Slowly getting dragged through the darkness, Jay felt all hope disappear as he failed to break free of the tentacle that held him with an unbreakable grip.
He was unable to break out and even if he did, he would not know where to go in order to escape the darkness that he was in. He could only wait to see where he was getting dragged to. Hopefully, there was something at the bottom.
What felt like a dozen minutes had passed and Jay had yet to reach the bottom. His body was getting warmer and the tentacle's grip was no looser than before which had started a slightly painful feeling where it held.
Another few minutes passed.
As Jay floated in space, he could now hear sounds like someone or something swimming through water. He waited for anything at all to show itself from within this darkness.
"You seem to have darkness within you." a feminine voice whispered from within the darkness. "Just like me" it added followed by a small chuckle. "Don't be scared. I won't hurt you."
Jay looked around in a futile attempt to discover the location of the person speaking to him. All he could see was darkness.
"Who are you?" he yelled out.
"I'm Jade and before you ask, yes I am the one who controls the undead beast. I see that you are one of the adventurers tasked with solving the undead beast mystery which makes you my enemy."
Jay began to panic as he knew he would have a huge disadvantage if he had to fight in this darkness. "I'm not with them." he shouted. "Well not entirely anyways."
"I don't understand" Jade replied.
Jay began to explain why he was in the forest and how he ended up with the adventurers in this labyrinth. Usually he would hold back and barely say anything but his life currently depended on making sure Jade did not see him as an enemy. Jade listened on reluctantly until his story was over. She did not care much about killing others unless they wanted to harm her in anyway.
Jade began to explain as well since she felt like Jay may actually not be an enemy.
Earlier that day, she was approached by a tall man with a long sword who wore brown light armor. This man unknown to her was Arthur Hale, the leader of the group.
Arthur had discovered Jade staring down the corpse of a beast. He watched from a distance as a dark shadow emerged from beneath the beast absorbing it into the ground. After a few seconds, the corpse raised from the shadow and was back on it's feet. He knew she may have been the one responsible for the undead.
"Hey" he yelled out to gain her attention.
She did not turn as she petted the now undead beast before it went back into the shadow. After the beast was no longer in sight, she turned towards Arthur who already had his weapon in hand.
"Who are you? Why are you in my home?" she asked. Her red eyes were now visible which indicated that she was a demon rather than a human. Her black hair had bangs in the front while the back reached down to nearly her hips.
Arthur did not answer but quickly readied his sword.
Jade noticed the human man had his sword ready to attack. The shadow beneath her feet began to expand until it reached and connected to his shadow. After noticing the shadow now upon his location, Arthur attempted to dash forward and land the first strike. However, he could not move. It was as if his feet were stuck to the floor.
He continued attempting to move forward, backward or even jumping. His feet would not move and he was not in range to connect a sword strike. With no other choice, he raised his hand towards the young woman and shot out a shard of ice.
The shard flew through the air but was quickly stopped short by a tentacle which extended out of the shadow beneath.
"Who are you?" she asked once more.
Arthur had another attack in mind but needed time to prepare it. Reluctantly he began to answer her questions.
"I am Arthur Hale. Leader of the adventurers who have ventured here to stop the source of the undead beast. I saw what you did with the corpse just now which means it is you that we must stop. We were originally going to take back whoever we found for questioning but your a demon which means you would be better off dead."
Jade listened on before coming to a conclusion. It would be safer for Arthur to be taken out of the picture. He clearly wanted her dead and did not even give her a chance to explain earlier before attempting to attack. She had learned about humans like him before. Humans who preferred the demons would be wiped out rather than living in peace with them.
She never quite understood why humans and demons hated each other, even when living in peace. Sure there was demons who hid their identities and did bad things to humans but they did the same as well. Also, why not find those that did the bad stuff and punish them instead.
Jade found herself in here after an accident involving the death of her parents who planned to help maintain peace between humans and demons. They were adventurers themselves and taught her as much as they could. However, she had a strange magic unknown to them so they were not able to help her much with magic training. She practiced and discovered all she could do on he own.
