Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—
Facing the many tentacles swooping down from above, Gelman calmly dodged this way and that, avoiding them one by one before darting forward.
Not a single tentacle managed to touch him.
Suddenly, Gelman sensed the blood-red energy gathering toward the sky once more.
He looked up and saw dozens of tentacles clustered together in the air, twisting into the shape of a cannon. A faint glow shone from its muzzle.
BOOM—
A ball of red light shot down in a furious burst, moving so fast that it reached Gelman in the blink of an eye.
As he spread his Silver Wings and flashed sideways to dodge, Gelman gathered darkness into a sturdy barrier to withstand the blast wave from the red orb!
BOOM—
The red orb struck the ground and burst outward. The black barrier held for only two seconds before it was destroyed.
But by then, Gelman had already flown far up into the air, leaving behind a silver arc of light.
The tentacles that had twisted into the cannon loosened and separated, swaying through the clouds as they lashed toward Gelman like whips.
Gelman spiraled through the gaps between them and climbed higher, about to pierce the dark-red clouds.
A dull rumble came from within the clouds. Suddenly, a huge, hideous rat's head thrust out, its whiskers twitching as its massive front teeth snapped at Gelman.
"Aaaagh—" the rat's head roared.
At a glance, Gelman could tell that the rat's head was a grotesque fusion of flesh from many different creatures.
He flashed silver to dodge its enormous front teeth, then raised the Sacred Moonlight Greatsword and swung out two crossing crescent Slash Waves.
Swish, swish—
The rat's head was enormous. Those two crossing slashes, unleashed without charging, left only two gashes across its