Chapter 60: Demigod
Things became quiet, uncomfortably quiet. The last wave consisted of only eight cats instead of the expected twenty, of which none were reoccurring attackers. It was wrong, hit at the incorrect time, and in no way correlated with how previous waves hit. The only assumption was that it was not a proper wave but just an attack patrol of aggressive cats not taking part in the waves. With this uneasy lull in the waves, we had time to meet up with the escort patrol. In it was Dawnstar, Leafpaw, Shellstar, Patch, Northstar, and Potentheart. Apparently Northstar and Shellstar were supposed to maintain their duties, but they refused Dawnstar and met up some time before meeting us. I didn't mind the extra numbers. Something told me we'd be needing them.
We were just withing running distance of the camp when I felt its presence. Something was here, and it was powerful. I'm not sure it even had a mind, but it was dense. Unfortunately for us, it was also closing in fast. I hastily constructed the dome around Mapleshade as I prepared for our first fight against a potentially more powerful opponent. We all spun to face it. That thing was not even an it. It was a what.
What emerged from behind us easily dwarfed us in size. The thing taller than the treetops and only loosely feline in form. It didn't trample the trees. It sloshed through them like a foul viscous liquid. The beast was equally enigmatic and horrific. Its body consisted or roughly shaped flesh sweating black ooze which mostly hid the fleshy form. It was only when the faces appeared did the sweat part to reveal the cancerous looking flesh beneath. The faces were familiar, too familiar. They were the faces of the many cats we killed before. Their faces writhed in agony and rage. The whole monster seemed to manifest the faces seemingly at random across its entire form. It had a cat like tail, but the tail move in any rational or reasonable manner. It writhed like a freshly killed snake, slapping randomly around, randomly gripping and throwing loose material around. The face of the beast held no features besides the roughly catlike shape. That was, until it opened its mouth. Its maw was not full of teeth. It was full of legs, seemingly randomly colored, each swiping randomly in the air. Their claws were unusually long like their sole purpose was to reduce whatever was caught in their grasp to shreds.
The beast seemed to be blindly wandering. Whatever force created it seemed to have made it poorly. The thing swayed almost sickly before it noticed us. The faces appearing seemed angrier. Soon even they lost cohesion. Their unchecked rage seemed to warp them to that you'd see in nightmares. Its swaying stopped as it let out an unholy roar.
To say the thing was tough was an understatement. We impaled that thing so many times that it should have died five times over, but it was durable and quickly regenerated the wounds. Thankfully, it was still blind and mostly deaf, so we managed to keep it off kilter. More of us got hit by that randomly thrashing tail than any intended attack the thing did. We'd probably have bested it right then, but the thing was more unpredictable than we expected it to be. Frecklewish sent a long range strike right at the thing's head. The wound struck horizontally as if to remove the top half from the bottom half. It briefly swayed upward like a blade of grass before it swung back into place. The wound seemed to have shocked it as it raised one of its paws to seemingly feel the wound, totally uninterested in any attack we were still doing. It was only after the paw touched its face did I realize we may have made a mistake. The paw felt the length of the wound before stopping. Then the wound opened, but it wasn't a wound anymore. Within it was one massive eye. The iris itself was the feline slit, but then the eyeball moved. The iris spun while changing shapes and colors. I felt true fear when the eye locked on the dome I'd left Mapleshade within. The iris turned to a black dot, sharp and focused. The eye was one of pure malice. Its once blind form now had sight.
The thing now had its target. It knew exactly where to find its quarry, and we all knew it. On instinct, we all attacked with full force. Spears of rock, ice, light, darkness, and almost anything conceivable stabbed through the thing. It ever so briefly staggered before moving. It was slow, plodding along. That which was stabbed through it simply snapped under its moving force. That tail I thought so easily ignorable suddenly moved with deadly precision, throwing our cats about. Several were knocked out on the spot. The thing was wholly uninterested in them. Meanwhile I planted myself firmly, stealing part of Frecklewish's most recent move to retaliate. When the tail swung towards me, I swiped. A line of cutting force followed in the path of my swipe shooting forward. The cut struck true cutting through the tail twice, once at the tip, and the other at the base. The tail fell free, dissolving into the air. The vanishing tail seemed to hiss and scream as it faded away. That caught the beast's attention.
The beast slowly turned towards me, the faces writhing and appearing more rapidly in agitation. The eye seemed to watch me, considering what it would do for the offense. I readied another swipe, but the thing caught me in a blindingly fast sideswipe. I felt myself bounce off or through three trees in my unwilling flight. I felt concussed and only just barely held on to consciousness. The beast turned away like I was nothing. Maybe I was nothing in comparison to it. Maybe that thing was a god. No! I knew it wasn't. It just wanted to be. It wanted to kill Mapleshade. Mapleshade!
That snapped me out of my stunned state. I managed to stagger to my paws. That thing, the monster of murderous intent, I couldn't let it have Mapleshade! Not just because it was evil or the idea of it becoming a god. I needed to kill it for Mapleshade, my love and god. She loved me for me and I loved her for her. I could feel it. They were counting on me, Mapleshade, the Unseen Stars, Frecklewish, that stupid cult of Ravenwing's, heck even Starclan. They needed me now to be more than just a cat. They needed me to be more than that thing! I could feel what felt like fire burning in my veins. The devotion and prayers of so many cats were targeted at me, at us. I could feel through Frecklewish that she could feel the same thing. It was time for us to do what Mapleshade had done so long ago. We needed to become more than cats, something purely to guard and protect Mapleshade and her kits. We wouldn't become gods, but something very close.
Just as Mapleshade once described, I drew in all the devotion and will directed at me, confining it to my heart. Then I made channels through my body for the energy to follow. Faith replaced blood. I felt it all. I felt more, greater than a cat, but losing none of the existing emotions or traits. There was just more to me. Regardless of how my new power changed me, I did not have time to experiment. The best needed taken down. I prepared something akin to the long range strike, but it felt different. It felt like it was more as well. This attack was not just mine. It was all of ours. I could feel them all, their claws lending their own strength to the coming strike. I could feel Frecklewish channel through me a strike of her own. I held the attack back until it almost flayed my paw. Then I slashed.
The attack visibly distorted the air almost as if the slice was parting reality itself. If one looked very closely, they could almost see smaller cat sized cuts blur through the air. The strike flew silently through the air before touching the beast and seemingly shattering. The air behind the hit blurred and the beast drew back its face as if to scream. It was only now I realized now what the blur was. It was individual strikes stacked on top of each other. The blur consumed the beast, mulching it into a mist of blood and black ichor. It didn't even get a chance to make a sound. It was eviscerated in entirety. The invincible monster was gone, destroyed in one unquantifiable stroke. I had to ask myself, was this what Mapleshade once feared wielding? This devastating power, I swore to wield only for her.