Records of Rebirth

Was it some sort of light spell?

I looked back at Sylrin and my eyes were once again burned by the orb's shining intensity. It had grown twice as bright and I noticed my HP, which was 275 just a moment ago, now dropped to 270.

No way! It still wasn't over?

With every attack there was always some sort of stimulus or indication of being hurt, but this spell was equivalent to a silent death.

In this case, however, it wasn't the spell because I felt the distinct pinch of a bite. Reeling around, a large spider was thrown off my back, its rancid mouth slobbering with green acid as it dissolved the bite of my flesh. 

My eyes went wide at the sudden screech of the creature as it lunged forward, numerous sharp legs clattering over the stone ground.

Across from the creature, Sylrin was battling another monster that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. It had a serpent-like body covered in a bony exoskeleton riddled with spikes as its large body dexterously moved around the platform on the numerous bony appendages that were its legs.

I let Sylrin deal with that and shot a poison blade directly at the approaching spider, slicing its slobbering mouth in half.

Other than these two creatures that had scampered up the chasm wall, there were several of those winged creatures also attacking us. I realized I had to destroy the orb first before things got more out of hand.

"How do I turn it off?!" I screamed at Sensei.

But before I could hear his answer, something leapt on me, and my vision was filled with the horrible maw of the spider creature that was missing half of its face. Even though its jaw hung loosely from its head, it was still attempting to eat me, and my scales prickled wherever its slobbering acid hit.

And then, I heard a loud roar, followed by a flash of light, as a pillar of purple flame shot out of Sylrin, aimed at the winged creatures picking at his wounds. 

They were all showered in fire, alongside the bone serpent he was locked in battle with. 

Shit.

These creatures were drawn towards light – and his flames were making us a brighter target. 

I shoved the spider creature attempting to eat me off the alcove's edge, while the winged monsters were all roasted and melted. However, the bony serpent was fast enough to outrun most of Sylrin's poison flame. 

It tried to shook off the sticky flames on its body, and when it didn't work, it simply ignored the purple flames rising from its segmented exoskeleton. It didn't scream out or react but instead clambered towards Sylrin with enormous speed to attack him again.

What were these creatures?

When I looked down, the spider that should've been dead was climbing over the chasm wall, multiple murky eyes glaring at me with hate, its screech no more than a wet gurgle as it rushed to attack me.

The winged creatures had died, but these ones were far more resilient, and moved persistently through their injuries like nothing mattered except eating. Did I have to completely destroy its body like the creatures reduced to ash, for it to die?

I stopped targeting obvious weak points and sliced off its numerous legs to stop it from moving. When it was no more than an abdomen, I cleaved its body repeatedly until it was no more than a pile of acid.

And finally the gurgling noises stopped.

Its inability to showcase anything but hunger gave me chills, but even with one dead, I knew the attacks would not stop until I eliminated the cause.

Sylrin was still fighting the bone serpent and even now, the layered walls had turned black, where numerous creatures were climbing up from below the chasm to attack us and all the while, my stamina felt drained.

It was all the result of the elf's spell, and I furiously scanned the rocks to locate her. 

I spotted her below as she attempted to climb over a rock that had fallen after my barrage of poison attacks, and I instantly fired another shadow blade as she climbed on top of the rock, refusing to let her get away. 

The rock shattered, and she was knocked away by the force of the blow, but as she tumbled down the edge, she managed to grab hold of a jagged rock, stopping herself from falling down into the monster ridden chasm.

And as she hung over the edge, her face brightened when she glimpsed the members of her team fighting below. She'd been running so far and finally she'd found them. And so, instead of climbing up, the elf began scaling down the wall to join her group. 

They were all still under attack, but most of the winged creatures were being lured towards the shiny light above the chasm that promised more prey, and like a dark mass, the migrating surge was endless.

As more of the creatures targeted us, their repeated attacks impacted my already low HP in small points, but the culminating damage kept increasing. There were too many to fight off and I made up my mind to fly away from the valley.

If I could get clear of the black mist, I was sure none of the creatures would follow, but I couldn't leave Sylrin who was busily fighting the bone serpent. 

I decided to help him kill the bone serpent before escaping together, but not long after I began to aid him, several winged creatures came over the edge and I was forced to focus my attacks on them. 

Like the spider before them, these creatures were endlessly ravenous and if I left them alone, their numerous bites would culminate to a fatal blow.

The elf had almost reached her group and seeing this, I was enraged.

I wondered how to disable the light spell but I couldn't find a solution with any of my numerable skills and store items available to me.

With no other choice, I decided she had to die.

No ring or journal or quest was worth mine and Sylrin's life.

I gathered what limited shadows I could scrounge and carefully condensed it to a blade of pure destructive energy and threw it at the elf who was climbing over a pile of rocks.

However, the elf seemed to have sensed the incoming attack , and just as the blade was about to tear through her, she let go of the rocks letting herself fall to the chasm below. 

The dark blade sliced the wall instead, creating a landslide that followed after her. 

And soon, her body disappeared under a pile of rocks, as the debris continued rolling down the chasm, even dragging several monsters with it.

I watched anxiously for a few seconds and after a few more seconds, the golden orb hovering around me started to flicker and finally disappeared.

And like a switch had been thrown, the entire chasm was plunged into darkness once more.

I was relieved to see the golden orb die as darkness was more familiar to me, and it was where I thrived best.

With this small victory I didn't regain any of my lost magic, but I was able to spread out my shadows once more, and I slithered over to the creature covered in rigid bone, determined to help Sylrin kill it quickly. 

From what I could see, although they were similar in strength and size, Sylrin was wounded and the bony spikes across the creature's exoskeleton only made it harder to attack because they kept piercing Sylrin, causing more wounds. 

That was why he resorted to fire which would let him attack it from a distance. However, due to the creature's unique constitution and its inability to feel its burns, that wasn't working as well as it should.

I wasn't sure why the creatures here acted like this, but I'd already confirmed they could be killed.

They just had to be badly incapacitated first, so I cut through its rigid body from a distance, reducing it to separate pieces, without Sylrin having to hurt himself. But although its body was in pieces, its individual parts still moved.

Ugh. Gross.

I didn't want to see such a sight, and Sylrin who was more annoyed than disgusted, pushed the remains off the alcove's edge.

However, when he saw the elf buried under rubble on the layer below, he glared at me with a low growl, upset with what I had done. His eyes seemed to complain, like I had been too harsh.

Didn't he see what she had done?

I was relieved to get rid of the golden light and ignored him. 

The elf wasn't going to die so easily anyway, and my only regret was that I had missed. If she wasn't already dead and I could do it again, I wouldn't miss her next time. 

I shook off the feeling of annoyance.

The light was gone, so we should be safe now, right?

Wrong. 

I heard a low noise coming closer and followed it to see a distorted creature slowly climbing over the alcove's edge.

It had several orb-like dark eyes, set on a body composed of multiple different limbs of different lengths. 

It didn't look like any creature I'd ever seen, and as it looked at me, its body shifted its shape, before taking the form of a snake identical to myself.

Albeit one that was distorted with several different eyes, and a thoroughly disgusting limbed body. 

The creature hissed, rearing its numerous fangs, before rushing at me.

And it was not alone, behind it were two more hideous creatures who went after the injured Sylrin. 

It appeared I was a little too late.

The monsters had already reached our alcove before the light went out.