Chapter 136: A Serpentine Image

It's been a while since my thoughts and attention has been brought to this particular spell or rather, ritual.

In fact, there are quite a number of spells I have yet to use and quite a number more that I've only used once.

I have a good feeling the Mayor will provide bodies to freshen up my skills on said spells.

For now though, Anselm and I still search for a snake. For the ritual I have planned I'd need its skull.

I'm not especially psyched about having to rip a snake in two and separate its skull form the rest of its limp body. Ugh. I can already feel how slimy and wet everything is going to be.

Honestly, I don't exactly need a snake in particular. I could go with a rat for this little animal themed spy mission. But I'd rather not resurface memories of an unspoken unsavoury time.

So, snakes it is. 

"Still haven't found any?" I ask Anselm who's scouring the land from above. He shakes his head dully and I sigh.

"Maybe there aren't actually any snakes here because there isn't any prey."

He's been saying this for a while.

"Think about it, what sort of predator would stay in a place with so little prey. We've only seen one rabbit and several rats."

"Two rabbits actually." I correct eagerly.

"It was the same rabbit; you just don't want to admit it." He scoffs, "If you desperately need a snake why not just go deeper into the forests." He points out to the burgeoning forest in the distance.

"Well, because I'd rather not go too far from Aste, also the fact that we don't know what's in that forest."

"What? An entire Necromancer and leader of a revolutionary Elven uprising is too afraid of some forest?" He laughs, "I'm not even sure it can be called a forest, far too small."

"I'm not afraid of anything, I've basically spat in Gods eyes at this point."

"Basically." He repeats jauntily.

"Yes. And the forest is small because there's civilisation nearby. It's just what happens. I bet they've only let it grow this much because they need wood."

Anselm shrugs and starts scouring once again, "That or they don't need the trouble of passing through the Northern gates," he pauses as he realizes, "Well, if they've really been scrapped then maybe they'll be coming for that wood after all."

Maybe. But the thought of my would-be army being scrapped doesn't sit well with me. I've sunk a whole village and a half of funds into treating their problems. It can't go all go up in flames now.

Ugh. If it comes to it, I'll just use their bodies for undead.

Might as well get a head start on that undead army thing if I've got Frozia, Anera and Phien all itching to kill me.

Might add Ferth to that list as I just sent his servant Deity back to him empty handed. Probably not good for our relationship.

But then again, my relationship with Death is more than a bit…familiar.

"What do you think Kaylin is doing right now?" Anselm mutters out. My head whips to him and he's just looking for the snake as he should be. Although a bit distracted.

He looks down at me and sighs, "Sorry, I can't help it. It's just, I mean she said her mother trus-"

"How about we don't mention how I might have to face the wrath of an S-rank when she finds out I'm alive and her daughter is…"

I don't have the nerve nor will to finish the sentence.

Kaylin isn't dead. She can't be. She's far too strong for that, Maylin told me so herself, Kaylin was trained by and S-rank elf and is and elf herself.

She's got the upper hand on everything for just being an elf, a free elf.

"Fuck!" I scream, causing Anselm to flinch.

"What's wrong now? Get bitten by another ant?"

I rub my temples as I groan, "No, I just realized that if Kaylin has been captured then, she's probably been sealed."

"Sealed?"

I look up to him and sigh, nodding, "Yes, she's a free elf."

And just like that it dawns on him. In haste he does some kind of weird hand gesture and looks up to the sky, "Spare us Frozia."

I resist the urge to scowl, truth be told, I'm actually feeling a bit prayerful myself. Lord knows I need some Divine help.

Actual, divine help for any of you reading my mind. Not some scam.

Maybe I should pray to Lotar? I mean, he is a Deity now, and his ascension is mostly because I agreed to become his Warlock.

Now that I think about this…HarlFary, Mark of All, Deities…

Fuck! That damned Wolf might have just been waiting for the right time to swoop in and bag me, the hypothetical genie in a lamp for power.

