Moving as a Demon Thorn of Pain was weird.

Serenity could move the top half of his body almost normally; he was more than a little stiff, but the motion itself was still normal other than his arms. They could move far more flexibly. He was going to have to practice; they were literally boneless and could bend in any direction at any point, but they were limited in how sharply they could bend. It was completely different.

The lower half of his body, however, was just plain weird. There was an entire reflex he’d found that would close or open the thorn and he kept triggering it accidentally when he tried to walk. Actually walking was more like moving his toes, only it had to be done separately and individually to a dozen toes at once, including bending and lifting them like fingers or legs.

He couldn’t actually bend over far enough to see them, so all he knew about them was what he could sense and what he’d seen of the two Thorn Demons he’d seen before.

It took hours for Serenity to manage to walk at any speed that wasn’t a stagger. By the time he was actually walking semi-decently, he was beginning to wish he’d just gone around the city, even though it would have added days rather than hours.

Once he was more or less able to move competently, Serenity moved his remaining Sovereign-self over to his Thorn Demon-self. His Sovereign form was slow and insubstantial; he might have been able to carry it if he could close up and move at the same time, but it seemed to not work that way for Demon Thorns of Pain; even then, he probably wouldn’t have fit. Serenity wasn’t certain how much that would affect things, but it wasn’t important since he couldn’t try it out anyway.

The obvious second form was the swarm of minute demon thorns, the same thing the two demon thorns had fired at their victims, but Serenity didn’t want to touch that form. As far as he could tell, they were immobile, so all they’d be able to do was attack other creatures and try to take them over. There was no point in that.

Serenity paused. He hadn’t actually tried to fire a Minute Demon Thorn. Could he? Did he want to try? Did he even have any thorns?

It seemed to be the primary attack of the Thorn Demons, so he should know how to do it.

Serenity concentrated on his new body, trying to identify the internals. They were more different from humanity than he’d expected; apparently the area between his waist and many feet was partly structural, but most of the area was a place where Pain Thorns were made and prepared to send up his arms for launching.

Serenity was fairly confident that the Pain Thorns were a good bit of the reason he continually hurt; the areas that didn’t have pain thorns were relatively pain-free, but they connected to everything from the waist down, his sides, and both arms. He hadn’t noticed that his head, chest, and upper back were more or less painless.

Knowing that was interesting but didn’t get him anywhere.

The first time he tried to launch a thorn, he slapped himself in the face instead. The next several tries weren’t any better; he still didn’t have good control of his “arms”.

He’d lost count of the number of tries he’d made when he finally figured out how to do it. It was weird; he actually felt a piece of himself fly away then ever-so-slowly die because it was separated from his body and not implanted in another’s.

If you want, I can manage the shot sequence while you handle aiming and movement.

Serenity frowned at Aide’s offer. It was probably a good idea, since he wanted to avoid doing that ever again if he could. It was seriously unpleasant in addition to his complete lack of desire to convert anything else into a Demon Thorn.

It solidified his decision to not turn his other self into a swarm of demon thorns. Even if they didn’t quickly die or have to reside in the thorn reservoir, he’d hate it. He wasn’t certain if that had happened when he fired the single thorn or not, but it didn’t matter. He hated it. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean he could afford to simply not use the only offensive action he had other than spellcasting.

If we have to. I don’t want to but we might have to.

He’d try to stick to spells and Skills.

He still hadn’t answered the question of what to do with his second self. Sovereign of Potential wouldn’t work. His usual standby of armor would be detrimental because he wouldn’t look like an ordinary Demon Thorn of Pain. He couldn’t use a Crystal Hilt, but all of the other options would be targets to other Thorn Demons.

Crystal Hilt was clearly the answer. He’d simply have to tuck himself behind one of the leaves while he moved.

Once he was ready, Serenity “ran” along the road. All of his attention had to be on his many feet, leaving Aide watching for danger. Even with all of his attention on his movement, Serenity felt slightly drunk; his coordination was terrible and more than one he started to tip over, only to catch himself with one of his “leaves”.

He’d never have guessed that they were strong enough to lift a person, but they were easily that strong. Controlling them was also easier than controlling anything else, even though it was still unlike the movement he was used to. They could barely twist, so at least he didn’t continually send them sideways, at things that he didn’t mean to hit.

Most of the time, Serenity just let them hang, like his “arms”.

Serenity’s trip through the city center was marked more by other creatures, including other Thorn Demons, avoiding his careening presence than by any other events. It took more than a day to get through the city center; even when he stopped for the night, he wasn’t attacked at all.

