The creature advanced, its tentacles lashing the air with a calculated, sinister slowness. Each movement was a provocation, a demonstration of its absolute superiority. It had no need to hurry. It was the clock and the executioner.
Zirel, his face twisted with impotent rage, leapt first. His daggers carved silver arcs in the amber glow, desperately seeking the pulsing core. The blades sank into the slimy flesh—for a fraction of a second, savage satisfaction—and then were expelled with crushing force, as though the creature had simply… breathed. The shock shot up his arms, a flare of pure pain shattering bone and nerve. One dagger slipped from his grasp, spinning through the air before clattering to the ground with a pitiful sound.
