Ch.154154. Invasion (5)

The alien beast that had invaded the battlefield. Like the Arch Demon, this creature—suspected to be the root cause of the incident at “Bacchus’s Garden”—resembled a four-legged animal so emaciated that its ribs were clearly visible.

People often describe extremely thin individuals as “just skin stretched over bone,” but this alien beast went one step further—even that single layer of skin wasn’t intact.

The left foreleg, right flank, parts of the back, and about a third of the face. In these areas where the skin had been completely stripped away, only white bones with bits of flesh and tendons clinging to them were visible.

Additionally, eyeballs lodged in the eye sockets of the half-exposed skull rolled around observing the surroundings, and limbs that were essentially just bone still moved perfectly—all creating a bizarre appearance. But…

There was another reason I immediately identified it as an alien beast just by its appearance, without needing to analyze its magical energy.

First, its glistening hide. The eerily green and purple shimmering, glossy texture of its skin exuded an utterly alien aura.

Moreover, the blue pus that had settled between the bones and skin throughout its body, instead of flesh, convinced me this couldn’t be a normal living creature.

Its prominently protruding eyeballs resembled black marbles that sparkled as if containing fragments of the universe, and its head with its uneven fangs looked less like a beast and more like a frog or fish.

Additionally, its forelegs were twice as long and thick as its hind legs, and its entire body was shrouded in strange smoke that seemed to be a mixture of purple and green.

At first glance, it gave off an alien impression… and despite its sudden intrusion, it maintained an eerily unnatural silence.

Regardless of its unknown identity, I could sense that its life force and presence were undoubtedly high-tier. The Arch Demon and I naturally maintained this strange standoff, but then…

-Swoosh!

After about ten seconds of silence, the first to move was, of course, the alien beast.

For some reason, it had been showing particular hostility toward the Arch Demon, and suddenly it lunged at it. Meanwhile, I was cautiously concealing my presence… and couldn’t tear my eyes away from the alien beast’s bizarre form.

‘Huh…?’

If nothing else, in my current state—resonating with Robo’s soul—my perceptual and detection abilities were world-class.

Yet, even as I watched this alien beast… why couldn’t I perceive its movements?

No, to be precise, I could clearly see with my own eyes that the alien beast was attacking the demon.

The issue was that I couldn’t see exactly how the alien beast was attacking the Arch Demon.

‘…?’

Not to brag, but my senses had become so keen that I could read air currents with my skin to determine the position and size of invisible objects.

Yet despite these heightened senses, I couldn’t detect the hunting beast at all.

What was going on?

After pondering this for what felt like a long time, I suddenly realized I couldn’t remember specifically what movements the beast before me was making… what exactly it was doing.

As if that part had been cut out of my memory…

‘…That’s it!’

And then I could be certain. That’s it, this was the cause! This was why I couldn’t see the alien beast’s attack movements!

It wasn’t that I couldn’t detect the movements. I had definitely detected the beast’s attack methods through my sensitive sensory organs, but the fact that I had detected them had been excised from my memory, making me believe I hadn’t detected anything at all.

‘….’

The realization that something had tampered with and manipulated my memories was enough to send chills down my spine. Concerned that something else might have distorted my memories or perception, I began to trace back through my recollections…

‘…Oh, is this it?’

Among countless memories, I realized that for some reason, I couldn’t remember the exact size of the alien beast.

I didn’t know why I specifically couldn’t remember its size, but what mattered was that I had become aware of my own forgetting.

Believing that even high-tier special abilities would have limitations when used against another high-tier being, I quickly employed a celestial magic technique to borrow the “gaze of heaven,” observing myself from a higher dimensional perspective…

‘…Success.’

The attempt appeared to be successful.

After recognizing “it”—the thing that had been selectively erasing parts of my memories through the “celestial gaze”—”it” could no longer continue consuming memories related to the alien beast once it entered my awareness.

Metaphorically speaking, it had been bypassing my mental barriers to eat away at my memories, but now that the bypass code was blocked, it could no longer continue.

Having shaken off “it”—the thing interfering with my memories—with a light circulation of magical energy, I could finally perceive the alien beast’s movements.

Amazingly, the beast was freely adjusting its body proportions and repeatedly warping—that is, teleporting—in all directions as it fought.

In this world, teleportation—especially the kind where one simply disappears without any medium—is no easy feat.

It requires at least intermediate mastery of “space-time magic,” which only mages with exceptional spatial perception can learn, as well as physics knowledge to calculate coordinates and plot one’s movement path in higher dimensions.

Typically, it takes several minutes of preparation to barely transfer to a target location, yet this beast was freely teleporting as if it were its special ability, attacking its enemy.

And that wasn’t all. This transfer ability wasn’t just used for movement; it could also partially transfer impacts or attacks, allowing it to deflect enemy strikes.

The delay between its form disappearing and reappearing was less than 0.001 seconds. Unlike magical teleportation, there were no preliminary phenomena, and it seemed to activate instantly with mere thought, making its movements appear fluid…

‘…Hmm?’

As I prepared to ambush whichever one fell first, I suddenly noticed something unusual.

Watching the alien beast—this monster that appeared to be a vanguard of outer gods—teleport, I realized this power didn’t seem to be used entirely at will.

‘That’s…’

Specifically, there seemed to be limitations on where it could “appear” through this transfer ability.

The area was now filled with debris from buildings destroyed during the frantic movements of the two high-tier beings, and the alien beast was only teleporting to and appearing at points where two fragments had collided with each other.

At first, I thought it might only be able to use instantaneous teleportation through gaps as mediums, but it didn’t teleport through fragments that had collided in almost straight lines, despite having opportunities to do so.

As I pondered this seriously, an idea suddenly occurred to me.

‘…The angle?’

From what I could detect with my full sensory abilities, the alien beast only appeared when the collision angle of the fragments didn’t exceed 120 degrees.

And a monster that appears from corners below a certain angle… there’s a famous entity in subculture lore:

The Hounds of Tindalos. Creatures from the Cthulhu Mythos.

Of course, it’s difficult to assume a connection between creatures from a mythology created by a person called “the love potion teacher” and beings originating from outer gods.

It’s more accurate to view the similarity in their characteristics as mere coincidence, and it would be foolish to read too much into it.

Anyway, regardless of my observations about its identity, my analysis of its capabilities was complete.

Both sides likely had a few hidden trump cards, but if I tried to discover those as well, the time limit on my soul resonance would probably expire first.

As the battle between the two intensified and I noticed that the mages had somehow retreated to evacuate civilians, I began to draw my “weapon” and prepare.

The unexpected battle at “Bacchus’s Garden” was approaching its conclusion.