Chapter 462 (2/2)

As Drake watched, about a dozen of the surrounding Death Cultists swayed, and then fell, and a strange glob of crackling crimson energy ripped forward, aiming for the monster. Alana seemed torn, but Drake knew he wasn’t getting anywhere near that thing. The group watched as the ball rocketed forward and smashed into the monster, sending it staggering back two steps.

“Well fine, let’s kill it before we kill them,” Alana grunted, producing her spear once more, rushing forward. Clarissa raised her hand with a flourish, and a Lightning Bolt careened forward towards the weakened creature.

However, instead of striking it in the chest, the bolt changed direction at the last second, twitching up towards the golden antlers. After the bolt struck the antlers, it discharged, seemingly harmless, twisting Clarissa’s face into a frown.

“Some sort of spell target changing… and a pretty powerful null magic from its antlers,” Rose reported, frowning down at her notes. Drake felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. If they couldn’t damage it with spells… guess it was time for the melee users to shine. But approaching a monster like this…

Alana did so without a care, her spear stabbing towards the stag’s chest. With a surprising display of deftness, the stag sidestepped and swung its head, those incredibly sharp antler points aiming for Alana’s stomach. Without much effort, she hopped backward, but lowered her stance and looked at the stag with a more focused attention.

At that point, Lucifer had used his knife to teleport behind it and chopped down towards the strange pillars of grey flesh that came from its back. To everyone’s surprise, the stag didn’t appear to notice the attack until it had already hit, and then just turned to regard Lucifer in surprise.

What was perhaps the strangest was that Lucifer, with his huge swords, only penetrated a small amount into the flesh, about an inch, before he was stopped by the thick, stringy material.

Casually, the stag raised its head, and an energy filled the air, flowing into its antlers, concentrating into a grey ball. Everyone narrowed their eyes, while Rose began to scribble furiously. After a half second, her eyes widened, and she forced herself to stop writing so she could yell, “Do NOT let that touch you! It’s-”

The grey ball released a beam that scythed outward, sliding towards Lucifer. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, he sidestepped the beam and hopped back through his portal and appeared before them once more, and then he rapidly began to pinch the portal closed.

Before he had left, however, the beam had struck his sword and drew a thin line across it. As he was closing the portal, Drake watched with wide eyes as his sword, starting along that thin line the metal, turned a darker grey, then a brown, then slowly red and disintegrated to dust.

Realizing the change that was happening, Lucifer dropped the weapon. The line was relatively near the tip of the sword, but the changes continued down most of the length of the blade until there were only 10 centimeters or so of blade remaining, and that was red and rust-eaten. Lucifer frowned at the blade, almost seeming to be more upset he lost his sword, than in the manner of its destruction.

“That’s a blast of concentrated time. It’s hard to tell easily how much time passes when that hits you but-” Rose thought about it, then repeated what she said earlier. “Do not let it hit you.”

Right at that moment, two more red balls struck the stag, sending it staggering, dispersing another grey ball of energy that was starting to form. But as he watched what was happening, Drake forgot all about the dried vomit on the inside of his helmet. Instead, he lowered his hands and gripped his sword, sweating for two reasons.

The first was that his armor was basically useless against this stag that struck with time. The second…

“Guys,” Drake said slowly, “...I think those red balls aren’t…. They are healing it.”

The divvet in the grey and withered flesh pillar was gone, healed over cleanly. And no longer was the flesh grey, but now firm, and pearlescent, almost, strange colors reflected from its fur. Ponderously, those pillars of flesh raised themselves, seeming to flex experimentally.

“Oh shit,” Rose whispered, her eyes widening. “How could I… yes it's healing it, filling it with life force, from somewhere.”

Drake glanced back towards the Death Cultists. Now, over half of them were on the ground, unmoving, while the Grey Death Cultist, a wide smile on its face, was looking forward towards them.

“Yes, we finally found you…” The Grey Death Cultist said, pausing in its ritual to raise its hand towards the stag. “Our Ivory Queen… please, open your eyes! Your servants are here to give you our very lives!”

A tremor ran through the stag. Then, strangely, the cancerous growth began to twitch. Drake’s eyes widened because it quickly became clear that it was a misshapen, squashed head. It trembled again, and folds of flesh parted, revealing a mouth with yellowed and broken teeth. Immediately, there was a slow trickle of bile that came outward, flowing slowly over the tongue and across the teeth.

In a strange twist, Drake felt quite a bit of empathy for the strange monster, forced to deal with vomit for the rest of this fight. But then more folds parted, revealing beady eyes, one of black and one of silver, red-rimmed with hatred. Then they rolled around, staring to the sky.

Slowly, those ivory pillars raised themselves farther, revealing them to be the sinewy and massive wings of the Death Cultists, made of corded muscle that could be spread out thinly for flight. But unlike the other Death Cultists, these wings were each full 20 meters long, stretching almost improbably far outwards, covering the Raid Party in their long shadow.