Small rocks and debris were falling from the hole which Vicky was blasted into; the dust from the impact obscured the view making it hard for Phil to see if he had finished Vicky off. But the suspense did not last long, quite footsteps echoed inside the large cavern.
Vicky was slowly walking, her body had cracks all over and a sizable chunk on her chest was destroyed revealing the true body of the nightmare origin. The face of Annie's father mixed with the characteristics of a spider, with fangs instead of a human mouth and multiple eyes on the upper part of his head, was peaking inside Vicky's chest.
Vicky stopped walking her body bent backward as the nightmare origin's eyes squinted at Phil angrily, he could not believe that his regal body would be tainted by an insignificant insect.
With a deep guttural growl, it spoke to Phil.
"INSOLENT CUR, YOU DARE TO DAMAGE MY REGAL BODY!!"
"YOU SHALL PAY WITH YOUR LIFE!!"
The nightmare origin instantly flashed in front of Phil, making him dazed and unable to move, he did not expect how fast the nightmare origin was. It punched his abdomen wanting to return the damage he had done into it, thankfully Phil's power helped him in protecting his vitals, but he was still sent flying away.
Blood pooled inside Phil's mouth and even though he was protected by his power a bit, he could still feel the excruciating pain in his abdomen. He flew backward into a wall and slammed hard, air escaped his mouth and he had difficulties in breathing, Phil was on his knees his vision was spinning he coughed and let out some blood signifying that he had injured his internal organs.
Convulsing he stood up and fell down a couple of times the nightmare origin was feeling joy in his misery.
Phil's energy bottomed out as his body tried to use the power to heal his wounds. Phil had to refill his energy quick or else he will perish inside the nightmare.
'En, manage my energy so that I won't go lower than -15.'
'What do you want to do?'
'You'll see.'
Phil screamed, his head starting to ache as maddening whispers filled his head, power filled his body, he tearfully looked at his energy bar which was now on -15.
The nightmare origin that sensed the changes inside Phil was alerted, it did not want to suffer another blow from Phil since it was disgraceful to be hit by an insect. It hid inside Vicky again, using her body like a tortoise shield. Peeking inside her chest cavity ready to spit out globs of the acidic web.
Tears of blood streamed down Phil's face, his body was heavily injured and the stress of overusing his power was piling up to him. He crouched down like a tiger ready to pounce on its prey. And like an arrow released from a large ballista, he shot towards the location of the nightmare origin
The nightmare origin used the spider appendages located on Vicky's back as a shield, trying to minimize the damage Phil might cause. The nightmare origin had an involuntary fear from the power within Phil, it could feel that if Phil is stronger than he is now, then he would be destroyed easily, but thankfully for it, Phil had such a low amount of energy that it took a large toll on his body to perform such attacks in a consecutive strike.
The nightmare origin sees Phil heading towards him quickly; he braced for impact and concentrated on redirecting the force of Phil's charge towards its feet.
But sadly for the nightmare origin, Phil's target was not it. Phil simply ran past and attacked the spiders that were standing still in the distance behind the nightmare origin.
Turning its body slowly, the nightmare origin looked at Phil as he decimated the horde of spiders and eat those he attacked.
More cracks filled Vicky's body as rage built up inside the nightmare origin, it was mad that Phil had the audacity to deceive it and attack his minions instead.
Phil's plan was successful. He did not want to attack the nightmare origin but instead, he wanted to have a supply of something to devour so that he could refill his energy bar so that he could fight for a longer amount of time.
Attacking the horde of spiders that were stunned when Phil attacked Vicky, Phil's energy bar was quickly refilling. His energy bar was back at 10 when the nightmare origin screeched and commanded the spiders to fight Phil instead of standing dazed and letting Phil massacre them.
The nightmare origin blinked on the right side of Phil and tried to attack him who was killing and eating the spiders, but this time Phil had sufficient energy. He quickly controlled his power to go to his arms, he crossed his arms and successfully blocked the nightmare origin's attack, but instead of bracing and holding his ground, Phil chose to let the force of the hit blow him away increasing the distance between him and the nightmare origin.
Phil continued to attack the spiders and ate those who he killed while opting to defend or deflect the blows from the nightmare origin, and when his energy values were full he stored the spiders that he killed inside his pocket, although it was hard doing so since defending the blows from the nightmare origin takes a chunk of energy to successfully defend and he needed to continuously eat to outset the expenditure.
The seesaw of half-full energy and full energy was still going after 5 minutes, the nightmare origin was furious since his minions were slowly diminishing. Phil's pockets were long full with spider carcasses, he planned for the future since he could no longer store them inside his pockets, he threw the excess spider bodies inside the large cavern so that he had an energy refilling station scattered inside the cavern since he knew that once the spiders were gone he would no longer have something to devour and refill his energy.
Another 10 minutes passed and the war of attrition was still ongoing. En suddenly told Phil that there were no spiders left. Enraged because of the demise of its minions the mind of the nightmare origin was a little clouded, all it could see was red and Phil who was the killer of its brood. The nightmare origin needed its brood to have a foothold inside the abyss or else it would just be prey for other nightmares inside the abyss, without sacrificial pawns to gather more stranded to infest.
Phil who was being closely chased by the enraged nightmare origin suddenly turned and delivered a heavy blow on Vicky's face. Vicky was once again blown away including the nightmare origin inside her. But this time Phil did not let Vicky hit the wall, instead, he chased and delivered another blow, hitting Vicky on her back completely shattering the porcelain doll.
Being hit by two of Phil's heavy blows, the nightmare origin bounced on the floor a couple of times like a flat rock thrown in a large body of water. Phil watched the nightmare origin that was now out of Vicky's body, but due to the damage he did the nightmare origin was left in a massive blob of black smoke.
Deciding that it would take time for the nightmare origin to heal, Phil took the spider bodies he had in his pockets and ate them and a minute later his energy was back to full, Phil wanted to overfill his energy and took another spider inside his pocket when things changed. The body of the spider on his hand melted into black smoke, Phil was shocked at what just happened when En shouted in his mind.
'QUICKLY DESTROY THE NIGHTMARE ORIGIN!'
Heeding En's advice Phil dashed towards the nightmare origin and noticed the dead bodies of spiders that he had killed were turning to black smoke and congregating towards the nightmare origin. Phil was about to dash full speed towards the nightmare origin when En warned him again.
'Phil retreat it's too late.'
Having a bad feeling about what was happening Phil did not hesitate to retreat and quickly dashed away from the nightmare origin.
'En, tell me what's happening right now!'
'The nightmare origin is getting stronger, we took a long time weakening it that Annie's body in the plains of sleep has descended inside the twilight zone. Phil, I advise you to escape and leave the girl, if this goes on and when we end up inside the abyss the nightmare origin will be strengthened once more.'
Phil glanced towards Annie's direction and saw her still concentrating, trying to recall happy memories so that she can defeat the nightmare origin.
'No, I believe in Annie.'
Twisted laughter filled the cavern as a strong aura spread out from the nightmare origin. Its metamorphosis was complete, what remained was a gigantic and hideous spider, the head was still Annie's spider but more inhumane and twisted, it sprouted a human body like an Arachne with twisted and squirming tentacles instead of flesh, it obtained an arm like a mantis with human skulls adorning its joints, the main body was still that of spiders but the abdomen now had masses of growths popping out of it, Phil observed it carefully and saw that the masses of growths in the abdomen of the nightmare origin were in fact human heads squirming and screaming wanting to get out.
Phil lost confidence in himself, he felt that he could not defeat such an abomination in his current power, but he was confident in Annie's ability to smite such a creature and with that, he will fight until the end.