Elydes-Chapter 357 - Terror

Elydes-Chapter 357 - Terror

Chapter 357 - Terror
Kai let out a shallow breath and tightened the grip on his dagger. Ice stung his palm beneath the handkerchief of the frozen hilt. His eyes fixed on the pale monster, body wound to spring.
A black tongue lashed between the maw of jagged teeth with a wet clicking.
The cavern stretched wide and uneven, choked with stone protrusions. Voices yelled and sobbed in the background. He couldn’t spare the mind to make out more than a couple words, afraid to even blink, lest he miss a lunge. Behind him, the injured students seemed to have regained their wits once the Pale Stalker’s attention turned elsewhere.
Despite its eyeless face, Kai knew the creature was studying him.
A passing swipe had nearly gutted him. Spindly claws raked through his shattered shield, carving stone and ice as if they were pudding. Muscles rippled beneath the predator’s gaunt skin like spasming cords. Its movements came in fluid jolts and sudden lurches—each twitch a fraction faster or slower than he expected.
The disjointed gait should have looked clumsy. It was not. It sought to lull him into false complacency, but the dissonance only fed his fear.
A crawling whisper brushed his ear—a heartbeat of warning. Then the Pale Stalker lunged, its figure blurring with motion.
Kai released the ice spear he’d prepared and jumped into an Empowered dodge. Even as he leaped midair, he caught the monster twisting and contemptuously swatting his spell.
Claws whipped the air a hair’s breadth from his neck. He hit the ground in a roll, mindful of his poisoned dagger. His arms angled to cast Water Cannon. Mana rushed through the channels down his shoulders. Two spheres of pressurized water hurled from his palms toward the stalker’s maw and torso.
The creature drew deep grooves into the stone to arrest its momentum. Wiry limbs unnaturally bent below the spells, already coiling for another leap to intercept him.
With his profession skill on cooldown, Kai grasped his Water mana to form another ice shield, his body still careening through the roll.
Could he really fight such a monster?
Rocks grazed his palms where his coat didn’t protect his skin. Ignoring the beast’s twisted posture, he trusted his Intuition to aim his dash. Mana flared through his veins, ready to—
A whisper ripped his plans.
The glistening black tongue lashed from the stalker’s maw. His condensing shield fractured, unable to slow the fleshy appendage that blurred toward his head. Fast. Inevitable.
Dread locked his muscles and stopped his thoughts. His pulse hammered in his throat. Every instinct screamed to run, yet his limbs felt distant, the makeshift dagger forgotten in his grip. He’d already pushed his body and mana past their limit. What else could he do? He couldn’t dodge. Better he just—
The Pale Stalker flinched. Three blades whistled through the frigid underground—one to sever the lashing tongue, two to impale its torso. The beast jerked back. It didn’t withdraw its attack, but slowed enough for Kai to wrench his mind from its paralysis and scramble away.
Rocks and dirt scattered to his left where the tongue struck, before the creature’s retreating body forced it to recoil. The beast withdrew among the stalagmites of the cavern. Despite its wary stance and the menacing clicking, no mark marred its taut skin.
Wh—what…
“Mat, are you wounded?” Alden’s voice came from behind him. “Did it strike you anywhere?”
Kai didn’t dare avert his eyes from the threat. “I… No… I— I’m fine.”
He tried to steady his voice. Cold sweat clung to his neck and soaked through his shirt. He brushed the grit from his bloody palms, clenching his hands to keep them firm. His thoughts churned to grasp what’d happened—so close to having his skull burst like an overripe melon.
As the monster’s attention shifted to Alden, the terror stunting his thoughts ebbed like a tide. The effect weakened the more he focused on it—likely a trick to lull prey into overconfidence. It let people believe they’d resisted the skill, only for the fear to creep back the moment their focus wavered.
And I fell for it. Such an idiot.
A century would be too short to forget the humiliation if he’d died like that.
Kai rubbed his face. A cold tingle stung along his cheekbone. When he pulled back, a crimson smear glistened on his hand, smelling metallic—the graze he’d received in their first exchange.
Oh shit…
Icy water only dampened the itch for seconds. Horror wormed into his guts. This time, he couldn’t tell where his feeling ended and the Pale Stalker’s skill began.
“Uhm… Alden. Is that monster venomous?”
