Chereads / Ruinous Future / Chapter 44 - Premonition (V) - Bottom of the Sea

Chapter 44 - Premonition (V) - Bottom of the Sea

Bell opened her eyes, immediately preparing for any type of situation.

This behavior was slightly dampened in the past few days due to the strange change in nature to her dreams. Nevertheless, her mind and body were prepared.

Her preparations were not in vain, as when Bell opened her eyes, she saw a gigantic battlefield. The sounds of clanging blades, cast magics, Fragments being used, and so many other chaotic noises hit her ears.

She felt the weight of plate armor with a billowing cape and an empty sheath. 

Bell looked around for a target, immediately pulled a sword out of a nearby corpse upon finding one.

'This is probably mine...' Bell thought as she examined the blade, only looking at slick blood.

A towering behemoth of a demon that stood at least several meters high was wiping out waves of what Bell assumed were friendly soldiers. So, she dropped into a sprint with her bloodied broadsword in hand, engulfing it in the gray flames of Ruination, and plunged it into the heel of the demon.

'Shatter joins, sever tendons, reach weak points.' Bell chanted in her mind.

The demon roared and attempted to stomp on Bell by raising its foot, but she simply kept her grip on the handle of the blade. She was raised into the air, but at the apex of her height, she let go and quickly Created a spear that soon found its way into the lower back of the demon.

Bell's distraction allowed the soldiers to not only retreat, but also tend to the wounded and go on the counteroffensive. Every moment counted in battles such as this, though Bell had only dreamt of such battlefields only a handful of times.

Most of her knowledge on large-scale battles came from books and her mentor. That knowledge helped Bell sleep for longer through surviving much longer in the battles. It was rare for Bell to see the end of a large-scale battle such as this, but Bell hoped that attending classes at the Terrarium would help her out on that end. 

In any case, the demon roared again and started rampaging around like a wild animal, it took two steps backward and threatened to fall. Several strings appeared and threatened to sever the nape of the demon if it continued to fall, so it didn't. Roaring once more, it charged forward. 

All the while, Bell decided to start climbing the back of the beast using a pair of Created ice picks, she had seen them in battle once, a long while ago. Bell's use of the ice picks was quite tame in comparison to the monster of a warrior that used them long ago. 

Upon reaching the neck of the beast, Bell Created a serrated dagger and engulfed it in a swirling inferno of gray flames. As she sliced at the back of the beast several times, the gray flames accumulated, and her haphazard slashing became much easier. After reaching a tough area, Bell reactivated Ruination and the beast fell, its spinal cord severed by the black flames.

The behemoth fell forward, luckily, and Bell was able to simply ride the corpse down until she hopped off of the neck. The soldiers that she had helped ran up and greeted her with smiles and high fives.

However, they didn't have much time to talk, as another rampaging beast appeared, this one took the form of a giant, wild, blazing bull. Its fur was black yet carried scarlet flames, the horns that decorated its head carried dancing deep violet flames. On those very horns were several soldiers that were still alive, some were slumped, while others were attempting to break themselves free.

Bell avoided the initial dash, which miraculously missed the rest of Bell's new "squadron." She turned to see where the bull would turn, which luckily, was back towards Bell.

'Shatter joints, sever tendons, reach weak points.' Bell chanted once more.

She then conjured a spear and a rope, having a wild idea form in her mind.

Often times, in dreams such as this, Bell has the chance to test any insane ideas that would probably never work in the real world. Here was her plan: Tie a rope to a spear, throw the spear around the neck of the giant bull, hold onto the rope, and as it runs past, Bell will be able to simply fly onto the back of the demon.

'Three...'

Bell tied the rope around the spear.

'Two...'

She readied herself to hurl her handmade grappling hook.

'One...' 

The bull grew near, and Bell was already running out of its way.

'Now!'

Bell turned, threw her grappling hook around the neck of the demon, and held onto the other end of the rope. In a heartbeat as the bull rushed past, the rope straightened nearly immediately.

