Asher flinched back as Eight's form suddenly became unrecognizable, his body nearly doubling in size in an instant from the tumorous growths that sprouted all along his flesh. His limbs bent and twisted and his flesh warped as the man was transformed into something new and horrifying. Coarse, bloody hair erupted out across his body, and jagged teeth larger than Asher's own daggers sprouted from the man's mouth with a bloody burst. Sharp claws erupted from the ends of his fingers, and a powerful tail thicker than any whip thudded to the ground, twitching.

Asher attempted to take advantage of the man's transformation to start carving into him from afar as all this occurred, but he found himself almost frozen in place, held captive by some sort of fear or stun-inducing skill. If he hadn't already come to the conclusion that Eight had a Potion element, the fact that he seemed incapable of striking him while he transformed wiped away any lingering doubts about the man's final element.

The entire monstrous transformation took barely a few seconds, and where Eight had once stood, Asher now found himself looking at some sort of half-man, half-rat abomination.

Dear God… he thought, staring with disgust at what the alchemist had done to himself. It wasn't the first time he'd seen someone shift into a partial animal form. Leonard, the first senior assassin he'd killed, had the Wolf element and had been capable of adopting a werewolf-like form that was incredibly deadly. He'd even seen one of Loratta's men turn into some sort of half-rabid dog when Draken's coalition attacked her compound. But whatever Eight had done to himself, it wasn't like that in the slightest.

From the sheer amount of his own blood covering his beastly form and the sloughing piles of skin and flesh flaking off him onto the ground, Asher could tell at a glance that this wasn't any sort of natural transformation. Clearly, the alchemist had come up with a method of giving himself a battle form that didn't rely on his own skills, and it appeared to have an interesting side-effect as well.

As far as Asher could tell, the wound he'd inflicted upon Eight was no more.

He functionally threw away the flesh I cut into and replaced it during his transformation, Asher realized, his grip tightening on his daggers as he prepared himself for anything. Good to know Sever the Thread can be beaten in that way I suppose.

The moment Eight's transformation ended, Asher felt the weird skill staying his blade vanish, and he immediately went to take advantage of his unmoving form, not wanting to give up this chance for a free shot. Grinning at the assassin's mistake, he compressed a tunnel of space and stabbed forward, aiming straight for the man's newly misshapen head.

And recoiled as a searing pain erupted in his fingers and his dagger was knocked out of his hand, sent bouncing across the sewer floor.

Asher jumped backwards, yanking his hand back and glancing down at the stinging appendage. To his shock, three of his fingers had been replaced with bloody stumps from whatever had hit him.

That's… not so good.

Asher's eyes flicked to Eight's powerful rat tail as it twitched a few more times, already back in its original position. From the fresh blood on its tip and the bits of his own flesh decorating it, it wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. Turns out he hadn't been quite so vulnerable post-transformation as Asher had thought.

"You brought this upon yourself," Eight hissed, his voice strained and oddly high-pitched for his new massive form that towered over Asher. Falling forward, Eight shook the sewer as his bulky body slammed onto all fours, and his large, bulging eyes locked straight onto Asher's own. "This form is… incredibly uncomfortable. But as you pointed out yourself, I am not much of a fighter. I cannot give myself a talent for fighting, but overwhelming power? That is something alchemy can solve!"

"Shame it took turning yourself into a monster," Asher laughed, trying to keep the pain off his face as he cradled his wounded hand. Now that he knew just how deadly Eight's tail was, he never took his eyes off the twitching appendage. "I don't suppose-"

His sentence was cut off as Secret Seeker screamed a warning at him, and Asher slipped into the astral just in time to dodge the powerful tail cracking through where his head had been moments before. Even with Comprehend speeding up his reactions, he could barely make out the tail's movement.