His roommate’s loud swallow did not ease his nerves.
“Did you get hit by its tongue?”
“I… Maybe. It’s barely a scratch. It tingles a bit. Can’t you do something with your Magic?”
“That’s not how it works. I need to study and test a substance before I can manipulate it. If I had time, I might slow the spread to let your body fight it, but…”
An eerie clicking reminded them of the creature studying them.
“Just how bad is it?” Kai asked snappily. “Am I already dead? Is my face about to melt off?”
“No, nothing of the sort. The venom is high-grade, but not especially potent. It’s not meant to kill. It makes the victim more susceptible to the fear aura. In all honesty, I’m surprised you’re able to speak coherently. Unless you have a skill for mental resistance…”
Kai ignored the inquiry. “Any idea how to kill that thing? Weaknesses to exploit?"
“I’m… not certain. I never deeply studied the Underground layers. Pale Stalkers shouldn’t prowl this close to the surface. The clicking it makes is a form of echolocation, so it’s probably sensitive to Sound Magic. Fire and Light spells could be effective too. Can you cast any of them?”
“Not to any useful degree,” Kai said, shedding his ruined coat. The flimsy protection wasn’t worth hindering his movements. “And I assume we can’t outrun it?”
“It’s called a stalker for a reason. Once it injects its venom, it can track its prey for miles. The only escape is the enchantment on our bracelets.”
“Do they work? What about the injured students? I thought something was wrong if they didn’t use them.”
Unless they were too paralyzed by fear to think. Or too stupid…
The cavern had been oddly silent.
Taken from NovelFire, this narrative should be ed if found on Amazon.
Alden shuffled behind him. “The only way to check the runes is by triggering them. And also… the other students have already left.”
“What?” Kai nearly tore his gaze off the pale monster. Then flicked his senses to sweep the cavern. Empty. “Did they activate their bracelets?”
“Ran away through the tunnel,” Alden said tersely. “They left the moment the fear aura shifted on you.”
Motherfuckers.
His teeth ground with irritation. He would have understood if they’d teleported to safety. Using them as bait to flee without failing the Trials was another matter. For one petty moment, he was tempted to lure the monstrosity after them.
Could have at least left me a sword before running. Cowards.
A wet clicking marked the end of their talk. Instead of lunging, the Pale Stalker prowled with disjointed lurches and feints as if to test their reactions.
“We can still try the bracelet,” Alden said, tone tense.
“Do you want to?” Kai adjusted his grip on the poisoned dagger, eyes tracking the creature.
Something had gone wrong with these Trials—more than a sloppy mistake. Would a malfunctioning seal spare them from expulsion if they escaped? Could he afford that risk? Beyond wasting a year, the academy could deny the application of any reapplying student.
It’s just one beast.
Taking Alden’s silence as agreement, Kai stepped forward. Someone had to take the front, and his pale friend didn’t look made for close combat. “Cover me.” He fought best alone, but right now he’d need every advantage if he hoped to win—and stay alive.
We should have rehearsed more scenarios.
“Mat, do you have a plan?”
“Of course—”
The Pale Stalker rushed, hooked fingers outstretched to disembowel him.
Warned by his skill, Kai vaulted over a boulder to his left and hurled a spray of ice shards into its flank. Pebbles rained down where the beast had failed to skewer him. A poisoned blade streaked to form a pincer before it could wrench its claws free.
The strike looked inevitable—yet missed.
The monster twisted as though bones were merely a suggestion, evading the flying knife and swatting the icicles with contemptuous ease. Kai crushed the tendril of fear worming through his thoughts, letting mounting irritation sharpen his focus. He had faced true horrors and foes with overwhelming power. What was one peak Yellow beast?
A hail of ice needles pelted the creature. Even if he failed to hit, the barrage would disrupt its movements. The provocation earned him another pounce—and a narrow escape through Hallowed Intuition.
It wasn’t his highest skill for nothing, a lifetime of calculated risks honed on the edge of a blade.
Kai circled the creature, careful to keep some distance. Knowing where danger would strike didn’t always mean he could avoid it, though the whispers meshed well with the stalker’s penchant for sudden lurches.
The glistening tongue flicked, frustrated at the frozen needles. Tired of dodging, the beast let the ice harmlessly shatter on its wiry frame, only to jerk when a sturdier icicle grazed its milky skin. Black blood oozed from the wound.
