14/07/337

Vasuki

The first thing that registered was the smell, fermented and rotten. The next was the feeling of death staring through him, he had been in many life and death situations through his life. But seeing this thing in its terrifying glory felt as though this was truly the end of his life. Even the son of Runahera’s presence paled in comparison. The blood-chilling roar echoed through the caverns of the safeguards, he felt tears form in his eyes at the hopelessness of their situation. Noelem roared back, possibly a form of intimidation but he had no idea.

“RUN FOR IT!” Noelem ordered, jumping at the demon. It caught his blade and threw him to the far wall, it crouched and leapt at him, tearing through his rocky armor like butter. Wind tore into its back, blood coming out of a giant, quickly healing, hole in its back.

“You two get out of here! Run to Larkinge!” She ordered, her hair quickly lost the crimson coloring, fading into an abyssal black. The creature grabbed Noelem by the leg and slung him at the three of them. They quickly scattered away from the flying demon.

“Let’s bring it outside, we’ll have more room!” Noelem claimed. Vasuki felt the floor under him flying upwards, and the next thing he knew he was flying through the air a pillar of earth having tossed him through the hole in the caverns.

His ice formed a pillar and caught both him and Audra.

“Come on, Vasuki, we need to get to Larkinge, now!” Audra ordered. His eyes glanced over to her.

“I’m not leaving without them. I don’t care what it takes.” He replied, sliding down the ice. An icy blade forming in his hands. Cabana and Noelem were already surrounding the hole in the ground, their weapons at the ready. The demon jumped through the hole, a stalagmite of stone shot out of the ground at the creature’s chest. It grabbed the spear of earth, jumped from it and flew towards Noelem. Its wing collided with his sword, easily pushing him back. Vasuki jumped towards its back, a black shadow flew under him also after the creature. He plunged his blade deep into the demon’s back. It let out a roar and three fleshing spines emerged from its skin, piercing the scales that had reformed on his left arm. He let out a burst of Etherea from his blade leaking cobalt-ice within its body. Heat, not unlike that of what Noelem created shot out of it, he felt the hairs on his body beginning to burn. He planted his feet into its back and jumped from it. He got a good view of the shadow that had followed him clawing into the other side of its back.

As the heat stopped Audra appeared behind it, a blade made of water within her grasp. She cut a few times into its thighs as it back-handed Noelem, sending him flying. It turned and reached for Audra faster than she could react. It screamed at her before a burst of wind cut through its wrist, dismembering its hand. It looked down at the ground, then over at Cabana and Vasuki. It growled before another hand burst out from where the missing hand had just been. Audra appeared by Cabana’s side.

“What the hell is this thing made of?” Audra asked.

“No idea but it’s throwing Noelem around like a toy.” Cabana claimed, “Careful you two. I’d hate to lose either one of you.”

At first everything was calm, and during this calmness is when he noticed it. There was no rain, not on them at least. However, the trees that surrounded them were constantly being assaulted by falling rain and winds, it was as if they were in the eye of the storm.

The demon jumped at them, it seemed to be going faster. They all jumped out of the way, its wing cut deep into Vasuki’s left leg. Looking down at his calf he noticed a large gash in his pants leg, blood soaking the cloth crimson.

Vasuki came to a stand and saw the creature being held off by a large wall of stone. Noelem leapt onto the Demon’s back and impaled his blade deep within its neck. Magma began to fall from the blade. It reached up with its dragonic talon, grabbed his leg and yanked him off of it. Before beginning to squeeze the man in its grip, his armor cracking and breaking under the pressure. Vasuki felt the ice forming in his left hand once again, this time letting it go through his instincts. He brought his hand up, palm facing the sky in a quick motion. What felt like strings formed from his palm and shot out towards the demon, catching on the middle of each of his fingers as the other end wrapped around the creature’s wrist. He pulled the strings of ice and watched the beast get pulled towards him with enough force to throw Noelem. He pulled the strings behind him and watched the skin begin to tighten.

“Over here.” He felt his soul grow cold, cobalt ice formed at his feet and began to spread quickly around him. It roared at him and began to run but stopped as one of its legs was torn from underneath it. Audra appeared next to him, their eyes met for just a moment, her eyes were the color of the sunset with a tint of purple surrounding the iris.

“You’re insane.”

“You are too.”

The demon came to a stand as the shadow from earlier began to dig into its shoulder. Another heat wave left the demon’s body, melting the icy strings that held its wrist and forcing the shadow to distance itself once again. Regrowing its missing leg, it came to a stand. And despite the challenge it was having with them it still seemed to stare at them like they were lesser beings. Cabana came from, what seemed like, thin air and stabbed into the top of its back, quickly dragging her daggers down the length of it. It screeched another time before trying to turn and grab her, but she was already behind it, stabbing deep into the calf muscle, before vanishing and reappearing in a different spot on its body. The creature was getting faster. Vasuki could see it, it was trying to predict her.