One thing he noticed was that the form was completely unlike his Sterath form in one major way: he didn’t seem to have gotten any of the instincts or reflexes at a notable level. In his Sterath form, he’d found himself reflexively hopping and he’d immediately gone to hide when he molted; nothing like that happened with the Demon Thorn of Pain form. He could walk and even run, but it wasn’t as natural as hopping in Sterath form. Moving his appendages never really got more comfortable either.

Serenity was hours past the city center when he noticed a problem. He’d been hearing a deep thumping noise for a while but didn’t know its origin. The reason for the noise was made clear when he saw the diseased-looking yellow Demon Thorn of Pain “tower” come around a corner several blocks ahead of him and start into the street he was following.

He hadn’t seen it because the buildings he was around were still tall enough to shield it from view while it was moving; with its leaves down, it was only a bit over two stories tall.

Serenity watched the way it was heading - to the right, coming from the left - then turned left himself at the next cross street. He needed to get past it, but he’d rather go around. Staying out of its way seemed wise.

At first, it seemed to work. Serenity had long since learned not to trust his luck, however, and his cynicism was soon shown to be accurate. After a short time where the quaking steps faded, they began to grow louder. Serenity looked back towards the sound and tripped over his own feet again.

He picked himself up, then turned to actually look.

The multihued yellow Thorn Demon was following him. Worse, it was moving faster than he could run; it was larger, so that made sense, but it didn’t make Serenity happy. He moved to the side then onto a side street, hoping it would pass him by.

It didn’t. Instead, it turned down the same side street and moved over to him. It stopped only when it bumped into him.

Serenity had no idea what it wanted but he was pretty confident he didn’t want whatever it was.

It bumped into him, harder, and knocked him backwards.

Serenity awkwardly caught himself on one of his leaves. Did it want him to go somewhere? Serenity started slowly moving in the direction the towering thorn sent him.

It moved quickly to block his movement.

Serenity stopped. He would have frowned at it, but apparently Thorn Demons didn’t really do facial expressions. He wasn’t certain what to do now; he didn’t really want to fight it, but he probably also didn’t want to do whatever it wanted.

It backed up and laid a leaf down in front of him.

Serenity looked at the leaf, looked at the gigantic Demon Thorn of Pain, and started going through his Skills. He was short on things he could Evoke because he wasn’t carrying his normal collection of rocks and other temporary infused items; they were far too likely to be obvious and in his Thorn Demon form he couldn’t pick them up anyway. All he really had were the generic Quickness and Slowness spells he almost always kept on hand.

He didn’t think they would really be sufficient; he wasn’t even confident they’d be helpful. His coordination in this form was crap and the other Thorn Demon was far faster than he was. He’d have to depend on his other Skills.

He couldn’t shapeshift fast enough to matter. Or could he? Maybe he could delay long enough to turn his Crystal Hilt into his chimera form, then fight that way while closing up his Thorn Demon form so the doubled perspective wouldn’t interfere. If he had time.

More likely, he’d end up using his offensive Skills. Some of the area effect ones from his previous Path would be perfect; it was large enough that they’d do more damage than many of his normally harder-hitting singular attacks; his Death Field would probably work better than his Death Magebolt.

He hadn’t used his Adept Aspect Form since he left Tzintkra. That would boost his Death-based abilities but it would knock him out afterwards. The cost was simply too high to use here.

Adept Aspect Form

Instead of infusing an Affinity into your weapon, infuse your Aspect into yourself. Limited time, consumes both stamina and mana, induces unconsciousness when the Form lapses

He really needed to get a higher-Tier version of the Skill, but even at Tier Four he expected huge consequences from using an Aspect Form.

Serenity waited and watched for the Thorn Demon’s next move. He didn’t expect that he’d be lucky enough to be able to get the towering demon to go away if he didn’t react, but avoiding a fight would be better.

He caught the motion when the yellow Thorn Demon raised its “arms” towards him. That was enough of a hint; it was time to fight. Serenity Evoked first Slowness then Quickness and dodged to the side, out of the way of where the arms were aimed.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get very far before he tripped.

Fortunately, he tripped and most of the first volley of Minute Thorns missed, going above him. The ones that did hit were far more painful than they should have been, but Serenity’s Pain Resistance let him ignore it for now.

Serenity triggered his Death Field. Enough was enough. He didn’t bother to exclude anything, not even himself. He wasn’t going to be hurt by his own Death magic, after all.

The first things to die were the Minute Thorns the gargantuan Thorn Demon had shot him with. The second group was the next attack from the Thorn Demon; they were dead before they hit his skin and while they penetrated slightly, they weren’t even close to as painful as the previous attack, even though many more of them hit.

The enemy no longer had a good attack, so Serenity had already won; all he had to do was wait until it died or ran.

Lillene

If Serenity had gotten the usual instincts of a Thorn Demon, he’d have known exactly what the towering Demon Thorn of Pain was after.

His reaction would probably have been even more violent.