Underworld - Through the Belly of the Beast: A LitRPG Series

by Apollos Thorne

  Thankfully, the bulk of the spells missed us due to our course correction. The only issue now was that we were heading in the wrong direction.

  The powder that had clouded where we had just been dropped an entire group of goblins to the floor.

  That was when a tank-roach showed up with the worst timing possible. It poked its head in over some were-coons, blocking the way.

  As we diverted our course again to the side, another Nature Elemental showed up, this one in the shape of a horse with a whip of thorns for a nose.

  We started to backtrack, more concerned with moving forward than killing. The delay had been too much. We were bombarded with a meteor shower of fire, ice, and rock.

  I caught the first few projectiles on my shield, but there were too many. As the monsters before me were battered, so was the ground. Even as I was perceiving time four times faster than normal, the amount of dirt and rock, ice, and fire being thrown about overcame my senses and blinded me in its cloud of chaos.

  Reaching for Travis, I caught him on the shoulder pad and pulled him to the floor.

  I wedged the base of my shield hard into the rock and sent an extra 1,000 MP into it. Bone shot out from the rim of my shield and encircled us an adult-sized eggshell.

  The impact drove me to one knee. As I moved to funnel more mana into my shield, the bone refuge collapsed.

  We were driven to the ground. Travis was beneath me. Had I crushed him?

  When the pounding stopped, I hadn’t lost any HP, but my Titan’s Bone Defense was in shambles. I basically rebuilt it for 700 MP.

  I had to bat my eyes to try and see. The Imp’s spells had churned up a ton of rock and left us in a cloud of soot.

  Rolling off of him, I saw Travis was in worse shape. He was breathing but struggling like someone had punched him in the gut. Rejuvenation did its job and I saw a difference in him almost immediately. That was a close one.

  It looked like running wouldn’t be an option. I churned up Mana Sight to five times my normal perception and watched the soot clear.

  Any monster that had been in the vicinity was now no more. The monsters I did see in the distance were no longer paying attention to us. Every eye was on the Imps overhead. From our vantage point, I saw them before they saw us.

  With my eyes to the sky, what I finally saw of the enemy sent a chill up and down my spine.

  The Imps were darkening the Belly’s green hue by cluttering the sky overhead. They had closed the distance and were now hovering less than 100 meters away. Each of them already had a spell prepared, glowing in their palms, ready to finish us with a final attack.

  At this range, I was easily able to examine them with Creature Indicator. I only had to observe a handful of them to know that these Imps were not like the ones we were used to. Their levels varied from 300 to over 700! Were they wild ones or escaped slaves?

  More mana than I currently possessed was aimed right at us from point blank range. It should have made me desperate or afraid. Instead, a realization that this had always been inevitable sent a wave of calm running through me. I had just over 31k MP. If I was going to die, I would take as many of them with me as I could.

  What should it be? An Alpha or Health Bomb? My Advanced Health Bomb would do the most damage, but only to those weak against it. Alpha would likely damage all of them. Alpha it was.

  Switching my Bone Morningstar to my left hand, I commanded it to reform into a large shield to replace the one that had crumbled. With my right hand free, I lifted it up and prepared to cast.

  As the soot cleared enough for them to finally see us, they had the expected reaction. A hundred angry throaty grunts rung out as they took aim.

  Noticing Travis through my peripheral vision, I tried to warn him. “I can’t save you. Run!”

  He didn’t move. He knew his speed better than I did. He had already calculated it in his mind and knew there was no hope.

  “Make them pay,” he replied with his typical smirk.

  I nodded that I would. My throat clenched up, but I knew there was nothing left to be done.

  With time slowed, I watched the first enemy spell fly. It was a shard of ice, similar to my Ice Shard.

  My mana swelled, but it hadn’t yet reached its peak. I watched as the second and the third spells were released.

