NO, IT WASN'T APPROACHING; IT WAS ALREADY THERE!!!
Then he felt it, a cold, rotten breath brush across his cheek before he heard the sound again.
Gurrrl
But this time he heard it right next to him, echoing within his ear.
Strengthening his grip on his spear, his hand spun back, rising towards his side; he didn't spend any time thinking.
Not when his every instinct was screaming that something was wrong.
Booom!
But he was still too late; before his spear could even complete its attack, he was sent flying through the air like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"Az!!" Seeing him get launched into the air by the unknown enemy, Olivia quickly followed his body, grabbing him out of the air.
While usually she would have gone on the offense immediately after seeing him being attacked, this time she hesitated as all her instincts were telling her to take him and run.
It didn't even matter where, but she had to run if she wanted this sinking feeling of dread to go away.
Catching his body, she quickly got him back on his feet.
"T.t.thanks, Liv, I owe you one, Ahhhgh," as he spoke, it felt like his throat was scraping together.
Like he was eating glass, he brought his hands up towards his mouth as he was coughing only to feel a warm, sticky liquid land on his hands.
It was bad, but they couldn't exactly continue standing there examining his wounds; they had to move before whatever hit him decided it wasn't enough.
And that's when they finally saw it.
Stepping out of a thin layer of black smoke, its legs were long and pitch black with thin red lines traveling along them. Its legs were connected to a slim upper body, which seemed to be fighting itself as the thing constantly shifted between solid and vapor.
Atop this unique body was a head that looked to be a mix between a human and a twisted, corrupted fox
Where its two eyes were supposed to be were instead just two big hollowed-out holes, from which tears of what looked to be green blood slowly dripped from within its hollowed eye sockets—a mix of green and purple as tears of what looked to be green
Its limbs were stretched so far that it couldn't keep them off the snowy ground, every step it took its hands would be dragged behind it
Its entire body was covered from head to toe in thin small green cracks, which looked to be slowly eroding leaking green blood.
Its skin was like that of liquid tar one minute constantly cracking, melting, solidifying, hardening until the next moment it began smoking, breaking apart into dense black smoke before tearing itself back to a solid state.
Finally catching a glimpse of the thing something went off in both of their minds at the same time.
A sound one of them was familiar with and the other was hearing only for the second time.
Ding!!
Which was accompanied by the system's message:
[New Entity Scanned]
Classification: Monster
Definition: A mistake by the cosmos, something that shouldn't exist.
Subject Identified:????
Rank: Whispers
Description:??? (Don't let the smoke touch you)
Reading the system's message the fear they felt was instantly doubled, what the hell was a Monster doing in a dungeon that shouldn't have been possible.
But they had no time to read into it now they had to escape.
Slowly rising to their feet they took a glance at each other before two manic smiles found a way onto their faces
"You know we can't turn back right, it's way too late now" she asked her grin growing wider."
"Of course I know that, where finally free and you think I would go back up there, hell no, we'll just have to get past this thing or die trying same as the beginning"
As he replied the air around them got noticeably lighter, while the area around the Monster standing in front of them got heavier.
Even as dread filled their minds their bodies refused to kneel,
"I've decreased the gravity around us as much as I can, so on the count of three we go as fast as possible ok?"
"Alright"
One
Two
Three
As soon as the word left his lips they both pressed off, going as fast as they could.
But that thing wasn't ideal either, as soon as they moved, its body became fully smoky going after them.
Before long it appeared directly behind them, regaining its semisolid form the monster opened its deformed fox-like mouth before shooting a big slimy ball of green blood at them.
Hearing the mass of blood cutting through the air towards them, Azreal influenced the gravity around it pulling it away from their direction.
But that did little to stop the monster as it just released three more balls of sizzling blood towards them before getting on all fours and running after them.
It moved like a blur dragging itself through the snow leaving behind only the green substance that appeared to be its blood which was sizzling, burning its way deep within the flattened snow as it moved along.
Azrael managed to redirect the three balls of blood flying towards them before increasing the gravity around the monster as much as he could.
But even with the gravity around it increased by four, the thing still managed to move
No, not just move it was thriving.
As if it wasn't affected by the increase in gravity one bit.
It was still slamming its way through the snow towards them at the same speed if not faster.
Its unnaturally long arms were ripping through the snow madly, gripping onto it, using it to push itself forward.
Only for its arms along with the rest of its body to melt into a liquid tar-like substance before rising as smoke once more until ultimately its form solidified again.
Only for its grotesque form to start the chase again, as if the only goal it had ever known was to catch them.
But even as the grotesque creature melted, smoked, and solidified they didn't stop their escape for even a moment,
Seeing that the increased gravity was doing nothing to the creature, Azreal stopped wasting his mana on the fruitless endeavor, instead shifting his focus to lightening the gravity around them instead.
Which resulted in them slowly starting to move faster than it could keep up or so they thought.
As soon as it opened its disgusting mouth, even unhinging its jaw as its form started melting once again.
Before releasing a deafening sound akin to several people's dying screams as they are pulled underneath the water.
Ahhhkahk!!
As the sound escaped its body, it began to permeate throughout the entire dungeon floor bringing with it pure absolute dread.
This sound alone was enough to blast the two of them forward off their feet with the sheer volume it displayed.
Sending them flying forward, making them lose their balance mid-escape.
Even the flattened snow littered with fresh snake scales below them started slightly vibrating due to its scream
But even as they eventually got up from out of the snow, they could barely move as the more that awful sound echoed off the dungeon walls the more it filled the room.
Resulting in a dread so deep, so awful they couldn't move their bodies no matter how much they tried, it was like a poison permeating throughout their bodies locking them in place, paralyzing them.
But although their bodies had stopped responding didn't mean the threat had stopped moving.
No it was quite the opposite.