She was then pulled at speeds that strained her body and threatened to break her bones. Yet, she survived and was now loosely following the bull while pseudo-flying. Bell hadn't exactly ironed out the parts of the plan that occurred after throwing the spear, seeing as how the flames should have burnt the rope.

Actually...

Bell noticed that the rope was thinning around the area where she was holding it.

Inwardly, she cursed, 'Damnit!'

Not even a moment later, her only hope of holding onto the beast was lost and she was flung in some random direction at breakneck speeds. Bell quickly lost the bull as she started tumbling on the ground, bouncing against the sand flats a few times. On her final bounce, Bell grunted in pain and then hit something hard. 

After regaining her composure, Bell looked up and found that she was at the foot of what looked like a friendly giant. It wore a large, crude breastplate, a cape, and was currently locked in a duel with another, equally giant person.

The friendly looking giant took a step backward, and to avoid being crushed into paste by the enemy giant, Bell dashed away.

As Bell dashed away, she was brought into an intense skirmish between two squadrons. Bell recognized the colors of armor and cloth on one side, then Created a longsword and started fighting what she perceived to be the enemies.

They weren't as strong as Bell would have expected, and her sword covered in the dancing gray flames of Ruination easily cut through some of the thin leather armors that her enemies were wearing. She quickly found herself "losing" control of her body as it started automatically doing what she viewed to be the best course of action.

The sounds further away started to drown away, and the world around her slowly faded until all she saw were her enemies and allies. Thus, she was able to maneuver around her allies between her slaughtering of the enemies. Some were able to survive two or three exchanges, but most were felled in a single, well-placed slice.

Bell then noticed that one of them was a bit taller, looked like he had more muscle, and wielded a proper greatsword instead of the broadswords, daggers, and spears.

'That's the leader.' Bell stated calmly.

In a heartbeat, she was making a mad dash towards him. After getting close enough, Bell launched herself into the air and Created another sword, and instantly created a type of scissors. 

Of course, they were enjoying the benefits of the gray flames that Bell loved to use. Upon reaching who she believed to be the enemy leader, she unleashed a devastating attack that cleared through his gambeson and leather armor. Two deep gashes appeared on his flesh, and a wild slash from his greatsword was launched in Bell's direction.

Bell was still in the air, so she had to take the attack, luckily, her breastplate was strong enough to only be dented by the wild strike. Unluckily, the bones in her rib cage weren't, they threatened to break under the stress of the attack, but only felt bruised. 

Before Bell landed on the ground, she felt around her mind for any other Fragments, and if she had the Stardust available to cast them.

She had the Fragment that gave her access to Dagger and Shield, but she also had one more Fragment. The two abilities granted to her by using this third Fragment were Second Wind and Blink. 

It was rare that Bell had a nightmare where she had access to three Fragments, but it was a welcome surprise.

Bell touched the ground, activated Second Wind, which enhanced her spatial awareness, but her analytical skills plummeted as a result. Luckily, Bell didn't need spatial awareness for the moments that Second Wind was activated.

Bell felt her internal Stardust storage quickly drop as Second Wind healed not only her bruised ribs, but the other unnoticed fractures and lacerations decorating her entire body. But all of that didn't matter in the moment, as Bell's twin blades were rapidly rising to meet the zweihander that the enemy leader wielded.

They locked blades and eyes for a moment, and Bell knew that two flimsy swords weren't going to do much for the moment. So, Bell used an explosive show of strength to create an opening in his defenses, targeted her swords with Ruination, then plunged them into softer, thinner parts of his leather armor.

Afterward, she reactivated Ruination, and the now extremely open wounds were starting to bleed profusely.

The foe then roared louder than what Bell believed to be possible for a man his size, and the ground started rumbling.

Bell rushed forward to behead the man with a newly Created claymore before he could finish whatever he was attempting to do. However, as she grew closer, and her sword was nearing the man's head...

She struck scales.

In an instant, a gigantic, scaled worm appeared out of the ground, and the man leaped on top of the worm.

He said something, but due to a language barrier, Bell wasn't able to tell what he said. 

But she understood the intent, so she stabbed her claymore in the ground and taunted him with her two open hands.