New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 999: The Black Scourge

In his eagerness to inflict damage to his opponent, the kobold had left his guard down for a single second, and Alex used everything he had to gain space for himself.

The hook smacked the kobold squarely in his elongated jaw, sending his head rocking to the side, soon followed by his entire body, as he flew into a nearby wall, cratering into the stone with a loud boom.

With only seconds to spare, Alex un-melded with White and reached back for Shegror's soul fragment, feeling his body undergo multiple changes in rapid succession. Alex pulled back into his mind as Shegror's influence set back in, letting her take complete control.

Not a moment later, the wall that the kobold had crashed into exploded outward with stone shards, fragments hurtling in every direction. The lizard, now brimming with renewed blood lust, charged towards him.

But it wasn't Alexander waiting for him anymore.

With a grin that would have sent shivers down Kary's spine, the skin on Alex's body still changing to scales in many places, Shegror burst forward to meet the kobold midway.

The sudden surge in speed took the kobold by surprise, the human moving much faster than before and feeling a pressure he had only ever felt once.

From within his mind, Alex stood watch, making sure he could kick Shegror back out if something happened. And he felt the surge in power when it came, feeling it clearly surpass what he could muster with his normal melds usually.

He could reach this kind of power in his angel form or demon form, but he seldom wanted to use them yet, as they used a lot of mana, and he only had so much to spare at the moment.

The uncertainty of how far this dungeon would go was weighing on his mind just as much as on the others, and he refused to go all out at the moment. They would be doomed if they reached the end of the dungeon, and he couldn't use his full power and needed it.

Fortunately for him, Shegror was being true to her word, and all the power she was mustering wasn't lowering his mana reserves in the least. He could feel the mana she was pulling come from the surroundings and from another tether that he couldn't retrace entirely.

As she and the kobold collided mid-air, the latter felt like he had slammed into a stone wall, his momentum coming to an abrupt stop before he felt his body getting shoved back again.

'Where is this human getting this power from? A moment ago, he was struggling to keep up with me. Now he swats me away like a bug?' the kobold thought.

Skidding to a stop after getting pushed away like he weighed nothing, the kobold leaned forward, bracing for the next onslaught.

Looking over his shield, there was no trace of his opponent anymore. Feeling panic welling inside him, his head swivelled around, trying to find the human, but to no avail.

That was until a whisper slithered into his tympanum.

"Looking for me, inferior being?"

The kobold jumped forward, doing a complete one-eighty, only to find nothing behind him. His skin crawled as he felt a sliding sensation on his arm before a sizzle started crackling on his scales, a burning sensation replacing the brush.

The pain grew in his arm, but the kobold pushed through it with gritted teeth.

"Where are you?! Stop hiding! You call me inferior, but you can't fight me face to face!" the kobold shouted, his head still spinning left and right, unable to spot the human. "What do you mean? I'm right here," the voice whispered to him again with a cackle, sounding like it was directly next to him, to his right.

But even when he snapped his head to the right, there was nothing there.

"Where are you looking, you dumb lizard? I'm right before you," the voice echoed again.

The kobold swung his sword forward, annoyed by the taunting, and he hit something solid, his sword making sparks as if it slid off a metal surface.

"Tsk tsk tsk," the voice came, tongue clicking disapprovingly.

"You are wasting your time. You can't even see me, let alone land an attack that would hurt me. Why don't you let my acid work its way into your brain and fall asleep forever?"

The kobold was confused about what the human was talking about, the burn on his arm no longer spreading.

"What acid? Have you lost your mind, human?" he barked, still trying to find the human with its eyes.

But something strange was happening. As he turned his head, it seemed like the cave around was moving a second after his head.

It was almost like there was a time delay between his head turning and his eyes following.

That's when he caught it-the acrid scent of something burning.

His nostrils flared, and he tried covering them with his arm, dropping the handle of his shield as it hung off the strap alone.

"It's too late for that now, poor thing. You've already breathed in so much of it. I'm sure you are already feeling its effects on your senses.

"Is your sight feeling sluggish? Maybe your hearing sounds like I'm so far away and close simultaneously? How is your balance? Feeling like a lone boat on a stormy sea yet?" the voice asked mockingly.

But the kobold started feeling nauseous, almost like the floor was wavering under his feet, and he knew something was wrong.

"What did you do to me?!" he asked, feeling his eyes tear up with a burning sensation.

Using the back of his shield hand to wipe the tears away, the kobold's heart froze.

On the back of his hand, glimmering in the very little light of the cave, crimson liquid trickled down. His sight started going red, almost like someone was pulling a red veil over his head.

Feeling the urge to cough, the kobold buckled to a knee, coughing and hacking, only to see blood land on the ground, blackened and sickly.

'What is going on?!' he wondered, panic taking over.

The coughing resumed, barely interlaced with some hap hazardous breaths, with Shegror kneeling next to his spasming body to whisper in its ear.

"You know, you call your patron the great one. That only means it hasn't been given a proper name yet. Well, rejoice. I will tell you my true name. The name of an actual dragon. The name of the one who will kill your master and consume it, stopping it from ever seeing the light of

day.

"They call me Shegror-the Black Scourge. And today, you fell victim to the insidiousness of my acidic vapours. Your death is going to be slow and agonizing. I hope the pain has mercy on you enough to make you feint before you die.

"Goodbye, you mockery of a descendant. And for you, who I am sure is listening. I'm coming for you," Shegror said, his eyes narrowing menacingly as he stared at the red eyes painted on

the armour.

The next moment, the paint flared up and disappeared, a low rumble echoing through the cave. The challenge had been received.

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