Sacrifice Mage-Chapter 48: Wyrmkiller

The Brillwyrm was smart. With two of our party members now in the bigger chamber, it was blocking off the smaller tunnel Cerea and I were in with its massive tail.
I could hear the sounds of fighting on the other side. Actually, I could
feel
it. The humongous monster’s roars, its constant strikes and attacks, all of it made the air and the earth around us tremble like an unending series of earthquakes. A part of me was surprised—and relieved, of course—that Ugnash and Khagnio hadn’t gone down yet. But they
were
veterans.
Although, I was now curious just how experienced they were at fighting monsters of this huge calibre.
“How high would you rank this thing?” I asked as I got to the Greater Brillwyrm’s scales. Up close, they were even bigger than I had thought. Each one would have sufficed as a tower shield for Ogres.
“High Gold at the very least,” Cerea said. “If not low Opal. I’m ready.”
I breathed out harshly. A potentially Opal-ranked monster… I decided to assume it was a high Gold-ranked one instead just to keep my feet from quivering. “Alright, let’s do this.”
The knife Blessed by good old Escinca cut into the Scarthrall serpent like it was butter. Didn’t matter that there were thick scales covering up its flesh, I had enough Power to punch the glowing blade through hilt deep. Then I slashed as hard as I could.
With a scream, the Brillwyrm pulled free. Just the opening we were looking for.
“Go, go!” I shouted.
Cerea did so, charging into the chamber where Ugnash and Khagnio were tackling the monstrosity. I wasn’t far behind her. The huge tail was already slamming in, and I had to dive so as not to get turned into a bloody smear on the dungeon floor as the Brillwyrm’s injured limb crashed back in.
“
What in the Pits are you fools doing?
” Khagnio screeched. “You were supposed to
run!
”
“Oh, suck on a Banished tit, Khagnio,” Cerea said. “We’re saving you idiots.”
For all of Khagnio’s screeching, they really did need saving. The monster had battered both him and Ugnash, though it was the Rakshasa who was obviously more beat up.
In fact, just as I had rolled back to my feet, the monster was already attacking the other two again. It opened its jaw wide and rammed its head in their direction, its scaly body and oversized fins breaking along the chamber walls to unleash a small rockfall.
Khagnio was nimble enough to disappear and dodge. Ugnash wasn’t that slow either, but he only moved enough so that the Brillwyrm’s attack wasn’t a direct blow. His huge shield rose up in time to deflect the monster’s thrusting, snapping head to one side, the shield fending off the fangs. Though the force behind the charge still sent the big Rakshasa staggering backwards.
The fin caught him too. It slashed across his ruddy arm, splashing out darker blood from the gash.
“There,” Cerea said, apparently more than hardened against seeing her companion get beaten and chopped. “I’ve got the rocks. Get ready!”
I nodded. We had briefly discussed the plan. Or rather, I had done my best to convince her that I knew what I was doing. In my hands, I clutched the knife in my left grip and in the other, some Brillwyrm scales I had ripped off from one of the many dead body parts the party had collected.
Ugnash and Khagnio countered. The Scalekin reappeared from his Stealth to slash along the Brillwyrm’s flank. His strike opened a gaping wound big enough to swallow me whole, but the monster only screamed out and slammed its body against the wall. Khagnio barely dodged out of the way before he was crushed.
The Rakshasa’s punches were far less effective, though they did crush the monster’s scales to some extent. That was what, I realized, allowed Khagnio to land far more devastating strikes with his red-thread-imbued daggers.
Nevertheless, the Brillwyrm shrugged them both off and countered. The wounds they had left earlier were already healing. Scarthralls could regenerate fast, after all.
But the worst bit was the fact that my time hadn’t come yet. I still had to wait. All I could do was make sure I was in position…
Despite being large and airy, the space was still cramped enough that the monster’s violent motion was causing more and more of the walls and ceiling to shatter and break. Cerea took full advantage, running just close enough that her monochrome threads of mana could shoot towards any of the debris and suck them into her Dimensional Storage.
She had left everything else she’d had in there, all the treasure and the Brillwyrm parts, back inside the smaller tunnel. Her spatial depository was free to collect rocks.
“Almost!” Cerea warned me,
She yelled out at about the same time that the Brillwyrm smashed down its gigantic skull. Ugnash was caught underneath the slam, and he cried out. I could only hope he wasn’t squashed beneath the monster’s huge bulk.
But no, that was good. With Cerea almost done, we needed the Brillwyrm’s attention to shift to us. To
me
.
So I rushed to the nearest bit of the monster and slashed my knife again. The Blessed blade sheared through its tail like I was tearing through cotton.
