Of Ice, Death & Monsters-Chapter 91 : For Valley’s Of The Lost

14 Days Ago.
For three days and three nights, we continued to fight. There was no hope of rest, of relaxing. Only battles that never seemed to really end.
We could catch our breath after a wave or two, but then another one comes. There was always another one.
What helped, though, was the fact that we weren’t the only ones helping. When we finally left the cave and entered the crater-like valley filled with hundreds of floors, we saw that amongst the thousands of rocks, boulders, monsters, and insane cultists, there were also faeries, a lot… A lot of faeries.
There were elves, knife-eared ass bastards, they bobbed and weaved through the horde of monsters and hails of bullets and arrows, primarily focusing on disarming the enemies, breaking off claws, cutting off hands, and kicking away what remains over to pixies who carried them off into the winds, arming other fae and eventually, even us.
I tossed Charlie over a modified sniper rifle made from enhanced wood and metal. It was similar enough to a modern firearm that we didn’t have to wait for a minute to reload. The ammo for it, however, is a little tricky to get and a little harder to handle, as they were made of that same poisoned wood from the forest.
It also didn’t really use the same gunpowder I was used to, but I just chalked it up to Magick, especially since the Fae just enchanted it to make it fire out faster and stronger at the expense of it withering more, but with the fact that the place had a good handful of rifles, they helped either way.
Stamina could have been an issue, if not again, for the Fae and their wondrous tricks. I was actually beginning to enjoy them more, especially since they were able to dull the feeling of pain, starvation, and exhaustion while mixing it with pleasure. It felt like I was on those painkillers but to the max, I finally understood why Fae could run those cartels so easily, this shit was addicting.
They actually started to sing songs too, of course, they were ancient hymns that I had no idea about, but I heard some Thalamese words and just went along with it. Charlie and I even danced together as I brutally burned alive several monsters, and she shot many of the cultists in the head without a second thought.
The one thing that constantly made sure that the Fae were active was the fact that most of them couldn’t be properly killed. Whenever one of the pixies or faeries was in danger, they turned into strange sparkles in the wind, becoming intangible to anything save for the venom from the serpents, which caused them great agony.
However, with us in the mix, that was no longer much of a problem. They prolonged us, and we prolonged them. We even managed to sway some to our side, like more Rusulka and beasts. However, not all of them could be so wonderfully saved.
I couldn’t take on the cultists as much. I remembered their faces from the Smorodina, and it felt like a betrayal if I were to fire on one of them. I was lucky to have people like Charlie and Koschei on my side as we continued.
The valley itself looked, smelled, and felt like a graveyard. There were bodies and skeletons everywhere, and in pools of lakes, I saw ghouls emerge from the depths, climbing out as if they were from the depths of the Void itself in a never-ending swarm. I saw the serpents from before, now more than dozens upon dozens of them digging and squirming under the dirt and stone, burrowing before popping up to devour or to spray their venom on us all.
I had to be the one to deal with them, especially since Poli was getting overworked by the venom they were injecting into the River itself. It was tiring almost with how tricky they were to catch, and how much no weapon we had worked against them. Even chucking a giant slab of earth at them didn’t do much, or pelting them with bullets to the eyes.
Luckily, thanks to the Fae, I had fewer issues with the constant blowback of the venom clashing with my fire, but I still felt that dull pain ache through my body, mind, and soul. I had to beat them back, never able to kill except maybe when I caught some off guard, but that was about it.
Even then, the rest simply burrowed away and tried to strike from another angle, or disrupt our flow by trying to cut the army off, but we managed to fend them off the best we could.
But alas, that was only the beginning of our troubles. For the closer we grew, the stronger the enemies seemed to get, and the nearer to the center we were, the more I felt this kind of pressure bog down on me. I’m not sure how I could describe it other than “Taxing”.
It was as if dread itself filled the aura, not too dissimilar to the Smorodina, but instead of the whispers of the dead and damned, it was an uncomfortable silence. An emptiness pervades throughout the valley, which layered a dullness over us all.
Then, a burst of energy, of life, an explosion of radiance blossomed through the air like a rainbow of light, showering us in prismatic illusions.
Afterwards came forth the smell of pines, of oak, and of willows. The sweet fragrance of flowers swept through the air, filling the atmosphere with life and decadence. It almost felt as good as the garden that Azhdaya tended to.