This included controlling the shadow beneath her feet which could do many things like move her place to place, store items, and stop others when connecting to their shadow. She could also revive dead beast which came as a shock to all. This ability was discovered after her pet died and she attempted to place it within her shadow until she could bury it.
What she did not expect was that her pet would rise from the dead due to her strange magic.
After others began to discover her unique magic, she was treated as an outcast. Magic like hers were known to be a dangerous curse which should be avoided at all times. Something that could revive the dead of course would be looked down on as it would most likely be used for evil.
Her parents took her away from the city where she was born and lived her entire life. They traveled city to city doing missions for money before settling down in a beautiful home in a forest. All was well before her parents accepted a mission from three human men to hunt down beast with them. They accepted as they saw humans and demons as equals and thought of this as a way to promote peace between the two sides.
Days went by without any word from her parents. Jade was starting to fear the worst.
After journeying into the closest town and asking around, she soon discovered her parents were killed by the very humans they had ventured out to help that day. However, this event did not leader her to hate all humans but only those involved.
She traveled far and wide with the faces of the humans who killed her parents burned into her mind. She hid her identity as a demon using hoods to hide her face and avoided using her magic as to not gain unwanted attention.
It took months but she found them. The three men who lured out her parents and took their lives. All of the anger within her came out that day as the shadow beneath her feet extended and out came beast after beast. Corpses of beast which she had collected and turned into her own army.
The men were unable to put up a fight as they were outnumbered and caught off guard. They were quickly defeated. However, Jade's actions did not go unnoticed as she quickly became a wanted criminal due to multiple witnesses at the scene.
She fled the city as she was chased by countless humans. She travelled into a forest where she came across a portal. Seeing no other escape as she was low on mana and could not use her shadow to travel any faster than she was currently running, she hopped in. The portal brought her to this strange maze filled with large half man half bull beast. It became her home where she spent the next month.
Every so often, a portal would open but she would not be able to leave. Instead, she discovered she could pour her magic into the portal which would affect the outside world. Any fallen beast in range would rise and heed to her command. They would enter the shadow beneath and arrive near her. She could also control some to stay outside like those from the cave which led to the portal.
Jade told herself to never trust anyone easily and to eliminate all who seemed like an enemy. This is what she did with Arthur as he was ready to attack rather than talk to her.
Arthur had now finished preparing his magic attack. He dropped his sword as he would need both hands. He closed his eyes to focus all of his power into this hopefully final attack.
He placed his hands which now glowed blue onto the ground. From his locations, large crystal-like structures of ice began to grow out of the ground with great speeds. The ice grew all around the room and eventually got to where Jade stood.
Jade did not look afraid or worried. She dropped into her shadow and disappeared. Arthur watched on as he did not know what would happen next. His eyes looked all around as he searched for the demon.
"Is that all you have?" she asked without showing herself.
Arthur began to show signs of his anger as he replied "That was just the start of the attack."
All of the large crystal-like ice began to break apart and fly around the room like a tornado with great speed. The only area not affected was where Arthur himself stood and surely anyone else in the area would get hurt. This was one of the strongest abilities he could do right now as most of his moves used his sword.
From the shadow beneath Arthur's feet came the tentacle of a beast which had stopped his attack earlier. It wrapped around his neck and pulled him into the shadow. He fought back but to no success as he was now fully submerged into the darkness.
Jay listened on to the story as he knew he was right to avoid any fights with her.
"Since I'm not an enemy, how about we work together or something?" he asked as it was the only thing he could think of. He would think of a plan to defeat her later but for now, protecting his own life was the safest route. He wouldn't trust her just yet like he would not trust anyone else he had just met.
"If you're really not an enemy, then maybe we can. Only if you promise to help me leave this place safely." she said.
Jay agreed and after a few moments, he could feel himself moving once more. This time however, he was going up rather than down.
Unknown to him, she did not trust him just as much as he did not trust her.