[center][h2][b]Ilshar Ard’sabekh[/b][/h2][/center]

Some people around the galaxy thought that tarrhaidim did not feel pain. At this moment, like a few times before in his life, Ilshar found himself wishing that this urban legend were true. The terrible hit from the walking corpse-pile had dented his armour inwards, crushing some neural nodes and cutting into the webs of others, to say nothing of the damage from the hit itself. It spoke to his conditioning that he did collapse when the shock wore off and the full sensation of the wound came flooding in, even as the seraph worm spooled back into its lair of non-space, reluctant after its first taste of live prey.

While a tarrhaidim could ache as much as any cerebrate organic, though, there was no reason for an Intransigence agent to do so while a fight was not over yet. Signalling for implanted glands to release sense-deadening agents into his damaged lower back, Ilshar propped himself up with the stock of his gun, quickly surveying the room with multiple eyes at once while he drew himself to one knee. With the amalgam destroyed, the ether-mind presence seemed to be losing its grip on its dwindling thralls. This was not necessarily good. If the entity slipped away before it could at least be identified, it or its ilk could return for another attack later. In a place like Sargass, one should never be comfortable after an apparent victory.

[b]“I’ll trail it through the ether,”[/b] he nodded to Alice, then pointed at the remaining husks, [b]“The rest of you take out those dregs.”[/b]

Following the traces of the Chasm presence was harder now that its influence had receded, but luckily there was a clear focal point in the fading core of the fallen monstrosity. Ilshar directed his ether-senses upon it, latching on the imprint left by the worm’s teeth, and probed for a departing wake of the familiar mental force. If he was still favoured, perhaps it could be pinpointed to a physical location somewhere nearby - although that was itself far from certain.