Kai smiled coldly, thinning his ice spells to conserve his mana. The channels in his arm ached to hold Water Cannon on the cusp of casting.
A lunge cut his celebration short. Clawed limbs sailed past him, tickling his neck. Missing him, the wiry predator bent around the compressed spheres and hooked its nails on a stalactite jutting from the ceiling. Spindly legs raked the stone, coiled to dart back in.
Shit.
Kai kicked off a boulder to carry his momentum into another dodge. His muscles tore and burned as Body Augmentation pushed his body past its limits. Earth and Water slicked the cavern floor into mud, turning his dash into a slide beneath the outstretched claws.
Hallowed Intuition hissed to move without reprieve or mercy. Behind him, the stalker sprang to continue its assault.
“Watch out!” Alden yelled. Fear laced his imperturbable tone. Two blades flew to intercept the monster.
Kai soaked the ground with more mana. A roughly concave rock bruised his back to redirect his muddy slide away from the jagged edges of the cavern. His hands and feet scrambled for purchase as the Stalker’s gaping maw darted closer.
The poisoned daggers bought him a few instants to recast and miss Water Cannon. Earth Magic was too slow to use offensively. His ligaments groaned as he forced his body into another narrow dodge, chasing a thread of whispered hope away from the creature’s path.
Death breathed down his neck.
The monster’s aura slithered against his mind. Cold and slimy.
Try again.
Kai raised his knife to guard his head. Ice crackled over his shoulder and arm, forming makeshift armor. More shards burst at the creature.
His body had almost sailed to safety when the predator wrenched its own. Hooked nails scored three burning gashes along his side.
The stalker’s wet clicking sounded almost gleeful. Before the pain fully registered, the fleshy tongue darted toward him, barely slowed by the odd angle.
No time to sidestep or form a solid shield. Kai pushed away his rising panic and channeled Water into a revolving sphere. The tongue pierced the liquid defense—slightly off course, but strong enough to shatter the ice on his forearm and cut through flesh.
Dusting off an old maneuver, he froze the shield around the extended appendage. His mana clashed against the Stalker’s corroding venom to wrest a fleeting victory.
The tongue lolled, weighed down by a solid sphere of ice. Ignoring the pain flaring along his ribs, Kai slashed with his poisoned blade. The frozen hilt cracked as he put all his Strength into severing the glistening flesh.
An arm-length of black flesh slipped to the ground, still twitching/wiggling.
Before he could savor his strike, a shriek split the cavern—rage and agony scraping inside his skull. The Pale Stalker recoiled the bleeding stump, limbs contorting wildly. Nameless terror blanketed Kai’s thoughts. The air thickened. Breath swallow. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as the walls of the cavern seemed to close in around him.
Get out… of my head!
Kai staggered back, hands clamped over his ears as he tried to shut out the monster’s flaring aura. His jaw clenched until he could taste copper in his mouth.
Reasserting control, Kai retrieved the knife he’d dropped and froze the wounds along his side to staunch the bleeding. He spared a glance for where Alden picked himself up from where he’d crouched, clutching his own head.
The fight wasn’t over yet.
The Stalker slowly settled its writhing. Without hesitation, its claws severed another segment of its maimed tongue.
Kai wondered if the monster had truly gone mad—then realized.
The poison coating.
After all the dirt from his dodges and the water from the melting hilt, he’d be surprised if much of it remained on the blade.
Enough to alert the beast.
A cold tingle along his forearm warned him of his own predicament. Black veins spread beneath his skin where the Stalker’s tongue had cut him.
That doesn’t look good.
Blood dripped from the wounds along his ribs. The ice wasn’t more than a stopgap measure. The muscles across his body ached, strained from the flood of mana. His condition would only worsen once he deactivated the Body Augmentation.
He had to close the fight.
Luckily for him, the Pale Stalker appeared to have the same idea. Slurping back what remained of its tongue, it lurched forward with an erratic gait—the caverns starkly quiet without its clicking.
Kai reignited his skills and banished his distraction. Pain, venom and wounds. Only survival had a place in his mind. He threw himself into the deadly dance, weaving around the Stalker’s claws and maw, biding his time for an opening.
