A Serpent's Tale-Chapter 369: Astral Dungeon?:

’Gone... They’re gone...’

Those were the only thoughts running through my head as I stared at my hands that were completely bare.

The sheer shock that some random ass guy STOLE my rings. My fathers last gift, and my mother’s heirloom, which was secretly a heritage of a divine nature.

Both of these items were important to me not for the power they held, nor the status they gave, but because of the people they came from, and what those people mean to me.

Yet now, they were who knows where in the hands of some bastard who doesn’t deserve either of them for any reason, and likely only took them because they were pretty.

"Hehe... Hehahaha..."

I started to laugh. And not in a good way. I laughed in an insane manner, as my mind began to lose itself.

The elder sat beside me shifted away from me slightly in fear and shame as I did so.

I continued to laugh for quite some time. I don’t recall how long I laughed, long enough for the elder to have left some time ago though, but eventually something in me snapped.

Not because I went insane or my mind shattered, but because I felt my father’s presence. But just as quickly as it appeared, it then disappeared.

Immediately I clambered off of the surface onto the ground with a heft thud, my body still not properly healed enough for me to move.

My bones ached and creaked unnaturally as I forced myself up as my muscles straining to the point I felt like they were going to snap. I think a couple of them did.

I did soon manage to get upright, even though I was in immense pain and some of my wounds were clearly opening up again, I still pressed forwards with a slow crawling shamble towards the curtain that seemed to act as the door to this building.

Brushing past the curtain door, I was greeted to the outside of the hut I was in, and saw many similar buildings around me.

And to my left, I saw an arch signalling the border of this little village. Which just so happened to be the direction my father’s presence came from.

Slowly, but with unbridled determination, I started to slither in that direction, barely able to keep myself stable and upright, nearly toppling over every few seconds.

But I held myself up through sheer force of will, even if my body was literally falling apart as I did so.

As I made my way over to the edge of the village though, I heard someone calling out to me.

"H-Hey! Y-You shouldn’t be up right now! N-Nor should you be g-going into the forest!"

It was the voice of a child. A male one at that.

I turned around to look at said child but when I did, he squealed and started to run away to some far corner of the village.

’Why is he...? Whatever, I need to go...’

My mind wasn’t running properly and I was just doing what my instincts guided me to do, which was to continued shambling forwards. Deep into the forest and towards the location I felt my father’s presence.

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(No POV)

"What the hell was that?" A man cried out in fear and bewilderment.

The man had purple skin with pure starry white hair and blue nebulae for eyes. He wasn’t wearing anything, yet it looked like stardust covered him up like a robe would.

He was currently crumpled against the floor staring at a severed hand that had a ring. This ring he got off of some filthy creature that the village he was sent to collect tributes from for his master. But when he got there, he found out that they had used all their tributes, which was healing herbs and salves on the damned thing.

So, as compensation He took some nice-looking jewellery he spotted on the detestable creature’s hands. The villagers tried to persuade him otherwise, but he was able to silence their protests with their deaths, and actually going through with it as a demonstration.

He also thought it was fitting punishment that they lost some numbers for one, daring to not have tribute ready, and two, for wasting said tributes on some lowly monster.

There were two other rings that he had gotten from that vile creature. But now, he was starting to wonder if he’d made the right decision just now.

It wasn’t that he regretted taking the rings, but that he tried to bind them to himself. Not to overthrow his master, he would never be able to do that, but to better serve the master.

The man didn’t know what had happened. He just suddenly felt an overwhelming and deadly force lock onto his soul and begin crushing it like a bundle of leaves the moment he put the ring on and tried to bind it to himself.

And the moment he did so, there was this terrifyingly gigantic evil pressure, as a higher entity locked onto his soul and began crushing it like a handful of leave with such visceral hatred.

Without thinking, he immediately cut his own hand off and was able to cut off the connection between himself and the being, but not before he was pulled down to the ground and nearly squashed to death like a puny bug.

Now, he was staring at his severed hand, his forehead perspiring with his heart racing. He took a few deep breaths to calm down and get his bearings before deciding what he should do next.

’I... I should... I should take these back to master to deal with.’

He used his magic to heal himself up enough to get back up, picking up his severed hand also as he immediately started to head back to his master’s abode.

Unbeknownst to him though, someone was trailing behind him.

Their presence not too dissimilar from the one that nearly crushed the man to death, filled with an unbridled rage that was equal parts demonic and divine.

This person slowly shambled their way through the treacherous jungle, shuffling like an undead.

They were unimpeded in their movements as their Aura was incredibly large, which normally wouldn’t deter hunters, but alongside being huge, it was also incredibly dense, filled with immense and varied magical power.

Along with the immense magical power they were emitting, they were also letting the power of their soul show as they slowly transformed physically into something more grotesque, scaring off hunters even more.

The reason these hunters were afraid was not only because this presence was powerful, but because it contained a myriad of new powers that they had never seen before. And they had never seen such powers before because no such power was ever permitted to exist here.

And yet, here it was, defying the laws of this realm and breaking them like they were nothing.

This being did not care for anything other than getting back what belonged to it. And it would do anything and everything to achieve that. No matter the cost, no matter the consequences.

It WILL get its rings back by any means necessary.