~Chapter 10~
I failed in hiding my shock and awe when the figure's face came into the light of the library's fireplace as I watched from the ice-cold depths behind the rippling door. Standing in front of me, was a full-grown man with thick, black curly hair and light brown skin along with the finest beard you'd ever seen; he sported a posh goatee and a marvelous mustache. This was a proper handsome bloke. His left eye was a dark chocolate brown while his right eye was bright amber, resembling the sun at dusk floating in the shadows of the library. The man wore a leather trench coat which was sleeveless on its right side but covered his left arm with an embedded leather sleeve having sharp silver spikes protruding from it, and together with the size of his arm, made it look like a bulky spiky tree trunk, with a fine leather glove around his hand. On, and only on his right side was glistening engraved armor covering his entire right arm from fingertip to shoulder; armor which seemed skin thin and allowed him to move as though it were part of him as if the silver gauntlet along with everything else was all one with his flesh.
With a deep voice, he shouted into the library while squinting and looking right towards me, towards what was now just a space on the ancient stone wall.
"Who's there!? Show yourself!" He demanded as he stared around the room with his pulsating golden eyeball scanning for intruders like an owl on a branch, or better yet a wolf stalking amidst the shadows of an eerie moonless night.
He walked further into the light of the fireplace and found the shattered remains of the great wooden throne that once sat in front of it, and stared down at the pile of pieces and splinters without any signs of worry or alertness, but a smirk and a silent chuckle as if it weren't anything he wasn't used to seeing, or perhaps something he was long expecting.
From outside of the library and down the dim corridor came a voice that soothed me even in the freezing noir that I floated in. The angelic voice which was all too familiar with me called out a name over and over, filling me with shock and confusion.
"Beuren! Beuren, hurry up, they're ready for you. Beuren, do you hear me!" She yelled down the hallway in an impatient tone.
My eyes widened to the size of diner plates and bubbles escaped my mouth as I attempted to exclaim in disbelief at what I had just heard while under water and surrounded pitch black drink.
"Did she just, did she call him what I think I heard her call him… Is that, is that me!? How the hell am I all grown up, with a beard and everything, what's happening here?" I pondered to myself over and over in my head with my thoughts echoing within my skull as loud as a thunderstorm.
"Bloody hell, I look as good as bacon. I mean look at my arms, they look like a horse's legs." I thought to myself as I ironically drowned in vanity.
The man stood upright and shouted back at the screaming woman.
"Alright Carrot-top, the whole realm can hear you, I'll be right there!" He said, I mean I said, or is it we said? I pondered. I mean, we pondered.
"Carrot-top!? You promised Erik you wouldn't call me that anymore," She continued as he, I mean I, I mean we, walked back to the door and pulled it slowly by its handle.
Just before he closed the door, he popped his head back into the room and looked my way as If to burn a hole through the empty space in the wall, and smiled at me.
"Geez, who put webs in her hair am I right. Do us both a favor and don't fall on your face this time. Lean back on your heels to slow down and you should be fine." He said as he raised a thumbs-up and smiled a giddy smile my way.
"Beuren!?" The woman continued.
"Well as you can hear, her insistence and her bossiness as you'd, I mean, we'd say, never stop. Ever. Now I must take my leave and as for you, you'd better run your arse off mate and remember try not to fall on your face. It really hurt and there was a girl watching, so." He said as he winked at me and closed the door, with the weird watery window from which I watched slowly rippled and faded away.
As the doorway closed, it morphed and left behind a large red sphere, like a bubble of blood the size of a watermelon, floating in the navy blue water. The clot rapidly discolored the water around it and began to grow in size in the shape of a serpent made of thick crimson. It twisted itself like play dough in the water while growing larger with each second that passed as it reddened the entire oceanic body of water behind it, making the water ahead of me look like a sea of red wine.
