The snake appeared to be thirty meters long, it stood tall even larger than a house, not moving an inch from Raghav's blows from inside. It had completely white scales with black lines contorted all over his body resembling a spider's net. Upon closer look, one could interpret those lines as dark blue extra layers rather than a black net. Its head was tilted slightly up, looking for his master. Its eyes were surprisingly beautiful because of their sky blue color, yet they were sinister enough to terrify any being.
Param and Amayra were still on ground staring at the snake with frightened looks, their eyes were shaking from fear and their body was stunned.
By now, Bhaskar and Basu had achieved quite a high altitude, they were more than two kilometers away from the rest. A hint of relief appeared on Bhaskar's face
"I can't believe we escaped, I just hope Blizzard doesn't die back there. I will turn him back into the tie once we reach the hideout."
There was no response from Basu, he also noticed that their pace was gradually slowing down,
"Hey, What's the matter?"
"I... can't... anymor-"
Basu's voice staggered as he answered between his panting. Normally, he could fly for 30 minutes continuously at a great speed but right now he was in no condition to match that. His legs had critical injuries from the explosion, the harmful smoke had also infiltrated his lungs as he inhaled desperately, he had lost a large amount of blood by now and above all, he was carrying another person of the same weight with him.
As he realized his body reaching the limit, he dived back to the ground.
"Damn you, you are so useless.".
Since, they were already out of the enemies sight, they decided to hide at their current position until Basu regains his stamina. They could escape on feet from there if they weren't injured.
On the other side, Raghav was still throwing his blows in rage and agony.
"Dammit."
Feeling helpless, he stopped moving and fell to his knees.
"Papa, I-I am sorry, but I can't keep on going, you died because of me, mom was slaughtered piece by piece and I, even after being bestowed with so much of this additional power, I could not avenge you. I murdered all of our clan members but two without a hint of sorrow. All of this feels so heavy, my heart is beating like crazy and I can't think straight."
He was still just a 19 year old kid. There wasn't a day where he didn't smile, there wasn't a day where he didn't felt like a prince, he could always feel envy and hate from others but not from his family. Up until yesterday, his biggest problem in life were to wake up early to go to school and college, once he was mad all day just because he couldn't eat ice cream when he was ill. But today, his world completely changed, one thing after another kept on traumatizing him. For the first time in his life, he was scared and helpless, he wanted to hug someone and cry his heart out, he wanted to complain about his problems but he was completely alone, surrounded by his enemies, chasing them and murdering them.
Remembering his good days and how he wasted them by not cherishing what he had, Raghav sat on the floor. His face had a deep frown with his eyes looking down. But then he felt something strange, the floor wasn't actually a floor, it was slimy and softer, he could feel his clothes were getting wet.
"Come to think of it, where even am I? I couldn't penetrate the walls even with a blade so I thought I am trapped inside some hard box or something."
Since it was pitch dark, he couldn't see anything. He created a lighter and lit it.
He looked up as his eyes widened. Everything including the tongue he was sitting on, the snake's teeth and the mouth walls were all of icy blue color, it was like he was imprisoned in a slimy ice cube.
"This looks like a creature's mouth, the shape of the tongue suggests its a snake. So I am inside a snake's frost mouth? And why am I not cold? Is it also one of the perks that comes with the title?"
He stood up again with no problem, there were no movements because of how Blizzard was so calm. It was the type of Phantasmagoria to only react when its master ordered or when it sensed any danger. Bhaskar only ordered it to capture Raghav because he was told to keep him alive.
Phantasmagorias are the bizarre entities which reside in the mortal world along with humans and other creatures. These entities are classified as neither living creatures nor inanimate. But since they appear to be strange terrifying beasts with unimaginable powers, they were simply referred as magic beasts by people in their day to day life. Phantasmagorias was their official and scientific name.
