NOVEL NEXT Chapter 12 (Memento Mori) Part 1
This break of the ant's attention gave me a moment’s rest to recollect myself, this moment was short-lived. With the ant noticing my state immediately resumed attacking
My feet skittered down the slope which I had taken so much effort to climb earlier. No longer caring about the white tentacles tracing across the ground, my foot briefly fell on top of one, crushing it into a white smear along the ground before disappearing again, keeping my body in constant motion.
As I pushed forwards, I glanced over my shoulder only to see the small red ant idly standing at the top of the hill; its hazy eyes looked at the stony wall above like it was the only thing that existed in its world, it’s body shook for an instant as if waking from a dream its head slowly tilted towards me, sending shivers up my spine.
Its hallowed eyes stared at me with a piercing gaze looking at me strangely, compared to the mindless bug-like eyes that I had seen from all the other ants, this gaze, was one that seemed wholly unlike a bug, containing some unknown hunger.
It flung itself into the air, thrusting its tentacles onto the jagged remnants of a boulder, redirecting its body to land at my side. it landed beside me, it wasted no time in sending a flurry of attacks in my direction. Its partially translucent limbs blew past the dust surrounding its body as they closed in on me.
The ant had managed to close the distance between us while I was still mid-run, leaving me with little choice but to take the attack head-on. Wrapping my hand tightly around the blade in my right hand, I twisted my body towards the attack, bringing my blade forward in a sweeping motion. Masses of flesh filled the space in front of me as my blade continued its arc into the first tentacle, slicing through it at a diagonal angle, sending its decapitated tip into the air.
After slicing through the first tentacle, my wrist bent downwards, sending my sword in the opposing direction into another tentacle that had arced below the tip of the blade, biting into its midsection, carving a smooth cut across its surface. The tentacle landed harmlessly beside me before recoiling in shock. The ant reacted to my defense almost as soon as it began, redirecting one of its tentacles to go for my side. As I noticed this new threat, my feet hit the ground, halting my precious sprint.
My sword was already slicing through the air towards the third tentacle, but after dealing with the first two in rapid succession, I had no confidence in being able to intercept the third. An effect the ant was likely counting on, as its attack near my side with deadly intent. I Shoved myself backward, the tentacle nearly missed my body just glancing at me, ribbing my dress as it forced me backward. I countered with my sword sending a splatter of green liquid onto my skin as it cleaved into the fleeing tentacle. Though I had hadn’t been injured The force from the impact was enough to send me sputtering to one knee, my hands ringing in pain from having to absorb so much force.
This wasn’t good; these words repeated like an alarm inside my head. Letting out a heavy breath, my eyes tilted towards the ground. I couldn’t help but feel how outmatched I was. In that brief exchange of blows, I had to use my full strength to barely avoid a critical injury. This wasn’t a sustainable situation from any perspective. Sighing to myself, I briefly opened the system menu only to be met with the disappointing grayed-out symbol of my cloak skill. I wanted to examine the system more for the cause, but as a glow began to flicker off the stone ground in front of me, I could tell the ant wasn’t about to let me get any time to breathe, let alone think. Rising unsteadily to my feet, I was met with the ant, an unsteady orange light obscuring its features.
My heart raced, and I dove over a boulder behind me, using it as cover. Every sense of fear I had was telling me I had to run or else I was going to turn into a charred pork skewer, but I knew I had to put those instincts aside right now while I was effectively staring down the barrel of a loaded cannon. It wasn’t like I could dodge, at least not in my current state. Peering over the edge of the rock, all I could see was a gradually intensifying light. At one moment, it seemed to solidify only to dim again like the flickering of a candle in a dark room. The constant dimming showed that it was struggling to maintain its attack.
Opening the system panel, I frantically skimmed through it, trying to find something to protect me. I glanced through the armor section only to be left exasperated at how expensive everything was. I really wanted to yell that poverty wasn’t a crime. The system struggled to keep up with my hectic thoughts as it flipped from the quest menu, then to the map page where I was able to catch a glimpse of three red dots following a large group of other dots heading toward my location, before it flipped back to a rapidly scrolling weapon page. Scanning through row after row of useless items, my desperation was on the verge of overcoming my better judgment to try and flee. Before it could, I saw what I had been looking for.
System>
{Would you like to purchase (Guard Mans(or women, ehh) trusted short shield for 320 GP?}
[“A shield that has seen a long and triumphant military history, though in reason years has been replaced with more modern alternatives”]
[Yes] . . . [No]
I selected it, while saying a half-hearted prayer that it, combined with the terrain, would be enough to block the ant's attacks. This whole process had only taken a few seconds in reality; during that time, the ant still struggled with its own power.
The battle's bizarre stillness was broken when the system's portal gradually began to open . . .
Right in front of the ant. Letting out a curse, I looked at the portal just out of reach. I quickly peered out at the almost complete portal, I knew it wouldn’t be worth trying to grab the shield from in front of the ant, but seeing the item I just spent my last few remaining gp on being wasted by the system so casually I almost was tempted to just rush out and grab it.
I wouldn’t have the opportunity to make this choice as the light in the ant’s mandibles abruptly stopped its flickering, congealing into one solid beam. The beam came towards me; I couldn’t see it as my vision was obscured by the boulder I was cowering behind, but as my body shook from the attack impacting the stone, all I could think about was the scene from when the ant first appeared where this attack had melted many times more material than what I was trusting my life to.
