Chapter 55 (2/2)

After all this time… all this struggle… was he going to let it end like this….?

Biting his lip to keep himself conscious, Randidly cracked his knuckles and swayed slowly closer to the Sphinx. Even if he had to rip out its spine by hand, and-

And at that moment, the spell broke, the sphinx collapsing, rolling onto its back and scratching at its own face.

Randidly blinked several times. A long, thorny bramble was sticking out of the Sphinx’s eyeball, blood spurting everywhere. And as soon as he saw it, he felt a strange connection to it. He knew that this was hatched from his soul seed.

Fertile soil indeed.

While it was again distracted, Randidly drank more mana potions and speared it with roots again and again, and again, making sure to rip the muscles of its legs to shreds, and then only afterwards attack towards its necessary organs.

When he was close to running out of mana, he drank a mana potion, fueling a constant barrage of Spearing Roots, flaying the flesh of the Sphinx from its bones.

After several brutal spells, covering the nearby ground with gore, the sphinx turned to Randidly, looking ridiculous, its mouth propped open by the spear, its left eye currently being popped and drawn back within its body by a thorn creature. It was more zombie than sphinx at this point.

“I’ll… k-k-kill you…” It whispered, and then it spat something, infinitely faster than a fireball. Then it vomited up a gallon of blood and collapsed. Notifications sprang into existence around him, but-

Randidly had barely enough time to twitch before the impact slammed against him, spinning him around. He looked uncomprehendingly down, only to find a long, thin, pink thing, like a giant leech, sticking out of his body. The weird part was that the thing was covered in strange markings.

Blinking, Randidly realized he recognized it; it was the sphinx’s tongue.

Just as he thought that, the thing quivered, and then started wiggling, working itself deeper into his flesh with a malicious intensity. Swearing, Randidly reached over with his other arm and tried to get a grip on the thing, but the reaching arm was the arm that had been struck by the sphinx’s claws. The arm at first spasmed, and did not listen, and only after he narrowed his eyes and slowly worked his will against the failing flesh did he get the hand to move where he wanted it to.

His fingers were wet with blood, and by the time he grabbed at it, his fingers slipped off and the wiggling pink thing vanished into his shoulder. Almost non comprehending, Randidly looked down at the gaping hole in his arm that it had left by its passage.

He could feel its alien presence in his body, and a horrible sense of wrongness spread out. It began to move, working its way towards his chest.

Randidly began to sweat. Removing it from him would be…

But as he considered the problem, a small vine like bramble crawled out of sphinx’s body, hurrying over towards Randidly. He could sense it strangely, he realized, and he could feel it, what it was thinking, just barely. Worry radiated out from it. It seemed to understand something was wrong.

Looking down at the small vine thing, only about a foot long, several thorn covered tentacles, Randidly felt oddly touched. Then the tongue moved deeper, into his chest, and he grimaced. Then he had another crazy idea.

“Crawl in. Find it and stop it. Go on,” Randidly encouraged, offering the open wound the tongue had used to climb into his body, pulling the gory hole open with his free hand. The thing rolled around on the ground, and confusion radiating off of it.

Grimacing, Randidly thought, with all the force he could muster, picturing what he wanted, and projected that thought towards the vine thing. Instantly, it understood, and it climbed into the wound, wriggling after the first interloper.

Honestly, the vine creature was even more painful than the tongue, leaving huge gouges in his flesh as it moved. Randidly drank his last health potion, keeping his health at safe levels, and he felt the vine reach the tongue, just in his upper torso. The vine wrapped around it, its thorns digging into the struggling tongue.

He sensed from the vine’s projected impressions that it was having difficulties, but Randidly could only smile grimly; at least he had bought some time.

He raised his head and looked at the sky. The sun was rising. Hopefully the village had fared well in his absence during the monster horde. But Randidly assumed they would be fine. The enemies they faced might be numerous, but they were low leveled. It was a course designed to fatten people, so that the butcher could come and reap them.

Randidly spared the sphinx a glance, then sat down and began to brew health potions, doing his best to ignore the agonizing pain caused by the constant struggle within his chest. Little did Shal know, but his training, all of it, even this part, the painful, high stress potion making, would become relevant in the future.

When he had finished, he walked over the sphinx and placed it into a larger spatial storage ring that he had Daniel buy for these hunts. Then he turned and began to trudge home, not daring to move too fast, lest the tongue slip free and rip through his heart and lungs.

Although his stats had improved, Randidly was under no impression that this was something he could survive.