The first phantasmagoria appeared 400 years ago when an archeologist stumbled upon it while exploring a cave. The man's name was Spiro Papadopoulos, later the cave was named opoulos cave. From that point, several people throughout the planet started having these encounters, in just 10 years, there were more than 20 officially recorded encounters like this. When public questioned about these strange creature's origins and their sudden appearance in our world, heads of all the major countries including India had a summit about this. The final decision was that any person who has an encounter can keep the phantasmagoria but he has to report about it or it would be considered an act of treason towards the government.
Regarding their origin, countless researches have been conducted by both government and private organizations throughout the history. Some says that these creatures are born due to human's desires and thoughts, some say that they exist in the world with us but only found by the ones whose fates are connected or something. But no theory with a concrete evidence has been proposed yet.
It has been determined that these beasts are so rare that only 1 in a 873970 can have an encounter with them according to the official statement. In the 200 year history of Agar clan, only one person had managed to find it so far, and this person was Bhaskar.
Bhaskar kept his phantasmagoria, Blizzard, a secret from both his clan and government, Blizzard could transform itself into a tie which made it quite easy to hide. It was his trump card.
As soon as Raghav realized that he was in a creature's mouth, his expression changed completely. It was no longer of a depressed person who had lost everything but of a person who was looking at his enemy, the one he sought revenge for a long time, his eyes had seriousness in them again with a slight glint of smile.
He raised his hand which was holding the lighter to have a better view. His eyes reflected the blue frosting teeth, the icy cheek walls and also the blue tongue. Without closing his eyes for even a moment, he concentrated on the image.
[During that title bestowment, a certain amount of knowledge was forcefully fused into my mind, all regarding this title and it's powers. According to that, if I concentrate enough, then I can..]
After around 40 seconds had passed, the image in his pupils constricted and jumbled, it was a like a repeated transition between solid and slime as it kept zooming out until the whole body of Blizzard could be seen in his pupils.
[Woah, I actually did it, it wasn't too hard, it is my power after all.]
Tear were already flowing out of his eyes due to not blinking and high concentration, his blue crystal clear eyes now had even more radiance emitting from them, but some red lines also appeared in the corneas. Raghav wasn't troubled by these changes or the sharp burning pain in his eyes. This pain resistance seemed to be another perk of bestowment.
In his pupils, snake's image rotated, it was like a drone was taking video from different angles, or like a designer was designing a monster sketch on his software.
[If I just put anchor on it's whole body, it's mouth won't open and I won't be able to escape.]
After a short while, Blizzard's image in Raghav's pupil stopped rotating and zoomed in to a specific area under it's head. Some internal organs of the snake appeared.
"ANCHOR"
[There, that should do it.]
Suddenly, the giant snake jolted with his eyes wide open. It's respiratory system was no longer functioning, reacting to it's survival instincts, it immediately opened it's mouth in the desperate need of air. But no matter how much he tries, his respiratory system was anchored by Raghav, meaning that it's lungs won't move to pass the oxygen.
Raghav could see the outside once again as the sunshine entered the snake's mouth, his face had a hint of joy while his eyes had sharp mirror like pupils but blood red corneas, his face was full of tears in which very few blood string could also be seen. His eyes must have leaked blood due to excessive focus and concentration.
He immediately dashed outside, his gaze analyzed the surroundings to confirm his friends safety. He noticed that Amayra was still sitting at her previous position, she seemed astonished by the appearance of the strange creature and other events. Then he noticed that Param was right beneath him, he was trying to damage with that Baretta Raghav made earlier, but those pistol bullets couldn't damage the phantasmagoria's scales.
The humongous snake shrieked while violently shaking his body, it could feel it's death was near. Param was blown away by it's tail's movement. During this, his gaze fell upon Raghav who was also looking at him while in the air.
"Raghu, you okay there? That thing is tough."
Raghav created a wooden slab in air and then immediately anchored it, this resulted in a platform in air for him to stand on. Then he replied to his friend
"Never mind that, just point in the direction they flew to."
Param immediately pointed towards the west direction.
Raghav glared at the west direction, the sun exactly behind him, bathing him in the sunlight.
"A crucial point about phantasmagorias, the master can only be away for a certain limited distance."