“How in the Pits are you doing that?” Khagnio yelled out.
My slice had attained the big serpent’s attention again. It screeched and attacked me. Khagnio was taking that opportunity to rush to where Ugnash had been hit to help the big Rakshasa.
I didn’t answer. The Greater Brillwyrm had raised its head high, the crests on its skull brushing the ceiling as its glassy, clouded-grey-and-red eyes stared down at me. At me
and
at Cerea who had appeared close by.
“Here goes,” she said as the Brillwyrm crashed down towards us.
All according to plan.
A few instants before impact, Cerea’s monochrome strands fired into being, sparking to life around us and depositing out every single rock she had taken in. She dived away the instant her rocks were out.
At the same time, I was Sacrificing the Brillwyrm scales I had collected from her.
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 17 [Minor] Scales of a Lesser Brillwyrm. Windfall bonus activated.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from NovelFire. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly it.
Reward
: Inherent Defensive Potency of a Brillwyrm now suffuses your body with Vitality raised by 5 ranks for 2 hours and 50 minutes
]
There was no time to wonder about the specifics of my reward. No way to wonder if the number of small scales was related to the time or extent of defensive power I had received.
Because the monster had almost reached me and I was busy channelling my other Aspect, Gravity. I used Infusion as much as I could, raising my weight higher and higher until I felt like I’d crush my own bones under the mass of my flesh.
The next instant, the Brillwyrm struck.
Normally, the impact would have blown me away if it didn’t kill me outright. It was just way too powerful. The last few moments had more than made it evident.
But I was empowered now. The Sacrifice reward upped my natural defences, and the heavy weight of my body was enough to resist the shockwave bursting outwards. The rocks that flew outwards hurt when they struck, but I had my shield out too, weighted down just like the rest of my body. I was able to stand my ground.
Cerea screamed somewhere to my left as she was nowhere near far enough away yet, nor did she have any of my defences. But I didn’t dare look away.
This was my moment.
I reversed all my weight with Siphon and leaped.
The rocks had one main purpose. Whenever the Brillwyrm attacked with its gigantic maw, it always snapped its jaws closed with furious power and speed to crush its target with its huge fangs. I couldn’t have that. Not if I wanted to execute my plan of killing the monster from inside.
Just like always, the Brillwyrm’s massive jaws tried to snap shut. But the rocks were in the way. Allowing me to leap into its mouth.
It was a massive rush through my whole body. Exhilaration possessed me like Cerea’s lightning bolts were coursing through my veins. As the monster screeched and roared and raised its massive head off the ground, all I could focus on was squeezing my way through the rocks and deeper into the monster’s gullet before they were all crushed. Before
I
was crushed.
My senses were assaulted on all horizons. I could hardly see in the gloom My nose burned with the stench of the Brillwyrm’s innards and I wasn’t even properly inside it yet. Breathing turned difficult. The rocks turned into dust from the crushing force, and soon, their broken chunks were pressing in on me from all sides. Bastard Scarthrall monster was also smashing its head against the dungeon walls, trying to dislodge me.
Which all changed when I raised my weight again. More and more infusion pumped weight back into my body. I made it sudden, fast, as I sank lower and latched onto the Brillwyrm’s fleshy, slimy tongue.
The sudden shift in weight made the monster cry out as its head was forced downwards. I ignored the subsequent crash sending rocking tremors through me, held on tightly so as not to be jostled out, and forced my queasy stomach to not try to upend itself at such a critical moment.
Then I forged onwards. It was hard to move with how heavy I had made myself, but dragging myself deeper into the monster’s gullet with my knife stabbing into its tongue wasn’t impossible.
The Brillwyrm cried out the farther I got and thrashed around, despite the weight I had put on. At least it couldn’t rise back up much.
A vomit of acidic poison burst out of its gullet, which pissed me off. I wasn’t hurt too terribly. The leather under my armour was burning away and the metal plates themselves were corroding under the poison’s effect, but the scales I had Sacrificed came in clutch. I wasn’t hurt on any bit of exposed skin because I
had
none.
I began striking. Slashing. Cutting anything and everything I could reach.
The monster screeched out. My ears were taking a pummelling this close to whatever my target had for a larynx. The deeper I slashed in, the more its fleshy walls pressed in and tried to squeeze me to death. Blood and so many other fluids were trying to drown me. The poisonous air itself was suffocating.
And I still sliced onwards. The knife’s Blessing was still intact. Whatever Escinca had done, it was very overpowered. I half-burned, half-cut my way through the monster’s innards as it kept screeching in agony.
