An unsettling lull befell the crowded night sky. Miraculously, the shadows outnumbered the flashes from fired ammunition for more than a second. The cessant glows the gods had for merely existing sometimes revealed more paratroopers descending towards the town below. When the new anthropomorphic Spiderland realized that all the bombers, regardless of nationality, had been trying to siege the desert town below, it only became more peculiar that it was still unscathed. Bomb craters, escalating fires, and swirling ashes circled it like the circumference of a sigil.
There had been only two metal hands that spawned at first to cup Yaw and Spiderland, and the remaining and empty-handed six rendering into existence were quite nondescript too until their mercury-like material became discernible upon further materialization. As a blur they had a more solid appearance, but now they were like hand-shaped waves from an ocean of mercury. Their undulations eventually ceased, their inward folds of solid metal casting their own long shadows, and then came the artificial corners with bolts and screws the floating hands now had.
Just as predicted, Liesar anticipated the attack from at least one of the hands that had spawned, however the lightning-fast slap came from the hand Yaw had been standing on. The surprise and force smacked Liesar towards the desert town, the sentient cloud named Nimbus catching Yaw to chase after the goatman that became a flying white and black blur.
No seconds were to be wasted by the helmeted supersoldiers. No longer relying on their spinning top strategy, perhaps due to Spiderland being a smaller target now, the platforms of smoky quartz that had been used to reach the ones they were standing on turned to tinier crystals, all of it closer to the size of dust. Through an aggressive throwing motion by the solider that could manifest the black quartz with flux and a thought, the crystals became more like shrapnel that were coming fast towards the ghostly being now donning an ethereal netrunning coat and a magical tooth that smoothened into a lustrous helmet, until a metal hand blocked it with its open palm, resembling a silver hand from a stop sign. Two hands came to grab the supersoldiers that leaped to dodge their capture attempts, however Spiderland’s intentions with them as decoys became clear as another pair of hands grabbed their entire bodies, their thumbs not waiting at all to press into their temples. Short groans came from the soldiers before their exposed necks illuminated with glowing nerves, their veins also protruding as they resisted Spiderland’s pressing to snap their necks and end the fight as soon as it began.
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The crystals that scratched and sparked against the hand turned instantly into a dust devil, their spin reaching Spiderland’s blur behind the protecting hand. Where Spiderland appeared after having vanished from vis midair spot was right above the supersoldiers fighting for their survival, and the god was looking to finish them with two kicks with vis boots until the first supersoldier Spiderland closed the distance with had other plans.
Indeed, while the kick was in motion the supersoldier used his bloody tongue to flip his dark visor up, revealing a golden sigil activating upon contact with fresh blood.
At first the ecru tatters that touched the runic floor in another dimension were overlaying tentacles in darkness, but when those same limbs stretched past the portal the supersoldier had spawned, those same limbs transformed into a myriad of sickly hands when reaching this dimension.
One of the pale hands grabbed Spiderland by the ankle.