Despite the fact that he'd dispatched the small army of rats that Eight had sent swarming at him, he still needed to be careful about his movements into and out of the astral. Rat corpses covered the ground in every direction, and while Astral Dip gave him something of a sixth sense, warning him if he was about to return to the material realm within something and erasing a chunk of himself, he had to make sure he didn't accidentally let his skill end while his foot shared space with one of the countless dead rats around him.

He'd already lost a few fingers. Losing one or both of his feet would not be a great way to follow up on that.

"You're fast, I'll give you that," Eight hissed, his large form shifting slightly as he waited for Asher to show himself once more. "But I can't imagine maintaining a skill as impressive as this one comes without cost."

Before Asher could return to the material realm and strike, Eight reared up on his hind legs once more. But rather than slam down onto the floor, this time he brought down his powerful bulk directly into the side of Asher's Spatial Lock, shaking the very room and draining another chunk of Asher's energy in an instant. His attack wasn't nearly as powerful as Bordan's had been, but Spatial Lock already had been keeping a thousand biting and scratching rats at bay.

Asher was officially running on fumes, and another slam like that would force him to decide whether to risk it all and keep fighting, or drop his barrier and Recall to safety.

Not wanting to give Eight the chance to make that decision for him, Asher darted forward, finding a safe patch of sewer to return from the astral as he charged toward the abomination.

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The moment he reappeared, Eight's tail whipped out at him again, but he was ready this time. Rather than slipping into the astral or using Distortion defensively, Asher grit his teeth as he intercepted the whip-strike with what remained of his wounded hand, losing his remaining fingers in a heartbeat as his entire hand was partially torn off his wrist. It hurt like absolute hell, but it gave him the opening he needed.

In exchange for sacrificing his hand, at the same time Eight launched his attack, Asher retaliated with his own. A slim tunnel of compressed space allowed him to lash out with his dagger in his other hand, cutting clean through the muscular appendage and severing Eight's tail at the base before it could return to its original position.

He and Eight screamed in unison at the pain of having a part of their body cut and torn off from themselves. However, where Eight was blinded by the unexpected pain, Asher had both Complete Resilience to dull the excruciating sensation, as well as plenty of practice suffering broken bones and lacerated flesh. Taking advantage of the opening, Asher followed up on his attack, lashing out a second time and cutting as deep into Eight's side as his dagger could reach.

"You insolent pest!" Eight roared, turning and leaping at him with astonishing speed. Despite his bulky new form, the power hidden within his bulging muscles made up for any lack of grace or technique. Asher barely managed to slip into the astral in time to dodge what would have no doubt been the equivalent of being mowed down by a truck flying down the highway as Eight's frame blasted through him.

A particularly hairy, fleshy truck.

"What's wrong, Eight? Can't handle a little pain?" he taunted, slipping out of the astral and slashing into the man's flank with Distortion before the alchemist could turn himself around. Again, the Finger's lack of actual battle experience showed itself, as despite his newfound incredible strength and power, he'd left himself wide open after his failed attack.

Moxy would have been appalled.

Just as he was about to follow up his strike with another, Asher stumbled as something heavy tore into and latched onto his calves, and he looked down at his feet in shock.

Two of the rats he had previously killed were on their feet once more, their mold-covered fur pressing against his skin as they tried to drag him down. Based on the horrific dagger wounds dotting their flesh, there was no way they should have still been alive, but the way their teeth dug into his already torn up flesh begged to differ.

Dislodging them with a quick slip into the astral, Asher started as he finally noticed a dozen or so of the rats he'd already killed jerkily getting back to their feet and stumbling toward him. Each one was covered in more mold than flesh, and it didn't take him long to figure out what was going on.

Zombie rats?! Are you kidding me?!

One of the rats had a chunk of its head shaved clean off, and Asher was able to spot the way the mold's tendrils had sunken into the animal's exposed brain, twitching and pulsing as it directed the rat toward him. Even as he watched, more and more of the rats he'd already dispatched were getting up for a round two. They were far more clumsy and less coordinated than they had been while still alive, but it seemed any rat he hadn't beheaded was aiming to rejoin the fight.

