A Serpent's Tale-Chapter 378: Weird Encounter

The being was rushing towards me and fast. It would get here in seconds and by the way I heard it screaming, it was clearly not friendly.

I immediately prepared for a fight since that was clearly what was going to happen, though it was quite hard to move around in this space.

Still, I managed to turn to properly face my foe just in time to create a Mana barrier and layer it with [Elemental Scales].

The being crashed head first into the shield I created, sending me flying back from the impact. But because there was nothing else here but me and who or whatever this was, all that happened was that I was sent further away.

And thanks to being so reckless, I was able to get a good look at my opponent as it thrashed about from the impact.

It was a serpent. And it was anything but ordinary from what I could see.

Its body was made from pure white scales and pure red eyes adorning its head that burned with fury. It also had two incredibly sharp fangs that I could feel immense danger from.

The form it took was similar to that of Nachash or Ouroboros or ancient serpentine. A long and winding tail for a body that ended in a scaly snouted head.

"SSSSHHHHRRRRAAAAA!!!!" The creature screeched out loud as it charged at me again.

I raised the barrier again, but I also prepared a counter attack of my own. A ball of deadly flames at the highest level that I could conjure, imbued with all the affinities that I could.

And for just a brief second, I also managed to inscribe the word ’power’ onto it with the aid of [Rune Scripting], which should hopefully serve to make this hurt more.

The serpent crashed into my shield again, but this time it tackled it, which still sent me back. But that was exactly what I wanted from it as I hurled the fireball straight at it.

It went off with a huge explosion the moment it hit, creating a shockwave that blew me away further.

*BOOOOOOOMMMM!!!*

The serpentine was sent flying back also, and it had a huge burning fire on the left side of its face that had melted away at its scales and was now searing its flesh.

It lashed out, flailing its body in this void to put the flames out, which it did succeed after a while, but not before it received grievous injuries such as still bubbling flesh and the loss of an entire eye.

The serpentine then whipped its face around to me, and with its remaining eyes, it lunged once again. And from the previous clash, I knew that I couldn’t do the same thing twice.

As for why I hadn’t gone on the offensive whilst it was being burnt alive, I had no idea how I was supposed to move about in this space, so it was better for me to wait for the creature to come to me, that way, I could then prepare and counter it when it arrive.

One thing I did note as it charged, was that it seemed a lot slowed this time round, giving me more time to think on how to deal with this.

As the creature neared me, its jaws opened wide to swallow me whole. It was roughly three or maybe even four times larger than me after all.

The moment it was just a couple of metres from devouring me, I suddenly spun backwards and used my tail to whip its jaws shut alongside another dose of deadly flames.

"SSSSSSSKKKKKAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!" It screamed once again, this time even louder as its face was being burned directly this time instead of the flames spreading to it.

Those cries of pain soon subsided thought as the flames entered its mouth, burning away at its throat and depriving it of the ability to make sound.

Actually, I think it just simply fried the brain into a mushy soup and killed it. It wasn’t showing any signs of struggling anymore and now it was just burning away at its body.

Just to play it safe though, I waited until it had burned past most of the skull though, which was also melting by the way, before I dispelled my flames.

Once I did, I had to figure out how to move to get over to it. Swimming motions seemed to work just fine, and although there could be better ways of doing this, I couldn’t be asked to figure them out.

I reached the corpse of this serpentine and was left with, what do I do now?

Clearly this is the creature from the egg, but then what is this place? It’s clearly a physical space, indicated by the fact that I’m not in some kind of soul form. And what exactly just happened also?

None of this made any sense whatsoever. And I soon gave up trying to comprehend any of it.

But I was still left with what to do now that I had killed the serpent. Clearly this wasn’t some kind of dream. It was too real for that. But I also had no idea how to leave exactly either, so I had to figure something out regardless.

Looking back at the charred corpse, something took hold of me. Some kind of depraved and dark curiosity.

I reached out with one hand and touched the charred flesh, still warm to the touch and would burn most other people no doubt. And then I clenched my fist, the flesh tearing away easily like tender meat.

Which made me wonder. I’ve eaten monster meat before sure, but this didn’t feel like a monster, it felt more like another being entirely. And that gave me mixed feeling for what I was going to do next.

I brought it towards my mouth and deposited it inside and swallowed.

And to my surprise, it was actually surprisingly tasty despite the bitter charred exterior it had.

I quickly found myself tearing away at the charred corpse further, consuming more of its surprisingly meaty flesh with fervour.

Soon though, I had torn away at all the parts that had been burned, melted and cooked, and was now just gorging myself on the raw meat part of the corpse.

Yet that too, despite being fresh and raw, was still incredibly and addictingly tasty. And I just continued to devour it all, going all the way along the body, cleaning it all right down to the bone, scales and all.

When I was done, I fell out of my frenzied trance and just realised what I had done. I had eaten the body of something several times larger and longer than myself yet I devoured it all down to the bone.

And the thing that confused me most about this was the fact that it didn’t feel like I had eaten a single thing.

I was also still stuck here with no way of getting back nor any knowledge of how to get back. I also had no way of knowing how long I’d been in here for either. Or how much longer I would remain.

For a short while, I just kind of remained floating there, the skeleton of the serpent drifting ever so slowly away from me.

There really was nothing else here. Just me, the empty void of this place, and the skeleton, which I was surprised to see still holding together even after I cleaned it of all the meat that would normally hold the bones together.

Curious, I ’swam’ over to the skeleton and tried to pry it apart, and with some effort I was able to accomplish this, prying the spine apart not too far from the tip of the tail end.

Now that I had managed to tear one of the bones off, I wondered what to do next. I didn’t really have a lot to do, nor a real direction on where to go from here.

And out of sheer boredom, I decided to see if I could break on of the ribs, just because I could and it was something to pass the time.

It took a little more effort than cleaving the spine into two, but I was able to snap one into two. But the moment I did so, it started to leak some kind of thick, somewhat viscous, sparkling blue liquid.

Something about that liquid made my heart race, my breathing quickened as my eyes shook and my vision started to blur.

’I... I have to get away...’ That was my first and foremost though upon seeing that liquid. The dreadful feeling I got from seeing that liquid made me uneasy.

It made me feel like something bad was going to happen. Or... It had already happened?

Either way, I wanted to get away from here now. I wanted to escape this dark space and return to the normal world.

But all I could do for now, and all I wanted to do, was get away from this skeleton, as I feared the longer I stayed, the worse I would be later.

And so, I swam. And swam. And swam until I could see it no more. And after that, I found myself drifting into unconscious.