  Is it a blessing or a curse to be able to see death coming? That was an odd thought to have the moment before I died, but perhaps it was appropriate. Did I have regrets? I knew that I had many. I could have been more help to my mother after my father died. I could have worked harder to make her proud in school instead of spending so much time playing games. I could have been a better friend to my other captives. The moment I arrived in the Underworld I had put myself first and seen to my own survival. Perhaps, if I had seen them coming, I could have protected Travis from the Imps. If I hadn’t approached Xaphan it was probable we wouldn’t have met them at all. I could not make up for my failures, but now, I could do everything I could to make sure the others had as few Imps to worry about as possible.

  The rest of my body seemed to drain of all strength as the last of it accumulated into the palm of my hand. As I took a final breath before pouring all of my might into an Alpha Bomb, the Imps started to move.

  The spells they had already released were diverted and driven back. The Imps flapped their wings frantically to fight an incoming wind. Their attention shifted.

  I followed their eye line to find a petite feminine figure in tight leather with her brown hair blowing back from her face. She had placed herself high in the air behind us and faced them head-on.

  “Aeris,” I said aloud to myself.

  The silver mana inside of her churned like a ferocious storm and was already building.

  I held my mana back instead of dumping it into Alpha Bomb. If she was going to do what I thought she was going to do, I would be ready.

  She lowered her head, closing her eyes in focus. With her jeweled hand extended, she began to move it in a circular motion.

  At her command, the gust that had been buffeting the Imps shifted. As her hand spun, so did the flow.

  The Imps cast numerous spells at their new assailant, but as the air started to funnel, they were dragged along with it. None of their spells even got close.

  I had seen her Wind Vortex once before, but the mass of air that she was moving this time was on a whole other level.

  Travis and I had to brace ourselves as the vortex reached down and began to suck air from the surrounding area across the ground. Many creatures, dead and alive, were sucked up into the growing twister that touched down no more than 50 meters away from where we stood.

  Taking a step forward, I held my hand up until I saw in Travis’s eyes that he knew I wanted him to stay back.

  The danger I walked toward was no less real just because my friend was commanding it. The base of the twister didn’t seem stable and I doubted Aeris had much control of it. Still, she needed all the help I could give her.

  My approach was slower than I desired, but only because of the twister’s pull. When I was as close as I dared, about twenty meters away, I lifted my hand and examined the flow of mana in the twister itself. It devoured anything in its path and pulled it up into its funnel with incredible force.

  Remembering how her wind had just pushed my flame aside if I hadn’t used enough energy, I knew I couldn’t hold back for this to work. With all of the mana I had accumulated, Flamethrower erupted from the palm of my hand. There was no way to condense the flame into the tight stream with so much power behind it. Instead, it spewed out of me like a geyser.

  As if the twister had been waiting for the fuel I provided, channels of air picked it up and transported it around its funnel and up it went. It reached higher and higher as it intertwined with the air itself.

  The heat it produced caused me to have to hide my face behind my own shield. It wasn’t enough. I was being cooked inside of my own armor. Rejuvenation was my only hope. Still, I stood my grou
nd at the mercy of the twister of fire.

  How long I extended myself to convert mana into flame I had no way to tell. All that seemed to exist was our endeavor.

  The twister started to falter before I did. As soon as I noticed the funnel failing, I pinched back my mana, leaving me with less than 3,000.

  As drained of mana as I was, I hadn’t lost all energy, so my wits remained intact. I looked around our surroundings and saw most of the monsters had fled the area, but not the battlefield.

  “Elorion!” Travis’s voice rang out.

  Turning, I saw him back where I had left him, looking up. His arms were out like he was readying to catch something.

  Aeris was falling fast. The smoky silver of her mana that I was so used to being a part of her had faded entirely. She had used every last drop of mana she possessed to save us.

  I ran. Before she reached the ground, I launched myself in the air over Travis’s head and caught her frail form. As light as she had been when riding atop my head, without her magic to lessen her weight, a lot of her mass had returned. Even then, she weighed one hundred pounds tops.