Everything felt so clear, so crystal, but then it was dampened once more by the intense, dull silence that continually filled the air. This continued every so often, in that it felt nauseating. Luckily, all of the Fae mitigated that feeling, or well, tried to. But when we finally got close to the bottom of the valley, we saw what was going on, or well, we tried to.
Right in the center of the valley was a massive wound in the earth shaped like a serpent. At the very middle of it was a circular helix-like hole cut deep as if with a drill, around it were hundreds, if not thousands, of ritualistic circles scrawled along buried roots filled with ash.
Slithering around were hundreds of… Lamias?! Snake people, with their upper halves as humans and their lower halves as serpentine, slither all across the burned roots as fast as possible. They wore ancient green and gold robes as they inscribed rituals and runes upon the ground frantically.
I could see why, as even if they got a second of free time, they were immediately skewered by several tree branches before violently exploding in a mist of red smoke, or turned into a large plant like a vine stretched along the ground before being completely shriveled up.
However, it wasn’t long after that when a new lamia would surface up from the cracks as if they were being reborn again. I could swear that they were the same ones, too.
“What the fuck is going on…” I muttered before turning my head to the very center, squinting my eyes as everyone bore witness to the godlike presences amongst us.
Down below, at the deepest part of the valley that could be witnessed by the moon’s light, were three forces that could be felt. Not seen, as they moved too fast for any one of us to see.
Nature and Wonder, side by side, fought back against Death. Each rainbow was dissipated by a fog of despair, clouding and breaking apart the light as it refracted it off its smog. But then the fog was shaken, overtaken by a fragrance and mist of flowers that bloomed in spite of it, choking it out as it focused the once dull rainbow back into a radiant force.
But then black bile emerged from the crevices, erupting like geysers that submerged the flowers in a darkened grasp, choking them out as they started to shrivel up. It overflowed beyond that, stretching out like pollution as they gurgled and gargled like there were people drowning within.
However, nature wouldn’t be stopped so easily as the blackened bile suddenly clashed with crystal clear water, mixing with each other, trying to drown out the pollution with the sheer amount that it gave over and over again.
Eventually, the black bile succumbed, subsumed by the waters of purity, but even so, monsters emerged from it, dark masses of gnashing teeth and maws filled with grotesque, fleshy fins that constantly secreted out an inky cloud. The darkness’s presence lived on, deep within, unable to die so easily, yet the presence ofthe wonder of nature would always bring it down, ensuring it would not see the light of day.
“What the fuck is going on, actually?” I looked around, trying to get an answer as Charlie just blinked, looking at me, as she was just as confused.
I even turned to Koschei, who simply marvelled at the sight in front of him, grinning ear to ear. “It’s marvelous… I haven’t seen a battle like this since Yaga fought, and even then, it’s always so amazing to witness and be beholden to.”
“W-What is?” Baba Yaga, as in, the Baba Yaga… If this is something on their level of fighting style, then… What in the world is right in front of me?
Poli finally emerged from the waters, her body looking ragged as she focused herself. “We are here…”
“Yeah, uh, I can see that, thanks… Do we have to fight that? Whatever it is?”
One of the elves walked to my side, shaking her head. “Nay, that is not our battle, for if we were to trespass onto it, we would end up much like the Skiper-Kin, but unlike them, we do not have the means to return so quickly from the Nawia.”
I gulped, so they were being killed and respawned as fast as possible.
“Normally, we would be able to return from our Watcher’s Realm as we bound ourselves there, but the Skiper’s power ensures that any death by their hand would cause us to fall into the Nawia.
Oh great, now we can’t even resurrect… Why am I worried about that? I can’t do that, wait, maybe I can? Wow, okay, this is weird.
“So, what do we do then?”
“You are the Harbinger’s Chosen, correct? It is you who would be the most likely to enter into the fray.”
“Yeah… I figured… But what could I do? I don’t even know what is happening.”
“Then, allow us to go with you in spirit.”
“Is that a euphemism or-”
Suddenly, a familiar rainbow-like sparkle fell upon me. My entire body felt energized as everything became so much clearer. My senses from my sight to hear sharpened so much so that everything felt high definition. It was as if I finally woke up and removed my blindfolds and earplugs, witnessing what the world was like for the very first time.
And then, I gazed upon what was in front of me.