Sam had been active as the woman spoke. Before the Succubus ever moved, Sam had erected a kinetic dampener between them and reinforced it with as thick a magical shield as she could manage.
But for all her preparations, the impact from the e-grade daemon still felt like a freight train hit them while moving at Mach-1 and sent them all flying back.
The only thing that saved them was Lupie reinforcing Sam’s shields with a blood barrier just before impact.
Sam was franticly sending instructions to her allies even as she was tumbling across the plains from the explosive hit. After several bounces, she got some arcane spikes attached to her mana threads into the ground to arrest her uncontrolled flight.
Thankfully, no one was hurt that much except for a severe headache from mana backlash for Lupie and Sam. Getting her bearing, Sam saw the Succubus standing where she had hit their shields with a look of mild surprise on her face. Then she started laughing in a way that chilled Sam to the bone.
"Now, Null!" Sam yelled through their chat.
A small portal opened behind the winged woman, and Sam tossed a cluster of mana crystals through, aiming for the daemon's head. As Sam suspected, the woman whipped around and caught the ball of crystals before they ever touched her. Her maniacal laughter died as she stared curiously at the basketball-sized cluster in her hand. Sam didn't give her a chance to do anything more and pumped as much pure void and arcane energy as possible into the crystals with her mana threads.
"Okay, Nul close it!" She sent to the slime a moment later.
They huddled in a tight group covered by another kinetic dampener from Sam the instant the portal closed. Then, the cluster of crystals in the daemon woman's hand exploded with the force of five thousand mana units. When the shockwave hit them, Sam and Lupie had to dig blood spikes and magical anchors into the ground to keep their positions.
“Wow…” Nul said as the dust settled, and they watched a mushroom cloud form over the grassland.
Sam sighed, relieved that the hair-brained 'Cluster Bomb' idea had worked. She had made it out of boredom as a last resort weapon the previous night. All she had done was pack a bunch of arcane crystals around a void crystal, then used a thin mana wire mesh she fabricated to keep them all together.
"No kill notification," Lupie said just before a screaming Succubus blasted out the top of the violet and black cloud! Smoke and flame trailed behind her as she flew straight up. Sam could see the woman wasn't entirely unscathed, though. The hand that had held the cluster of crystals was missing below the elbow, and there was a good deal of blood mixed with the smoke trail as she continued to gain altitude.
"Get me on her back, Nul. Between her wings, if you can," Sam shouted, dismissing her protective spell and summoning a void sword into her waiting palm. "Lupie, take Nul and try to evade her like you did with the Matriarch! I want you to attack if you think you have a shot this time." Grabbing Nul before it opened a portal, Sam looked the slime in the eyes to get its full attention and told it, "If the red woman hits you, she will kill you. I want you to teleport away when she gets close, but you can help Lupie too by portaling her around if she needs it, okay?"
"Okay!" Both of her companions said, and a portal opened on the ground beneath Sam. She barely had time to throw Nul to a waiting Lupie before the portal slammed shut.
Sam found herself right above the still-screaming daemon. Unfortunately for Sam, the woman was still flying straight up, also giving Sam just enough time to think, "Shit!" before they slammed into each other.
Although the impact rattled Sam's teeth, she still held on to the giant woman. Gripping her wings where they extruded from her back with one hand and her threads. Sam's void sword sliced through the thin webbing of a wing with a quick flick of her wrist.
That got the daemon's attention! "Foolish maggot! I will tear you to shreds and feast on your entrails!" She screamed and tried to grab Sam with her one good hand while flipping around haphazardly in the air.
Sam had to dismiss her sword and grabbed on with both hands as the Succubus's flight became erratic. “I can’t keep this up," Sam thought as she held on for dear life, trying to think of a plan that didn't end with her splattering on the ground.
Three of her mana threads broke under the strain of the g-forces when the Succubus suddenly banked hard, causing Sam to lose her grip with one hand. With a triumphant shout, the daemon took advantage of Sam's lost grip and speared her through the back with her tail. Using her tail to jerk Sam the rest of the way off, the daemon flipped in the air, coming around to grab Sam by her arms.
“Damn blood magic,” Sam thought when she realized the woman already reformed her missing forearm and hand.
Before resuming her maniacal laugh from before, the woman told Sam, "I'm going to split you wide open and feast upon your tender insides!" Then, yanking her tail from Sam's back, she drove the spaded tip into Sam's chest as she laughed.
Sam smiled at the terrifying creature and started laughing along with the woman, blood spewing out of her mouth as the spade cut into her lungs.
The Succubus paused her laughter to look at Sam in confusion. As they floated in the air on massive wings, the Succubus asked, “What is so funny?”
Sam choked on a mouthful of blood and then coughed out, "I was just thinking about your phrasing,” she coughed again and then continued, "At first, I didn't know if you wanted to fuck me or kill me…I mean, you must realize how that sounds, right? Split me wide open and feast on tender parts, yes, please!" Sam cackled, exposing her bloody teeth in a lascivious smile, “You are a Succubus, aren't you? Isn't your whole theme related to sex?" Sam broke out into laughter again.
"So, you want your life drained by me then?" The daemon asked as she twisted her tail deeper into Sam's chest cavity, eliciting a groan from the Pathfinder. "What was that?" The Succubus asked when Sam mumbled something under her breath and swallowed hard. The daemon woman brought her face close to Sam's. She was so close Sam could smell the surprisingly sweet scent of her breath.
Sam met the woman's gaze, her violet orbs locking with the coal-black daemon's eyes. She whispered, "Why don’t you stop fucking around and just kiss me already."
Barely a centimeter separated their lips, and with an amused smile, the Succubus complied and pressed her lips to Sam's. Then her eyes opened wide when she felt Sam's tongue probing her lips, trying to slip into her fang-filled mouth. Amused, the Succubus let Sam's tongue enter past her lips only to bite down on the appendage when it tried to slip past her teeth.
