Reborn: From Nothing

It has been two weeks since I saved the boy. We continue our walk along the mountain path. The path has dipped from high in the mountains, to ground level. No longer do I have to descend a cliff in order to hunt for food.

This, however, presents a new danger. At all times we are accessible to the monsters that roam the forests. The rate at which we encounter such beasts has increased, though the threat is hardly a mortal one.

“What is it, Olivia? You look a little unwell?” I ask her.

I noticed it about 15 minutes ago but waited for her to speak up on her own if she wished. But, she seems to be repressing it.

“Ah, it's nothing I can’t handle. It’s just that my boot has a hole in it.”

I bend down and inspect her boot. She is right. About where the toe would normally be, there is a large hole letting snow in.

“Seraphina, let’s take a break. We need to deal with this before she gets frostbitten. I’m not skilled enough with healing magic to save a toe once it has reached that stage, we can’t let it get to that point.”

“Alright. Let me fix the boot, I have some leather in my bag.”

I start up a fire and take off her boot, handing it to Seraphina. Olivia gladly warms up not just her feet, but her entire body. This isn’t going to put us behind schedule or anything, I like to take breaks like this every few hours. Underestimating the cold can easily become the death of us.

Seraphina methodically slices the leather into thin strips. Then, she takes a large square slice of leather, makes mini incisions where she will later thread the strips through, and places it against the boot. Then she sews the large leather piece onto the boot.

Snow will no longer be getting into the boot.

With this rest and repair over, we return to walking along the trail. Freshly laid snow packing under our feet providing a rhythmic crunching sound within the quiet forest.

Due to the snow, the path is no longer obviously marked at our feet by dead grass and exposed dirt, thus we have to rely on tree marking to maintain our way.

At the noontide, my idle thinking is interrupted by a clump of snow falling onto my head. After accumulating on a branch, shaking of the ground loosened off the branch.

Hm, the ground is shaking?

It is just now, that a deep sinister feeling permeates throughout my body. Starting from deep within my gut, and ending at the skin of my hands.

Even in my current state, I am still the man who survived years of war. My skills may have diminished, but my intuition remains. As such, I can tell that something is terribly, terribly wrong.

“LOOK OUT!”

I sprint toward Seraphina and Olivia who are still oblivious. I wrap my arms around both of them and jump forward as fast as I am able to.

From beneath us, exactly where we were standing, a long, cylindric beast emerges from the ground. If I had been even a microsecond late in my movement, my foot would have been caught in the mouth of the beast.

I am unable to let the girls fall gracefully. They both scrape their arms and legs on the ground badly, drawing blood in the process. Still, they can walk.

The beast does not turn its attention to us fully until its entire body has escaped from the ground. I return to my feet and finally turn toward the beast. When I do, I witness a massive snake.

It is two dozen meters in length, and 5 meters wide. The snake bears pitch black skin, with white scales found occasionally within the darkness. The snake's eyes are white in the pupils and sclera, with a slightly gray iris.

Once the snake has locked eyes with me, it lets out a deep and ground-shaking ‘hiss’. When it does so, a strange affliction bears over me. It is a terrifyingly nostalgic sensation. It is the ‘fear’ spell, once used by Ozias upon the Scipio children on that fateful day.

Behind me, still on the ground, my two companions tremble in fear of the creature that has emerged. It makes sense, even Julius, a hardened warrior, was barely able to overcome this spell many years ago.

Back then, I only felt this spell through my connection to Cassius. Now that I have felt it in its purest form, I have earned a new respect for him.

I back up, still locking eyes with the snake. Though I am not moving away from said snake, rather, I am moving toward my companions.

“Get up, get up you two. You have to run, get away from here as fast as you can.”

“B…but you…” responds Olivia.

Ah, even in this situation, even with the fear spell cast upon her, Olivia is still concerned for my safety. I have gotten lucky with her friendship.

“It’s ok… I’ll be alright. Now you two need to run, I doubt I can keep both of you safe against this thing.” I respond.

But they do not run, the fear spell is far too overwhelming. I have no choice but to think back deeply into my training, and think of a spell that could possibly counter this. In a desperate attempt, I cast the spell ‘focus’ on both of them.

