“Normally I love tentacles, but not on a kraken or this…thing!” Mira says.

  “Can’t wait to get to your tent after this!” James remarks.

  The vine-like mass on the walls begins creeping steadily as the eye-holding tendril retracts, vanishing out of sight. Tendrils extend from the mass, reaching straight for the team from all angles. Wyn and James work together, each constructing their side of the circular wall. Meanwhile, Lisa fires her gun at the vines overhead, burning some to ash while leaving scorched red marks on others. Yu and Mira summon water fountains and fire pillars along the walls, but the tendrils pull back, shifting the mass to avoid contact. The severed tendrils quickly slither toward the nearby ones, merging seamlessly.

  “Why is it not attacking us anymore?” Wyn wonders.

  “The ceiling is clear, Mister Wyn,” Lisa says.

  Obstructed by the walls, the team fails to notice the massive tendrils advancing from both sides. On impact, they demolish the barricades, sandwiching the entire team within the mass. While spinning inside, Wyn catches a glimpse of the eye moving swiftly toward them from one side. As the eye halts at a distance, the mass squeezing them from both sides also ceases flowing, bringing their spinning to a stop. The large black eye then begins spawning bright yellow worms which swim toward the team.

  Unable to communicate with one another inside the mass, Wyn quickly grabs the upside-down Yu and signals James to do the same. He then fortifies himself and Yu in rock, prompting James to follow suit, encasing himself and Mira in ice. Understanding her role, Lisa emits electricity, traveling through the mass, shocking the incoming worms. Though resistant to the shocks, the worms slow down enough for Lisa to fire a laser beam from one hand, killing some of them. The worms retreat back to the eye, which starts moving again, causing the mass to shift and spin the team once more.

  As the eye moves, its force pulls Wyn and team along in the same direction, though at a much slower pace compared to its movement. When the eye stops, they're jerked slightly, spinning a bit before coming to a complete halt – the eye now behind them on the other side. As expected, the worms begin swimming toward them. Lisa, deciding against using her electricity to avoid paralyzing her teammates, fires laser beams at the approaching horde. Meanwhile, James takes initiative, attempting to freeze the mass to block the worms. To his credit, it works, as the frozen mass forms a solid barrier. While the worms focus on breaking through James’ ice wall, Mira and Lisa start burning the mass beneath them. The continuous heat finally creates an opening, allowing the team to swim downward and break free, dropping to the ground below. Seizing the opportunity, Lisa quickly shoots her gun upward, aiming for the worms.

  The fused attack obliterates all the worms and severs the tendril in two. Reacting to this, the tendrils retract, returning to creep along the walls and ceiling. That's when Wyn spots the eye moving within the tendrils.

  “See that faded, moving dark spot? That has to be the eye!” he points out.

  “Are you sure? It doesn’t look like an eye to me,” Mira adds.

  The eye, composed of preserved brains, shifts its shape to fit the thickness of each part of the tendril it traverses to. Adjusting their strategy, Wyn and James construct walls that cover the team on three sides, leaving Yu and Mira to fend off the tendrils from the front, while Lisa keeps watch for any attacks from the ceiling. The new tactic works well, though the team struggles to land a clean hit on the eye – until the mass starts rising from the ground.

  Wyn elevates his team with a pillar, but the mass creeps up, attempting to engulf them once more. In response, he creates mini cyclones, spreading them around for the team to jump onto, while Lisa obliterates the pillar, severing the latching mass. Just then, tendrils shoot up from the ground, ensnaring Yu, James, and Lisa. Ready for this, Wyn swiftly maneuvers in the air, slicing the tendrils to free his friends. He allows Mira to ride on his back, though her bust keeps pushing his head down, hindering his ability to maneuver.

  “The rest of you, stay together on my mini cyclones. Make sure you’re not caught!” Wyn instructs.

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  Wyn slices through an onslaught of tendrils before hovering just above the writhing mass. Positioned horizontally, he thrusts his fiery chakram blades downward, their spinning edges tearing through the mass as he propels himself in pursuit of the eye.