The scarlet serpent suddenly snapped its gaze towards me with four topaz eyes like solid fire starring through my very soul and opened its mouth revealing four hollowed fangs in total with two on either side of its mouth. Behind the slightly shorter set of hollowed fangs were two rows of dozens of smaller but very sharp teeth, like shards of sharpened tempered steel protruding from its jaws and pointing to the back of its mouth towards its throat which was a small swirling pool of viscous tar-like liquid that looked like a black hole made of thick black ink which drooled out and slightly spread into the water like ink from a squid. The strange serpent seeming sinister soon coiled its smooth scarlet scaled body which had black spines similar to its fangs, running down its back and webbed together by a silky transparent fin like an enormous erratically engorging eel. Its dart-like spines ran down along its tale which had a long and flat pointed tip, like a dagger made of galvanized steel where a snake's rattle would usually be. Upon starring at the Bladetail Boa's blade, I noticed more of the same strange symbols etched on it, and weird writing which was glowing in a bright fiery orange and boiling the water around it which created bubbles that surprisingly came towards me and tickled my nose before rolling along my cheeks as they rose to the surface. The bubbles continued to rise as the water was boiled by the blade glowing as if it were being tempered in a smith's forge.
"I said, RUN!" shouted the spectral voice yet again, although this time coming from the slithering sea serpent's black void of a mouth.
As fast as I had found myself in the water, the serpent struck and shot towards me without warning. It cut through the freezing water like a serpentine torpedo and left an ocean of blood in its wake, like a sea of crimson which followed close behind it as it consumed and turned everything it touched into a crimson mass; leaving nothing but the silence of death and the rose-red of gore in its wake.
"What the actual bloody hell! That's not good, is it? Right, I gotta follow the bubbles!" I thought to myself as I turned towards the surface to swim for my life but instead found the water beneath my feet freezing instantly into an ice platform on which I could stand upright. After a bit of stumbling for balance, I quickly gripped my wits and began running in the direction that the bubbles had been rising. I frantically ran as the water beneath me froze into thick frozen blocks like upside-down icebergs forming a path for me and enormous ice pillars rising from the jagged edges on both sides of the ice bridge I was unknowingly creating. Gigantic diamond-hard columns of blue ice shot up from all around me, bashing through while also sweeping aside some of the largest ship-killing icebergs floating ahead of me and intercepting the ones falling from above, clearing a way for me to run.
My feet dug into the diamond-dense ice bridge as if I were wearing and running in heavily spiked snowshoes, while I ran effortlessly through the dark blue water guided by glistening ice forming beneath my feet as I took each step; the same blue ice that cracked beneath my square-toed boots. Like a tiger shark, I cut through the water as if I was born to do it, leaving behind underwater whirlpools which drew in the hundreds on icebergs that lingered around them with tremendous force, and like asteroids made of diamonds, they crashed into the blue ice bridge and its many spontaneously spawning pillars and columns which forever glowed in a luminous light blue, slightly illuminating the waters that surrounded it like giant beacons.
With my mind blown by what was happening, I quickly looked behind my shoulder to find the slippery scarlet serpent escorted by its blood bath, not too far behind me. The Bladetail weaved and swerved past and under the frozen descending debris which demolished the blue ice bridge, shattering it like hailstones on glass. The impact broke the icebergs apart and sent shockwaves along with hundreds of sharp ice shards through the water, like volleys from a company of archers. Using its serpentine motion, the scarlet snake outmaneuvered and evaded the glowing flying shards of icy debris that were flying in all directions, as if they were diamond bolts shot from crossbows which whizzed wildly through the water as if they were a cluster of shooting stars at the bottom of the sea.
The destroyed rubble, the colossal icebergs, the blue ice bridge itself, and the dark blue water that surrounded it were all consumed by the crimson tide that escorted the serpent, making the once navy blue drink seem as if it were a salt chuck of blood with luminescent robust rubies the sizes of houses floating and falling everywhere you looked.
"Okay, that's scary but very neat." I thought as I looked back ahead of me to find a rippling image in the dark water as if it were an oil painting hovering at eye level like a doorway similar to the one that brought me here moments ago.
"Crikey! That's got to be my way out." I thought to myself as a loud and long hiss traveled through the water and echoed in my ears as if it were coming from inside of my head.
"Faster! You must go faster if you wish to survive this!" Shouted a deep spectral voice like that of the Dark Bride urging me on in her own twisted and frightening way.
"Beuren Run! Follow my voice. Faster now, he's gaining ground!" Said Mirella, who was also screaming in my head with a strange ambiance in the background almost overwhelming her voice. Typical tavern sounds such as the clinking of beer mugs to the rattling of broken teeth scattering on the wooden floors during a bar fight, all being harmonized by the choreographed, laughter-fueled foot-stomping to a fast and festive violin's jig.