This spell doesn’t negate the effects of ‘fear’, but it provides them enough concentration to get their legs moving. They both stand up, and Seraphina turns to me and says,

“Please, promise me you will make it back to us.”

“...I promise, but if I don’t, then I need you to take care of her.”

“You are contradicting yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter, please run.”

They abandon their luggage, and sprint as fast as they can away from the serpent. When it sees the two of them trying to escape, it makes its first attack.

The serpent lifts its head high into the air, opens its mouth, and then violently shakes its head in many directions. The movement of the head alone creates giant gusts of wind, but that wasn’t the true danger.

All throughout the area, venom rains from the sky. Once I see this, I build a massive wall of stone in front of me. I block all the venom from getting behind me, keeping the two of them safe.

Once the venom stops, I let the wall fall down, and I see the damage the venom has done. Every living organism that venom touched, be it shrubs, trees, or even a single rabbit, withered, and turned to ash.

I am sure of it, if even a drop of venom touches my skin, I will be killed.

I have not yet cast focus or made any other attempt to lessen the effect of ‘fear’, as I do not need to. I had to drop the wall I placed in front of me to maintain visibility, but for now, it would be best to create a barrier that better helps the two of them flee.

The snake, after stopping its venom spraying attack, stops moving once more and observes me. Like a wild cat stalking its prey, it stares me down.

Ah, I see, like me, this snake bears intuition. Perhaps, it has also seen many years of combat. It knows that I’m dangerous. If it wishes to be cautious, then I will let it. I will use the time it has given me to create a barrier between us and the two girls.

I build up every ounce of mana I can muster into one earth spell, channeling it through my staff. Then with one burst, I cast a tidal wave of stone behind myself.

The earth shakes violently once more, and triangle formations of rock fire up behind me. The stone creeps higher and higher toward the sky until I have formed a new mountain. One that reaches high above the clouds.

The mountain can not simply be gone around either, as it has now connected to the other mountains within the range.

While this barrier will be of great use, I still need to stall for time. Holding this monster off for 30 minutes should be enough.

I need a strategy. Maybe I ca-

Shit!

The serpent goes on the offensive. As fast as any human I have fought before, it launches its head toward me. I dodge to the left, but some venom lands on the edge of my robe. I toss my staff away to the side. Then toss the robe off my body, barely avoiding contact with the venom.

Now, all that remains on my body is my fine tunic and the daggers at my waist.

I reach down to those daggers. The ones I swore off using long ago. Perhaps, now is the time with the life of myself and my companions on the line. Perhaps I can overcome this mental state.

My hands grow ever closer to the dagger, but once they are just a centimeter away, they begin to tremble. I am afraid. Far more than my fear of the snake, I am terrified by the prospect of holding these blades once more.

What is it? What is this deep fear holding me back?

I have no time to contemplate. The snake continues its attacks. By now, I have warmed my body up, and have regained sharpness in my movements. I dodged the next few attacks, as well as the venom that accompanied them.

Despite these successes, I can not remain on the defensive forever. Yet, I am still unable to attack. Which leaves one option. I must distract it.

I leap past the serpent and grab my staff once more. In a long shot of hope, I attempt to form an attack spell, but the spell fails. It does not even come close to forming.

The next spell I opt for is a fog. In between dodging attacks, I form a great mist that covers the landscape all around us. I will use this cover to make some distance. The greater the distance, the easier it will be to dodge attacks.

I sprint through the trees, making tight, sharp movements to avoid rocks and shrubbery. Once I have reached a comfortable distance, I turn to face the serpent once more.

Wherever the snake moves, tall trees are knocked out of the way, like toothpicks flicked into the air by a bored child. Echoing through the forest, within the deep mist, another deep hiss enters my ears.

Upon processing this ‘hiss’, I find the world spinning around me. The fear I had suppressed inside of me bubbled up once more, but in the end, turned to a need to vomit. On the ground in front of me, I spill the contents of my breakfast.

