Chapter 5

The slithering monstrosity surged towards me with redoubled rage, fangs dripping with caustic venom and promising an agonizing end. I backpedaled frantically, every tortured step sending fiery lances of torment through my ravaged flank, but my legs were leaden - the searing pain from my reopened wound rapidly sapping what little strength remained.

Just as its monstrous jaws descended for the killing blow, something warm and heavy slammed into me from the side - Graham's solid weight propelling us both out of the serpent's murderous path at the last possible instant. We crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and the creature's gaping maw closed on empty air with a bone-jarring crunch mere inches away.

I fought not to black out, blinking through a haze of anguish and nausea. My trembling fingers found the source of the hot agony spearing through my abdomen - the crimson blossom rapidly blooming from my bound wound.

Beside me, Graham was already scrambling upright once more, longsword in hand. The serpentine horror had recovered as well, circling with an eerie, almost contemplative slowness that seemed to belie its immense size and lethality.

"I'll...keep it...busy," Graham panted, crouched in a battle-ready stance. His jaw was set in a rictus of determination despite the rivulets of perspiration streaking his brow. "You...make a run for it...while you can..."

"Are you insane?" I rasped, renewed panic surging through me at the thought of abandoning him to this nightmare. "I'm not leaving you to die!"

His eyes met mine, gleaming with a grim resolve that sent a chill down my spine. "One of us has to survive and make it out of this hellscape," he said, each word weighted with finality. "And I'll be damned if I let it be that gods-forsaken snake."

The beast chose that moment to strike, slamming the ground like a battering ram as it launched itself forward in a blurred surge of snapping jaws and whipping coils. Graham met the onrushing onslaught head-on, shouting a wordless challenge.

I could only watch, frozen in horror, as their deadly duel resumed with renewed savagery. But then something inside me...awoke. A sensation unlike anything I'd ever experienced before, like a blazing star being born in the depths of my consciousness.

Power, raw and incandescent, flooded my veins in searing torrents. I arched my back involuntarily as that cosmic force built to an untenable crescendo within me. Twin pillars of azure radiance erupted from my outstretched palms, searing outward in focused lances of sublime energy that struck the serpent square in its gaping jaws.

The beast's thrashing faltered instantly, suspended in unnatural stillness as gemstone scales cracked and sloughed away to smoldering ash. Within the span of a wavering heartbeat, the entire serpentine form had been transmuted into a drifting cloud of cinders dispersed on ethereal winds. 

Just as swiftly as it had manifested, the power winked out - leaving me drained, dazed, and suddenly fighting off the inexorable pull of encroaching blackness. The last thing I saw before oblivion claimed me was Graham staring in openmouthed awe, his sword slipping from slackened fingers as he turned towards me with wonderstruck eyes.

Then, darkness.