章 23: Chapter Twenty-Three: Creature

We ran for several minutes. Not once did we stop to breathe. I was quickly growing tired and I know the others were too.

As I was running, I smelled an all too familiar stench once more. I stopped in my tracks and turned to my left. There it was, the zombie in armor, or what was left of it. The armor laid on the floor, with a bunch of scorch marks. It had melted in several places, dislocating its arms and legs.

"No way!" Asiana said and I had to agree with her.

"This can only mean one thing!" Jack said, pausing for some seconds before continuing "We're in an illusion!"

"This might be good though. If we're in an illusion, we might be able to leave this endless corridor!" I said. Knowing that they might panic again.

"That's true, but I'm not good at illusion magic!" "Me neither!" "I haven't even begun practicing it!" All three said.

"Same here, but maybe using ward magic can help us!" I suggested.

"That's a good idea, but only if we're being constantly affected by illusion magic. If it's a spell casted with a duration, ward magic won't help in the slightest and that's if we even succeed in creating a ward strong enough to protect us from the illusion to begin with!"

"Think Jack, think! I've heard that strong illusion magic will be able to stop people from reacting when being attacked! Yet we succeeded in protecting ourselves from a zombie. That means the illusion must be weak!"

"That's actually reasonable. Let's share our mana with you and let you do your thing then!" Jack said.

I felt euphoria, as three new sources of mana entered me and replenished my lost mana. Even the slight exhaustion I had developed from running had disappeared, returning me to my peak condition.

Knowing that time was of the essence I quickly created a ward around the four of us. It was hard mending the threads of mana into place, as this is the most complicated ward I've ever made. But it didn't take long before I had created an unstable shell around us. But I needed to fill that shell to the brim with mana. I could feel something poking on the ward, demanding to enter, but with more and more mana being used to resist it, it grew weaker. Until it finally disappeared.

Reality shattered around us like glass and suddenly we stood in the room we had begun in, the zombie was still there, but another creature was also here.

In front of us was a weird creature. It was floating in the air, eighty centimeters from the ground. It had a skeleton head and a mask made of bones on that skeleton head. Its sternum split into two, going down together. The ribs were also split into two with the sternum. The sternum went down all the way to the legs, where they connected again. The creature had no pelvis either and the legs were therefore directly connected to the sternum. In the middle of the skeletons body was a hole, where the sternum and ribs usually were, but now it was just empty. The arms were normal, if one ignored the shadow like a cape, beginning at the shoulders, going all the way to the feet. The shadow-like cape almost covered the whole skeleton-like creature, making it blend into the world around it. But in its orbital cavity, in other words where the eyes usually reside, there was a blue fire, identical to the torch's fire in the corridors and rooms. A cold eerie, blue flame.

The skeleton raised its arm and a block of ice came hurling at me. I jumped to the side, having no chance of taking control of the ice before it touched me.

I felt my left arm receiving most of my weight, leaving my arm stunned. Despite that I managed to keep hold of my staff. I quickly stood up, feeling a chill down my spine.

I quickly side stepped and felt a rush of air pass my face. Turning to where I stood some seconds ago, I saw an identical blue flame covering the ground.

The others didn't stay still as I was being attacked. I heard "Thrustra" from my side. As a see through spell reached the skeleton. But before the spell could hit the skeleton an invisible barrier appeared, reflecting ever so slightly in the blue light. When the spell hit the barrier, it didn't even budge, as the spell was dismissed.

The skeleton creature turned its skull to Jack who attacked it and raised its bone arm slowly. Hundreds of small sharp ice shards formed around the skeleton, before all of them simultaneously flew towards Jack.

The shards were so fast I barely managed to react, not to mention Jack who faced all those ice shards. The ice shards pierced Jack's body with no problem leaving hundreds of holes behind. Jack had lost seventy percent of his body mass and slowly fell down to the floor, now a carcass.

"No" Harkolth screamed and casted "Gnawto" at the skeleton. But once more the invisible barrier casually dismissed the spell, as the skeleton found its new target.

Before it could gruesomely kill Harkolth I casted a ward around him, while also chanting "Firelast" the spell quickly flew towards the skeleton and hit its barrier. The spell exploded upon impact on the skeleton and started burning away at its defense. As long as I supply the spell with mana it wouldn't stop.

Asiana who saw this casted "Amplious" on the fire, which served to increase the fire's power. The skeleton wasn't happy with our attack and hissed. The hiss created a mist of ice that quickly enveloped the room in freezing cold temperatures. The mist made my skin freeze, as layers of ice formed on it. I was getting frost bites from just breathing now and needed to stop the skeleton. Keeping up the firelast spell was also more expensive as the mist was working hard on extinguishing it.

Harkolth casted "Amplious" too on the spell and instead of the skeleton hissing it started howling, as we finally broke through its defense.

Just as I thought we defeated the skeleton, its shadow cape moved and enveloped the body. All of a sudden the skeleton transpired and the fire stopped. It had nothing to burn, even if the skeleton was there. For the first time the skeleton moved and rushed towards us, an avalanche of mist followed it like a tsunami moving towards us.

The skeleton went past us, without attacking, but the same couldn't be said for the mist. Harkolth was the only one safe from the cold, as for me and Asiana. We were drowned in ice cold mist. But soon that mist disappeared. As the skeleton-like creature had disappeared, somehow phasing through the wall.

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