Horror

The creature moved at great speed directly towards the duo, uncaring for any obstacles or obstructions, it continued to move in a straight line as if it knew exactly where they were.

And as Rethys hurried into the cover of the mysterious buildings, he finally got a visual on the creature aiming for them.

It was an amalgamation of bones held together by onyx black chains that seemed to animate it and allow it motion despite its complete lack of flesh. The skeletal monstrosity stood at more than three meters of height at the withers, and ran on two legs, had three heads and wielded a giant, broad blade in each of its four arms.

Each of its three skulls had lights shining in their empty sockets, lights that belied the skeletons' elemental attunements. One shone with Fire, another with Water, and the last one, which from the looks of it seemed like the primary head, shone with the purplish-pink of Malice.

It was also strong, very strong.

"A Terminus Legionnaire..." Sevi declared with a horror-stricken voice. "We are no match for it, ignore it and run, I will slow it down!"

Feeling great might fill his body from the Blood enhancement as well as the talisman of strength, Rethys did not hesitate and instantly turned around and broke into a sprint. Quick steps turned into leaps as he ran his fastest, yet behind him, he could tell the creature was easily keeping up.

Despite its great mass and stature, the sheer unwieldiness of its form, and regardless of any obstacles, the skeletal warrior moved unimpeded and easily kept up with the duo. It barely registered Sevi's attacks and easily cleaved through any buildings or pillars in its way.

It wasn't long until the two then began running through a vacant stretch of interconnected platforms that ended in a small tunnel entrance, their exit. The complete lack of cover did not bode well at all for them, but Rethys did his best to keep moving regardless.

A burst of Water magic then flared behind him as the creature began throwing waves of icy magic.

"Avoid everything I cannot block, keep your senses sharp." Sevi notified him.

Deafening noises resounded behind him as Sevi's powers blazed, all the while he ran as fast as his legs could take him. The Terminus legionnaire's magic occasionally blew past him, waves of frigid ether so dense as to take physical form. The cold would ordinarily sap his strength, yet he couldn't feel a thing, and his body moved at maximum speed regardless of its state.

But not even Rethys' terrifying speed was enough, as the legionnaire was still too strong to stop, and too fast to outrun. And as it drew dangerously close to him, it firmly planted its feet on the ground, skidding along while its body tensed up with force and ether.

Before he could react, a tentacle of blood sprouted from behind him, grabbing him and yanking him backwards violently. The whiplash disoriented him a lot, but before he could think twice about it, he saw the legionnaire leaping with almost unreadable speed, its four blades causing shockwaves and bursts of flame and smoke as they slashed the air where he had been a moment ago.

Primordial fear drenched him as he realized that this creature could end him with a single graze of its brutal blades. If not for Sevi's quick thinking, he would've been diced into pieces now.

Quickly snapping out of the shock, he looked around with his senses for any way to get away. The creature now stood in his way, and he couldn't under any circumstance lose ground.

The more time he spent near this thing, the higher the chances that he was carved apart by its blades.

"Just run through it, I will take care of things!" Sevi commanded.

Hearing her plan, he wanted to yell at the top of his lungs. Run through that thing? Was she insane?

Yet he himself had no better idea.

And so, he broke into a sprint again, running straight towards the legionnaire's six-eyed gaze and four-bladed embrace.

The creature saw him heading towards it, but didn't move, it instead tensed its body once more, the sight sending shivers down his spine.

But it was too late to chicken out now, and so he continued.

It then leaped, becoming a blur as it approached him at unfathomable speeds. But before his fate was sealed, time ground down to a halt. Even the legionnaire's four, lightning-fast sword swipes froze in a terrifying spectacle.

'Allow me, please.' A voice repeated in Rethys' head.

A tense buzzing ran through his muscles, and though he protested Sevi's actions, he relented and surrendered control of his body. He couldn't believe that he had done it, but the circumstances were already extreme enough.

As his control of his body switched, he saw himself moving forwards, somehow unimpeded by the slowness of everything around him. Sevi simply ran through the skeletal giant's frame, avoiding his strikes and lightly tapping the chains that bound its form together. And as Rethys' fingers made contact with the dark metal, he tried to excise its soul directly.

Yet the creature's three souls were hidden too deeply within its body of bone and metal, and his hand was not close enough to properly release them. But he couldn't just do nothing, and so he dumped the entirety of his ether pool into the chains themselves. The enormous wave of Origin ether went through the creature's body, armed with the single intent of weakening it.

Seeing that Rethys had used his magic, Sevi continued moving, and after a few moments, time to resumed its motion.

Pain and heat ran through Rethys' head again due to using Quickthought, yet this time the effect extended to his entire body, filling it with more wracking agony.

But he ignored the pain, resuming control of his body and continuing his sprint towards the tight exit ahead. Safety lied there, since the legionnaire would not be able to follow them through.

"I couldn't release its soul." He spoke. "Did my magic do anything at least?"

"It collapsed." Sevi answered. "But it is already recovering, it will not be long before it is chasing us again."

"That's just perfect." He sneered.

He too could feel the creature in his senses rapidly recovering its strength, its soul regaining its horrible brilliance. The entirety of what he had only amounted to a few seconds of respite. That kind of intensity cast at a regular pale wretch would've completely stunned its soul, maybe even outright inflicting damage to it.

