The electrical bomb hit Henry like a flash-bang that basically blinded his senses, shocked his whole body, and somehow stabbed into his soul like an iron-maiden of burning, zapping spikes that went right through his physical defenses. It was incredibly painful and for an instant, Henry knew nothing but pain. Not even his Octominds could be heard from the all-consuming shock, but a moment later the world came back into his consciousness as his green, healing Octomind pumped him full of healing magic, which allowed him to realize that the electric bomb wasn't the only source of his pain.

It was also the large, teeth-capped limb that had cracked through the lobster's back. Henry didn't recall if he'd aimed for the joint, if it had been luck, or if the teeth had just skidded and got caught by one of the edges, but the result was that the joint between the plats was weaker the thickest parts of the shell, and it meant that Henry had stabbed pretty deeply into the lobster's flesh, which was now conducting an incredible amount of current up his arm and into his body.

It wasn't as bad as the bomb though.

Tearing his arm out, Henry blinked away, his Octominds working on flushing the seizing essence out of his body. His limbs were still violently jerking about as his vision and muscles seized violently from the foreign essence. He could even feel his heart stuttering and skipping beats, but a regular flow of healing helped calm those down.

That hurts. But I got him too, he thought as he eyed the blue blood flowing out of the lobster. The sight reminded him of cloud and storms. The cloud of blood was crackling with electricity, but Henry couldn't admire the phenomenon for long and instead, he pitted his own will and focus into helping his free Octominds into purging out the foreign essence.

Not willing to stay in place, Henry began swimming around, temporarily pulling the attention of the Octominds handling the looting and exploring to help him purge the foreign influence faster. He didn't disturb the one working on integrating his Skill, but thankfully, it was already nearly done, so the electric bomb hadn't caused too much damage.

That had been nasty, he thought as his own Renewal essence wrestled and pushed the foreign essence out. The violent jitters eased, making his movement smoother as he watched the lobster furiously click its claws as its sight tracked him. Its body suddenly glowed as its lowered itself into the sand, and Henry tensed.

And the Skill's ready.

The lobster kicked off and a beat later Henry's sight was obstructed as the A-rank appeared in front of him, open claw crackling toward his eyes. Having been ready, Henry ducked right in time to save his brains and stomach from being scattered. The two smaller arm zipped forward, trying to get a grip on him but Henry had already teleported away.

Having detected the flare of magic, the lobster's body shone again, looking up as its tail tensed to propel it at Henry, only to be blasted by a green sickly ray right in its mouth.

No, not good enough, Henry cursed as the lobster shook its head, irritated. Readying another blast, Henry narrowed his attention on the Skill and sensed how it stubbornly refused to channel the venoms he wanted it to carry. He had suspected that it didn't use his own venoms, but that actually miffed him. He had more at his disposal than the simple toxin of the ray. He wanted to be able to dictate what kind of venom it used. He wanted to use his own cocktails.

I'll keep trying. Otherwise I need to get on it and bite… but its damn shell is tough.

The lobster rushed after him once more, but Henry just switched places with another clone and had the one who took his place detonate to give him time. Channeling some of his Predation into the new Toxic Ray, he gritted his teeth as he urged the Skill to accept his tranquilizing venoms. Henry would have loved getting down there and giving the lobster a taste of his cocktails—specifically the new B-rank effect of bite where he could inject his mana as a malicious agent into the monster's blood—but frankly, sticking to the A-rank while it was still this lively was an awful prospect.

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Unfortunately, while absorbing the Skill and making it permanent had taken barely minutes, changing it so it worked as he wanted would take a bit longer.

Oh well… that'd be one of my next projects, he thought as he dodged another bum-rush from the lobster. Henry angled his mouth up, and the Predation-empowered ray of green blasted out, like some sort of pillar-wide laser, instantly engulfing the lobster. Just looking at the magic was making his eyes burn, and that only got worse when Henry flitted to the side as the lobster came at him once more, its once pristine shell discolored by pale blotches.

Henry's skin and gills burned as he swam through the toxin-affected water, but it wasn't too bad. And as he eyed the lobster, he grimly realized that he might need to get close once more.

The most damage I've done was with the stab. The ray does some damage… but I'm eating into my mana and I'm not recovering enough from the surrounding water, he calculated. If he could latch on, he could steal much more, but he believed that even if he empowered his defensive Skills with all of his Aspects, he'd still get zapped pretty hard.

Or…

Henry hummed, eying the large limb, then his other free arms. Could it work? He did get the ability to mimic matter and its properties from Rocky. And with Matter Mimicry now part of Shapeshift, his idea could work.

What the hell. It's worth a short, he thought as he activated the Shapeshift and as the rigid, interlocked coating spread up his large limb and without going up his main body, it spread down his other arms, coating all of his arm's tips with an iron, metallic sheen.

If this doesn't work, then I might pull my other clones and… skedaddle… holy shit.

While taking a glance through his looting clones, he finally got some tidbits about what that Octomind had recovered and Henry was almost tempted by bailing right then and now to go back to Thalis and report. But as his eyes fell on the lobster as it readied another charge, he pushed the thought away.

No, not yet, he told himself as he took one more look down at the metallic sheen between his stabbing limb and his remaining arms. It will most likely burn like hell, and it will still leak into his body. But if this worked as I hoped, then he'd last longer in the lobster's proximity.

With a beat of its tail and as lightning crackled upon its shell, the lobster shot up at him like a bullet, only to disappear in a cloud of disorienting ink as Henry took a clone's spot near the seabed.

Alright, let's see, Henry thought, hearts hammering as he drove all but one of his limbs into the sandy seabed. As for the longer one, with an activation of Renewal and Shadow, he turned it fully invisible and looked up as the lobster crackled within the cloud of dissipating ink.

"[Come on. Let's finish this,]" Henry called up and met the lobster's eye. It coiled, ready for another charge, supremely confident in its defenses and in the punch it packed. Then its form blurred, and Henry jerked his invisible arm up and shoved a large chunk of his Renewal into Trickster's Fortitude.

The impact was like a damn truck had been launched into his face. But one of the advantages of having no bones in his body was that he could take such impacts better than most. It did hurt like hell, of course, and he was going to be black and blue, relatively speaking, but it wasn't as effective as it could have been.

And I did get you, Henry thought as he eyed the soft clicking arms of the lobster as it looked down at the gaping hole in its chest. Scrambling to put his metal-coated arms back in the soil, Henry braced, pushing more of his conceptual essence into Trickster's Fortitude as one of the suckers he could sense within the lobster's body began spewing Henry's own mana and venoms within the monsters body.

But it wasn't an A-rank for nothing.

The lobster was a storm of mind-frazzling arcs of electricity. Its presence was overbearing, and while it was still trying to get the spear out of its chest, any moment now it'd start swinging and Henry would need to run but for now, he was dumping all of his venoms in its flesh, stealing its mana and draining everything he could.

Lightning surged out the creature, making Henry jolt with pain, but unlike the other times, the pain and burning was mostly limited to his skin and arms. The protection wasn't absolute, and he could feel the tips of his arms burning as the sand around them was turned to molten glass.

But this… this I can do, he grinned.

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