Krimling shrieked as nearly a dozen of them were sent flying by a sudden shockwave, a chorus of grunts and cries ringing out as the lucky ones crashed into the mud, the unlucky ones into stone walls. A second ring of Krimling wailed as they were struck by a spray of stone shrapnel, streaks of blood emerging from the destruction like strings of crimson confetti.

At the center of the crash site, an ominous silhouette rose amid the dust. Its core appeared to be the body of a child, hanging limply in the air. Emerging from the child’s back were eight long, skeletal arms, stretching nearly a meter across between each joint, the hands at their ends disproportionately large. Half of the hands were pressed against the ground with open palms, holding the child up like the legs of an insect; the others curled around its body.

A soft sob escaped from the dust cloud, drowned out by the shrieks of the Krimling. Then, two of the creature’s long arms stretched up into the air, their skeletal fingers breaching the smokescreen, and in the next moment they slammed down to the ground on either side of it, effortlessly crushing two unfortunate Krimling into crumpled heaps of pulsing viscera and snapped bones.

The powerful motion cleared the dust, revealing the source of the destruction—the Kumori. A young Human girl hung limply at the beast’s center, but it was merely a disguise. The child began to wail loudly, its voice distorting into many voices of different pitches, some crying and sobbing while others began to speak in unison.

Kumori: “There you are..! I found you, found you, found you, found you found you found you foundyoufoundyoufoundyoufoundyoufoundyou FOUND YOUUU!”

The voices grew gleeful as the child let out that final bellow. It licked its lips, a wicked smile on its face even as tears continued to stream out from its eyes.

Then, the chaos began all at once.

Krimling screamed, a high-pitched war cry growing as several dozen grunts began to charge at the Kumori from all directions, some scampering across the ground, others leaping at it from atop buildings. Digging its skeletal fingers into the mud, the Kumori lurched forward, swinging its oversized limbs wildly.

Some Krimling were crushed under hammering fists; others were sent careening through the air by powerful punches. One particularly unfortunate Krimling took a punch squarely to the head, its skull reduced to a blast of shrapnel that mutilated the Krimling behind it.

Using four of its hands as legs, the Kumori skittered across the battlefield with impressive dexterity, sliding between groups of Krimling and mowing through them with four-armed barrages of punches and crushing blows. It cut its prey’s numbers by a third in mere seconds.

Standing at the edge of the chaos were two Humans. Jacqueline was bloody and battered, her body covered in cuts, punctures, and bruises from her time alone with the Krimling. About half of her wounds were crudely bandaged with torn-off scraps of her clothing. Beside her, Loid, too, was caked in blood, but he was lucky to be able to say it wasn’t his own.

As the Kumori rampaged, most of the Krimling had turned their attention to it. Only a few continued to pursue the duo, and it was easy enough to bat them aside with a kick or a sweep of Loid’s javelin.

Loid had succeeded in luring the Kumori here, and the swarm had officially begun. Now, all they needed to do was lose the rest of the Krimling’s focus and escape with their lives before the chaos enveloped them.

To that end, the optimal solution was obvious.

The two stood at the mouth of one of several roads that led into the large ruined complex where the Kumori and Krimling now fought, their backs to the exit. The two crouched, making themselves look small as they slowly backed away, carefully tracking the Kumori’s movements.

While the infinite, overwhelming numbers of the Krimling posed a uniquely existential threat, the physical threat of the Kumori was a far more immediate one. Jacqueline was severely wounded, and Loid’s combat skills were limited; if it chose to come after them, they wouldn’t fare much better than the Krimling against it.

Despite the Kumori’s wild thrashing and the growing piles of viscera surrounding it, the Krimling’s numbers continued to rise. Whereas before they had come in large waves, they now seemed to be arriving in a constant trickle, Krimling scurrying into the complex one after another through several different paths.

The Kumori did not seem to mind; if anything, it seemed delighted that more and more prey was coming right to it. It proceeded to slam one of its skeletal hands into the mud, clawing its fingers in deep, and then lifted the rest of its body with just that single limb. It stretched its seven remaining appendages out wide as the supporting arm began to curl, rotating the rest of the body. It picked up speed quickly, and in just a moment’s time it had begun whipping around rapidly, mowing down surrounding Krimling with its outstretched arms, their small bodies torn to halves by the force of the whirling limbs.

The Krimling stopped approaching the ring of death after the third rotation, though one was shoved into it by a few of its cackling comrades, its blood splattering across their bodies. The Kumori adapted, curling its arm to bend its raised body down; then, wrenching it in the other direction, it used its momentum to fling itself into the air and sideways. Each of its skeletal limbs swung downwards in turn, causing its body to spin in the air.

The Kumori’s arms formed a perfect ring around it, each bent inward at the elbow. As it touched down on the mud, its rapidly-rotating body began to roll like a great wheel, crushing a row of Krimling beneath it. As it crashed headlong into the side of a building, its skeletal limbs clattering against the stone, it rapidly ascended the surface. It shot several feet into the air above the roof, then rapidly rolled across the top once it fell. The ring tilted to the right in order to turn, and it spun down into the alleys between the ruined buildings, a crowd of Krimling shrieking as they were ran down by the rolling arms.

As all this transpired, Jacqueline and Loid turned and bolted down the road.

They could hear the Krimling continue to shriek and squeal as the Kumori slaughtered them one after another. Its distorted voices rose in a mix of sobs and laughter, and the ruins around the carnage cracked and crumbled with each impact they suffered. It went without saying that the stench of blood was overpowering.

At a glance, it seemed no Krimling were following the pair. They ran without looking back a second time. The road curved leftward, then twisted sharply to the right around a mound of trash and debris. As the two rounded the bend, they suddenly slid to a halt.

Ahead of them was another figure.

At a first glance, it appeared to be a Human woman with long white hair, slowly staggering down the mud road. The longer they looked at her, however, the more they noticed that was wrong about her appearance.

Her clothes were mismatched. She wore a loose white tunic and baggy pants, but the shirt’s sleeves were slightly different lengths, and the pants only reached her thigh on the left side. Her left shin was covered instead by a colorful legging connected to nothing else. A metal pauldron protected her right shoulder, a leather bracer her left hand. In place of a right foot was a bird’s talon.

The woman stopped in her tracks as she noticed the two; they brandished their weapons, Loid taking a defensive step in front of Jacqueline.

The woman stared at them for a few seconds, motionless. Then she raised a hand to brush some of her long hair out of her face, revealing her tired grey eyes. They widened at the sight of the Humans, and her mouth split open to a smile, revealing a row of sharp fangs.

Loid: “Stay back, Mimic!” He shouted, making an educated guess as to the woman’s identity. He held his javelin out in front of him, though he couldn’t keep his hands from shaking. “Your meal’s just behind us. If you—“

Before he could finish, the woman lurched forward.