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Sam observed humanity’s battle against the Surtakatul from atop the wooly pig, which was running from the sky to the ground and back to the sky as if it were bored of staying in a single place for too long. Explosions resounded through the air as missiles from the trenches struck the Surtakatul’s body, destroying the tendrils around the creature’s knees. The calamity was clearly unhappy with the explosives striking its body, but every time it turned towards the artillery, Mister Hoffman launched a punch heavy enough to stop the Surtakatul in place.
“Hey!” Mister Hoffman shouted after sending a shockwave at the Surtakatul. “You stupid bug! I’m your target!”
The Surtakatul whirled its head around to look at Mister Hoffman despite not having any eyes—at least, none that Sam could discern. The beast reared upwards, lifting its head and part of its body into the air, six of its legs leaving the ground. Then, it stood in place and stomped down at Mister Hoffman, its leg fully extending. Mister Hoffman leapt to the side, and shrapnel struck his torso as the spot where he had just been standing exploded from the impact of the Surtakatul’s leg. He didn’t have time to pay attention to what had struck his side since another one of the Surtakatul’s legs was bearing down from above.
“I stopped it!” Mister Hoffman shouted as he leapt backwards and shielded his face with his forearms, preventing the debris from the calamity’s strike from blinding him. “I did my job, so now it’s time for you to do yours! Are you just going to sit back and watch!?”
A ray of light shone over Mister Hoffman’s head in return, the yellow beam striking one of the Surtakatul’s tendrils, causing it to fall off—straight towards Mister Hoffman. He let out a curse and ran out of the way, narrowly avoiding the fate of being crushed by a building-sized appendage. “Are you helping me, or trying to kill me?” Mister Hoffman shouted.
The Surtakatul dropped its torso down, its feet planting into the ground as its head turned towards the command center where the five remaining CEOs were positioned. It ran towards them, the ground shaking as the calamity trampled over its minions, which were busy harvesting the minions that had been crushed earlier. Sharp whistles followed by explosions rang out as more missiles struck the Surtakatul, but it ignored them as it rushed towards Big Chief, the culprit behind the yellow beam.
Queen Annabeth took a step forward and raised her scepter, which looked remarkably similar to how Raindu once looked. Before the Surtakatul could get close, the ground separating the calamity from the CEOs vanished as the queen shifted the solid earth from a solid matter into vapor. The Surtakatul’s legs continued downwards as if the ground existed, and the calamity plunged downwards like an elderly man missing a step. Queen Annabeth narrowed her eyes, and the ground reappeared around the Surtakatul’s head and torso in the form of a desert, burying the calamity’s forward portion in a layer of sand.
Mr. Park touched his thumb to the scarlet ring on his middle finger, and his body transformed into flames. He pointed his arms at the sandy ground, and white-hot fire surged from his palms, crystallizing the sand into glass as the Surtakatul struggled to get free. The many mouths on the rest of the Surtakatul’s body that hadn’t been buried opened and let out screams and shrieks, causing the world to shake and churn as it kicked its feet against the ground.
“Be!” Dr. Zhou said and glared at the Surtakatul. “Quiet!” The shadows cast by the Surtakatul froze, and the Surtakatul’s body stopped moving as a result. However, the parts that didn’t cast a shadow, its innards, continued to operate. The roars continued, but they were stifled and trapped within the calamity, the sound a low rumbling that shook the earth instead.
“Nice hold,” Zahir said and pointed his arm forward. “Sever!”
Nothing happened.
“Did it work?” Big Chief asked.
“Of course, it worked,” Zahir said. “Stop asking pointless questions and attack.”
“Fifteen seconds,” Dr. Zhou said through gritted teeth, her face pale. “I can’t hold it any longer than that.”
Explosions rang out as missiles rained down on the immobile calamity. Mister Hoffman let out repeated shouts as he fired off a series of punches, striking the parts of the calamity that were above the ground. Zahir took in a deep breath and pointed both his palms at the Surtakatul, unleashing his ability—which had yet to show an effect. Queen Annabeth raised her scepter, and the air above the calamity shifted states of matter, its composition changing completely as guillotine blades materialized and fell, striking the Surtakatul before reverting back into air. Big Chief put away his gun, swapping it with two smaller guns that he wielded with both hands, sending a barrage of laser beams that struck the Surtakatul’s knees. Mr. Park’s flaming body flew into the air, and after a second, a concentrated beam of fire, thin and nearly invisible, lashed down like a whip, passing through the Surtakatul’s limbs repeatedly.
