Chapter 34: The Trial Of The Earth Serpent

  He appeared in his mindscape with a manifested body on the floating island. He sat, staring at the two suns above, one black and quite comfortable to look at, and the other bright like a normal sun. A brown, wavy mass appeared in the sky, somewhere in the void beyond the suns.

  Erik rose, first with his manifested body, then out from his sphere, his body disintegrating in an instant as soon as his mind expanded outwards. The waviness of the mass was movement, Erik realised, once he got a better glimpse of it with his senses.

  It slithered and rolled in several directions all at once. Erik wasn’t sure if it was one living thing or a thousand, but its movements were definitely lifelike. It wasn’t getting closer, however.

  With a mental sigh, Erik closed in on the almost sludgy thing. The closer he got, the more violent and rough its movements became. Erik was close enough to see layers by now, meaning it was either one extremely large and long thing, or several large, shorter things in a tight swarm formation. The brown skin looked moist, with visible scales. The scales were so embedded in the skin that it still looked slippery smooth.

  Suddenly, hundreds of enormous eyes opened all along the writhing mass, each looking intently at Erik, despite him being only his own conscience and senses at this point. If he manoeuvred to the side, the eyes followed, eliminating all chance of that being an accident. Still, it didn’t do anything untoward.

  This trial might just as well be one of befriending a beast as it was to fight one, so Erik decided not to be the first one to attack. He got closer still, and the mass audibly rumbled. Erik felt the vibrations even in the void, where air wasn’t even a concept. It was warning him to stay back. Erik stopped advancing, and the rumble stopped almost immediately.

  “I’m not sure what you want,” Erik said, his voice echoing in the nothingness between them. The brown form tightened and curled in response, ending up looking like a massive turd covered in eyes. Erik instantly recognised what it was doing, and he retreated back.

  Like a spring, the form straightened as it shot forward, revealing it as one massive, long snake-like creature. Its momentum was far greater than Erik’s, and it reached him in a mere moment.

  The snake wrapped around his being, which should’ve been impossible considering he was a disembodied, ethereal and mental being in his current form. The snake constricted, tightening around him like a noose, limiting his mental movement and senses. How was this possible?

  Erik’s body, for lack of a better term, grew visible between the snake’s long, moist body. Was it forcing him to become corporeal? After an infuriating and confusing minute, the coil around his manifested self was now around his physical legs, torso, and arms instead. Erik was shapeless no more, and it was all the snake’s doing.

  It still writhed around him and ran its long, forked tongue across his cheek just as he felt the tail drag across his own… snake.

  “Fuck, don’t make this into a sex thing!” Erik shouted as he suddenly found the willpower to struggle harder.

  “Sssubmit,” the snake whispered in his ear, its tongue reverberating on his earlobe. Its voice was feminine, and it spoke in a sultry tone that made Erik confused whether it wanted to eat him or… take advantage of him, as it were.

  “You fuckin’ talk?” he screamed as he thought he got one of his arms free, only for the snake to wrap around it in an even more uncomfortable position, where he couldn’t utilise as much force from it.

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  “Sssubmit, Titan. Let me… tassste you!”

  Erik bit down on the large body of the snake with such force that his teeth ripped straight through its rubber-like skin and flesh, causing the snake to hiss louder. It once again rumbled like before, and Erik’s body—forced into physical shape—shook.

  The force shaking him increased in rapid waves, and after just a short while it felt like his body was ripping apart from the inside. From this position, Erik couldn’t move the water in his sphere like during his trial with Leviathan, as it required him to reach into it with his will. Now his will was stuck in physical form, and the distance seemed inconceivable.

  He was so deep in the void, much farther than he thought he’d been before. He couldn’t move, couldn’t fight back. The body of the snake was already regenerating where he bit it, and now it acted as a muzzle that grew inside his mouth.

  The snake’s oily body writhed and caressed him, all over his body, though he felt more activity around his chest and below his waist. He’d be damned if he lost his trial against a sex snake!

  Before his body exploded from the reverberations, Erik relaxed, attempting to let all the tension in his body leave. ‘Playing dead’ was a neat trick against at least some animals, but he couldn’t remember hearing that said about snakes. Still, if the snake relaxed its grip on him somewhat, he might be able to escape.

  He needed to reach his magic with his will. Once he did, he’d be able to fight back for real. As the tension seeped out of him, the rumbling slowed, though it neither loosened the constriction nor stopped rumbling.

  “Yesss…” it said, sounding satisfied. “I want you inssside me…”

  The thought of whatever that meant sickened Erik. If it had been a sexy snake lady, he might’ve given it a shot, you know. Not a snake.

  A red streak zipped across Erik’s eyes and blood squirted from the snake as it once more hissed in pain. The small crimson glimmer continued zipping all over, and wherever it stopped, a massive wound opened up in the snake’s body.

  The snake loosened its grip on Erik after five cuts. After ten, it writhed and slapped him repeatedly with its tail and head. A reddish-brown cloud of blood and viscera was released after twenty cuts.

  Erik rushed back, spreading his will out wide and towards his sea of magic. The red dot followed him back, but didn’t attack him. When Erik reached his magic, he let it envelop him, coating his will, now shrunk a little, in radiant magic. The small red light stopped in front of him.

  “Thanks, Cross Vigor,” Erik said. His eyes met the armoured spirit’s eyes.

  “You should not have needed my help with this,” it said. She said?

  “Call it a rookie mistake and forgive me?” Erik asked, but received no reply. The snake regenerated fast, and its rumble had grown into a much more intense shaking of the entire space around it. “I can handle it from here.”

  Cross Vigor nodded in response before vanishing before his eyes. He was still not quite sure what the goal of the trial was, but if the snake wanted a fight, it would get one.

  Erik manifested a large, physical body just like the one the snake had forced him into earlier. This was a requirement for him to use most of his abilities even in his mindplace, though he could lash out with his magic just like his trial against Leviathan without a physical form, so long as his will could reach it.

  Now, with his manifestation coated in the sea from his sphere, he had everything he needed to fight back. The snake, a respectful distance away, coiled in on itself, preparing to spring back into action in a moment’s notice.

  Erik’s arms formed into monstrous claws, deadly sharp and twice as long as his fingers would be. A spiked carapace grew up towards his elbow but didn’t quite reach that point. The snake responded by leaping at him as the claws formed, and while it managed to reach him before the claws were complete, Erik had formed enough to grip the snake with his right arm.

  It used its momentum to whip Erik with its powerful tail, causing Erik to lose his grip before he could strike. The white sun circling his sphere lit up, and a beam of pure light shot into the snake. The speed of the beam was impossibly fast, and so the snake had no means to get out of the way. It didn’t last long, though, and a blackened scorch mark—already healing—remained on the snake.

  Taking advantage of the surprise attack, Erik charged at the snake and cut its massive body in half with his claws. The snake hissed in response. Half of its eyes shut and disappeared into its skin in both halves. It didn’t take long before the snake’s two parts joined again, but Erik was certain he could win. The only reason to hesitate now was that he wasn’t sure he was supposed to.

  What if he killed the snake and failed the trial? In Leviathan’s trial the goal wasn’t to kill the beast, but to defeat it without it destroying his sphere. He had to win in a direct fight with the brute. Until now, in every trial, he had to incorporate his challenge or adversary into his sphere somehow. What to do?