The level of the Dark Mantis only caused me to pause for a moment. When I saw its HP, I almost yelled out in obnoxious mockery.
I blasted it with Advanced Heal and funneled mana into the spell, so as to keep a constant blanket of Light Magic bombarding it. A moment later, I hit it with Pain. I had almost been too late.
The mantis leaped from the roach’s back but was unable to put its full strength into the action before its muscles froze up against its wishes. With its legs frozen in mid-jump it only flew a few feet off the roach before it started to fall.
If Advanced Heal stayed locked on it, it would only be a moment before the creature was dead.
Unexpectedly, the roach started to back up down the path it had come and threatened to crush me between its body and the stone wall at my back.
I jumped up—it was time I changed tactics. Speed would serve me the best.
Landing on the back of the roach, I launched myself toward the opening in its back. Mana started to accumulate in the palm of my hand.
I cringed as orange light radiated off of my spell.
Starting with Flamethrower, I manipulated the spell into an orb similar to Alpha Bolt. Reaching the hole in the creature’s back, I unleashed a compressed Fireball and leaped.
I had planned to land near where I had seen the mantis fall, but before I could make it, the giant cockroach exploded. My Fireball had done its job too well. Gallons upon gallons of bug juice splattered in all directions and soaked my back. The blast changed my trajectory in the air, endangering my landing.
If I didn’t do something I was going to belly flop on the stone floor.
At the last moment, I rolled my shoulder forward, which sent me tumbling as I landed.
It was a strange sensation, experiencing the chaos of such a tumble while my perceptions were sped up. Through the whole ordeal, I never lost my sense of direction, nor did I miss seeing the mantis already in mid-swing as it threw one last desperate attack before its death.
I slowed time even more when I realized my predicament.
There was no angle at which I could cast a spell from my mouth or hand. It might be possible to cast a spell from any part of my body but doing it suddenly in desperation wasn’t an easy feat. There is that.
It was less than a second before the level 500’s attack would connect.
Bone seeped out from every gap in my armor and swamped over me.
The mantis’s scythes stabbed into the extra layer of bone armor now covering my back and I continued my tumble. The impact sent a shudder through me, but the pain that I had expected to jab through my plate mail never came.
Skeletal Plate Mail had been one of my go-to spells for the majority of my time in the Underworld. It had just saved me, even if turning into a human-sized roly-poly wasn’t its normal use.
With a final roll, I came to my feet, shedding the extra bone armor, and faced the Mantis.
The creature’s scythes were dragging. Its death was imminent.
I flooded the extreme amount of mana into my eyes necessary to execute Force Learn. As its dark mana started to flee its body, I cast my spell.
At that moment, I was driven into the being of the Dark Mantis. Not only was its mana held in by the shell that was its body, the mana had been pulling at the shell, manipulating it into the form it had taken before it died.
You have a better understanding of the advanced Blue Magic Shapeshifting.
What?
Even as it died and Force Learn was cast at the appropriate time, I was still unable to steal the Shapeshifting. Out of all the Blue Magic I had run across, it was the one I was most excited about, but it was still out of my grasp. I would have to check my books, but I didn’t remember reading anything about Pillars or Shapeshifting. It was the kind of thing I was sure I would have remembered.
A number of popups and level ups congratulated me. It wasn’t the time to check them.
I cast Lesser Blood Drain on both the roach and mantis at the same time. The way things were going, time was not something I could take for granted. It was likely another monster would soon join us looking for free food.
As both creatures’ blood filled me with new strength, I allowed myself to go invisible before I started to creep back toward the way I had come. To my relief, nothing else joined me. At least for the time being.
I reentered the cavern to see Travis’s ethereal form as he leaned against the wall studying his character sheet. The sneaky bacon thief followed me to get experience!
“Hey,” I said, finding much satisfaction in the way he jumped.
“I, uh. Hey,” he said, scrambling to find something to say.
I held my finger up to remind him to keep his voice down.
“Well, you did say you had my back,” I whispered, muffling my laugh.
“It’s not like that. I just wanted to watch. You didn’t go far so I happened to also get experience,” he insisted.
“It’s cool. I would have done the same. You made out well?”
He stopped squirming in his boots and replied with a smirk. “Eight levels.”
Looking to my own popups I saw I had received nine, thanks to the first time kill bonuses and the mantis and roach being higher levels. Since we were grouped, he got experience, but I got more experience because I was the one that did the killing.
I saw the best surprise when I noticed the stats I had received from draining them. +15 to Dexterity from the mantis and +800 to HP from the roach.
If I spent my 135 stat points on the stat I was only 42 levels from reaching 1,000 Dexterity. I was receiving stat points so quickly from the new mobs I ran across that I settled it in my mind to wait. It was only a matter of time for me to reach 1,000 Dexterity from Blood Drain and there was no guarantee that the levels would keep coming this quickly, or that leveling would remain this fast when I reached higher levels. I reminded myself that I needed over 1,700 levels before I reached 10,000 Wisdom.
It was only a few minutes before I regained max mana even with Meditation.
“I’m going back in,” I whispered to Travis. “This time I’m going a bit deeper. Stay safe.”
