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

by Apollos Thorne

  It was hard to view her mana even with Mana Sight at full power. The gown of dark energy she wore cloaked most of her body. It was in her face that I saw her true density of power. Like a thick fog, Dark Mana drifted around inside her. It was denser than what I’d seen in Yaatiesh, but it wasn’t liquid in consistency like Mistress Nava’s.

  She stopped directly on the other side of the bridge right before my Golem and turned her head to either side to take in the fortification we had built to stand against her.

  I was pretty sure, from what I could see, that her only school of magic was Dark Magic. Even if she possessed orbs of different elements, those usually showed up in smaller patches or tinted the overall mana of a creature. It also meant as a Lady Succubus that she was extremely talented with Dark Magic. That was a huge problem. I feared of buffing the others because my Light Magic would have to be constantly funneled into their bodies. Even with armor, a strand of Light Magic had to remain connected to them to do that. Everyone I buffed would be weakened against any Dark Magic Spell.

  “Hello,” she sang in the voice of a young girl. Folding one hand in the other, she held them to her chest as if she held something dear. “There is no way you can know how gratifying it is to meet you. Just imagine being asked by our mentor to run off to the Dungeon Level to chase after a group of humans. One would expect it to be a tedious chore, like shepherding livestock, but you have proven to be full of surprises.”

  She smiled fondly before closing her eyes. As she did, she dropped her hands to her sides and looked at us pointedly.

  “Now, I must also chasten you, for you have killed one of my playthings. Ujurak is fetching Yaatiesh’s corpse which has made my second favorite toy more grumpy than normal,” she said, shaking her head. “I would take one of you to replace Yaatiesh, but I’m not allowed to keep a human as a pet. Shame.”

  Everyone stayed dead still as she spoke. It was impossible to know if she saw through Invisibility or not.

  I may have been late casting it, giving her a moment to spy out a few of us, but hopefully it still gave us an advantage.

  “There are many ways we can do this,” she said with a gentle tone while almost singing the words. “If you accept your fate, it does not have to be painful. I can make your end quite enjoyable. If not, I can make the pain last. I am not expected back for days.”

  Still, we gave no answer.

  I saw Olivia squirm in her boots. She wasn’t the only one shifting uncomfortably.

  I considered attacking first, but there was too much unknown. Hopefully, Lady Contessa had the same problems Yaatiesh did and was unable to rightly judge our strengths. In this case, we weren’t able to judge hers either.

  “Fine. Perhaps, you just need persuading,” she said, mostly to herself.

  She flung out her arms before her with fingers spread wide, and ten Dark Magic tentacles shot out from the base of her dress toward us. They were as thin as paracord but ripped through my Rock Golem like a knife through tender meat. With new room to move, they hooked into vines of our fortification with dark claws.

  Flicking her hands back, the tentacles pulled, tearing away the vines with seemingly no effort at all. The stone pillars near the bridge, standing at the chasm’s edge, were left bare, exposing our magic users if Invisibility proved to be useless.

  I saw Olivia’s eyes go wide. Her lip trembled. With her hand already outstretched, great vines leaped out of her palm. As they slithered forward they grew as thick as the trunk of an ancient oak. They ran along the ground and cleared the 20-foot moat in seconds. Reaching the other side, they reached for the Succubus and entangled her. Her feet were first, then her legs and waist. Within seconds they wrapped around her chest and started to squeeze.

  Lady Contessa looked at the python-sized vines as if interested in a new toy.

  The rest of us saw the opportunity and took it.

  An Advanced Fireball soared right for her as an Ice Spear followed at its side. A charged Stone-Fist and Stone Bullets flew rapid fire from different sides of the bridge. Aeris’s enhanced Wind Slash fell like a bolt of lightning and my Advanced Health Bomb charged with 10,000 MP followed behind them all.

  Maxed out Mana Sight allowed me to see her initial response. A single tentacle of charged Dark Mana cleaved Olivia’s vines in two, loosening their grip.