"Okay, Beuren you gotta go faster. You can do this. Follow her voice and go faster. Faster, faster, faster, you gotta do it now!" I said to myself as I felt the warmth of the crimson tide slowly clawing at my back like acid dissolving the leather jacket I was wearing. The scarlet sea ate away at the leather on my back which yet again exposed the bear claw scar across my shoulder blades which began to glow in a white-hot light that boiled and bubbled the water around it. With one simple motion I ripped off what was left of the leather cuirass which was soon after completely devoured by the boiling bloody bath lead by the red reptile which was now an arm's length away and flicking its tongue towards me like a long, and forked venomous harpoon made of tar coated black steel.
"There is no escape from me, whelp!" said the serpent with a spine chilling hiss as if whispered straight into my mind along with the sensation of a worm squirming up and around my ear, making my skin crawl.
"Faster. Faster. Come on! I said FASTER!" I shouted with my mouth wide open in the water followed by a violent and sudden shockwave that escaped my throat as my words were carried in all directions through the water. The shockwave, along with the many nearby icebergs, pushed the snake back and slightly stunned it before a crackling bolt of lightning struck me underwater and destroyed most of the ice bridge that was behind me. The colossal column of lightning's impact with my skin created another shell shocking shockwave, this one powerful enough the push away the crushing water completely, creating a large sphere of air around me like a giant bubble leaving me stuck in a running pose as if I were a statue struggling in slow motion on an isolated ice platform at the bottom of the deepest ocean in the soul-crushing blackness of its darkest trench.
My body along with everything else around me slowed down as I rolled around my eyes to see drops and small streams of water circling and floating past me slowly as if it were water spilled in space. As if yet again frozen and a prisoner in my own body, I gazed at my fingers and saw them glistening like stardust while a bright light burst forth from the silver crossed scar on my chest like the astral sheen of a newly born star. The silver scar tissue began burning white-hot although remained as cold as chilled steel to the touch, with the tattoos that surrounded it like healing runes, lighting up just as the scar did and illuminated the ink as if they were neon signs of Latin incantations which almost covered my entire abdomen.
My body ran in slow motion within the giant bubble as amber lightning bolts began surrounding me and made me look like the eye of a merciless electric storm bombarded my serious static showers. Like molten metal spreading across a blacksmith's mold, liquid silver spread across my skin while oozing from the crossed scar on my chest and covered my body like a polished chrome shirt with a full although extremely slick and agile cuirass made of glistening silver forming over my now smooth and shining skin. A cuirass which had a larger amber cross on its front, surrounded by incantations and symbols which produced a strong static discharge as they glowed brighter and brighter: as if I were Mercury himself in skin thin knights armor made of thousands of overlapping pieces for increased maneuverability which now covered my skin. Skin that resembled a freshly forged blade capturing and reflecting the blinding flares of the golden bolts of lighting and static discharge of the sphered storm which surrounded me as if I were standing in a snow globe full of golden lighting.
The cold smooth silver spread from the scar and covered my entire body leaving me looking like a chrome statue donning a tight, full-body chainmail textured armor and baring fiery topaz eyes, like supernovas where my eyeballs once were. Strange Latin tattoos now covered the back of my arms and legs; the same types of markings that I'd been seeing since I arrived in Neverrealm. Images that depicted battles along with weird incantations all connected and linked to an even larger tattoo of magical runes and symbols that ran along my spine from the back of my temple to the end of my lower back; Tattoos which glowed on the surface of the sleek silver suit of armor and gave off radiation like white hot-tempered steel that emitted an amber electric aura.
With no signs of ceasing, the silver chainmail textured skin continued to spread throughout my body forming sleek slim fitting shoulder guards and skin thin silver gauntlets around my fingers along with both of my forearms becoming encased in smooth silver vambraces; followed by my upper arms which were slowly enveloped by skin-hugging rerebraces on either side. My legs and lower body were also consumed by the quicksilver-like liquid; covering them in the same snug chainmail with Cuisses like polished chrome being donned onto my thighs, followed by greaves that spread over my shins and sleek sabatons which encased my feet as if they were silver boots with miniature wings of Hermes masterfully welded onto the sides of both of them.
Cold liquid silver soon crept up my neck and over my hair, changing it from a deep black to a shiny glistening white like a thin layer of well-groomed woolly snow crowning my head. The silver masked my face forming a helm that covered my lower skull and formed a thin but strong visor made of obsidian glass which dimmed the intense blinding glow of my amber eyes. My ears were guarded by feathered wing ornaments which connected to a vent-tail face mask covered in glowing symbols which guarded my mouth and nose along with my entire jaw.
