Chapter 26 Adaela
Cryptid Realm
The Cryptid realm was a place made of horrors. It was an amalgamation of differing nightmares from old, rotting homes with decaying graveyards, to rough oceans and climates ranging from the coldest cold to hotter than some parts of Hell that could melt the skin off your bones.
We had landed next to one of the graveyards.
There were ghouls and ghosts everywhere, but they were one of the Cryptid classes that could do no harm unless you actively paid attention to them.
The four of us whispered amongst one another as we made our way cautiously over exposed tree roots and crumbling grave markers.
We were careful to pick our way through the chaos, so we didn’t bring about any squabbles to waste our energy before we were ready.
It took us hours to find a path through the graveyard, though it was likely only a few minutes.
It stretched on as far as we could see, and surprisingly, nothing stopped us.
I was finally starting to relax a little bit while remaining alert.
I figured that we would immediately be bombarded with fight after fight, but that wasn’t the case.
We stopped briefly to eat some sandwiches and drink some water, but otherwise kept moving.
We made it to the edge of the graveyard and were met with very tall gates with spikes at the top of them.
The gates were made of iron, which meant that Valen and I wouldn’t be able to touch them.
Since I just spent weeks working on trying to get rid of the iron in my blood, I wasn’t keen on another round of potentially damaging poisoning.
Vada shrugged and started scaling the fence to see if she could find a way over—maybe a gate we could cross—but she found nothing. Daedalus huffed, “You know, instead of wasting our time, I could just fly the two of you over.”
“I didn’t want to assume,” I replied.
“And I appreciate that, but in this case, it would have prevented us from wasting time.” Daedalus lifted Valen in his arms first, then launched himself into the air, carefully landing him on the other side of the fence and closer to the most ominous forest I’d ever encountered.
As Daedalus lifted me, I couldn’t help but remark, due to my nervousness, about what we were coming up against, “You know you’re giving off big daddy energy right now?”
He laughed. “I don’t think you could handle me, Daela.”
I hummed. “Well, you’re not my type, but I can appreciate a good daddy.”
Vada snatched me out of Daedalus’s arms, glaring at him. “Mine.”
I shivered, laughing at her possessiveness. “The only daddy I need is right here, pumpkin.” I kissed her nose, and she scrunched her face.
“Enough, sweet girl. We have too much riding on this,” Vada said seriously as Valen kept watch by us.
We began walking through the woods, and every hair on my body stood at attention.
Something or someone was watching us. I released my shadows, hoping they could find the cause of all of us being hyper-vigilant.
My heart was racing in my chest, and I willed myself to breathe deeply in case whatever was out there could detect just how terrified I was beginning to feel.
It was likely an effect of a Cryptid’s magic, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.
My shadows came back toward us, whispering that they had found us surrounded by several different creatures.
I slowly pulled out my sword, which caused a chain reaction from the others to draw their weapons as well.
We turned our backs to one another, as if rehearsed, creating a circle so that we could see anything coming toward us.
A twig snapped in one direction as a loud howl came from the other side closest to us.
My head was on a swivel, hoping that we could nip this in the bud before any real harm came to any of us.
The first to show its face was an Indrik.
They often appeared harmless, but they were terrifying creatures.
They sort of resembled a unicorn, as they were cousin creatures, but slightly different.
They had the body of a bull, legs of a stag, and the head a cross between a horse and a deer with a single, giant horn out of the middle of their head.
They weren’t ethereal like a unicorn. Instead, they were terrifying in their power, and it often looked like their fur was sloughing off their bodies.
The Indrik stomped one foot, causing the earth beneath our feet to tremble and the trees surrounding us to creak as if they’d come down upon our heads.
“Oh fuck,” I muttered as the rest of the group made similar sentiments.
I raised my sword in anticipation of a fight, readying my shadows to help where possible.
I also battened down my mental shields, since Indrik were known not only for their strength, but for their ability to manipulate thoughts.
They could make someone think they were on a stroll until they fell into an arachnid’s web or off the side of a cliff.
I made sure to let the others know, in case they weren’t aware.
The next three monsters came in succession.
A chimera who continuously changed shapes between different types of monsters, trying to figure out which form would cause the most of us unease.
It settled in the form of my father. I did everything I could to prevent myself from shuddering, though she stopped in front of Vada.
I was a little surprised that my father was what Vada most feared, but I didn’t have time to process it now.
The next monster was a Huay Chivo, or the goat sorcerer.
He had the body of a human with the head of a demonic goat.
His horns branched off to have many smaller spikes and had bright red eyes.
It was known that to stare into a Huay Chivo’s eyes meant death.
His powers initially started as healing magic, then quickly spread to death powers similar to mine.
Where we differed was that my powers of death didn’t grant me extra power, and I didn’t have limits to how people died, whereas his powers required illness to heal before he could enact them.
I was reluctant to use my death magic, whereas he needed it to continue living.
He was feared by the Yucatan people and was banished to the Cryptid realm to prevent plague and death from South America.
I made sure that my shadows whispered this fact to the rest of the group, too.
The one we came in search of, and the most terrifying of them all, slithered out from behind a tree directly in front of Valen.
Valen stood stoic and unafraid as Echidna arrived.
Echidna was the goddess of all monsters.
She was stunningly terrifying. She was half human, half snake.
Her face was a mix between both, with her eyes, hair and forehead similar to a Human’s.
She had a more snakelike appearance for her mouth and tongue.
She was bare from the waist up, showcasing small breasts, but with both nipples pierced twice, one up top, and one through the side.
Her lower half was all snake, and the scales started as an ombre effect from just below her chest to her hips, where she became a snake.
She had a rattle at the end of her tail, and her snake half made her appear over seven feet tall.
She was known to have birthed many of the monsters here in this realm, including Medusa, though she wasn’t maternal and preferred her solitude in a cave somewhere near the cliffs.
All eight of us were geared up to fight for long minutes before anyone chose to speak. Of course, it was me who couldn’t keep my fucking mouth shut until I was spoken to. “Echidna, just the being we were looking for. How do you fare?” I asked.
She didn’t take her eyes away from Valen, cocking her head to the side and sticking her forked tongue out, likely trying to get a read on him since he still stood there impassive as ever.
It took her a long moment to turn her head in my direction and reply, “What are you doing here, Adaela? You’re lucky I don’t kill you where you stand. Who are your friends?”
I quickly introduced Valen, Daedalus, and Vada to Echidna, then caught her up on everything we knew so far.
I let her know that we were not there to fight, or to steal any of her children.
I didn’t use my father as an excuse for my own actions, but I did let it be known why I did what I had done centuries ago, in hopes that she would further talk with us about what was going on.
Echidna glanced at the other three monsters, and I realized that they were part of the leadership of this world.
I didn’t let my guard down, and neither did the others.
The Indrik stepped forward in front of me.
I tensed, waiting for a strike. They were playing with us, and I wasn’t in the mood for games.
Echidna nodded at the Indrik, and my shadows instantly formed a wall in front of me to protect me as the Indrik shot toward me, quick as lightning to strike.
My shadows prevented me from being gored by its horn, and I moved quickly to parry while my shadows grabbed hold of their legs, preventing them from moving forward.
They tried to stomp and shudder the earth below my feet again, but my shadows were like moving through sludge, and kept us steady.
The other three struck my friends just as quickly, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off Indrik in front of me.
My first motion was to slice off the horn that attempted to gore me, but even the revered sword I’d wielded wouldn’t get past that fucking horn.
It felt as if the horn itself was made of steel as my sword clattered against it.