Astraeon: Echoes

Chapter 3

From the depths of the cave came an eerie noise, a sound that would make one's skin crawl, the sharp screech of metal being scraped across what one could assume to be a whetstone. Zee still felt the unease growing as the two cautiously made their way deeper into the mysterious depths. The air hung heavy with the scent of damp earth and something more sinister, a foreboding presence that sent shivers down their spines.

As they rounded a corner, they stumbled upon a lone figure standing guard, bathed in an otherworldly glow. Half of his face was what one would call celestial, a radiant jade green light emanating from his right eye. But the other one was twisted and dark, with the iris being white and surrounded by midnight black releasing an Ill-boding smoke-like cloud from it.

Zee and Cali froze, their breath catching in their throats as they realized the danger they were in. But they stood their ground, steeling themselves for whatever confrontation lay ahead.

The guard spoke, his voice a strange blend of melodic and menacing. "Who dares trespass upon this sacred ground?" His words echoed off the walls, filling the cavern with an eerie resonance.

Zee stepped forward, her voice steady despite the tremble in her heart. "We mean no harm," she said, her eyes locked with his. "We seek only refuge from the creatures of the night."

The guard regarded her for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

In a reverberating echo of a voice he spoke, "Be warned the dangers in this place are far more treacherous than the creatures of the night." As the words left his mouth the pair went into a state of pure instinct, every cell in their bodies screaming at them to run.

When the guardian spoke again in a contained voice, "If you truly wish to pass through to the chambers below you must prove yourself, not only through strength but through all aspects to truly be worthy, do you understand?"

In the fleeting instance of turmoil yielding to tranquility, she grasped the depth of his gesture and embraced his offer with a newfound sense of peace.

The moment he nodded his head in agreement, Zee dashed towards the guardian with her daggers drawn sliding on the ground ready to slice his Achilles heel, but the guardian didn't draw his blade. He hardly moved, the only part of him that moved was his hellish eye, watching her every movement. As she swung her dagger inching closer and closer every split second the guardian finally moved. He lifted his left leg up and slammed it down to the ground in an axe kick cracking and denting the stone floor, his foot phasing right through Zee revealing the attack was merely an illusion.

As the illusion disappeared he rose his foot once more dragging a pillar of stone moving at his whim. He then crushed said pillar into sharp edges floating around him, as he spoke a word in a foreign language he crouched down with great speed as the shards shot out in a blast around him. Pinning Zee's leg to the cave wall revealing her position in the shadow. As she tried to free herself all she could hear was the same word. "Tu Lu Menden," as another series of stone shards scattered with high precision trapping her body to the wall all without causing her a scratch of harm.

At that moment she realized just how powerful the guardian was as he crept closer, and closer revealing his devilish heritage, causing Zee's voices and visions to become more powerful. Screams from agony and walking corpses. Being in such disarray and fear her body resonated with her skills connecting to the mana within her, a shroud of dark smoke arose creating the form of what would look like tentacles. In her state of hysteria she created the tentacles, sending them straight for the guardian.

For a split second the guardian's hellish eye had glowed a bright light, emitting green smoke and flames, as it was at this moment the guardian sprinted toward Zee. Sliding under the first tentacle as it swung with such force that it carved a deep gash in the cave wall behind him. The second tentacle he had jumped slightly upward to get on top of the tentacle in its speeding grace, once on top of the tentacles he had motioned a step but had seemingly teleported with a cloudy mist behind him arriving inches away from Zee.