NOVEL NEXT Chapter 18: Chapter 18
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It was deep in the night, with the moon over halfway down in the western sky, and I was feeling rather troubled, at first, I blamed my bad mood to… well I don't know almost DYING, but now… after feeling my mana not recovering at all, something felt odd, something in this island was putting my instincts on a high trip, and my mana on a low basis.
I wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen, or when… but I knew something was going to happen, and even though I had no idea what that entailed, I had a strong feeling that it was going to be something straight out of a horror movie, considering the deeper we got into the island the more terrifying the place got, with a fucking haze that covered around eight percent of the area.
We continued our walk, and I could see Annabeth and Lee were also alert, showing not only I was feeling an ominous feeling coming from this wretched place, eventually we found the one place I had seen the book thanks to Hermes, the one place on the island that had life? Or rather looked like it had something reminiscent of life, with a sigh, I moved forward and my suspicion was confirmed, I could see where the book or tome was the one we or I was supposed to recover for the gods, and immediately notice something was wrong.... everything was quiet, too quiet.
"I bet Lee's dessert privilege that the moment we get into that cave, or close it a monster will appear," I said, feeling an ominous feeling coming from the area, this island was something else, even though I had been walking for hours... I still felt weak, my mana was still depleted, and I felt like death was lurking in the shadows... with a sigh, I observed the cave behind the time, a cave that seemed to call at us.
"That sounds like a stupid bet," Annabeth sighed, "Why would I bet if my chance of losing is one hundred percent?"
"Alright, hand me your sword Lee," I sighed realizing it was nothing much I could do besides tackling the problem, "Alright… Annabeth and I will go in, you guard our back…"
"No energy for Magic?" Annabeth asked and I shook my head, fucking place.
As I walked with Annabeth, I started to wonder if I would get to kill another siren today, this was, after all, the siren's island, maybe a super siren, but before I could continue to ponder over such morose thoughts a chilling sensation stopped me, something that made both Annabeth and me stop cold, a sound, something that sounded like a hiss, followed by an earth-shaking tremor and ear-piercing shriek filled that filled our ears, with pain and fear.
In front of me, something started to manifest, as a fair bit of faint blue smoke formed a body. At first, it looked like a beautiful woman. But as it materialized a bit more and more, her shape started to change, to morph, with little details that made her, terrifying like her bony face which was wider than it legally should be locked in a permanent expression of delirious joy, lidless eyes wide open and bulging as if eyes were about to pop out of her head like candy, her wide mouth gaping, showing jagged teeth dripping of blood… no dripping of poison, and her body, that at one point of its manifestation was a beautiful woman, was now an amalgamation of something that vaguely resembled a human and a scorpion mashed together, her hands were big enough to hold five basketballs without dropping them, while her arms were simply so skinny there was no way she could hold those hands were suffering fractures, alas biology didn't apply to this. Immediately in shock, I took a step back in horror. "Hungry... " she screeched, as she turned slowly to both Annabeth and me, and I couldn't help but wonder what in the name of Tartarus was that, not that I could use my head right now, I had trouble suppressing the chills that ran down my spine.
"Wise girl, the FUCK is that!?" Lee shouted with worry.
"I don't know," Annabeth muttered, taking a few steps back.
The amalgamation cackled, looking at us. "Where are you... food?" the monster questioned with a delighted expression, and fast as lightning, her abnormally elongated hand shot forward and something flew at me, missing me by half an inch, taking a deep breath I turned around to see the projectile lodged diagonally on the ground, the woman apparently had the skill to shot bones delightful, the Percy Jackson version of Kimimaro.
Taking into consideration how fast that thing was, there is no way we could possibly avoid a straight shot… that shit she jus shot was faster than anything I have seen which means a straight-on fight was not the solution, looking at the monster I noticed something it the monster was so strong, why were we still alive? Not that I complain... but with that power, she could end us before we even had the chance draw our weapons, studying the monster a bit more closely I noticed her eyes while creepy and nightmare provoking were milky white, and if I have learned anything by reading science and manga, is that the monster was either blind or had an almost three-sixty vision field, but considering we were still alive, it was time to test the blind theory, so taking a deep breath I threw a rock far I carefully grabbed from the ground and threw it as far as I could, and as soon as the rock made some sound, the monster immediately rushed towards the sound shooting projectiles at it, that was it… she was haft scorpion which meant… she had to be kinda blind.
"Of course," Annabeth said in realization without actually vocalizing it, thank god she has brains, and that I can read lips.
"WHAT?" Lee screamed without making a sound, mostly speaking with his hands.
"She is BLIND!" Annabeth shouted back, without making a sound.
"FOOD? Is playing with me?" The monster cackled, "Good, I want to have fun with FOOD, that way FOOD ALWAYS TASTE better,"
I made a gesture for Annabeth and Lee to move, and I did the same, apparently, a little step alerted the monster enough, "There?!" the monster screamed in delight, throwing another projectile this time at Lee, this time the projectile did hit, but no as intended, for it merely scratched Lee, who said nothing, then I drew my bow and shot at her, but much to my dismay the arrow broke upon contact, showing her skin was tough enough to withstand our weapons, or at least my arrows, this battle was going to be impossible to win if I didn't use magic, so I decided to embrace my fatal flaw and do something reckless, "Sselb ruo sworra dna htebannA raeps htiw," At this one of her projectiles pierced my leg, but I didn't stop my incantation, seeing this both, Lee and Annabeth started running and shouting to buy me time, "eht gnicreip rewop fo eht snevaeh!" as soon as I finished the incantation, pain like I have never experienced before brought me to my knees, with my eyes, mouth and eyers bleeding, this was worse than anything I had felt in my past, a million times worse, a cruel reminder of what happens when casting spells without energy, but it's not like I had much of a choice, it was either that or letting the monstrosity eat us, and if I died doing this it wouldnt be so bad, I would die on my terms.
"HUNGRY! EAT NOW!" The monster roared, throwing her assault of bones in every direction, but what the monster didn't know was that Lee and Annabeth were running through the big rocks using them as cover, quite clever.
In pain, with my vision being at this point nothing but shadows, and the sounds around me being nothing more than muffled tones, I stood up nothing but my will supporting me and took my bow and an arrow from my quiver, "Artemis, Apollo, I pray for you two to guide my arrow so that it strikes my target, bless this shot," I muttered as I shot at the biggest shadow, hoping it was the monster, hoping that my sibling would guide my shot, considering it was my last for now, and it seems they did, or at least I had luck shooting at it if the muffled sound of the monster screaming in pain was anything to go by, my reckless move had work not so much of a flaw now, our weapons could now pierce her skin, "Annabeth! Lee!" I shouted falling to the ground once again, "Attack her, our weapons work now!"
And as I felt my body going numb, I couldn't help but chuckle… this had been what I saw in the vision of the oracle, total darkness… so this is it, how underwhelming...