  Before I even reached the ground, Advanced Heal bathed her in light.

  Chapter 19 – Welcome

  Aeris was starting to stir, so I stood her up, keeping an arm around her to keep her from falling.

  “Did I make it in time?” she asked meekly.

  As she said it, the bodies of the Imps and dozens of other creatures that the twister had sucked up started to return. There was a solid thud close behind us.

  Turning, we saw a sight that was both demoralizing and invigorating. The bodies of hundreds of our enemies rained down and fell broken on the stone floor before us.

  We shared no words. The three of us looked at more death in that moment than we had seen in our entire lives just weeks before.

  The other monsters gave us space, but I couldn’t believe that would last for long.

  “When you recover enough to fly, do it,” I said, tearing the others from the moment of calm. “We won’t have time for you to meditate I’m afraid. Just recover what you can and stay overhead. We can handle things down here. You just save up mana in case more Imps come.”

  Aeris nodded that she understood.

  “Travis. Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yup. Doing great,” he jested.

  I rolled my eyes but let him see me grin. His insistence on staying positive no matter our predicament was an asset I didn’t want to stifle.

  “Olivia,” Aeris said through group chat. “I’m here with Travis and Elorion. We’re alive but on our last legs. Any possibility of upping the pace?”

  “Sorry, Aeris. I think we are already pushing too hard,” Olivia responded. “What happened?”

  “A small army of flying Imps were about to light our boys up. I dropped them,” she said with a laugh.

  “It’s true. She’s our hero,” I said, jumping into the conversation and giving her a wink.

  “Imps?!” Zorik screeched. “An army you say? How many?”

  Zorik was normally a timid creature. Never had I heard him this frightened, even when he had led me to the Head Mistress the first time. I swallowed hard.

  “Close to a hundred,” I replied. “Maybe a little more.”

  “And they’re dead? You’re sure?” the imp asked frantically.

  I looked around, Mana Sight going strong and saw that the mana glow coming from the dead bodies on the ground had stilled or winked out entirely. If they were still alive the mana remaining would have been moving or flowing about, alive. I looked to the air just to be sure there weren’t any we missed, then answered. “Yes. They are all dead.”

  He was silent for a long moment.

  I feared we might have killed his family or some long-lost relative. His answer surprised me. “That’s incredible! Bloody wild imps. It’s odd that they would have attacked in the first place though. They only do so if they are confident of a great reward for little work. Do you have any idea what drew them out?”

  “Eh,” I said, not excited about informing everyone what I had done through group chat, but it was going to come up eventually. “Well, I spotted this huge mana source, so I went to it and found a creature asleep. So, I tried to steal Blue Magic from it. Doing so woke him up, then he chased me. He caught me but let me live, sorta. When he left the entire Belly came awake and tried to attack me like I was a plate of bacon.”

  “What was his name?!” Zorik demanded.

  “Xaphan.”

  “Of all the foolish things, you went and woke a Primordial Beast?! Do you like death?! Do you have any concept of how powerful a creature like that is?! The Primordial Beast was around before the time of history’s first recording. What in the Underworld he’s doing in a place like the Belly is beyond me, but… But!”

  “Point taken.”

  “No wonder the Imps were out in force,” Zorik continued as if his rant was the only thing that would ever make me see reason. “They thought Xaphan had left them leftovers of a powerful being for scavenging. Ha! But they didn’t know they would face living creatures that were capable of feasting on their guts! New Master, you are as powerful as you are stupid. Stop it with the stupid.”

  After his rebuke, everyone was silent.

  “Zorik, did you speak to the Head Mistress this way?” I asked, more surprised at him than angry.

  He squeaked like a cornered mouse. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, New Master. Zorik just got excited and he is the stupid one. So stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Please forgive Zorik.”

  I burst out laughing. It was only a moment before I realized he was probably cowering at my response.

