Single Mother of a Werewolf Baby-Chapter 322: Demonic Monsters

Eleanor felt slightly tired after God knows how many hours of relentless practice. Yet she could not stop the spear. The twin suns were once again high above her after the heavy rain and storm. She swung the spear over her head, tracing a wide circle. She repeated the motion again and again, until it resembled a helicopter rotor. With each swing, she slowly added lightning charge. Every pass left behind a faint, crackling afterimage, like an ionised trail.

When the charge became unbearable, she performed a downward arc, targeting a nearby large tree. A crackling sweep of energy blasted from the spear’s tip in a straight line, slicing through the tree from top to bottom in a single stroke. The force carried on, crashing into the hill behind it with a thunderous roar that sent debris raining down over the surroundings. The tree had been cut cleanly in half, the two sections still standing. If not for the faint smoke rising from the charred cut, Eleanor would not have believed it had been caused by her lightning. She was momentarily stunned by her own destructive power. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

She knew what she needed to do next. She practised the same movement repeatedly. Each time, it took fewer swings to gather the energy required for the downward slash. Finally, she stopped when only five swings were enough to perform a perfect upward and downward strike.

Unfortunately, all the nearby trees had been devastated by her lightning. It looked as though she had vented the vengeance of a past life upon them.

Once more, Eleanor focused on sending her lightning into the spear, forming a perfect loop. She threw the spear, then immediately called it back. It shot from her grip and snapped back into position, the tether recoiling like a whip. A blue line of lightning moved at her command. Her head throbbed from the strain of predicting its trajectory, yet she held on.

She spent hours launching and recalling the spear, using the tether to swing it in impossible arcs, to pull herself over gaps, to make it dance like a live wire around an imaginary target.

Her control over the spear rose to a new height. It felt as though the weapon was simply an extension of her body, no different from her own limbs. A satisfied smile crept onto her lips.

Her happiness shattered the moment it began to form. A loud roar invaded her rare moment of satisfaction. She looked up to see a tiger-like monster approaching her, its eyes glowing red.

The creature was at least three times larger than a Bengal tiger. Its body was a skeletal framework draped in a pelt that was not fur, but shifting, bruised shadows. These shadows swirled in striped patterns of sickly purples, oily blacks, and dull greens. The pelt seemed to absorb the light around it, making the monster appear as a moving patch of solidified darkness.

Its most horrifying feature was its multiplicity of limbs. Six skeletal legs, each ending in three curved claws of a metal that looked like polished steel. Its face was a study in predatory distortion: a jawbone that could unhinge vertically, splitting its skull nearly in two, revealing three concentric rows of razor-sharp teeth.

The creature stopped twenty feet away and roared again. Its vertical maw gaped wide, and the sound that emerged was less an animal cry than a deep, subsonic shudder that bypassed the ears and vibrated directly through the bones. The roar created a palpable tremor in the ground, a slight but unnerving vibration that travelled up through the feet of any who heard it.

Then, suddenly, it lunged towards her.

It was faster than anything its size should have been. But Eleanor held her ground. Her world had already begun to slow, her perception sharpening as it had with the raindrops. She sidestepped at the last moment with fluid grace, and as the monster’s clawed limbs tore through the space she had just occupied, she struck.

It was not a powerful blow, but a testing jab. The tip of her spear glowed with a faint blue light before shooting forward into the joint of the monster’s nearest foreleg. A satisfying snap of static echoed as the point connected with bone. The creature let out a shrill, grating sound and twisted away, its charge broken as it collapsed to the ground.

The monster began to circle her at a distance. It was limping slightly now, its cold red eyes locked onto her. Eleanor adjusted her footing and took a stance. She let the lightning loop cycle faster, the rune on the blade beginning to glow.

The monster sprang from the right, all six legs propelling it in a blur. This time, Eleanor dropped her centre of gravity and swung the spear in a wide, defensive arc. She channelled energy into the motion. A crackling blue afterimage lingered in the air for a split second where the shaft passed.

The monster’s claws struck the electrified afterimage. There was a sizzling explosion of purple and blue light. The creature recoiled, smoke rising from its limb. Eleanor pressed her advantage. She lunged forward, shoulder, hip, and wrist aligning in that perfect line of force. One, two, three thrusts... each aimed at the glowing red eye on the same side. The spear became a blur of precise, deadly light.

The monster snapped its head back, narrowly avoiding the tips, but it was forced onto the defensive. Eleanor felt a thrilling satisfaction as she wielded the spear.

With a furious shake, the monster roared again, and this time the subsonic wave was focused on the spot where she stood. The air before its maw shimmered. The vibration struck Eleanor like a solid wall. It did not injure her, but it disrupted the perfect rhythm of her energy loop.

The monster seized the opportunity and closed the distance in a heartbeat, its vertical jaws snapping towards her torso. It was a near-fatal moment.

Eleanor hurled herself backwards. At the same instant, she thrust the spear forward, released her grip, and guided it through the tether of lightning.

The spear shot like a thunderbolt from her falling form, straight into the monster’s gaping maw. The creature instinctively clamped down, but before its concentric rows of teeth could bite into the shaft, the spear pierced through its head and flew onward into the distance.

Eleanor hit the ground, rolled, and rose onto one knee. She raised her hand to the sky, and the spear snapped back into her grip in an instant.

The monster stumbled, a pained gurgle bubbling from its maw. It struggled desperately to remain standing, but a round hole ran from its mouth through its head. Black blood spilled from the wound as it collapsed onto the ground.

Eleanor’s head throbbed slightly. She massaged her forehead while taking a few steps back. It was the aftereffect of using the lightning tether to control the spear while it was airborne.

She decided to rest once she had put a safe distance between herself and the stench of demonic blood. But before she could act, she heard something moving rapidly through the grass in her direction.

Before she could curse her bad luck or the trial itself, her jaw nearly dropped at what came into view.

Two giant serpents were racing towards her despite their enormous size. Each had immense girth and length, as thick as a large tree trunk, but their bodies had the texture of dried, cracked pottery, like sun-baked mud.

Instead of smooth scales, hundreds of small, malformed, human-like arms lined its belly in two parallel rows along its underside. These arms were skeletal, with too many or too few fingers, their skin pallid and peeling. They moved in a ceaseless, grasping wave, their claw-like fingers hauling the serpent’s immense weight forward in a twisted crawl. Its featureless head was a wedge of the same cracked material, with a single vertical slit serving as its mouth. When one serpent opened it, the slit peeled wide to either side, revealing rows of sharp teeth. A long tongue slid out from the depths of the maw, its two branches tasting the air as it surveyed its surroundings with a screeching hiss.

At the sight of these grotesque monsters, Eleanor’s blood ran cold. She took three steps back, keeping both serpents in view. Forming a stable loop, she held her spear like a steady anchor and assessed the situation quickly. Both serpents were massive. Though they were approaching fast, their turning would be slow. They would not be able to change direction quickly. But their stone-like skin would give them formidable defence. Even lightning might have only a limited effect on them.

She considered ending their lives with a single overwhelming strike, but immediately rejected the idea. She had a feeling that more monsters were on the way. If she spent her energy too quickly, she would not last long if their numbers increased. She needed to rely on her physical strength for as long as possible.

The serpent on the right surged forward, its vertical maw peeling open with a sound like grinding stone. Eleanor held her ground until the final moment, then darted directly towards the other one. It was a gamble she was willing to take.