Chapter 207: Book 3: Showmanship
Gheraa wasn't entirely sure what had happened. One moment he was speeding toward what he assumed was Ethan and the others and the next the world had gone dark.
It was like he'd briefly died. Again! Which was insulting, first of all. Dying once was bad enough, but twice? While he was a paradox-sustained entity? Of all the...
Wait, no, Ethan was in trouble. He was getting distracted by his ego again. He darted off once again in the direction of that storm of Firmament, determined to help put a stop to the doubtlessly rampaging beast he'd helped create.
Then he stopped and blinked a few times, wondering if he was seeing this right.
That was definitely a giant hand. It was almost definitely the boss, considering the amount of Firmament he sensed within. It wasn't rampaging, though. Quite the opposite. It writhed around on the ground, screaming through a mouth it had manifested in the middle of its palm as golden Firmament poured out of a dozen cracks.
A mantis-like creature—Ahkelios?—stood next to it, lopping off its thumb whenever that thumb regenerated, which really wasn't very often. Dark, Void-aligned chains wrapped around every finger, drawing out every drop of non-dungeon Firmament the moment the giant hand tried to channel them.
Several steps away, there was an automaton that was almost certainly He-Who-Guards, and...
Gheraa had no idea what he was looking at.
It looked like a fully-armored being, except the armor was made of a sort of bone composite that covered every inch of his body. The only openings in that armor glowed bright with Firmament—thick streams of power jetted out from them occasionally, apparently to help their owner stabilize itself as it channeled a beam so bright that Gheraa had to squint to see past it.