Eritance - Chapter 45
I awoke several minutes later with a start. I wasn’t quite sure how I survived that blow from the elder spine bear. My best guess was that it hadn’t used its full strength but was randomly striking out just in case we tried to attack.
I could hear the battle going on above me still and the shouts of Commander Aegis as she gave orders to the other two. The shouts sounded a bit desperate as they mixed with the sound of the elder spine bear’s roars.
I stood up and I stumbled for a moment, my head was still spinning. Thanks to my increased stamina I was able to recover pretty quickly from the blow, it was just lucky that I had been given a few minutes to recover, instead of being attacked immediately again.
As I got my bearings and decided to rejoin the battle Ross called out to me. “Wait, boy. The dragon, I can feel it. It still has its core! You must get it. That core is indeed powerful, and it can increase the power of the relic. You must not allow old Aegis to have it” he said somberly.
I hadn’t known that dragon cores could be so powerful. I approached the dragon’s dead body and began searching it. It only took a moment to find the core inside the dragon’s skull.
“Now what? Do I have to say an ancient chant or something? How do I get the power?” I asked. “It’s simple you dolt. All you have to do is eat it and the power will merge with the relic” Ross retorted.
I felt nauseous at the thought of eating something that had been inside a rotting dragon corpse’ skull. However, the desire to get stronger caused me to grit my teeth and bear it. I opened my mouth and put the core inside. I swallowed it down and had to fight the urge to throw it back up immediately. It tasted disgusting, just as I knew it would.
However, after I was able to keep it down I felt a change come over me. I immediately began mediating and went to the source of my relic power. The vessel was much larger before. The effect of the dragon core increased my vessel size much more than the relic consumption had.
My vessel was now three times its previous size. That meant, I could absorb enough power to easily take down spine bears, even if I had to do it naked. I was so happy I nearly shouted out for joy. However, the deafening roar of the elder spine bear roused me from my stupor.
Along with that roar came a cry. It sounded like the elder spine bear was able to injure someone. I immediately ran to the pit’s wall and climbed up it. The sight that I saw was worse than expected. The elder spine bear had slashed the throat of one of the recruits with its large claws and the recruit was desperately trying to hold the blood in.
However, there was no way to come back from a fatal wound like that and the recruit died. The other recruit had injuries too. Even Commander Aegis was breathing heavily at this point.
“Commander!” I shouted. “I’m alive, the spine bear knocked me out but I’m here to help” I said running over.
“Good. We can use all the help that we can get. I need you to join the other recruit in distracting the bear, I’m the only one strong enough here to kill this thing, but I can’t do it without at least two people running interference” she said. “Okay Commander, you’ve got it” I shouted.
With that I ran towards the opposite wall from the other recruit. The spine bear noticed me and began rushing towards me. I jumped out of the way and landed in a roll that carried me further out of harms way. I was barely able to doge the elder spine bear. While I was rolling the other recruit used their mini crossbow to fire a bolt into the backside of the elder spine bear.
It roared more with annoyance than pain. The elder spine bear did have injuries, but it was doing much better than the rest of us were.
The elder spine bear swung around again, but as it did so Commander Aegis jumped on top of it as stabbed downwards with her sword. Her sword penetrated deeply into its shoulder before she pulled it out and jumped off.
This attack proved to be quite effective, as the roar it made was filled with quite a bit of pain. We essentially began playing a game of distraction. It was a dangerous game of distraction where one mistake would cost us our lives. The crossbow recruit and I would do minor attacks to get its attention and Commander Aegis would go in and do a powerful attack that damaged the beast.
After a few minutes of this the elder spine bear was bleeding profusely, but it was not without cost. Staying alive caused the rest of us to be build up injuries as well. Finally, the elder spine bear surprised us all.
When I tried to distract it from the crossbow recruit, it ignored me and pursued him further. This caused him to stumble backwards and he got caught up in a swipe from the elder spine bear. He hit the wall and crumpled to the ground. As this was happening Commander Aegis tried to deal a blow to the elder spine bear, but it was too fast.
It swung around and caught her sword in its teeth and shattered it. It then swiped at Commander Aegis and hit her full force with his claws. The blow sent her flying into a wall and bones could be heard as they cracked. The jig was up, we had made a mistake, and now we would all die here.
As the spine bear closed in on me Commander Aegis suddenly reappeared and jumped on top of its back. “It’s too late for me, that attack caused several of my ribs to puncture my lungs” she coughed with blood coming out, “but I’m going to take this bastard out with me!”. With that she began chanting a strange spell and her body emitted a strong light before exploding. This caused me to be knocked back and a large hole appeared in the elder spine bears chest. Its heart was exposed, and blood was pouring out from its chest, but it still hadn’t died.