Watching the monsters quickly surrounding him, Chromie silently complained.
These monsters were crawling on the ground, their arms acting as front legs that were considerably close to the ground, but even so, they stood nearly 3 meters in height. If they had stood straight up, they would probably be over 4 meters tall.
Their skin was completely grey and wrinkled all over, their bodies thin and lanky, their large heads had just a few strands of blond hair, their eye sockets deeply sunken in as their pair of glowing green eyes greedily watched Chromie.
Their gaping jaws opened to reveal two rows of razor-sharp teeth and an elongated red tongue, while crouching closely to the ground to lick Chromie's dripping blood on the ground, they were also emanating a clicking noise from their throats.
These creatures would never expose their backs to their own kind; if any of them attempted to circle around the other's backs, the others would swiftly howl in a low and threatening tone.
From this, it could be seen that these monsters highly lacked unity, even while hunting for food, all of them were closely watching out for the others, preventing them from attacking oneself while looking for an opportunity to do it themselves.
If not for the sake of caution, these monsters would have already charged all at once to devour Chromie alive.
"Are these the remnants of the elves?" observing these creatures' forms, Chromie could still make out some elven features. Never did he think that after a few thousand years, the originally graceful and beautiful elves would turn into such ugly and dirty beasts.
Their elongated tongue made it so that they could not clearly utter any sounds, after croaking in their throats for a short while, they were unable to resist the temptation of flesh and blood, giving up any semblance of caution to pounce towards Chromie.
Rolling to one side to avoid the monster's pounce, Chromie threw the sword in his hand towards the monster. As the sword slashed through the monster's body, a streak of grey blood spurted out from the wound.
Without hesitation, almost every monster in the vicinity immediately pounced forward. However, their target wasn't Chromie, but the monster that was wounded.
Their razor-sharp teeth sunk deeply into their kin's body; their long tongues greedily licking off every bit of blood that splattered from their bites.
Seeing this, Chromie immediately fled without waiting for a single moment longer. At this point, his body was already riddled with wounds, which drained most of his stamina; his overall strength had already dropped by more than half, so if he insisted on fighting any longer, his only outcome would be as those beasts' dinner.
He kept one hand on the Tome of Sacrifice that was woven into a secret compartment in his pocket. At this point, he no longer had the strength to fight, so if he couldn't run away from these creatures, the only thing he could place his hope onto would be the Sacrificial Magic within the Tome of Sacrifice.
Only two of the monsters remained to rip and tear at one another, the one whose body was cut by Chromie was at a disadvantage; the other monsters in the vicinity silently disappeared, apparently, they had other plans; while at least three of those creatures kept their attention on Chromie, quickly giving chase on all fours.
The various magics within the Tome of Sacrifice appeared in Chromie's mind one by one. The finger sacrifice was immediately disregarded, as these three monsters were unusually nimble, and he might not necessarily be able to hit them in his current state.
Sacrificing my skin to obtain the Cloak of Gloom?
Another Sacrificial Magic appeared in Chromie's mind. By sacrificing his skin, he would obtain an ability called the Cloak of Gloom, which allowed him to hide himself within another aspect of reality like apparitions, unable to be perceived by creatures of this aspect.
However, the trade-off was that he would have to constantly maintain this ability after obtaining it, as he would remanifest in the normal aspect of reality with all of his skin completely gone if he stopped.
Without skin to protect him, even Chromie would die in no time at all. In other words, once he sacrificed his skin, his period of activity in the normal aspect of reality would be astronomically limited.
Sacrificing my arm, single-use magic, Atmospheric Palmprint. The commotion would be too great, and I might not necessarily escape from its range.
Thinking of this magic's detailed description, Chromie rolled to one side to avoid an incoming attack.
Sacrificing a part of my liver, single-use magic, Spring of Life. This will completely heal all physical ailments and return my body to its peak, but in exchange I'll fall into a weakened state afterwards.
Chromie continued to ponder on what to sacrifice.
After all, every sacrifice was literally permanent. Similar to the high degree of priority when triggering this magic, any body parts he lost were impossible to grow back, even by the divine techniques of the church's greatest priests, this was why he had to use a glass eye for his left eye.
Whatever he sacrificed, he would lose forever. Because of this, if there was ever an alternative to sacrificing to solve a problem, Chromie would always choose the alternative without fail.
It's no good, I don't have any other choices.
Chromie's vision was already becoming blurry, his body greatly fatigued, approaching its limit. Since love wasn't omnipotent, the ability he obtained from sacrificing his love was also not omnipotent.
He did indeed have inexhaustible stamina, but it didn't come out of thin air, the minimum requirement was that he needed some food to replenish himself.
"I'll choose this, sacrificing my remaining eye to use Petrifying Gaze!" Chromie finally made his choice and gave up his remaining eye. He could always replace it with a glass eye, even if a substitute wasn't comparable to the real thing, he would at least not lose his vision completely.
Chromie's sharp eye quickly started to turn into stone, a huge cluster of grey light shot out from it. The monsters that lunged at him were fully encompassed in this light, their movements quickly became stiff; their originally grey bodies swiftly petrified and thoroughly turned into statues.
The stone eyeball fell from its socket, Chromie panted heavily as tears of blood began to flow out from the now-empty right eye socket.
Chromie's body staggered as he fled into the distance. At some point, he started seeing a few small white flowers in his vision. Chromie's head suddenly felt heavy, his body then weakly collapsed into the nearby grassy bush.
A short while later, a tall figure donning a rugged cloak walked into his vicinity with a lantern in their hand. The tall figure slowly drew their machete, but as they saw the Moonlight Ring on Chromie's finger, they reached their pale white finger to touch the blood on Chromie's body and tasted it.
"Farnate…" the tall figure spoke in the ancient language of the elves, then sighed heavily and carried Chromie on their shoulder.
…
On the other side, Darr was still suppressing his maddening thoughts while following Chromie's tracks, moving his body along this unfamiliar land.
It was obvious that Chromie was somehow related to this elven ruin, so if he wanted to obtain the soul linking substance, the best choice was certainly to follow Chromie.
Very quickly, Darr reached the place where Chromie ran into the monsters. As he observed the surroundings, Darr's body continued squirming, then he abruptly turned his head around, shooting a jet of blood from his right eye to pierce the body of a monster who had just pounced on him from the shadows.
Watching the grey blood that splattered from the monster's body, Darr suddenly felt an irresistible urge, his mutated limbs reached out to grab this elf-turned-monster and pulled it closer to his body. The two sets of ribs just above his stomach opened up, revealing the squirming innards within. Without any warnings, several tentacles reached out, ignored the monster's struggles and pulled it into his body.
The yellowish corrosive liquid quickly seeped out from every direction to eat away at the monster's body, causing it to shriek uncontrollably.