Clipping its tongue had driven the creature into a frenzy. Assault after assault, it hurled itself with wild abandon, seemingly only wary of the flying daggers.
Strangely, it never tried going for Alden, either blinded by hate for its poisoned prey or afraid to face the poisoned blades up close.
One less worry. Now, if only it would stay still…
Cuts and bruises mapped his body as Kai became intimately familiar with the cavern floor. His shirt clung to his ribs, sticky with blood.
Fear pressed on his defenses, threading his thoughts like poison, making him doubt his own instincts. Only Hallowed Intuition kept him a step ahead of death. Whatever dark hole the thing had crawled out of—a peak Yellow beast couldn’t defy Fate.
Sliding past a boulder, he traded skin for speed to evade a lethal strike. His aimed icicles grazed the Stalker as if he were trying to nail a shadow. Poisoned daggers and Water spells thinned as their mana pools dwindled.
Kai wracked his brain for a way to gain an edge—surviving didn’t mean he wasn’t slowly losing. Without Hallowed Intuition, he wouldn’t have lasted a single exchange. Without Alden’s blades, he wouldn’t have survived a second, gifting him precious moments to recover. The thin cuts he’d scored over the creature’s sickly skin couldn’t reverse the tide of the battle.
Shadow Magic couldn’t hide him from the stalker’s venom, and the sparse moss and fungi offered too little fuel for Nature Magic.
As exhaustion set in, the Stalker’s insidious dread became harder to repel. Each breath felt thinner. His focus dulled grain by grain, his reactions flagged, coaxing panic in the cracks of his will.
After a claw almost slit his throat, he triggered the active side of Nature Healing. Vibrant mana trickled to soothe his wounds, the motes too scant to buy him more than seconds.
I can’t win like this.
Whether the bracelets worked or not, he wouldn’t last ten seconds if the Stalker caught him. He couldn’t hit the creature, and it couldn’t hit him. It was an impasse measured in heartbeats—and he would run out first.
Fight or run. He had to make a choice and commit.
If the professors were watching, he'd rather expose his own skills than Hobbes’.
Taking advantage of a stalactite breaking the stalker’s assault, Kai retreated into the cavern and raised his makeshift knife. Blood mixed with the ice of the hilt. “Can you refresh the poison?”
“Mat, you’re injured…” Alden’s voice sounded strangely airy and concerned. “We should trigger the bracelets. ”
“I’ve got it. I’m going to try something.”
“Just lure it closer. I—”
“The dagger. Quick, please,” Kai panted.
A mist of mana finally brushed his weapon. Before Alden could finish, the Stalker leapt toward them. Kai moved to intercept, hoping the poison would be strong enough.
Enough.
When the predator lunged, Kai dodged, letting himself get cornered, his back to a wall. Earth and Water mana softened the ground beneath him.
The Stalker took no coaxing to strike, claws stretched to cut his escape.
Closing his eyes, he trusted his Intuition to tell him the moment to shift.
Slashing at empty air, the creature slammed into the mud pit, limbs flailing for a solid grip. Before it could twist free, Kai reappeared on its back. His legs locked around its wiry torso. Echoing Empath flared, returning the Stalker’s fear back on itself. It was only a weak, rough imitation, but he just needed a moment to sink the poisoned knife into its back.
In and out. In and out.
The thin blade penetrated the stringy flesh without resistance. He managed five stabs before the wiry frame wiggled beneath him. Spatial Shift brought him away from any retaliatory strike.
Kai landed on solid ground ten meters back as the Stalker thrashed in the mud. His lips curved into a smile. After scraping the whole battle to survive, this felt laughably easy.
He prepared for another pass when the creature shuddered. It stilled for a heartbeat—then a shriek tore through the cavern, raw and grating. The flesh around the stab wounds darkened and flabbed. Its limbs convulsed, gouging trenches in the mud as black veins spidered beneath its pallid skin. The maimed tongue lashed from its maw, body spasming and writhing, the mana unraveling against itself.
In a handful of seconds, the Stalker’s struggles slowed, each twitch weaker than the last, until it collapsed into the mud with a wet thud. It wouldn’t get up again.
Guess it was enough.
“That’s quite the potent venom,” Kai turned to meet Alden’s gaping stare.

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Chapter 357 - Terror