Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] Chapter 155: Book 3: Chapter 11 : O’ Mother Where Art Thou

Read chapter 155 of Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] by TTReynolds on NovelPedia.

Book 3: Chapter 11 : O’ Mother Where Art Thou Book 3: Chapter 11 : O’ Mother Where Art Thou It started with the bugs. One moment, they were a low, background chorus of trills, clicks and cricket song. The next, they fell quiet all at once, like a conductor finishing a performance and silencing the entire symphony. It was a sudden shift that everyone noticed. Heads snapped up. Weapons were reached for. No one said anything, yet they didn’t have to. Everyone could feel it, something was coming. A deep groan rolled through the night air as the trees themselves seemed to shudder. Not from the wind, there was no wind, but in some sort of warning, a call of panic from the trees to any who might hear it. Something massive was moving far beyond the circle of firelight. Each creak and pop of wood sounded like a bone giving way under immense pressure. Alex felt it before he saw or heard any of it. The aether twisted in his senses, slow and steady, like the first ripple of something cold and ancient rising from deep water. His skin prickled along his arms and down his neck. Obby went very, very quiet in his mind. Then came the sound, low and drawn out, rocky yet airy, like a tall cliffside taking a breath. A sound that didn’t belong in the living world. No one else seemed certain what they’d heard. But Alex knew. He could feel them, her eyes on the edges of his awareness, even through the darkness of the night and the shadows of the trees. “She’s stirring,” he whispered, his voice barely a breath. Obby’s voice slid into Alex’s mind, stripped of its usual humor. “ Run.” It was strange to hear that from the rock. Obby usually loved violence, finding it entertaining, fun even. Alex had just enough time to think that’s not good before the world around him exploded. The treeline abruptly changed as the many pines at the edges changed positions nearly instantly. Once second they stood tall the next second they were...gone , snapped in half and flung aside like matchsticks. The undergrowth shuddered, and then the Basilisk Mother burst into view. She was the size of a town house. Her serpentine body rolled low to the ground, the eight thick, squat legs driving her forward in a way that made Alex’s instincts scream. She moved too fast, too powerfully on her many legs. The first two in each quad-set were massive, trunk-like things ending in hooked claws, the second pair smaller but no less menacing, or deadly. Moonlight fractured across her scales, each one looking like cracked glass over a polished obsidian body, catching and scattering the light with every ripple of muscle beneath. The caravan scrambled, steel flashing in the fading firelight. Once more, the pack lizards screamed. Someone shouted orders, orders that went ignored, as the entire defensive line wavered under the sheer pressure of the thing’s presence. Fear hit everyone present like a physical blow, Alex could see it in the way some of the guards just stopped moving, their bodies remembering they were prey for the slaughter before such a creature. Then the basilisk’s gaze swept the line. A casual, predatory pass… and to Alex’s horror, it found Holly. Her eyes glazed over in an instant, pupils dilating, breath catching. She didn’t scream. She didn’t turn away, or close her eyes, she just stared, frozen. Alex didn’t think, he just moved. One moment he was behind her, the next he was slamming into her side, dragging her out of that invisible line of fire. They hit the ground hard, and Alex was already shouting before he’d rolled to his feet. “Don’t meet its eyes!” Light detonated against the Basilisk’s face, white-hot bursts from Allie’s light spell, each one searing the night and forcing the monster’s gaze away. The sudden illumination turned the clearing into a world of stark shadows and blinding glares. Kate seemed to have found her moment and didn’t hesitate. She was already in motion, blade flashing like a streak of sunlight, a corona flare over the surface of the metallic edge. G