“Get ready to run!” Dr. Zhou shouted. The attacks stopped, and the CEOs retreated, Zahir lifting Dr. Zhou and taking her whilst on his way. Dr. Zhou exhaled as her ability ran out, and she pushed her glasses up with her finger, watching as the Surtakatul was no longer bound in place by its shadow. Thunderous roars filled the air as the calamity collapsed, its tendrils falling to the ground with heavy thuds that shook the earth. Then, the Surtakatul reared upwards, but its head and upper portion of its body, which was trapped in the now-glass ground remained in place.
Zahir glanced back and let out a laugh. “I severed its head!” he shouted. Considering the Surtakatul was several buildings wide, it was quite an impressive feat to cut part of it off. Unfortunately, the damage wasn’t fatal. Zahir gulped as tendrils grew out of the severed portion of the Surtakatul, forming a new head, which was green and brown, taking on the characteristics of the vegetation the calamity’s minions had gathered earlier.
Dr. Zhou frowned. It had taken them all they had to inflict what seemed like minimal damage on the Surtakatul. They might’ve severed the front portion of the calamity, taking off eight of its legs, but there were hundreds of legs to go. The calamity’s rear end couldn’t be seen since it was still beyond the horizon.
Since the wave of minions were no longer being held back by a human line of defense, they approached the severed tendrils on the ground and ate them, tearing, ripping, and swallowing large chunks. When the minions were engorged, they rolled towards the Surtakatul and were scooped up by the calamity’s tendrils before being consumed by the hexagonal flaps. The tendrils which were damaged, but not severely enough to fall off, recovered with a speed visible to the naked eye.
With his All-Seeing Gaze, Sam saw a blob form on the Surtakatul’s rear end. It was shapeless at first, but then tendrils and a pair of legs grew out of it, the calamity using the leftover materials to increase in size. He couldn’t help but wonder how he’d deal with the Surtakatul after seeing the six CEOs fight against it. The Surtakatul was massive, and he was pretty sure he couldn’t lift the whole thing up with telekinesis, but lifting a leg and twisting it off…, was that doable?
“Try it,” Vercedei said. “It’s the perfect time to show off.”
Sam concentrated on his Sahasrara and Manipura whilst aiming his attention at the Surtakatul below. One of its legs rose into the air, its knee straightening against its will as Sam tugged at its foot with his telekinesis. Then, Sam envisioned twisting the calamity’s leg, and it let out a roar as its limb spiraled out of control, twisting in the air against its will. With a sickening series of cracking and popping sounds, the Surtakatul’s limb was torn from its body, a goopy pile of flesh falling from the separation and hitting the ground with a thunderous splat. The calamity’s severed leg rose even higher into the air before slamming down on one of the Surtakatul’s knees as if an invisible giant were wielding the flesh-spewing limb as a club.
“Well, that’s not very fair,” Mr. Park said while running alongside the other CEOs. As he ran, he kept turning his head to look at the Surtakatul’s floating limb bashing the main body. “If Sam wanted to, couldn’t he pick up our headquarters all by himself?” The calamity’s severed leg was taller and thicker than a skyscraper after all. Mr. Park turned his head back around, and his eyes widened upon seeing the other CEOs inside of a black van, the side door sliding shut. “Hey! Wait for me!”
The black van did not wait, but Mr. Park caught up anyway by transforming into lightning, shooting himself inside the vehicle and overcrowding it upon shifting back into a person. Mr. Park glanced at the rearview mirror, and he recognized the driver as one of Monarch’s men, which probably explained why Queen Annabeth was riding shotgun.
“Drive into the tunnel,” Queen Annabeth said, and the van turned, nearly rolling over from the sudden shift, before driving down a slope and entering one of the tunnels that had been dug out earlier by excavators.
“Alright,” the driver said and looked around upon reaching a dead end. “Where do we go from here?”
“We let Sam take care of the calamity while we hide out here,” Big Chief said. He looked around. “Also, does anyone know where Mister Hoffman is?”
Aboveground, Mister Hoffman was cursing in his mind while running. He would’ve been cursing out loud, but he was saving his breath, breathing in and out in a rhythmic manner whilst punching the occasional minion that got in his way. He had advanced to halt the calamity in its tracks, and after he did his job, he found his backline supporters had ditched him. He couldn’t fault the other CEOs since a sea of minions were between him and them, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth. The ground shook as the calamity roared, and if it weren’t for the calamity’s previous cries already damaging his hearing, Mister Hoffman was sure he would’ve been stunned by the sound. As he ran, he looked behind himself at the monstrous creature being pummeled by its own leg; Sam was clearly at an advantage thanks to his air superiority, but even still, at the rate he was going, it’d take hours, maybe even days to finish the calamity off especially with its minions going out to harvest materials to repair it.
