The Light in the Dark ✓

Chapter 10.2 The Guardian

'Holy Sunbeams!' Iris gasped, feeling her legs shaking involuntary.

'Fine, you overgrown worm. Do you want to fight?! Let's fight!' Arlo taunted. He was sidestepping away from the rest of his companions. The creature eyed him and, with incredible speed, darted forward so fast, he barely managed to dodge in time. The giant wyrm crashed headfirst into the wall, crushing the stones and crystals. Myr managed to already fire a few arrows at it, but most of them bounced harmlessly from the hard rocks.

'How do we even fight this thing?' Iris shouted, drawing light from the torches.

'Let's try to blind it!' Jayden waved his glowing hand.

The creature picked its head up and shook the loose stone and dust when a blinding light exploded right in front of it. It shrieked, but it sounded more angry than painful. The stone monster lowered its head, and its glowing blue eyes focused on two Mages now.

It hissed.

'Run!' shouted Myrica at them. 'Disperse!'

They didn't need more encouragement and rushed in different directions. The stone wyrm dashed after Jayden.

'No, you don't!' Arlo screamed and swiped both of his axes in a giant arc into the monster's tail. The steel ignited the rain of sparks and crushed some stones but failed to do any substantial damage. The monster shrieked and turned quickly, rushing onto the latest threat.

'Our attacks are useless!' Arlo barked, jumping out of the way of the charging creature. 'It's made of bloody stone!'

'Iris, help me distract him,' Jayden called. 'Otherwise, it'll crash Arlo sooner or later!'

The young Mage produced a myriad of tiny lights, reminding Iris of fireflies, and sent them to orbit around the wyrm's head. The creature shook its head and tried to eye all of the lights at once. Iris followed his lead and created more floating lights. Of course, hers wasn't as pretty or precise as Jayden's. They were more like irregular splatters of lights. She made them float near the creature's head, from one side to another.

'It's working! Keep it up!' Myr shouted. She tried to send another arrow targeting the monster's eye, but it seemed the glowing points were not physical enough to get pierced by an ordinary weapon like hers. She cursed in a language Iris didn't understand and stepped back to look at the Crystal again. It was glowing brightly now, emanating with a bright blue light.

The woman gingerly put her hand on the Crystal and didn't withdraw it.

'It's no longer burning. Jayden! I think we can use it now!'

But before the Mage managed to respond, the snake turned toward Myrica, glowing eyes focusing on the artefact in her hands.

'Blashamenit!' the booming voice reverberated through the stones. 'Furaneliun!'

The creature howled, ignoring all the floating lights, and rushed toward the huntress. She nimbly dodged, jumping over the giant head and backing away in the other direction.

'It talks?' Jayden shouted in surprise, trying to distract the beast with lights again. 'What is this language?'

'It's the ancient dialect of the forest,' replied Myr eyeing the creature warily. 'Is it possible that...'

'Myr!' Arlo shouted, impatiently stepping between a gaping woman and the wyrm, recoiling for another attack. 'We need to know how to fight it! Do you have anything for us?'

'Drop your weapons,' the woman said, suddenly throwing her bow onto the ground.

'What?' exclaimed three voices in identical disbelieve.