The snake slithered along, the bitter cold of death wrapped around its scales like a second skin - but not quite that. Because it was more than that. Food. Drink. Comfort. Healing. Safety. Life.

Need.

Something flickered at the edges of the snake’s mind, seen and immediately forgotten by its conscious mind. Wiped away by the comforting, cooling touch of death.

And yet, another part remembered.

Gained Major Title: [Reanimated].

Description: Reanimated after death and placed under the control of the one responsible, your body and mind have mutated into a facsimile of life. Death has become a source of health, and life a poison.

Species Gained: Undead

Innate Trait: [Life-Death Inversion MAX] Acquired.

Name: Paradox

Species: Snake, Ouroboros, Undead

Major Title: [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail] [Little Guardian] [Reanimated]

Minor Titles: [Minor Mana Core] [Venomous Retribution] [Touched By Fire] [Ascended Seeker]

Innate Traits: [Venomous II] [Life-Death Inversion MAX]

Blooded Traits: [Paralyzing Venom IV] [Poisonous Blood III] [Illusion Spark IV] [Clinging Grasp III] [Sound Shaping VII] [Chains Of The Creator I] [Anticoagulant IV] [Constriction VIII] [Spore Puppeteer VI] [Ascended Sense I] [Ambusher’s Vision IV] [Sting IV] [Streamlined Scales V] [Enhanced Lungs VI] [Razorflesh III]

Resistances: [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate II] [Venom Resistance - Intermediate II]

Level: 68

Trait Points: 2

Core Skills: [The Endless Cycle] [Chrono Fire] [Verdure Parasite] [The Golem’s Fading Heart]

Lesser Core Skills: [Mana Manipulation XI] [Mana Venom XII] [Mana Fire VII] [Little Guardian’s Totem MAX] [Life Essence Manipulation VII] [Life - Invigorating Bite XI] [Life - Vitality XIII] [Life - Vigor III] [Life - Vigorous Spores VII] [Little Guardian’s Focus XI]

Level Rewards: [Traveler] [Mana-Life Conversion] [Size] [Size II] [Size III]

Description: An undead Ouroboros, symbol of the eternal.

The cloak of death tugged, twisted, and pulled. The snake followed its direction after an almost imperceptible hitch, slithering where it commanded.

The snake lunged forward, wrapping itself around its wounded enemy. The creature, a horned beast covered in thick furs and dangerous spikes, had managed to cut through large sections of scale in its struggles, leaving the snake with great lines of exposed flesh that ran along its sides. And yet, the snake hardly even noticed the way that; didn’t notice the way the injured beast’s blood-slicked fur slickened its scales in turn, mixing with the snake’s own blood to form a red-black pain that coated its formerly pure-obsidian flesh. It squeezed tight, undead muscles flexing and twisting, running razor-sharp edges against already-devastating wounds and opening them further.

The creature caught within its coil screeched; a high-pitched, terrified wail that quickly cut itself short as its chest compressed and its lungs filled with fluid.

Experi-

As the horned beast brought itself back to its feet again, brought back by the touch of death, something flickered at the edges of the snake’s mind again. An odd sense of irritation that urged it to keep going, to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until it received something that it wanted, something that the creature’s death should have given it.

Its coils spasmed again, shattering bones and shredding flesh with force far greater than what it had used before.

Experience Gai-

The annoyance spiked, and the snake squeezed harder, and harder and - cold and bitter death tugged at the snake’s body and mind, and the irritation disappeared as quickly as it came, lost between one moment and the next.

The horned beast was freed as the snake released its hold, battered and near-completely crushed. Despite that, its body seemed to slowly become stronger, slightly more solid with each passing moment; its wounds didn’t go away, it still looked just as ruined as ever. But the change was there.

At the same time, the same slow pseudo-healing took effect on the snake, black wisps of mana feeding themselves to the wounded areas.

Eventually, the snake moved on, the now-undead beast limping by its side.

If its coils sometimes twitched in the direction of the lumbering thing, the snake never noticed.

