The fox’s tongue sliding across his shells was ticklish, especially with his body so hypersensitive from its active recovery.
He tried to get the little creature to stop, but it wouldn’t. It was impressively stubborn, almost absurdly obstinate.
What was even stranger was that the more of his blood it licked off and drank, the larger it beca, growing from the size of a little dog and rapidly reaching that of a hound.
And then growing more.
Its bones lengthened and thickened, layers of flesh multiplying as its blood surged without end. Its aura swelled by the second, rising from a flickering spark to a burning fla to an all-consuming brazier.
Uriel was once again taken aback.
It felt as if he’d blinked and suddenly a massive beast was standing over him, gnawing at him as though he were nothing more than a snack.
But the fox wasn’t threatening—not yet, at least—and there wasn’t much he could do either way, so he simply waited, doing his best to ignore the creature.
"Hey little man, I by no ans desire to disturb you, but—"
"Grrr!"
"—no, of course, I totally understand, but you’re really getting heavy." He groaned as the not-so-little creature’s paws dug into his thighs. "You can keep eating , but please shift your weight so I can—"
"..grr!" The creature huffed in his face, the foul odor of its maw filling his nostrils, so putrid he felt his insides churn and nearly rise.
Their gazes t, the space between their faces barely more than an inch. The creature growled in his face, and he tried to smile back.
He let out a nervous chuckle.
"—please?"
The fox ignored him entirely, its long, wide tongue lathering his face in thick saliva, licking him clean before moving to tear his ragged tunic apart, its tongue dragging across his toned flesh.
Uriel grimaced. "Well, I can’t say you’re not bold."
He sighed.
Leaning back, he rested his head against the ruby wall and let his gaze drift upward. Despite the ridiculous situation he found himself in, he couldn’t help but smile.
’...I’m screwed.’
He observed the skies.
The sun had fully disappeared, leaving a radiant expanse of stars in its wake, free of clouds.
Looking at the grand infinity above, a sight he hadn’t seen in what felt like lifetis, he felt particularly small and insignificant.
’A star-anointed burial. Sounds grandiose enough.’
WHOOOSH!
In the skies, clouds began to gather with startling speed, dark grey and heavy, lightning dancing across their folds and summoning echoes of thunder.
For so reason, though the heavens were now entirely cloaked by those clouds, the radiant glow of night and the stars still pierced through, illuminating the sandy plane below.
And then it started to rain.
PAH! PAH! PAH!
The rain fell harshly, its relentless patter echoing loudly as the winds howled.
Droplets struck both Uriel and the fox, rapidly soaking them in frigid water, yet every drop that touched them echoed like pebbles thrown against a hollow structure.
Uriel shook his head, barely holding back a chuckle of frustration.
’I an, of course. Why would hell ever betray its own nature?’
The rain was infused with the frigid and severing essence of the ice and wind aether that had plagued the desert during the dayti.
Every droplet was as cold as the abyss and carried pain akin to thousands of blades piercing one’s soul.
Worst of all, they were heavy. Each drop weighed as much as a mound of rock, rapidly piling upon them until the burden beca almost unbearable.
"GRRRR!"
The rain seed to trigger sothing within the now-massive fox. Suddenly it lunged, maw opening wide to clamp down on Uriel’s right arm, sharp, aether-infused canines pressing deep.
At least, it tried.
He watched the creature struggle in vain, its teeth failing to pierce through his partially healed shell. Part of the reason he wasn’t overly concerned about the fox was precisely that shell.
He was a tough nut to crack.
Ignoring the fox, he refocused on the rain.
It intensified by the second, and so did its essence.
’I won’t last long.’
His Elental Mantle and Simple Domain stood firm for now, but soon the rain would overwhelm them and shatter both.
Once they were gone, the storm would finish him just as swiftly. And even if he survived until sunrise, how was he supposed to endure the waves without his Mantle and Domain?
CRACK!
The fox went mad, its body erupting with power as its teeth lengthened, jaws snapping shut and finally shattering Uriel’s shell, reducing flesh and bone to mangled ruin.
It was so grueso his forearm nearly detached from the rest of his body, blood gushing as his form fell into disarray.
Uriel watched with a strange indifference.
He looked deep into the mad fox’s eyes, and though his spark lay dormant, he could feel its heart.
The burning desire to consu, to grow and evolve. The frantic resolve to shatter all barriers and rise beyond its own nature. The deep, festering rage at its weakness.
He hadn’t noticed before, but the longer the beast had struggled to break his shell, the more enraged it had beco, as if insulted that even this small resistance had proven a challenge.
He smiled.
"Oh well."
The aether within his core churned—
BOOOM!
—and the fox was violently blown back, hurled into the distance.
All the remaining aether in his core trembled, then ignited. A healing spell blood around his arm, nding most of the damage as vines rose to coil around it and the rest of his body.
His body had always resisted healing spells, he had learned that much back in the settlent, so even this limited recovery wrung his core nearly dry.
And with that ca aether depletion, which inevitably stirred his madness once more.
Not that he cared. The odds were already stacked against him. What difference did it make?
To die mad or to die sane, what was the difference, really?
Dead was dead.
The formations and vines that had held him in place trembled, then shattered, and he pushed himself to his feet.
He waved a hand, and a long glaive materialized in his grasp.
Its pole was forged of cold, light-silver steel, the knob at its end shaped like a roaring dragon, the shaft etched with glowing white runes along its length.
At the tip rested a long, keen blade, its blunt edge embraced by a slithering golden serpent, the cutting edge gleaming in radiant dark gold.
It was one of the two weapons Enoch had bought for him.
He pointed it at the fox, grinning despite his awkward grip on the weapon.
"Co!"
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