58 Death of a Nightare

The large shadow monster like took a step back, shook its head, and roared from either rage or pain. It was hard to tell.

Taking another arrow out, I continued to shoot a few more that only made a few scratches on it here and there. The shadow monster dropped the ornate music box in its hands and charged forwards to the barrier. It punched it a few times but the punches did nothing to it.

After it realized that the punches did nothing, it rested it's claws on the outside of the barrier and attempted to pry it open. For about a minute, it did nothing but stay there attempting to pry it open while the others attacked the monster as now, they could see it now that the music box was broken.

Their attacks bounced off of it mostly but some did deal some actual damage here and there.

But after this minute, the claws slowly became surrounded by a blackish aura similar to the shadowy color of the monster. At the claws finished becoming surrounded by this aura, the claws themselves, dug into the barrier.

I attempted to counterspell whatever it was doing but there was nothing to counterspell as my spell refused to work on it.

With its claws now inside the barrier, it started to pull it open. As it pulled and pulled and created a hole about a foot big, the barrier finally broke and the spell ended as the barrier was destroyed from the monster's innate usage of Dispel Magic from what I could tell.

With the music gone which was making the monster invisible and making us forget, all that's left was the shadow monster itself which was still drooling while looking at us.

Vanchu took the initiative by pulling out a regular looking sword and attempting to slash at the monster. As she made contact with its skin, the sword sent a weird energy into it.

I followed up her attack by shooting an arrow each at the monster's eyes but the monster brought its arm up and blocked them instead. With its one arm up, it brought it down and attempted to slash at Vanchu with its claw.

Vanchu was able to block it a bit but she gained a massive claw mark across the entirety of her left arm and part of her face. The monster went for another attack but Vanchu was able to move out of the and dodge it.

Graal, who already had his spellbook open, snapped his fingers in the air four times really quickly. Each time he snapped; a glowing dart appeared. Once all four were there, he pointed his finger at the monster and the dart all simultaneously went and hit the monster.

Dentratha took the opportunity were the monster looked away from Vanchu to quickly run up and cast a spell on her that healed her wounds. While it didn't heal all the damage from the attacks of the monster, it healed enough the Vanchu could continue to fight without trouble. Once the healing was finished, Dentratha quickly backed away and hid behind a fallen tree.

Now being healed and back on combat ready shape, Vanchu was getting ready to swing her sword once again but the monster anticipated this. With the back of its arm which it was previously using to block attacks, it swatted her sword right out of her hand and a few feet away.

A loud swear came out of Vanchu's mouth but she held her ground and put her arms to defend as best she could.

I shot a singular arrow from my bow at the monster's eyes and then immediately cast misty step to be near her sword. Taking another shot, I then reached down and grabbed the sword and ran over behind Vanchu and held the handle out behind her for her to grab.

During this time, Graal was able to throw a weird blue-white light towards the creature that upon hit created a small spot of frost on its skin. Dentratha stood up from where they were hiding, looked at the monster, and said something in another language that I didn't know.

Her words were resonated with power behind them and the monster, slowly dropped to its knees and groveled. I shot a glance at Dentratha while waiting for Vanchu to take her sword back, but Dentratha didn't say anything.

After another 2-3 seconds, Vanchu finally reached behind her and grabbed her sword. With her sword in hand and the monster groveling on the ground, Vanchu raised the sword in the air and brought it down on the monsters' neck.

The swing of the sword plus whatever Vanchu did to the blade like last time left a noticeable cut that was making the creature bleed a decent amount. Following up her attack, I ran behind the creature and decided to create a mana arrow for my bow instead of just using a regular one.

Charging up this arrow with as much mana as I could, I released it right at the cut on its neck as it attempted to look up from where it was groveling. Compared to the previous few shots were it mostly bounced off without even a small scratch, this arrow penetrated through the cut and into its body before then coming out the other side.

From there, the monster quickly stood up which forced us to take a few steps back. But as it took a step forwards and looked as if it was about to attack someone, it instead fell to the dirt ground very heavily.

[You've killed a young Forgetting Nightmare!]

[You've earned 500 System Points!]

[You've leveled up!]

[You've leveled up!]

[You've leveled up!]

[You've leveled up!]

Page Break

[You've leveled up!]

[You are now level 20!]

[For having your Dexterity reach over 50, you get the skill [Fluid Movement], you now move at double the speed and movement related skills have half the cost.]

[For having your Intelligence reach over 50, you get the skill [Mana Increase], every point of intelligence now gives an extra 5 mana.]

[For having your Wisdom reach over 50, you get the skill [Mana Breathing], you're able to take a bit of mana out from the world into yourself to increase your mana regeneration rate.]

We all stared at the body, waiting to see if it would move anymore but watched as nothing happened. Eventually I averted my eyes away from the body to look at all the notifications.

With confirmation that it was truly dead, I was the first one to move and started making my way towards the body. Once there, to show the others that it was dead, I tapped at its head with my foot. Seeing that it didn't move, the others started walking towards the body as well.

"What do you think it is?" Graal asked out loud.

"Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?" Dentratha replied.

"Well whatever it is, it was able to constantly make us forget because of this music box." I said while making my way over to it.

The music box on the ground was broken and had little metal pieces piercing out from the ornate wooden box that had fancy lines drawn all over it. Picking it up, I tried turning the crank on the side to see if it still worked but only got the sounds of metal grinding together.

With it in hand, I turned back and made my way to the body of the monster. Vanchu and Graal were now doing their best to try and skin it to see if they could somehow turn this into some sort of armor. Dentratha was cleaning and purifying it with magic as to get rid of any possible danger from just touching or even just being close to it.

I decided to take the time to start setting up another hut for everyone to stay the night in but realized halfway through that it would be best to have Graal do it instead as if the caster of the spell leaves the area, then the spell will cancel. Meaning if I cast it and then go into my little portable home bag thing, then it would leave the others exposed.

"Hey Graal!" I called out to him.

He looked away from the body and said, "Hmm? Need something Leo?"

"Yeah I was wondering if you could cast tiny hut tonight. I was going to cast it but I'm going to be sleeping somewhere else."

"Sure, but where are you going to be sleeping? It would be best to sleep here with the group in case something bad were to happen."

"Ah, I'll be sleeping in this little portable home. I know it looks like a small bag but it's actually bigger on the inside and is breathable too."

"May I take a look?"

"Sure." I said while handing it to him.

He messed around for a few minutes before handing it back to me and saying, "Fascinating. What you have right there seems to be a more advanced version of a bag of holding." before gently handing it back to me.

"A bag of holding is this but smaller and without air in it right?"

"Essentially yes."

"Interesting. Well I'm going to head to sleep now. "I said, already crawling into the bag. "Wake me up if anything happens!"

~~~~~

Hi there, it's me, your least favorite author QuasiKai!

So, I've officially started college and started working at a new job at the exact same time. Because of this, I have literally no free time at all. I wake up at 5 am, go to college till 3 pm, and then work till 10 pm. Then after that I've got homework and stuff to do.

And because of this, I've decided to make a Ko-fi! I know it's the stereotypical thing and such to do, but I've got to say that every cent helps and allows me to be a somewhat functioning college student.

The Ko-fi is here; https://ko-fi.com/schutte