An ant was surprisingly almost apropos to describe what emerged from its flesh coffin.
More apt however was a different shade of insect. A once larvae that had at long last blossomed from its cocoon. What little satiated it had been within the cocoon was blown away by its new caloric requirement, flapping its wings and scanning for prey. The rest and relaxation of the "womb" it had rebirthed from torn away in an instant, instilling a deep seated resentment that could not be so easily quelled.
An aura of heroism?
No! Once being so many minds amidst many victims he had patchwork strewn together in an amalgamation of still living corpses, if there was one truth "Mulch" had learned, it's that every figure he had devoured was a sinner. Supposed godslayers and their ilk, the virtuous and the righteous, all carefully cultivated images broken down into their crude realities once within the assimilation process. If anything they were villains, pretending at individuality while playing at what role their impulses assigned and destroying with concrete cruelty.
Mulch was no villain much like Yang Tian was no hero. Such roles did not exist here. Though neither knew the other's name, nonverbal communication amidst the void was what conveyed this best: they were vying
lieges for a throne!
And as such the game was afoot. First was to break the strengths of the "lad," and His magnificent dominion over this plane.
Translucency rippled through the orb amidst this spatial labyrinth. One could forgive thinking
M.A. was itself producing "after images" in absurd number clustered the tiniest fractions of measurement away from its outer edge, creating an illusion of it having "bulbs." In reality, it was generating from its depths contrasting gravitational fields of varying "heaviness," spinning in contrasting directions across congruent dimensional spaces all at once.
Were the great void higher above to draw in heat and even the motion of molecules within its dying star's grasp itself, or were there ten trillion walls ahead of
Axiom, were unknown yet mattered not in equal measure. He,
it, would use this pulsing of states to displace its presence within the cosmos at a point closer to Yang than before. And again. Seemingly emerging amidst a stray asteroid, its hardy material seemed to phase out of existence in proximity before being abandoned.
In truth, it was never "moving" at all. Nor escaping the Solar Eclipse's gaze. Nor even moving, in the conventional sense, closer to its target.
The ghastly truth that allowed Mulch to sidestep the laws in place: rather than move in this space, it was effectively condensing the realm itself to remove effective distance between objects. If by metaphor the "confines" were 600 pixels by 600 pixels, it would behave as though now 550 by 550 while its subjects retained their relative size. Though of course this example betrays the enormity of scale the real article possesses.
Tian's "weapons," his body, and that energy he emitted were all mysteries. However. Mulch knew his core was not so fragile, and possessed its own manipulations of reality if he so chose to draw upon them as this was his primary form thereof. And that to bring discomfort to that arrogant visage, would require closing the distance however eternal it might masquerade itself as. If it was a confrontation of might, or a confrontation of guile -
Axiom was equipped. Though paying it no mind as to name it for it was one with Mulch in a manner not unlike Yang's "Qi" no doubt, if one had to, the "technique" was named
Duress.PULSE
PULSEPULSEAnd so began its constraint onslaught.
@Chaotic Neutral