining charging sewage rats pinged on his radar, their auras full of rot. They were attacking the wall, an endless supply of the things, what had to be hundreds.

Fuel for his skill.

Logan activated [Liche Devourer] with a shout, a muscle in his neck bulging.

With his heart in his throat, he brought up his Karma pool:

400/3600.

1200/3600.

1600/3600.

It was working!

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, screamed the Rattuspede into his mind. That click click click ramped up as it raised itself like a cobra, its circular mouths clacking their teeth as they sniffed, searching for Logan. At the same time, it lurched, using its numerous rat legs to try to dislodge the armour covering its back.

At this point, Logan couldn't respond, the effort of keeping [Liche Devourer] and [Mimicry Armour] deployed at the same time taking all his concentration. His head had already gone through the wringer after the skill rebounds, and now it felt as if it were being torn in two, the mental strain so immense, forget blood dripping from his nose. Now, Logan could taste it on the back of his throat, his mouth flooded with copper.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 102 Sewage Rat!]

[You have defeated a Level 101 Sewage Rat!]

[….]

[You have defeated a Level 101 Sewage Rat!]

[You have fed the blackhole! Liche Devourer at 25% satiation.]

[Liche Devourer] had replenished his diminishing Karma pool, but the skill was still active, sending the excess into the black hole.

What are you doing?! What are you doing?! RELEASE ME, blasted the Rattuspede.

With a growl, Logan yanked on the shard of metal sticking out of his thigh.

It was time to finish this.

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