Chapter 78: Genuine Sense Of Death.
Damien felt like someone had just smacked him across the head with a shovel.
He slowly turned towards Priesty.
"You go left... I go right."
Priesty tilted his head, his goat-like eyes quietly staring at Damien without moving an inch.
Damien blinked several times.
"You’re right. That only works if the other person can actually think on their own".
He sighed and turned back towards the Therizon.
The creature had already landed on its feet once more. Its snow-white feathers rippled as it slowly lifted its head, its icy white eyes locking onto Damien again.
For some reason, it simply refused to lose interest in him.
Before Damien could fire another arrow, the Therizon vanished once again.
A cold chill ran down Damien’s spine.
He immediately folded the pitch-black bow and hooked it onto his utility belt before snatching Priesty’s ritual staff. Gripping it with both hands, he raised it across his chest just as space rippled before him.
The Therizon’s enormous beak materialised less than a metre away.
The beak crashed directly into the ritual staff.
The impact surged through Damien’s entire body like a battering ram. Every bone in his arms screamed in protest as the force hurled him backwards. Unlike Vincent, Damien possessed no absurd physical strength capable of wrestling with monsters of this calibre.
The Therizon never slowed.
It carried Damien with it, driving him through one wall of ancient ice after another. Frozen stone exploded around him while countless tonnes of ice collapsed in its wake, each impact shaking the ritual staff so violently Damien thought his hands would split open.
Behind them, the entire undead legion dissolved into black miasma at Damien’s command. The dark cloud surged after him, swallowing the shattered tunnel as hundreds of undead travelled within it.
From afar, it was a terrifying spectacle. An endless cloud of black death, devouring everything left in its wake.
Damien had no intention of letting the Therizon turn him into a meat pie.
The black miasma surged violently.
Dozens of undead arms burst from the darkness and latched onto the Therizon’s head, neck and wings. Some clawed desperately at its feathers while others wrapped themselves around its body, pulling in every direction at once.
The creature screeched furiously.
For the first time, its relentless charge slowed beneath the weight of the undead dragging against it. Moments later, the surrounding space rippled like disturbed water before the Therizon vanished once again.
Damien finally managed to catch his breath, unfortunately, the relief lasted only a heartbeat.
Space distorted directly in front of him.
The Therizon reappeared almost instantly, lifting its enormous head before spreading its wings to their full extent. Damien’s expression stiffened.
He already knew what was coming.
The creature possessed only a handful of attacks. It wasn’t an intelligent opponent, but every one of those attacks was devastating enough to wound him several times over.
SKREEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee!
The soul-shattering screech exploded across the frozen world.
The Emissary’s voice echoed through Damien’s mind once more.
[You’ve Been Cursed By The Therizon]
[Your Soul Is Corrupted]
Damien doubled over, coughing up a mouthful of thick black blood.
The crushing sense of death returned, far heavier than before. It no longer felt like a passing sensation. With every screech, the curse burrowed deeper into his soul, as though something was slowly rotting him from the inside.
That was when Damien finally understood, the curse was actually killing him.
His Undead status could preserve his body because, technically speaking, he had already died once. Given enough time, it would even repair the damage done to his flesh.
But this curse was different.
Unlike Vincent’s Deadlock, the Therizon wasn’t trying to extinguish his soul outright. It was poisoning it, corrupting it through an innate curse that seeped deeper every time the creature unleashed that terrifying screech.
If it continued, even the dead man could truly die.
Damien retrieved his axe and pointed it towards the Therizon, his expression growing colder by the second. He was beyond annoyed. Every single time he started gaining the upper hand, the oversized bird simply vanished into space before reappearing somewhere else.
The Therizon didn’t even give him the chance to finish cursing.
Its enormous beak shot towards him without warning.
Damien’s pupils contracted as he threw himself sideways. The beak slammed into the frozen ground where he’d been standing a heartbeat earlier, the impact splitting the ice apart before long fractures spread through the surrounding ground.
Damien rolled across the ice and immediately got back onto his feet.
Priesty emerged from the darkness a moment later.
Damien tossed the ritual staff back towards the undead priest before tightening his grip around the black bow.
"Let’s bury this oversized chicken."
Priesty answered with a deep growl. The black miasma suddenly erupted.
From the outside, it expanded across the frozen landscape in every direction, swallowing the ice beneath it until several hundred metres had disappeared beneath an endless sea of darkness. Then the miasma began to rotate, layer upon layer folding over itself as though an enormous whirlpool of black smoke had formed beneath the frozen world.
The Therizon immediately became alert.
Its icy white eyes swept across the darkness surrounding it. It could no longer see the familiar ice walls.
Normally, whenever danger presented itself, it simply folded space and escaped before returning to strike again. Now it had no idea where it would emerge if it teleported. Even a beast understood the danger of blindly jumping into the unknown.
After several moments of hesitation, it lowered its head and simply chose to walk.
The first step had barely landed before the Therizon suddenly screeched. Pain shot through its body, something invisible had raked across its leg.
It violently twisted around, searching for the attacker, it saw nothing but darkness, so it lunged in another direction.
But Priesty’s ritual staff slammed directly against its beak.
Fresh blood sprayed across the ice before the enormous creature staggered sideways, its footing faltering for the first time since the battle had begun.
The Therizon hissed furiously. It tried to turn back, but hundreds of invisible claws suddenly erupted from the darkness.
They buried themselves into its feathers and flesh before dragging with mindless determination, refusing to let go no matter how violently the creature struggled.
The gigantic creature thrashed violently, but more undead immediately climbed onto its back, their claws digging deeper while others bit into its legs, forcing its enormous body lower and lower.
Priesty never left its head.
Every time the Therizon stumbled towards the edge of the miasma, the ritual staff crashed against its beak or skull, forcing it to recoil back into the darkness before it could escape.
Not once did Damien step forward.
He remained a short distance away with his bow already drawn, another black arrow resting silently against the string.