Within a zeptosecond, I was rendered fully armored in a globe of dark water filled with golden lightning emanating from my body. The bright amber cross on the chest began giving off a high-pitched sound which continued to get louder as the cross itself became brighter. The high pitched whistling became more and more intense as the silver cross scar drew in and absorbed all of the lightning and energy that was buzzing and crackling within the water globe until a tremendous burst of beaming energy erupted from my chest like a soaring asteroid and shot forwards into the water ahead of me.
Like a great sword cutting a bundle of hay in twine, the ocean in front of me split apart and slowly separated like giant fortress gates opening. The parting sea revealed the mysterious doorway floating in empty space not too far from where I was, like a haunted painting. Starring at the door ahead of me and with the serpent behind me still hissing down my neck, I braced for what I knew was coming as it banged its head against the thin icy dome although unable to enter and unaffected by the strange time anomaly that surrounded me.
The dark sea behind me remained a deep crimson while the sea ahead continued to separate as dozens of the giant blocks of ice which floated in the water began lining up ahead of me, floating in the now empty space between the splitting bodies of water and forming a solid path of ice which led straight to the floating, blackwood doorway lined with silver and a silver wolf head door knocker with small ruby gems as eyes. The scarlet stones stared right at me before the bejeweled eyes began strobing intense light through the ruby lenses. The scarlet wolf eyes emitted intense bursts of blinding crimson light which caused cracks in the dome that surrounded me before they turned from flashing ruby red to a still sapphire blue in the span of a heartbeat, at which point the dome burst and broke into pieces like a worn-out lightbulb.
I immediately gained feeling throughout my body and took off from the ice platform like a god of speed finally unchained, as the sharp shards of diamond-hard ice fell to the chilling surface of the iceberg which was already quite the distance behind me. Like Mercury himself, I ran on the giant ice blocks laid out like a bridge before me, a bridge made from giant structures of blue ice which was as dense as diamond, but still cracked and crumbled to snow beneath my feet as I stepped on and off them while running at an immeasurable speed, too fast to be seen by the human eye. With my focus and eyes now only on the luminous and mysterious door, I raced against the scarlet serpent which was once again pursuing and hissing at me from inside of the separating bodies of water which I now ran between. I looked to my right and saw its glowing topaz eyes on the side of its head wink at me and its shimmering scarlet scales swimming and following me through the dark dingy water, and was surprised to see it serpentine in slow-motion, swimming swiftly through the salty sinister sea.
As I turned my gaze back to the door, I noticed the closing and collapsing of the split sea behind me like giant gates of water violently and abruptly crashing down sending gusts of cold whistling winds up the narrow corridor of water leading to the blackwood door up ahead.
"Crickey, that doesn't look like it tickles," I said to myself as I looked back at the crushing bodies of water which drew ever too nearer to me despite how fast I was already moving, with the voices of Mirella and the Darkbride in my head also getting louder and louder until all I could hear were indistinguishable murmurs.
The crushing water behind me began splashing against my back with great force as the serpent's voice began echoing up and down the narrow corridor which leads to the floating black wood door.
"Argh, I gotta jump. It's the only way to make it," I thought out loud as I bent my knees which made the inscriptions and engravings on the armor guarding my legs begin to glow brighter than any other parts of my body. With an explosive jump, I launched myself off the ice which caused my legs to ignite and be engulfed in roaring flames, and like a flaming ballista round, I soared towards the blackwood door with the crushing crimson abyss of an endless ocean closing in on me.
Now at arm's reach from the door, I extended my hand towards it and once again found myself passing through it as if it were a deep pool of rippling water, with the voice of the serpent letting out a final wail as I escaped through the rippling portal.
"No! You ssslimy sssickening ssswine!" He hissed, as his black saliva darkened the blood-like water which he swam in.
His words echoed and faded away as my body passed through the doorway just before the rippling blackwood and silver were once again surrounded by cold crushing water. Soon after I had escaped the dark drink harboring scarlet serpents, the door disappeared into the water like dissolving sea salt, leaving the serpent circling the remains of the door which were a group of rising bubbles, and finally uttering a single word which would reach my ears even though I was long gone.
"Sssoon!" He cynically hissed once more, before exploding like a giant balloon filled with crimson paint and wildfire, leaving behind an empty endless ocean of boiling blood.