  It was the same trick I had used against the Werewolf, although she used Dark Magic against Nature. The two schools of magic didn’t react as Light magic did with Dark, but the highly condensed mana acted like a finely-honed blade against ripe vegetables, cutting the flow of mana as it severed the vines.

  Her next action baffled me. She closed her eyes.

  The tentacles of Dark Magic whipped forward, intercepting the coming attacks. Aeris’s Wind Slash arrived first, but her vantage overhead did little good. The black cord swiped at it and, just as the vine had been slashed, the greatly condensed Wind Magic was sliced in two. Aeris’s spell split down the middle and struck the ground to either side of the Succubus, cleaving into the stone floor.

  A tentacle slapped the Fireball, setting it off near the middle of the bridge. The explosion threw Clarissa, Trevon, and Audrey on their rears. Lady Contessa was unaffected.

  The Stone-Fist crumbled as another tentacle snapped like a whip against it.

  The Ice Spear was diverted, but the Stone Bullets must have been too small, or there were too many, for the Dark Magic beneath her grew in mass and picked her up, moving her forward and out of the path of the onslaught.

  Where she had been standing, my Health Bomb went off.

  A great dome of Dark Energy rose up to meet it.

  Hope welled up inside me as I saw her defensive spell lacked the concentration of mana to fully block the power behind my spell.

  A great sizzle resounded as Light Magic met Dark.

  Under the weight of my attack, her dome fractured.

  My chest deflated. The reaction between our magics had been so fierce it stopped my Health Bomb’s advance. Her spell hadn’t been nearly as condensed as my Light Magic had been, but it didn’t have to be. She had used the reaction between our magics to implode my attack to conserve her mana. She had a mastery of magic that we couldn’t hope to outmatch.

  I lost sight of her as my Light Magic explosion seemed to permeate everything.

  Mana Sight was the only thing that saved me.

  Lady Contessa had taken the bridge. Her Dark Magic tentacles had already grabbed hold of most of the others. A Dark tentacle wrapped itself around my legs.

  Where the tentacles grabbed me, I sensed the bone armor I wore start to fail under the powerful current of magic. As naturally as breathing, I let Light Mana surge into the exact area the tentacles held me. There was no sure way to measure how much she used except by feel. Like flexing a muscle, I applied pressure. All I knew for sure was she hadn’t used enough.

  Her tentacle hissed as Light Magic touched Dark. It unwound and shrunk back like a wounded beast.

  As things cleared, she looked down upon me from a mass of the Dark Magic that had materialized under her. It looked like an enormous shadow-slug.

  All of our casters dangled in the air behind her, tied up by her tentacles at the shoulders and waists. Their faces were contorting in pain. The tentacles seemed to glow with power.

  I was wrong. She didn’t have Aeris.

  Lady Contessa’s eyes drilled into me. She had four tentacles free.

  I watched in slow motion as they all sped my way.

  I cringed as a deafening cry rang out. Lady Contessa and I turned to see Skyler flying through the air with his sledgehammer cranked back overhead.

  As she diverted one of her tentacles, I cast Pain.

  It reached for her, but instead of a bolt, I sent a steady current of mana into it. It reached her a moment before her tentacle reached Skyler; the muscles of her face contorted but it didn’t stop her from swatting him from the sky.

  He flew toward open space.

  I let A
dvanced Heal race after him with no guarantee it would reach him.

  Our bashers charged in. All of them.

  Somehow Mel had found the clarity of mind as she tortured him in her tentacles’ grasp to control his skeletons. They came at full charge at her rear.

  Pain seemed to annoy her more than it hurt. Three of her tentacles stormed toward me.

  Instead of fighting them off, I quickly repaired my armor and fed it enough mana for the bone to grow. Instead of Titan’s Bone Defense, I completely covered my entire body in a thick layer of bone and coated it in a layer of Neutral energy. Her tentacles grabbed me. As they did, I released Pain.

  Let her think I was subdued.

  If Skyler had survived his fall, I had given him all the healing he needed to recover unless he had a bad piercing wound. If that was the case, there was nothing I could do, so I released Advanced Healing as well.