I stomp my feet in outrage as I begin to realize that the Hunger may have as well just been a ploy to have me kill as many fucking Cultists so he gets more and more power from having a would-be Deity, me, kill in his name and for his sake and with his gifts of power!

I dig out another angry stomp and just like that I feel something squishy and slippery beneath my boots. Blinking, I raise my foot but I don't need to the hissing snake is already retaliating.

Literally snaking up my leg and curling up and around my torso I briefly wonder how that stomp hadn't killed it or at least incapacitated it before being faced with a pair of venom dripping fangs hissing at my face.

Without pause the slithering thing launches itself at me, ready to gouge out my eyes but Anselm is far too quick.

His hand wraps around the things neck and it a burst of cold air the body begins to freeze up, icicles forming around it, encasing it in a shell of ice right before my eyes.

"You should really be more careful, Asher." He barely manages to say past that shit eating grin of his, "You, the supreme Necromancer whom all should fear would have been taken out by this mere snake if it weren't for me."

I roll my eyes at the grinning ghost and snatch the snake away. Its body breaks apart, falling off of me in large chunks of now frozen meat, its head is all that remains relatively warm.

"That's some magic you have there, Cryomancer." I mutter, eying Anselm.

He shrugs, feeling prouder than ever, "Glad you think so, but that's just the tip of the iceberg…hehe."

Ugh.

"What a terrible pun." I groan, taking out my dagger, careful to slice the remaining skin hanging off the snake head. "Pass me the salts and coal please."

Without word he flies off back to the carriage to bring the prepared materials. Yes, I prepared for this. Originally this spell was supposed used to keep a watchful eye on Matthias and his unfortunate lackeys.

But the freezing cold of Frozia would have scared away any living thing wise enough to know that Winter meant death. Guess humans weren't so wise.

Anselm lands gracefully beside me, a pouch of coal and salt in his hands. "Here you go."

I mutter a word of thanks and get going on the mixture. Similar to what I did last time I performed a ritual, I use the bare, albeit wet skull of the snake, the sacrifice as a mortar to grind and pound the mixture of salt, coal and blood. My blood.

Something I'm just now realizing I haven't actually prepared. Downtrodden, I look down at my particularly slimy blade and sigh.

Wiping it off best as I can on Anselms white clothes, ignoring his indignant cries all the way. Now it has a shining glint to it and is freezing cold.

Maybe I made it worse.

Nonetheless, I take the blade to my hand and cut out a clean line down my open palm. I bare the pain knowing the fruit of my labours will be repaid in multiple folds.

With the crimson red fluid dripping steadily into the frightening mixture of salts and coal in the skull of a recently deceased creature, I pull my attention to the ritual I'll be performing tonight.

[Familiar: Creates a permanent fiendish familiar out of the prepared components.]

[Requires: One whole skull, casters vial of blood, salt, and a medium amount of coal.]

Inhaling, I note that everything is as it should be and begin the System fed incantations, intent on bringing to life a serpentine familiar that will serve my purposes.

"Ver'la Kau'x Ver'la!" At my sudden screaming and with the mixture lit on green fire, coupled with my blazing hands Anselm is reasonably frightened.

He floats a few paces away as I chant away.

I don't pay him any more mind and focus on the feeling performing this ritual with the System's guiding hand gives.

I feel…a chain, a rope of sorts being fabricated. Then with my eyes I see the very beast Anselm had frozen be lifted up by spiralling green flames and begin to be stitched together from the thinness of air.

Its flesh begins to render before my eyes, muscle, fangs, scales, eyes, everything borne out of nothing.

No! Not nothing.

The flames dissipate as my chant ends and the newly born creature is set on the ground. Gently, slowly like a new born child it slithers towards me and hisses.

And I immediately understand, it speaks.

"Master."

Yes. This creature was born not out of nothing, but out of my power.