It was hard to tell how long I kept going. I couldn’t tell what the others were doing outside the gigantic Brillwyrm. What I was aiming for was the monster’s heart. There were constant thumps and other vibrations and impacts from outside, so I was pretty sure my comrades were busy. But I couldn’t stop until I had reached my goal. Even if breathable air was running out, even if I felt like clawing my way out of this monstrosity.
If I let something like this Scarthrall Brillwyrm get out of the dungeon, if I allowed something like this to reach Ring Four, it would cause a disaster.
At one point, when the fluids were so ever present that they were burning through my feet, I aimed higher. I cut and slashed apart more of its flesh, a distant part of my mind blessing the fact that there weren’t any bones in my way.
I was puncturing and slicing my way through the several different organs and the incredibly disgusting fluids they were spilling. Everything was a bit of a blur by now. The veins I cut through, the nerves that tried to strangle me, the fat that turned molten and gooey before burning away at the Blessed touch of the knife.
It wasn’t just my foot dissolving painfully now. Stinging jolts of agony were needling me everywhere, slowly turning into so torturous that I couldn’t ignore them any longer.
I was having trouble thinking, finding it difficult to focus on anything besides the automatic motion of cutting through my target. The lack of air, the suffocating nature of what I did have, the constant jostling and shaking, it all made higher thoughts impossibly hard.
But the growing pain was shocking my mind back into some semblance of function. This poison… The scales weren’t enough. In fact, in the dim light provided only by my glowing knife, I found spots were my scales were sloughing off entirely. Much of my armour and the rest of my clothes had liquified too.
The Brillwyrm was dissolving me alive, even as I killed it from within.
For a second, my reaction to that was automatic as well. I was trying to get free, my arms and legs all slashing out faster, although it was only the hand with the knife that could cut through my current situation. Free. I had to get free. I had to—
I had to
think
.
In this gloom, I wasn’t sure if I was cutting in the right direction. Think.
Think
. What did I have? I had Sacrifice and I had Gravity. When I tried to send the burning white threads of Sacrifice to take care of the poison on me, it didn’t work.
Of course
, it didn’t work.
I felt like screaming, but I would only end up eating more of the poisonous fluids. I could hardly
breathe
.
Focus. I had to
focus
. If Sacrifice wasn’t going to work, then all I had was Gravity. I channelled its power, feeling the threads of Siphon emerge to every point on my body. The sensation of flowing weight turned into strands of mass on what felt like a cellular level.
Then it actually hit my target. The poison. The acid. The whatever-it-was this bastard Scarthrall serpent was trying to kill me with.
It was lifting off me.
The solution was stop-gap at best. I didn’t have so much fine control that I could locate and target every single point where I was being dissolved. Plus, more of the poison and fluids were flowing in from every direction, and some areas were positioned awkwardly too. Making the fluid lighter on my shoulder wasn’t exactly pushing it off, and I had to concentrate on Infusion to weigh
down
the poison eating through my legs.
But it
was
working. To an extent. The torture wasn’t all-consuming anymore. I could think properly with a bit more ease, which led me to my next decision.
I Sacrificed the Blessed knife.
“I’m not dying here,” I growled.
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Blessed Bladed Weapon. Windfall bonus activated.
Reward
: All blows with aggressive force will now possess a slashing effect for 30 minutes. Slashing effect performs bonus damage against unholy creatures
]
Time. That was what I didn’t have. It would be impossible to keep the poison off forever, especially now that my defences were failing.
Right now, I needed to cut my way through to the Brillwyrm’s heart and get out of this monster before I died. Slashing with one knife wasn’t going to do the trick. So now, I began lashing out with every single aggressive motion I could make, forcing and tearing my way through the Scarthrall serpent with single-minded focus.
Every blow I landed imparted a glowing arc of air, a crescent of gold sharper than the knife had been. Flesh and innards parted before me like flimsy curtains.
I kept going. On and on, cutting and slicing with every punch, with every thrust of my arms, with every kick whenever my legs lashed out. The pain started growing again and poison began to spread back over me, a blanket of deadly disgust.
And then the monster stopped shrieking and moving. I wasn’t sure if I had actually reached its heart what with hardly being able to see. There might or might not have been a pulsing, muscular organ I had chopped apart on my way.
But really, what I was actually aiming for was cutting
out
of this vampiric prison. I slashed, sliced, and tore with nothing else on my mind except escape, on and on until my arm was finally ripping into thin air.
I tumbled out with a gush of fluids. Free.
For what felt like the first time in an eternity, I gasped in a deep, toxin-free breath of fresh air.