Diminutive figures appeared in front of Mister Hoffman as he ran, and he punched at them, sending a shockwave that should’ve bowled the tiny creatures over, but instead, his surroundings shifted as if he had been teleported. Then, the shockwave he had sent forward struck him from behind, causing him to pitch forward and tumble along the ground with his innards very sore. Mister Hoffman coughed and reoriented himself, pushing against the dirt to lift his torso up as he looked behind himself. The small figures had turned out to be graylings, and evidently, there were enough of them present to manipulate space to switch positions with him.
Mister Hoffman’s brow furrowed as the calamity’s frenzied minions pounced towards the cluster of graylings. Before the saggy creatures could reach the cluster, their bodies were transferred high up into the air. Their limbs flailed about as they fell, but they were helpless to slow themselves down before hitting the ground, the sound akin to fireworks as they exploded, their flesh and blood spraying in all directions. Goop splattered on Mister Hoffman’s face, and he winced at the warm sensation. If he were suddenly sent twenty stories up into the air, could he survive the fall? He wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to find out, so as he got up and slinked away from the battlefield, he internally promised himself he wouldn’t abuse the grayling workers that had been rented to his company by … Sam. They weren’t the same Sam, were they? The Sam that he had met with and rented graylings from looked completely different when compared to the jealousy-inducing handsome fellow riding the wooly pig in the sky.
Speaking of the pig in the sky, it was no longer stationary like a hot-air balloon, and there were more than one. When Mister Hoffman looked up, he had to squint to see past the hundreds of shining pigs, which were emitting light akin to the noon sun. The pigs were spiraling about the Surtakatul, confusing it as its tendrils reached for the pigs closest to them, preventing the calamity from focusing on a single point. Mister Hoffman was sure it was an illusionary technique, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was Sam’s talent to create such realistic projections. Every so often, one of the pigs would charge at the Surtakatul, creating a hole in the calamity’s body as it ran straight through, ignoring the innards which would’ve devoured anything else other than the pig’s fur.
Mister Hoffman took in a deep breath and turned away from the Surtakatul. Sam could deal with the calamity by himself, no? All Mister Hoffman had to focus on was staying alive and not getting eaten by the Surtakatul lest he give it the ability to grow in size and fire shockwaves with the strength of its muscles alone. If he were eaten, and the calamity decided to wave its behind like a whip, it wouldn’t surprise Mister Hoffman if the whole capital were leveled to the ground by the action.
An engorged minion rolled into Mister Hoffman’s view, and he stared at it for a bit before deciding against killing it. Although it would return to the Surtakatul and feed it nutrients to recover, Sam said he could deal with it by himself. However, could Sam really handle thousands of minions running around, spreading out in every which direction? Mister Hoffman’s eyes widened as the engorged minion was impaled by a spike suddenly shooting out of the ground. The minion let out a cry as it was pulled towards the ground which rotated rapidly underneath the minion like a woodchipper. The poor creature was sucked into the ground, shooting a small geyser of flesh and blood upwards, splashing Mister Hoffman with minion fluid once more. He stopped and stared at the ground, a bit terrified by the revolving blades made of rocks and dirt that had suddenly appeared. If his leg were to enter a grinder like that, he’d lose it without question.
Crushing sounds filled the air accompanied by the screams of the minions being impaled and shredded by the ground as thousands of rotating pits appeared. Mister Hoffman froze in place, afraid that any sudden movement of his would cause an earthen spear to impale his stomach and drag him into a meat grinder. Was this one of Sam’s abilities as well? How many talents did he have? As far as Mister Hoffman knew, there weren’t any ground-controlling techniques learned via chakras. Whatever it was, it was horrifying; if those weren’t minions but humans instead…, Mister Hoffman didn’t want to think about it. He did hope the people who hid underground were safe and not being drenched in bloody soil.
Mister Hoffman stared at the ground and made his way forward, his pace much slower than before. Although he knew he had to get away from the calamity because there was a serious threat of dying from a building-sized limb falling on top of him, he didn’t want to lose his leg in an accident because he wasn’t watching where he was going. He thought about following the graylings since they weren’t being eaten by the ground, but he decided against it. The graylings didn’t care about their positioning since they could teleport out of danger whenever they wanted; what if he grouped up with them and got stranded?