  I felt the electric claws of her Dark Magic like a static charge around me. It was crawling about on the surface of my armor, trying to get in. I sent a constant stream of magic to repair it as well as continued to fuel the magic shell protecting me. It was costing over 4,000 mana per second. Whatever spell she was using to cause us pain was incredibly powerful.

  Invisibility I left running a little while longer. She wouldn’t be able to notice it as she would have Pain.

  She tied me up with one of her tentacles as she had the others and let me dangle behind her as she fought off our bashers.

  With Mana Sight, I was able to see everything, even through the layer of Neutral energy shielding me. The Succubi’s mana was incredibly dense, so she shone like a black diamond on a white background.

  Russ led the charge, but against a creature 10 feet in the air, there was little they could do. The remaining Sledge Bros, George and Perry, both rammed lopping swings into the Dark Magic slug at the Lady’s feet. The energy simply gave way at their swings, then returned as their hammers passed through it.

  A tentacle floated above them. It started to glow with power. Dark Lightning shot into Russ, rushing through him, then jumped from him to the next basher in line. All of them fell to the ground. Everyone except Russ. He stood below her, looking up with a grimace on his face. He knew he couldn’t reach her, but, holding his hammer tight, he dared her to attack again.

  A tentacle slashed from the side, aimed right for him.

  He spun. His hammer glowed with purple light, shrouded in energy. He leveled it against the Succubus’s attack. Something like the clamor of a monstrous gong sounded.

  The tentacle snapped where his hammer had struck it. He looked up, sneering.

  This time she looked at him curiously before giving him a smirk.

  Where the tentacle had once been, it immediately regrew and lunged at him like a spear. An extreme concentration of Dark Magic covered its point and pierced him right through the gut.

  Aeris screamed.

  Mel’s platoon of skeletons reached the bridge and proceeded to hunch over and let those behind them climb on their backs. Those at the base soon came in contact with the Dark Magic holding Lady Contessa up. It proceeded to suck the life right out of them.

  Even as they fell over lifeless, Mel didn’t stop. His Skeleton Captain had waited at the rear and now ran toward the falling platform of skeleton bodies at a full sprint. He jumped to the back of the closest skeleton, landing on one leg. Using his momentum, he jumped to the highest point of the skeleton pile and leaped high in the air.

  A tentacle was there to meet him, but Mel was ready. His Captain threw his sword, right at the side of her face.

  She moved as he did, dodging the sword at point blank range. A tentacle cut the Skeleton Captain in two right below the ribs.

  I wished with all of my being that Aeris had fled at that moment.

  The battle had only started moments ago. Lady Contessa was far too strong. Her mana pool seemed endless. We’d never stood a chance facing her head on. How many of us were left alive?

  A downpour of highly condensed Wind Slashes rained down on the Succubus’s head.

  As I feared, she shielded herself against them by placing my friends between them. Three of them tore into us before Aeris could divert the others. Who had been hit?

  Looking at my angle, distance and how I moved at an unsteady pace, I didn’t have a clean shot. I would only get one shot.

  “All alone,” Lady Contessa sang. “Come down, wind fairy. If you obey I will make your death pleasant.”

  The four remaining tentacles launched toward Aeris, who took off like a dart. Flinging Wind Slashes at the tentacles themselves, she severed the first two she hit, but then they came at her with a higher concentration of mana and became impregnable.

  As powerful as the Succubus was, she couldn’t match Aeris’s speed, and a deadly game of cat and mouse commenced.

  Every time they got close, Aeris changed direction or picked up speed.

  I felt the increase in power before it flooded into the tentacles chasing Aeris. A moment later, they retreated from her and stood up in the air like four wicked antennas. Black lightning splattered the ceiling of the entire room, catching Aeris in its net.

  I saw her cast Gust to try to shield herself from it, but it wasn’t enough. She started to fall like a leaf that wasn’t able to stand in the winds of fall.

  A tentacle found her, stopping her from hitting the floor.

  Another tentacle battered a few bashers from above that had gotten back to their feet.