He nodded that he would, although I wasn’t sure if he would try to follow me or not. I hadn’t exactly told him to stay here this time around, because I wasn’t sure it was my place to do so. He was a scout. He probably had a few advantages when exploring that I didn’t. I would leave it up to him.
I saw what I recognized as more were-rats scampering about in what was left of the roach’s shell. After what I had just witnessed, I could wait here for other scavengers to come, and with them, predators.
So I waited. There was another creature that joined them, but it didn’t attack the were-rats at all, nor did they seem bothered by it. Immediately, I saw that it resembled a raccoon, but, just like the were-rats, it stood on its hind legs. It was about two heads taller than the were-rats, with the body of a furry brute. Strength was not something I associated with raccoons, but there was no denying its size.
Were-coon
Level 184
HP: 980
Strength: 476
Dexterity: 64
Constitution:196
There was no Blue Magic that registered as I examined it with Mana Sight. Well, at least it would be an easy kill. Hopefully, Travis hadn’t retreated further into the cave. This would be an easy level for him.
Just like the were-rat, the were-coons possessed Dark Mana. A single Advanced Mana Bullet tore through one side of its head and out the other. I received one level for killing it.
The were-rats didn’t even flinch when the were-coon fell over dead. Instead, they turned their attention to it and started to rip into it. That was not something I could allow. I had yet to drain it.
A few Health Bullets later and I was draining the were-coon for +3 Strength. The little were-rat buggers had possibly stolen a few stats from me by feeding on the coon’s body. I drained them out of spite. Of course, they gave me nothing.
And so, my exploration began. I passed by the site where I had first found the Trap-door Spider. From there, I changed direction and climbed. I was soon atop the porous rocks that made up the Belly’s floor. It was fairly flat on this level, which stretched across most of the Belly, but there were a thousand crevices to fall into. From here, I had a much better view with a much clearer way forward.
There were stalagmites the size of small mountains in the distance to my left. I thought I made out the multicolored glowing crystals of the Crystal Forest Zorik had mentioned hundreds of meters away, which I would run into if I went straight. In the distance to the right, there were plateaus like massive lily pads that acted as steps climbing high into that area of the Belly. They possessed a catacomb of caves with almost countless entrances. It was there that I saw the greatest concentration of mana, overshadowing everything else in the area. The intensity of crimson-silver energy sapped the strength from my knees and almost sent me running back below the rocks.
The mana I saw had the density I had only seen a few times. Lord Darius was one and Mistress Nava and the Head Mistress were the only others. It was liquid in consistency as if there was a river of power that flowed inside of them. Whatever this creature was, it was at their level.
Everything inside of me should have been screaming for me to stay far away, but instead, I found myself moving toward the creature, hoping against hope that I could steal some incredible Blue Magic.
After half an hour of walking, I was still only halfway there. It didn’t help that I was going at a slow pace to keep Invisibility in check. I knew this was a gamble and that I was likely missing the opportunity to level even more, but, if things went well, there was a chance I would still have time left to level some more and also come away with some rare Blue Magic.
When I reached the plateaus, there was a much larger distance to reach the next flat than I had thought. It was at least 30 feet up. An entrance to the catacombs was close by, but there was no guarantee I would be able to find my way up through there, let alone find my way out again once I had entered. No, there was one sure way to reach the creature that was about five levels up. I had to climb.
There were a number of approaches I could take to scale the wall. The easiest way would have been to remove my armor to muscle my way, but that would have left me vulnerable. Instead, I inventoried my shield and scepter and manipulated Skeletal Plate Mail and Skeleton Warrior’s Sword to work together to form hooked claws over my gauntlets that extended from each of my fingers. I did the same with my feet by letting vicious spikes extend out from the toe of either boot. I realized then that I could literally go Wolverine on some baddies if I ever had the desire.
With 433 Strength and 657 Dexterity, I scaled the wall by pounding my claws into the stone and making my own hand- and footholds. It was noisy, so I made it quick. Whether a spider would have been impressed was still up for debate, but I guarantee most of them would have jumped out of their exoskeleton if they saw me coming.
The creature’s mana was coming from inside the caves at the top of the highest plateau. I sensed some other creatures were waiting at the closest entrance to me. It wasn’t Mana Sight that had brought the creatures to my attention. It was Canine’s Sense of Smell.
I found that odd, because I hadn’t noticed anything that smelled beastly, but still, I knew they were there. There was a bitterness to the aroma, which was potent to me now, but without Smell activated I doubted I would have been able to describe it, let alone realize that it was the monster’s fear.
It was reassuring in one sense. If the creatures here feared me, then they weren’t as likely to attack. The density of the mana coming from the entrance of the cave was fairly low level, so I wasn’t spooked.
Since I was already making such a racket, I ran to the next wall and scaled to the next level without bothering to let Invisibility take hold.
By the third level, I noticed that there were far fewer creatures here than there had been below. The smell of fear was even thicker, despite that. All I had to do was look up to find a clue as to why that was the case. The Crimson Mana that had originally gained my attention blasted this area with its presence. Normally, mana was a muffled cloud of energy I could see through stone, but here I was able to see the details of the creature’s outline clearly with Mana Sight.