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“Cabana, get out of there!” He shouted, she refused to listen and just a few seconds later the blackened boney claw hit her hard enough to send her through a tree trunk rolling as she hit the ground before stopping when her back hit another tree. The black wind that had been surrounding her had come to a stop and her black hair had returned to crimson.

Vasuki made a run towards Cabana, keeping an eye on the creature, it seemed to be jittering. As if it had adapted to Cabana’s speed, and now that was the new normal. It watched him with intrigue, and while it watched him Noelem’s black blade in its neck exploded, but it didn’t seem to injure the creature. The armored man jumped from seemingly nowhere, the demon’s head snapped to Noelem, grabbed him and threw him deeper into the forest. Vasuki could see in the corner of his eye a bright watery substance ramming into the creature, though he did try to ignore the shrieks. Suddenly he started to feel something building up, a power of total destruction. He skid to a stop at Cabana’s body.

“Cabana, are you alright?” He asked. She looked up at him.

“That…hurt…” She claimed. He put as much Etherea into his sword, did his best to ignore the pain that had begun to make his bones creak. He looked over at the creature, it was busy throwing Noelem through a tree. He swung downwards at the creature, cobalt-ice winter interwoven within it. And as the wave of ice made its way to the demon it was frozen solid.

It felt like his entire arm was about to break afterwards so he let go of the blizzard in his soul. He fell to his knees and did his best to catch his breath.

“I-is it dead?” Audra asked.

“We need to…go…before it gets out of that.” Noelem ordered, heaving heavily. Vasuki stood and helped Cabana up, she was shaky but she could still hold herself up. They only moved a couple of steps towards Larkinge before the ice shattered like glass. The creature crouched down, pale purple eyes darting around like that of a hunter choosing its next meal. Time seemed to stop, the only thing moving was the creature coming after them.

The world was a black void, empty of life, empty of hardship, the only thing that existed was Vasuki and the creature hunting them. It slowly walked up to him, taking its time to feast upon the fear that dripped from him. It stopped a few feet in front of him before slicing into him with the blade from its wrist. And just like that, time resumed.

Audra was hit into the air, blood spilling from somewhere on her body. Vasuki felt his breath escape his lungs while his chest burst into flames of pain. As he fell back he saw Cabana falling backwards, her left arm separate from her shoulder. The last thing the demon did was appear before Noelem before grabbing him by his horned head with its blackened claw. A muffled scream came from within its grasp.

Vasuki finally hit the ground before looking up to see the beast; the Eye of the Storm, holding Runahera’s son by his head, struggling within the creature’s grasp, the sound of thunder roared from each time Noelem’s fist beat against its claw. It squeezed hard until rock and bone popped and cracked under the grip, black blood poured from Noelem’s body once he went limp. It let out a long gleeful screech as it slammed the ground, shoved Noelem’s limp body deep into its mouth then ran into the distance.

Cabana screamed out, blood spurted from the missing limb. Audra was making a similar sound through gritted teeth. Vasuki looked at his chest and covered the exposed muscle in ice before forcing his body to ascend to quicken the healing process. He achingly sat up before quickly crawling on his hands and knees to Cabana.

“Move your hand.” He ordered. Moving her hand away from the missing limb he began to cover her injury in ice. Tears forced their way through her closed eyes.

“So…painful…” She whimpered, he was taken aback for a moment. Cabana had been the pinnacle of power, he wasn’t used to seeing her like this. “This will slow the bleeding. While still letting you heal, just trust me.” He claimed. The sight of Cabana’s dismembered arm laying just a few feet to the side was one he didn’t think would ever happen to someone he had always seen as the powerhouse of Nevenal. Not even Noelem was a match for whatever this thing was. He grunted as he looked down at his chest, the ice was doing its job but the injury would only heal superficially, more scales to grow on his body.

Limping over to Audra, Vasuki got on his knees next to her. She was in the fetal position, her left hand held against her stomach. He grabbed her wrist, thankful the snakes didn’t dig into him for another meal. The damage wasn’t pretty, but at least the top half of her hand would grow back. He covered the missing part in ice to slow the bleeding. Audra winced.

“Shit! Does it have to be that cold?” Audra asked.

“Shut up and be thankful someone is here that can stop the bleeding.” Vasuki retorted. She was silent for a moment.

“How’s Cabana?”

“She’ll live, her arm isn’t going to grow back. Noelem is…”

“I know-shit.” She gritted her teeth, “Some fights just aren’t ones we can win.” Audra claimed, “All we can do is keep moving.”