Valera held up a hand, shielding her eyes from the sudden brilliance of the lake below. The river beside her moved just as urgently as before, throwing itself off of the cliffside with abandon, fashioning itself into a waterfall; the closest thing to rain that Valera knew she’d ever see.

The raindrops fell, fell, and fell, before beating down on the lake below with a sound like a rapidly-beating heart, or unstoppable drums. Pounding. Relentless.

Beautiful.

There was something relaxing about it, for all of its violence; like the forceful tempo pressed against the ears until it wrapped around again to something…peaceful. The sight that accompanied the sound might have been partly to blame for that.

The water was radiant, a gleaming blue that only became more iridescent in flight and in fall - and when it shattered against the otherwise-glassy lake, forming a misty spray of light that fanned itself ever-so-slightly upwards again in a series of gleaming droplets…

Valera could only think of rain again.

She turned her head to the side, and caught sight of something even more wondrous - even if it was slightly disgusting.

The coils of a Guardian Statue rose up from the edges of the lake, as if pulled from the very earth in the place where water met stone. It was majestic, with its obsidian-black coils that seemed more scale than stone twisted underneath its massive bulk - a bulk that was even larger than before. The light directly around those coils dimmed as if sucked inwards before releasing again at the edges of its scales, forming a strange and unnatural barrier of light and dark and light again.

At its feet - or coils, rather? - was a corpse, bloated and beginning to rot. The thing was absolutely massive, even bigger than the Guardian Statue itself - which was impressive, because the Statue was massive as well.

Somehow. How did a tiny snake make something like that, anyway? He didn’t even have hands. Valera had questions, that was for sure.

“Skies above, do we even need to be following right now?” Doran asked, befuddled, having noticed the same thing that she did. “It looks like things are going pretty well for the little guy, honestly.” He paused, muttering under his breath. “How did that thing even die, there’s not any plants here like there were in the city…”

Kala, who was already beginning to remove the enchanted hooks and silken ropes that would be necessary to rappel down the cliffside - because jumping into the water was not an option, especially not while weighed down by armor - grunted noncommittally. “Who knows. Doesn’t really matter right now; we’ll find out when we catch up. Besides, it’s good news for us.”

Doran cocked his head to the side, and then shrugged. “Guess so. I’d still like to know, though,” he said, pausing to take the first of the hooks from Kala. With a forceful grunt, the man forced the hook into the stone at his feet, the combination of Earth-enchanted metal and overwhelming strength allowing the blow to break through with impressive ease. A powerful twist later, and the hook was safely secured. The rope was lashed on soon afterwards, and the Seekers began to work their way down.

The putrid corpse only seemed to become larger as they approached the Guardian Statue, and the smell…

Unfortunately, the smell grew along with its size. It was horrible, like some unholy amalgamation of rotting fish and putrid flesh, increased to unfathomable proportions. Which was exactly what it was, so that made sense.

Valera was the first to vomit. Thankfully, there was plenty of water nearby to clean herself off.

“Ugh. Elara, seriously. How can you stand being so close to that?” she eventually managed to ask, watching the armored figure walk right by the rotting corpse without any hint of a reaction. She even walked through part of it, the enchanted armor that she wore allowing her to phase into shadow for long enough to step past a giant outstretched fin without breaking her stride. The very picture of nonchalance.

Elara turned, her expression hidden behind the armor’s face-covering helmet. “Oh,“ she said. “I made my nose stop working before we even started climbing down,” the youngest of the group continued, her voice slightly distorted by the helmet’s barrier. “Is it bad?”

Valera had never experienced an envy so powerful.

Then she vomited again.

“Yeah. It’s bad,” Erik deadpanned, working hard to keep his own stomach in line.

They eventually settled on a solution to the problem - momentarily passing Elara each of their [Little Guardian’s Totem]s, and then giving the massive, putrid corpse a wide berth while she attuned each necklace to the Guardian Statue.

It was much better that way, and Valera was already beginning to feel a little less queasy by the time they picked up the Little Guardian’s trail again at a tunnel on the other side of the lake.