Suddenly, a wave of heat washed over me; the heat licked around the rock scorching the edges of my armored dress. My hands scraped at the ground as I attempted to crawl away from the heat. My body wouldn’t listen to my will at all. It was as if the more effort I put into thinking about moving, the less I actually moved. Eventually, my I curled into a ball, my head resting in the palms of my hands, shielded from the scorching specks of molten rock and the heat by my dress. It was a relatively comfortable position given the circumstances. Still, I couldn’t shake the terrible feeling that at any moment I would be covered by molten rock, and burnt to death.
Yet as the seconds ticked by, that fate never came. Peeling my eyes from the ground while shielding them from the debris that still rained down around me, I saw the orange light obscured by a thick layer of dust and smoke gradually fading, as though it had never existed. Slowly making my way to my feet, I didn’t wait for the ant’s next move. Half in a daze, I made my way to where the shield had come to rest, stuck in the earth. Examining its single-plated metal body, I couldn’t see any notable signs of damage. Something which was all too impressive given it had taken the brunt of a powerful attack. Only after my spare hand was firmly wrapped in the medieval-looking enarmes, did I have enough confidence to face the ant again. Waving away the smoke, I walked past the stone I had been hiding behind earlier. Its surface was ravaged by scored lines, the deepest of which still sent faint trails of fire flicking into the air. It was a concerning amount of damage, enough to easily kill an average person, but compared to that frightening display earlier, the smoke cleared, leaving me face to face with the ant. Its state looked even worse than before.
A black puddle had formed under it caused by the wound on its face, which had a steady stream of fluid from it. The wound itself also appeared larger, cracks in its skin branching out from the wound now spanned almost half its face. Cautiously I approached the creature, which, contrary to reason, didn’t seem fazed in the least by the gore spilling out of it. It swayed unsteadily, as if uncertain of its actions, before it came to a stop. Its skin broke open, sending more white tentacles cascading into the surroundings. They rushed towards me, their nearly translucent skin reflecting the remains of the burning stone as they went. Compared to the other tentacles, these ones didn’t have the same speed or force behind them. I moved toward the ants, constantly cutting through the tentacles closest to me. As another bisected white line fell under my feet before it could reach my skin, I almost felt a little refreshed. The ant was constantly moving away from me, glancing to the ceiling before it would return its gaze on me. I didn’t know why it had given up on that beam attack; my best guess is that it was too injured to use it again, but that didn’t explain why it was suddenly only using these weak white tentacles that didn’t have any effect.
I really didn’t want to give it any ideas; however, if it had stuck with using those larger tentacles as weapons instead of producing these smaller ones, I would be in a much rougher spot.
Running over a bunch of rubble to keep up with the ant’s movement, my blade stuck out conspicuously, creating space for me to move forwards. Suddenly a thought entered my mind, huh, wasn’t there a bunch of dead ants here last time? After chasing the ant for several more steps, my feet slowed down, and I let the ant get further away. I took my eyes off my opponent, slowly looking over my shoulder. The saliva caught in my throat as I came to a shocking realization. There wasn’t a corpse anywhere; even the ones which I had seen recently were now nothing more than memories. In their place lay a thousand wriggling white lines covering the ground like the threads on a spider web. Damn, how could I have not seen this earlier? My mind realized as I quickly darted away.
The ant never intended to use those things to attack me; it was trying to absorb all those corpses around. Why it was trying to do something like cannibalizing its own kind, I couldn’t imagine. Watching as the white lines slowly retracted back into its body, it looked like I would soon find out. I wasn’t left wondering long. As the ant turned around an orange light manifesting in its mouth. With no time to think, I brought my shield to my chest.
The next thing I knew everything was covered in orange light, and I was flying through the air, my head running as if it had been hit repeatedly by a hammer.
landing with a thump. My back pressed firmly against the ground struggling to clear my head. Before lunging away just in time to avoid two more beams, leaving lines of fire in their wake. Ducking behind a small pile of rubble, I took a second to catch my breath, ignoring the waves of heat that occasionally washed over it. My mind churned, trying to think of anything that might be able to give me an advantage against this thing. In the end, I came up with nothing. I was trying out cards to play. I had almost run out of “gp” from my earlier quest; after that, I couldn’t use my cloak skill either, so the system was effectively useless.
*crash*
Right above me a beam shot through the top of the pile, causing a shower of freshly made gravel to rain down on me momentarily, causing my body to move of its own accord to another pile. As soon as I moved, another blast hit my shield. I had managed to brace for it this time, but it still left my limbs unsteady as I dove behind another rock. The ant had used an unknown method to recover from the sneak attack I had delivered before. Meaning that even if I did get close, there was no guarantee that I would be able to harm it. The only thing I could do now was run and hide while praying that an opportunity might present itself. I was just about to stand up to do just that when I realized that the ant had stopped attacking. Looking over the edge of the stone, not only could I not see any beams of light, but the ant itself was nowhere to be seen. A chill went down my spine as I desperately looked around for it. I never realized that not seeing it would be more terrifying than having to constantly dodge its attacks, but here I was. Resigning that staying still was probably my worst course of action, I was just about to move when I noticed a light behind a small pile of rocks out of the corner of my eyes. At first, I didn’t take much notice of it, my eyes still scanning for the fleeting form of the ant. The light didn’t just exist; it grew brighter until every crack in the stone shone like a bonfire was beyond them. My head snapped towards it, my shield came to my chest as an involuntary scream echoed out of my mouth into the dark.
“NOOO!”