The only movement from the giant creature that I saw was the slow rise and fall of what I suspected was its chest. It was balled up, so I couldn’t determine what type of creature it was exactly, but I was almost positive it was sleeping.
A jolt of euphoria rose up inside of me. If it was sleeping that was better than I could have hoped. The Lich had told me before that sleeping creatures were easier to steal Blue Magic from. I just had to make sure that I made it there with some sliver of silence so as not to wake it up.
I did my best to scale the next wall to the fourth plateau by using handholds that were already there naturally to lessen the noise. There was a stretch of wall where I had to dig my claws in, but when I reached the top, I saw that the creature was still breathing steadily.
It was then that the lack of life around me except for the creature became painfully obvious. There were half a dozen cave mouths within two hundred meters of where I currently stood, and I saw not a single sign of life. The smell of fear had vanished except what was drifting up from the caves below.
Plans for a quick escape flooded my mind. I settled on a few different strategies to flee depending on what the situation presented, but I did not let the danger turn me from my path.
I slowed my approach and let Invisibility overtake me. I even climbed at a pace that allowed Invisibility to stay ethereal. Pulling myself up, I stood at the top of the final plateau where I faced a single cave the size of a jet hanger. The crimson-silver energy I had seen from afar now gleamed like the sun.
My mouth went dry and the strength of my limbs seemed to dissipate. I smelled the bitterness of fear almost immediately as it bled out of me through my sweaty palms. It didn’t take much to realize that the odor I exuded would soon reach the sleeping creature.
There was no need to get closer. I could see the creature’s body in the back of the cave about fifty meters away. I didn’t dare drop Mana Sight, which would give me some indication of what type of creature I was dealing with. Instead, I let the mana flood my eyes, slowing time and preparing for Force Learn at the same time.
I wanted to Heal myself, but fear of discovery drove off my fear of the bodily weakness I felt.
This opportunity would never come again, so I decided to use five times the amount of mana I usually did when using Force Learn. 25,000 mana took an uncomfortable couple of seconds to accumulate. Once I reached it, I let even more funnel in. Before I realized it, I had doubled my original goal of 25,000 mana and felt the muscles in my neck spasm beneath the force of 50,000 mana.
Releasing a pent-up breath, Force Learn was activated.
All of my senses were severed and reattached in a moment’s time. I was in the river of mana that existed inside the creature. No, it wasn’t a river. It was an ocean. The joy I had felt when experiencing Lord Darius’s power was nowhere to be found. Instead, I was left terrified.
“What do you want?” came a voice, not from any distant source, but from the mana itself. It was everywhere!
I had always feared that Force Learn might give away my presence, but never did I think that I would be pulled inside a monster and be able to communicate with it. Wait!
I was stuck. Not that I had ever been able to control my ability to leave a creature when I had used Force Learn, but it seemed there had always been a timer and I left when it was up. I knew this to be true, but I wasn’t sure how. Until this entity was done with me, I would not be able to leave.
“Power,” the voice drummed. “Yes. As all creatures, you seek what you don’t have. Typical. But let me ask you this, why should I give it to you?”
“I want to live,” I said, which should have been impos
sible. Here, I had no body. I had no mouth to speak or voice box to create sound.
“Again, typical. You will have to do better than that. Maybe I should just eat you. If I do, your power will become a part of me, making you, in a sense, very powerful. Of course, the you that you are now will no longer be and life will no longer be yours.”
“Others depend upon me. Without me, they will die.”
“Do you think it noble to protect your own? All creatures protect what is theirs.”
“But we aren’t monsters.”
“You are becoming tedious. All creatures consider themselves better than all others.”
I found myself speechless. What was I supposed to say? Did he want me to make a case for the goodness of mankind? What evidence did I have to offer? If this creature believed that each sentient creature in the Underworld was mostly the same, then I had no foundation to stand on. I had happily slaughtered other creatures since I entered the Underworld just to grow in power.
“Your silence is promising, creature,” the voice said. “Either you are pondering my question and showing signs of wisdom, or you are an idiot. Even idiots show wisdom in keeping their mouths shut.
“I’m curious. What are you? A Kobold? No, they are rash and rarely show anything but their teeth. Let me smell you. You…”
For what seemed like minutes, the beast was silent. The ocean of mana seemed to press into me and was threatening to crush me, then, at once, the pressure stopped. The voice returned. “Human. It has been centuries since I have smelled your people’s frail form, and your magic.”
This entity seemed interested. With interest, there was a speck of hope.
“I am the only one that possesses this magic,” I said.
“How can that be? You speak truthfully, this I can feel, but how?”
“Twenty of us were brought from the world above to help the Head Mistress of the succubi to grow in strength. We each had different talents in different schools of magic. Some had none. She leeches the excess energy we give off.”
“That is a wise plan, though a surprising play for a succubus. Hrmmm. I am no longer bored. Your story has a few points of intrigue. So, you want power?”
Underworld - Through the Belly of the Beast: A LitRPG Series Page 16