  Bringing her hands together, Lady Contessa clapped a final time. Rocking her head to either side, she beamed in delight.

  “That’s more like it,” she said with a sigh.

  I heard the other casters she had in her grasp as they screamed behind gritted teeth. Audrey, Clarissa, and Trevon were close together just as they had been before getting caught. I could see as their heads jerked from side to side and fought the pain. Olivia was still squirming, trying to get loose. Mel and Zorik seemed to be less affected, but they were still mostly indisposed.

  Aeris wasn’t spared the torture even after she had just been knocked unconscious. Her body spasmed in the tentacle’s clutches.

  I couldn’t wait any longer. The tentacle around my own shoulders and waist had pinned my arms to my sides. But my hand was loose enough to grab the tentacle in a vice grip.

  “Lady Contessa,” I said with the poise only spite could grant in such a situation.

  “Yes?” she said, surprised.

  I started to move. Her tentacle swung me around and held me directly before her. I was about six feet away. Checking my mana, I saw I had 167,535 of 190,399 MP.

  As I started to reply, I saw the Skeleton General’s skull that was now my helm had been furnished with a jaw after I had granted it more mana. As I spoke, the skull mouthed my words. “You were right. We needed persuading. Please. No more pain. Make our end… enjoyable.”

  She twisted her head to the side like a confused cat. “Enjoyable you say, but you speak as if you feel no pain at all.”

  Twisting her head to the other side, she pulled me in to examine me closer. “You are the Light Mage. I am sure of it. So how are you wrapped in a cord of Dark Magic and still alive… This armor of yours must be the key. Please come out so I don’t have to pry it off of you.”

  “Do you promise there will be no more pain?” I asked.

  She giggled. “Oh, dear boy. All your pain will be forgotten.”

  Every part of me screamed that this was a bad idea as I reduced the flow of mana to my armor and my helmet started to revert to its original form. The skeleton jaw receded and the bone covering its eye sockets was drawn back.

  She bowed her head forward and looked up at me with her large adorable eyes, as if to say, “See, wasn’t that easy?”

  “You’re beautiful,” I said in all sincerity.

  She shared a sadistic grin.

  Bone appendages erupted from my back. Ten of them spread wide like dragon’s wings before thrusting toward her with
razor-sharp points. Eight of them I aimed at her legs and arms.

  She released my friends in the air where she held them, and they began to fall.

  As her tentacle loosened to release me, I held it tight and refused to let it go. Without the Dark Magic’s influence wrapped around me, I let Light Magic flow into the bone limbs that stretched out to skewer her.

  Her free tentacles frantically moved to knock my appendages to the side before they could reach her.

  The four directed at her feet struck first, then, a fraction of a second later, four more attacked her arms.

  Her eyes stared into me as she fumed.

  The speed of her tentacles this close to her body was incredible. Four consecutive strikes severed my lower appendages. Four more did the same to those aiming for her arms.

  One of my two remaining appendages struck at her face.

  She watched it come.

  Her final free tentacle thrashed it to the side.

  Arrogant eyes burned into me as she ducked forward to evade my last attack.

  My appendage missed entirely.

  She began to tremble. Astonishment struck her as she looked down. She grabbed at the bone spear that was lodged in her belly.

  It was the same bone spear that had erupted from my chest when I faced Xaphan. I had launched it at the same time I cast the appendage aimed for the back of her head. Instead of Light Magic, it had been cloaked in the Neutral energy of Alpha Bolt. My deception had worked.

  I knew a wound to the gut wouldn’t kill her, so without a moment of hesitation, I propelled all the Light Magic I could muster into the bone shaft and into her gut.

  Facing such a creature as Lady Contessa, it was impossible for us to win. She had walked into the room and subdued us in seconds. Even if she stood still on the bridge and let us attack her with our most devastating spells until our mana was spent, it was still unlikely we would have won. Her knowledge of magic and overwhelming power was just too much for us. The only thing I could think of that could possibly defeat her was magic itself. Only one concern remained. Did I possess enough mana to finish the job?