  As he flies, the mass shifts along with the eye. Wyn manages to slice through the eye once but overshoots his target. On his return, he sees the creature has already gathered itself into a corner. Unable to stop in time due to his speed and distance, and fearing they’d crash into the thick mass and face the worms again, Wyn lets himself skid along the ground. Mira, clinging tightly to him, whips at the mass as they skid closer. The resulting explosion sends chunks of the Legion splattering against nearby walls. The blast halts Wyn’s momentum and sends Mira flying off his back. Both suffer burn injuries, with Wyn’s being worse. The mini cyclones dissipate, causing the hovering members to fall, but Yu cushions their descent with a stream.

  As they land safely, Lisa quickly fires her gun at the enemy in the corner, clearing away the tendrils, allowing Yu to use water streams to bring Wyn and Mira back for a regroup. However, Wyn is unconscious and unresponsive to their calls. Fortunately, the mass is thinning, exposing the brains. Yu summons a stream beneath the mass, engulfing it in rushing water that James instantly freezes to trap the eye in place. At full charge, Lisa fires electrifying laser beams from her gun, aimed directly at the eye. The impact destroys it, and soon after, the scattered chunks begin to disintegrate. In the corner, essence dust appears – the battle is finally over.

  After a couple of slaps to the face from James, Wyn finally regains consciousness. The team supports Wyn and Mira as they make their way toward the corner. Once they share the essence, the nerds, accompanied by the demons, approach them.

  As the cats affix a cartoonish sticker of the Legion’s face onto the team’s shirts, one of the nerds opens a screen to display the data they’ve gathered.

  “Thanks to you, we’ve learned a lot about LFS,” she says while adjusting her glasses.”

  “What is LFS?” Yu asks.

  “Acronym for the creature.”

  According to the report, the patches were fixed in specific positions and couldn’t relocate, but the eyes had the ability to move between the face, the center of the head, the limbs, the center of the stomach, and the thighs while the creature was in its humanoid form. Without actual eyes or an organ for speech, a result of cross-species merging, the brains took on these functions. While a typical parapsycho would control a brain and then breed, the Legion worms only inhabited the brains to breed and infest new ones. The task of keeping the brains alive and ensuring the Legion operated fluidly fell to the queens – each big in size and buried within an eye, which also added an extra layer of protection. Losing a queen meant losing a significant number of brains, or in this case, losing processing power, rendering the Legion unable to create elemental patches. Although targeting the queens was the most effective way to defeat the creature, chipping away at its mass was another, albeit less efficient, method.

  “You were able to collect this much data?” Wyn asks softly.

  “Don’t talk. You should rest!” Mira demands.

  “You should too, sis!” Lisa also demands.

  “Why weren’t we dissolved while inside the Legion? Isn’t that how a mimic feasts?” Wyn asks, ignoring Mira’s plea.

  “Yes, but it didn’t want to do that. You see, it wanted to turn you into one of them, so it could grow.”

  “Lucky us, I guess. Then...might as well, what about the foxymoron? What were its weaknesses?”

  “Errr, the foxhydra? Once the tail was off the mouth, you could attack the fox directly to kill it. Your method was essentially the same – it allowed you to attack the fox but in its non-aggressive state.”

  Before they part ways, the nerds honor the team’s victory as the first to face and defeat the Legion by offering them the chance to decide on its description at no cost. Wyn opts out, allowing Yu to take the lead. Together, the four come up with: “An angry shimmering thing or whatever it is. Just attack its eyes, please.”

  “Oh! I almost forgot – there’s a chance you can defeat the goosebumps. We’ll observe the fight if you guys choose to challenge it,” the same nerd says.

  “Was the Legion intelligent?” Wyn asks.

  “Seems like it, but it was the only one of its kind...for now. Until another group of parapsychos and mimic-iis merge again, we won’t know for sure.”

  “It was intelligent. It talked and it knew what it wanted!”

  Ignoring Wyn's assertion, the nerds exit the area. As the team returns to Cateto’s campsite, the cat quickly licks their wounds.

  “I’ve never let any…thing lick my face before. Feels kinda nice,” Wyn says as Cateto is licking his face.

  “Noted, Oppa,” Mira says.

  “Huh?”

  As usual, they gather in Wyn’s tent. Instead of resting, Wyn decides to throw a party to celebrate their victory and honor Anish. With each member’s essence exceeding thirty thousand, their confidence is higher than ever. Unanimously, the next target is the goosebumps, with the description: “Peace is never an option!”