  “It’s okay, Zorik. I want you to speak your mind. There is a lot you know that we don’t. Xaphan is a great example.”

  “Thank you, New Master,” he replied, hesitating. “New Master is stupid, but I will help to make you not stupid.”

  Aeris snickered, trying to hide it behind her hand.

  “Thanks, Zorik,” I said.

  “They are coming,” Travis warned.

  With a sigh, I prepared myself for the incoming assault. How many monsters could possibly be left? I was amazed after all the carnage they had seen that they were still so willing to throw away their lives. Oh well. If they were going to come, we would oblige.

  ***

  As I had asked, Aeris flew overhead, but she didn’t completely refrain from helping. Instead of focusing on killing them with Wind Slash, she focused on crowd control. She held some of them back with a strong gust or would knock one down in front of others to block their path. With that said, she didn’t waste an ounce of mana and only cast a spell when it was needed.

  With her help, we were able to slow our constant forward movement and focus on killing. I buffed Aeris with Mind Buff, further increasing her mana per minute and mana recovery.

  Travis and I fought back to back, falling into a fierce rhythm the mobs we faced couldn’t possibly match. Endless as it seemed, the longer we fought, the better we got at killing that odd assortment of creatures.

  It helped that many of the creatures no longer seemed interested in us, but in the feast of hundreds of dead bodies scattered about.

  When the rest of the group finally arrived, nearly an hour later, we hadn’t faced any new creatures that were able to challenge us. Our friends’ presence was noticed immediately.

  Fire and Ice Magic joined with Earth and Nature, tearing great gaps in the creature’s line at the top of the cliff that stood before the Belly’s entrance. They were a few hundred meters away.

  Led by Skyler, our bashers charged forward and carved their way up the ramp to the ground level. From there the Sledge Bros pushed out with Russ at their side, swinging a hammer of his own, and Steve the Assassin holding his flank with a dagger and short sword.

  The other bashers, half a dozen of them, filed in on the Sledge Bros’ other side with shields and swords. Once they had gained enough ground, Olivia happened.

&nb
sp; No, she wasn’t alone. Clarissa’s Stone Spikes jutted out of the ground in a row to both sides of the group with about four feet between them. This time they didn’t stop at waist height but continued to climb until they were a few feet over the bashers’ heads.

  Olivia’s vines snaked up the stone pillars and quickly reached out, bridging the gaps between the stone pillars to make a living fence of python-thick foliage to hold the monsters at bay. That wasn’t all. At the top of the pillars, large flat lily pads the size of a car door sprouted up. When they reached their full size, they opened up revealing sharpened thorns all around the edges of the plant’s mouth. The first couple of creatures that dared try to climb over would be eaten alive by Olivia’s pet plants.

  Near the center of the fortification, there was one opening with a wider gap between the pillars with no vines between them where I saw the odd weapon swinging about.

  “This way!” Aeris called.

  She took liberty to use some of the mana she had saved and suddenly a path opened up for us as the bodies of numerous small were-creatures were blown to the side or toppled flat.

  We turned to take the avenue she had made for us, but first, I made myself look back. Xaphan’s energy was impossible to miss. He was sitting lazily atop the highest plateau watching. Had he been there the whole time?

  Whether it was because my friends had arrived, or he had seen enough, he choose that moment to stand, spinning as he did, he ambled back into his cave. I suspected he was about to return to his nap.

  Even though there were still mobs left alive, it seemed he was satisfied with what he saw.

  I clobbered a were-coon at the base of the neck, driving it to its knees with my Alpha-enhanced morningstar. Skyler’s eyes went wide when I appeared on the other side of it.

  I gave him a wink.

  I knew he had been close, but already he had changed from reaching 1,000 Strength. Instead of shrinking as Russ had, he stayed rather massive and exuded neutral energy with every move. I began to wonder if there was really a line between magical and physical

  He recovered quickly and called out, “They’re here!”