Despite their weakened state, Asher was not exactly in the best position to deal with cutting his way through a hundred zombie rats while fighting Eight at the same time. Not even including his jagged stump of a hand, his body was in literal tatters from the first time he'd fought the army of rats. The four potions of Lesser Restoration he'd downed and his Complete Resilience were probably the only reasons he hadn't passed out from blood loss at this point, and the thousand additional rats swarming over the outside of his Spatial Lock were still whittling down his reserves.

He needed to end this battle, and now.

Ending his skill, he kicked aside one of the zombie rats as it lunged for him, before darting toward Eight's bulky frame. The alchemist was bleeding heavily from the wounds Asher had already inflicted, but it wasn't nearly enough. He'd already proved himself capable of shrugging off Sever the Thread once. Asher needed to witness the man's death in order to be certain he was truly taken care of.

Eight seemed to feel his desperation somehow, as he focused on keeping the vulnerable portions of his body covered while lashing out with his wicked claws whenever Asher got too close. The two of them entered a deadly dance of blades, with Asher coming out on top, and yet feeling like he was losing regardless. Taking advantage of Eight's lack of battle experience, he cut gash after gash into the alchemist's massive frame. But despite his best efforts, he simply wasn't able to land anything substantial, and the man's horrific new form was large enough that he could weather countless blows without issue. At the same time, despite his ability to dodge the man's own devastating claw swipes, his own lower half was getting torn apart by zombie rats that he was doing his best to simply ignore. The damage they inflicted wasn't too severe, and he had quite literally much bigger things to worry about.

Right up until he tried to take a step and his leg gave out from under him as one of his tendons was finally gnawed through.

Asher was surprised to find himself pitching forward, blinking dumbly as he tried to comprehend the fact that his leg wasn't working like it was supposed to. Not giving him a chance to recover, Eight saw his opening and went to barrel forward and slam into him, only for his own clawed feet to slip and give out due to the copious amounts of his own blood that had spilled all over the already grimy sewer ground. Even if Asher hadn't managed to inflict any significant injuries, Eight was absolutely covered in cuts and gashes at this point, and had to have lost at least a few gallons of blood.

Eight didn't have the assassin class that granted surefooted movement, and he hadn't thought to check his footing in his haste to strike. At the end of the day, he was an alchemist, through and through.

Their respective battle experience showed one final time, as while Eight's misshapen body slipped and slammed into the ground with enough force to squash a few of the zombie-rats slowly making their way toward him, Asher pushed off with his still-functioning leg mid-tumble, opening a tunnel of compressed space at an upward angle and turning his weak, desperate lunge into one that ended a couple of feet above the downed abomination.

Before Eight could recover or figure out where he'd gone, he struck.

Using Distortion's second tier to lengthen his dagger into that of a sword once more, Asher dropped out of the air, allowing gravity to do the heavy lifting as he plunged his blade directly into Eight's twisted, rat-like head. The abomination let out a shriek that shook the very sewer walls, before Asher twisted his blade with a grunt, causing the Finger and leader of Whikoga's Assassin's Guild to fall silent. As Eight collapsed to the ground, the dozens of zombie rats all dropped alongside him, and the rats swarming over the outside of his Spatial Lock tumbled off one another, no longer controlled by whatever skill Eight was using to drive them into a feeding frenzy.

Letting out a shaky breath, Asher could only lean back on Eight's blood-soaked body, staring up at the grimy ceiling of the sewer and the floating orb of shards that drifted out of the giant rat corpse as he gave himself a brief moment of respite, finally letting his Spatial Lock end.

After experiencing his very first death from a parcel of magadrine powder, fighting his way through multiple deadly assassins, and suffering some of the worst pain in his entire life, it was finally done.

The first of the ten Fingers had fallen.

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