How the Emperor trapped a Witch

Chapter Twenty-four: A deadly enemy part 2

Note: Blood, gore, cuss words and violence in this chapter. Also, small change in last chapter. The creature's weakness's are water and fire.

I glanced over at Alaric who was watching for my reaction. I half-heartedly smiled at him as I became secretly glad at his insistence on my support role. That thing was terrifying to look at, much less fight.

I clutched his hand tightly before releasing it to ready my wand. The creature roars at Suli which ending in a head-splitting shriek as he raked his claws across it's chest. I didn't even see Suli move before the shriek causing to release a small gasp that luckily went unnoticed.

Suli pulls back, drawing the creature into the clearing while avoiding the spider-like legs that jabbed at him with the speed of a experienced hunter equipped with a spear. Suli deftly avoided each of the blows but was blown back by the wind that was generated. 

Alaric starts to move as Suli continued to take the creatures attention and I could see the others leaving their hiding spots to surround it. 

"Fireball." I wave my wand, imagining hundreds of fireballs surrounding the creature. They suddenly appear, surprising it when I flick my wrist to unleash an bombardment of the fireballs.

It shrieks again, reeling back in pain as it's green skin burned. Alaric and Kimbra started to attack it's sides as Nolo shot arrows in the rough area of it's eyes, intending on blinding it.

However, that only seems to enrage the creature, causing it to stomp it's misshaped feet and splattering the black ooze. Alaric and Kimbra had to jump back as Reid joined in by creating water which caught the splatters, diffusing it before falling harmlessly to the ground.

I kept up the barrage as the muscle man and red-haired woman joined in the fray, weaving around the thin legs and stabbing at it's chest. It roars in anger and tries to swipe at them, but ended up being attacked in the other direction by Alaric and Kimbra. 

One of the legs suddenly falls to the ground with a thud, purple blood poured out from the jagged joint. The creature lashes out towards Alaric, the one who had cut it off who easily avoids it.

I started to get entranced as I watched Alaric fight: it was almost like he was dancing. The way he moved made it seem like he knew what the creature was going to do before it did. He cuts off two more legs with deadly precision, smoother then a gazelle as he eluded all of it's attacks.

The creature falls, it's left over legs supporting it making it resemble a spider even more. It's legs moved towards the center of its body below it as it's core moved to the exposed backside.  

Alaric jumps onto its back and is about to stab his sword into the core when it shrieks again; but this shriek was different this time. Being so close to the creature, Alaric was a little bit dizzy but quickly regained himself.

 Everything was going well when suddenly sh*t hit the fan. 

A resounding roar echoed from the opposite direction: an answer to the shriek. The worse part was that it came from behind me.

The ground rumbled as a hissing sound quickly grew louder, causing me to have to jump out of the way as the rotten tree trunk I was using was reduced to splinters that flew in every direction. 

I rolled to avoid the splinters then stopped in shock. There was a second one.

This creature had the bottom half of a snake with a spiked tail, the body of gorilla with two pairs of arms and the head of lion. It's eyes met mine and I found myself unable to move.

I could hear Alaric shouting my name, but I couldn't move my eyes from the creatures black soul-less eyes. It took every bit of my willpower to wrench my eyes out from it's gaze and I felt like I could breathe once I succeeded.

It hisses in surprise and lunges for me but I knew that it was going to do that.

"Protect!" I waved my wand around myself, forming a strong barrier around, below and above me. This safely cocooned me in magic but it had one problem: I couldn't cast anymore magic until the protection spell was released.

The creature circles around me, intending to entrap me in it's powerful lower body. I was lifted up as the snake part started to squeeze, but the spell did not loose it's shape. All I could see was iridescent scales as I curled up to wait.

Hopefully, Alaric killed the first creature before dealing with this one. But what was more worrisome was that this second one appeared. Including the one that Alaric and Kimbra fought before, that means there are more creatures like these around: encountering them three times means that it wasn't a coincidence.

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"Tia!" I shouted as I saw a second creature appear near and saw her staring into it's eyes. I quickly impaled the core of the first creature as Tia was surrounded by a silver shield before disappearing from view.

The creature falls as it starts to dissipate, all traces of it gone- like it was never here. 

"Alaric!" Kimbra grabs onto my arm as I started forward. "We need to regroup first! Celestia is alright: she can take care of herself."

The others run over, Nolo changing from his bow to the sword and Barrett cracked his knuckles. Reid held onto his staff tightly while Blair huffed and spun a knife on her hand in irritation. The Fenrir that Tia called Suli came over and stared at me with it's ice blue eyes. 

"Alright." I made eye contact with each of the them before speaking. "We need to separate Tia from the creature." I looked over at the edge of the cliff. "And use the cliff. It's suicide to fight it in the clearing."

"Got it." Everyone chimes in as I turned to face the snake creature.