Kyle ran forward and leaped, his perceptions still in astral space, striking with his enchanted weapon. He drove it at the creature's middle back, the place on its body that seemed the most damaged. The knife dug in deep, flashing gold as it did, burying Kyle's hands up to his wrists inside the thing. The mystical shield around his body flashed azure against the bug as it screeched and reared back off Woodhouse, who instantly stepped away, and fell backward, all the while spraying the thing with a burst from his submachine gun. Jerked into the air by the bug's thrashing, Kyle felt a sharp pain across his right arm as one of the bullets sliced into him. That hand spasmed, and he let go of the blade and felt himself twist again, hanging on only by his left hand. His weight, now suspended off one side of the roach's back, dragged the knife down, pulling and cutting deep across the thing's back.