But he quickly brushed aside his complaints, he was already getting close to the exit and had to double his efforts to get there as fast as possible. And eventually, the legionnaire's shadow disappeared from his senses as the way to safety became clear.

'Almost there.' He thought.

But just as he was growing confident that they were in the clear, a small object entered his senses' range, flying at tremendous speeds directly towards him. There was no time to readjust his sprint or redirect his momentum, as quickly as he sensed the thing coming, his voice boomed.

"Sevi!!" He yelled.

A tendril of blood then erupted from his hand, embedding itself into the stone beneath their feet and pulling Rethys away.

Fractions of a second later, one of the blades wielded by the legionnaire flashed by, spinning rapidly as it flew through before arcing upward and back to whence it came, leaving trails of shimmering icy ether behind it.

Rethys' senses then showed him two more blades heading towards him just as quickly as the first.

"Keep moving, I will cover you." Sevi said.

Ignoring the urge to move away, he forced himself to resume his sprint towards their exit. It was in sight now, only a short distance away.

More blades continued to rain toward him from behind, only to be deflected by Sevi's magic and fly back to their master to be thrown again. The enchanted blades continued to pound at the duo with terrifying might, and eventually the creature itself became visible once again to Rethys' senses.

He ran and ran, and the legionnaire chased him with dogged determination, completely refusing to let go.

In the end, Rethys managed to cross the threshold, entering the passage upward and rapidly ascending the stairs with quick jumps. Only a few moments afterward, the skeletal warrior crashed into the tight entrance, shattering stone as it desperately tried to force its large body inside.

He looked back at it for a moment, catching the intense, hateful glare of its three skulls before promptly turning away and resuming his escape.

Yet the creature wasn't done yet, and a burst of Fire magic exploded behind him before a deluge of the same element followed through the tunnel.

"Faster!!" Sevi yelled.

Rethys sped up as much as he could, bounding the stairs forward in a frenzy of jumps until eventually falling on all fours and climbing the stairs as if it were a ladder, his limbs exploding with strength as he grabbed the steps' ledges and threw himself onward and upward as hard as he could. His fingers and toes bled from the pressure, and so did his body as it scraped against the walls of the tunnel, and through it all he continued to put as much force as he could into his ascent.

But not even that speed was enough, as the tide of fire eventually caught up him.

"Damn it!!"

At the last second, he summoned all the energy he had recovered to conjure the strongest Barrier he could.

Then it came, and he was bathed in ether-dense flames rising through the constricted tunnel, torching the flimsy shield he put up and then his entire body. The force of the flame then propelled him out until he was catapulted outside of the cramped tunnel, tumbling around a bit before slamming into a distant wall.

And through it all, his consciousness remained intact. There was no pain to overwhelm him, to make him scream from being quite literally cooked alive, to make him feel any of it.

He lay there, his entire body burnt beyond recognition. He couldn't move a muscle, couldn't hear a thing, and could barely see through one eye. The other one must've been badly singed, he figured, and it was safe to say that he was in very critical condition.

Still, he didn't care, he was still alive after all. He had made it through in one piece, he knew that for sure, so didn't care for any wounds; he didn't feel them and they didn't last.

His ethereal senses were still functional, keeping him perfectly aware of his surroundings yet unable to see them with any of his physical senses. He knew he had made it to safety, and could tell that he was in some sort of a shaft leading upwards with a spiral stairway snaking around it.

He could also tell that the legionnaire was still trying to force its way through the tight corridor they came through, using bursts of Malice to blast the stone away. Its efforts were completely misplaced however, as that only managed to cave in the tunnel and permanently seal the way.

'Idiot...'

Just what was up with that thing? It was too strong for a deep dweller and too vicious for a mindless, failed daemon. And it had to have chased them from the lower levels too, if things were to make some level of sense.

'Whatever...'

It was pointless to dwell on it, he thought. After all, it was unlikely that they would need to go back down to the catacombs, and even if they did, he figured they'd have other options to not run into that blasted thing.

And so, he continued to sit there, waiting for his body to get healed.

Eventually, he could somewhat tell that Sevi was yelling to try and get through to him, yet couldn't really understand any of it. She was panicking quite a bit from the looks of it.

'Did she forget she can talk straight into my head?' He wondered.

In the end, it took a while before he heard her voice.

'Rethys are you still in there?! I... I am healing you, but... oh gods that... j-just please hold on for a bit!'

'She did forget it!' He chuckled inwardly.

It was strange, but she seemed much more prone to panicking than he was. He knew it wasn't a fair contest, seeing as he had his element constantly placating his fears and worries, and also seeing as his current state was indescribably bad and probably looked even worse, but it was still very amusing to think about.

And also quite depressing, since when it truly came down to it, he was apparently the more inhuman of the two.

'Not the time to think about that.'

There would come a time when he worried about it, but not now.

And so, with nothing to but wait until his body was sufficiently functional again, he turned his senses to further scan his surroundings.

He saw his immediate surroundings again, his battered and burnt body and Sevi trying her best to fix the gruesome spectacle that it had become.

He then sensed the long vertical structure that they were in, and his senses continued to extend outward, following the ascending spiral staircase until he saw something on it that gave him quite the scare.

A human was there, a pure, uncorrupted human, seemingly looking down at the two before running away. And before it ran out of his senses' range, Rethys could feel the wild emotions running through its soul, first confusion, then utter horror.