It takes a moment, but I realize the ‘hiss’ I heard before had a slightly higher pitch. Depending on the tone of the snake's hissing, it can inflict different mental states.

*CRASH*

The final tree in front of me tumbles over, and I meet the snake eye-to-eye once more. I am still nauseous, but I regained my focus.

I try to leap away, but the snake responds quickly. It moves underground, and I am forced to turn my attention towards predicting when it will emerge from the ground.

Its head fires from the dirt a few meters behind me and once it has reached 5 meters in the air, it spews venom in a circle around it, then crashes its head down onto me.

I dodge to the right while creating a barrier of stone above myself. Having the skill to cast a mana barrier would be really convenient right now, but I, unfortunately, lack talent in that type of magic.

The snack upon realizing that I have escaped moves back underground. I respond to this by launching myself into the air with wind magic. Flying with magic is impossible, but I can at least jump pretty high with it.

I create some distance and once I reach the bottom, the snake emerges from underground. I respond by launching myself to a distance like before. This repeats multiple times. Every attack comes too close for comfort, but I manage to get by.

15 minutes have passed by since the battle began… battle? No, this is more of a chase. This snake is following my heels, and waiting for me to trip. With exhaustion creeping up, I fear I may trip soon.

The forest around me, once a beautiful white and vibrant, even in the snowy conditions, has been reduced to ash and splinters. The battlefields I occupied just months ago entered my mind. A new feeling of melancholy washes over me as I remember the warzones.

Damn it, now is not the time for thinking about that. Just 15 more minutes of stalling this thing, If I can accomplish that, then the two of them should be able to escape safely. From there, well, Seraphina is competent, she’ll find a way to survive, even when I die here.

The serpent dives into the ground once more and emerges just a meter in front of me. I leap over the beast, like a high jumper over a pole, with my back to its head.

While I am still in the air, the serpent, while staring at me, begins to ‘hiss’ once more. This time, the hissing brings photosensitivity. I had not predicted that this ability could affect my eyesight. For a second, I reactively shut my eyes to block out this sky, which is now blinding.

The mouth of the serpent nearly shuts tight onto my legs. I launch myself away with wind magic, thinking I managed to dodge its attack. Once I make it a few meters away, a powerful blunt force collides with the entire back of my body.

The beast allowed me to feel safe from its jaws, so it could attack me with its tail.

My body ragdolls through the air, crashing through one of the few trees remaining. Eventually, I find myself on the ground, with my back to a rock. I am bleeding.

Despite the pain that the photosensitivity still brings my eyes, I continue to stare down the beast as it approaches.

My entire body is racked with pain. My arms and legs can barely move. In fact, my right leg has bent upward at a 90-degree angle. I doubt that is the only severely damaged limb.

My consciousness is waning, I feel as if I may lose it at any moment. I fully understand that if I lose it now, I will never regain it.

The serpent is no longer rushing its movements. It slowly creeps toward me with an arrogant demeanor. Its eyes take in my condition as if examining a masterpiece of its own creation.

With the monster hovering over me, preparing to finish me off, I come to terms with my impending demise. I am ready to die. In fact, I have been wanting this for a long time.

My heart has not yet stopped, but I can feel it already. The cold warmth of the abyss, the promise to finally end my pain.

In my old world, I was quite privileged. Despite this, I was quite tormented. Bullying, death of loved ones, failure, all of it followed me wherever I went. Yet, I managed to numb the pain. By avoiding responsibility, pushing away those who threatened to obtain a spot within my heart, and blaming the universe for my failures, I was able to prevent myself from getting too hurt.

In this world, I did the opposite. I invited the young Cassius into my heart and became attached to people. This only led to me experiencing even worse pain, worse than anything I ever felt in my old world.

No matter what I do, I will only suffer.

Thus, I will invite death.

I just hope this time, I will not be reborn.

Why?

Why is the snake no longer looking at me?

It is staring to the left.

Ah, there is a man there.

The snake is attacking the man, but he is… teleporting?

How is that possible?

I can’t get a good look at that man, but I can tell for sure that he is casting some spell that allows him to teleport.

What is that light?

Where has the snake gone? It is as if it vanished.

I’m tired…