The Succubus moaned in pleasure as she tasted Sam's blood. She released Sam’s arms to dig her claws deep into her victim’s body. She pushed her tail so hard she felt it exit Sam's back. It was pure ecstasy to feel the life drain from her prey as she coupled with them…and it had been so long. She was so lost in her passion she didn't even notice Sam wrapping her legs around her waist and arms around her neck to hold her closer as they started falling from the sky. The daemon’s wings were forgotten as she sucked the lifeblood from Sam's tongue in a kiss of death.
Sam’s mind was racing! She couldn’t believe it worked! "I mean, she is a freaking sex daemon, but still, I can't believe it! Damn, I hope this works! Also, sucking the blood out of my tongue…so weird and creepy!" She checked her notifications as they began to fall.
You have been poisoned with Cyan Death Toxin! -100 hp/sec for 300 seconds; -100 sp/sec for 300 seconds; -100 mp/sec for 300 seconds. Additionally, your mana is now toxic, and using it will result in health and stamina damage.
Crystal mana channels have negated mana poisoning and mana loss from Cyan Death Toxin. All other effects remain.
Crystalline mana channels have quarantined Cyan Death Toxin. You must expel the toxin from your body within five seconds, or all toxic effects will be applied simultaneously. This will result in 30,000 points of damage each to all vital energies.
Sam had summoned a vial of the toxin directly into her mouth. At first, she had planned to break the vial immediately to use her breath attack from where the woman had her hanging. Then she got the insane idea about the woman being a sex daemon, thinking she might want to make out while killing her. Sam thanked her good fortune that the woman had probably been stuck underground for a long time and must have been highly lascivious. Crushing the vial between her teeth, Sam swallowed the glass contents as soon as their lips touched.
Wrapping her legs around the woman as they plummeted toward the ground, Sam did what she always did after drinking something too quickly. She belched. In an instant, Sam's jaw and most of her face melted from the toxic breath as it escaped her throat. But that was nothing compared to what happened to the woman trying to kill her.
Completely unaware of the pending attack, the Succubus was unable to dodge the melting breath as it poured down her throat. The murderous gas melted through the thin flesh of her cheeks instantly. As she pulled her head back, it washed across her face and head, burning off her hair and skin until all that remained was a putrid mass of chemical burns with a pair of horns.
With a gurgling scream, the Succubus released Sam. Sam didn't want to be released, though, and held on tightly as her breath continued to spill across the woman's crimson skin, melting everything it touched.
The daemon arrested their fall by unfurling her wings. It happened so fast Sam's grip was broken, and she slipped off the woman only to come to a quick halt when the tail still embedded in her healing body stopped her fall.
Still gurgling and screaming, the Succubus started to gain altitude again. From her position hanging from the woman's tail, Sam could see they were barely twenty meters from the ground. She didn't want to be pulled higher by the enraged monster, so she formed a void blade in her right hand and, assisted by her mana threads, used her left hand to pull herself up enough to slice deep into the base of the woman’s tail.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The amount of void energy the blade had to use to cut through the e-grade tail was astronomical. Sam almost dismissed the construct, but the thin blade of pure void lost all resistance before she could, and the tail was severed.
Sam watched the Succubus climb higher into the sky as she fell toward the planet. She wondered how they were going to survive this. "If that attack of ninety thousand points of concentrated damage down her damn throat didn't kill her, then we are screwed," She thought as she fell.
Just as Sam slammed into the kinetic dampener she formed to cushion her impact, a portal opened above the Succubus, and a giant red wolf latched onto her back, immediately biting onto one of her wings and shredding the other with void-coated tentacle blades.
Sam was up in a heartbeat, running to intercept the two as they plummeted from the sky on broken wings. She had no idea where Nul was but was certain Lupie wouldn’t be able to hold her own for long against such a powerful opponent.
Just before the two struck the ground, Lupie tried to release the Succubus and form her blood gliders, but the daemon was too fast and twisted mid-air. She put the Bloodmorph below her to take the majority of the impact.
To Sam's surprise, Lupie burst into a cloud of blood just before they struck the ground. The Succubus flew through the cloud and hit the ground hard just as the blood cloud formed into Lupie's humanoid form above her.
This proved a mistake on Lupie's part because now she was in front of the daemon, who took advantage of the situation by slashing out and cutting clean through one of the cute monster girl's legs at the hip.
Lupie's scream of shock and pain cut deep into Sam's emotions. She was upon the daemon, instantly interjecting herself between Lupie and the red-skinned daemon whose next attack caught Sam in the chest. The daemon's black claws ripped through her armor like tissue paper, tearing her rib cage out entirely in a spray of red mist.
Thankfully, Sam still had some reserved energies and was instantly healed. Still, the attack left her mind reeling from the intense pain as brief as it was. She had no idea how the woman knew where to strike since the breath attack had melted her eyes; she could only assume it was some form of magical perception.
Sam continued to press the attack and dismissed her armor and clothes since they were useless against this woman. She instinctively knew there would be no running from this creature; the only way they would survive was to defeat the daemon. With a shout of rage, Sam stabbed void spears into the daemon's chest cavity using her threads; the breath attack had melted through her rib cage and left her organs exposed, so Sam made sure to hit as many organs as she could with her attack.
Blood tentacles from Lupie joined Sam’s mana threads in a desperate attempt to end the fight. Sam heard Lupie say 'Harvest,' and her tentacles started siphoning blood from the Succubus. But the daemon had a blood affinity too, a much more powerful blood affinity, as Lupie learned an instant later when the same word gurgled from the daemon's melted throat.
Lupie screamed, and Sam watched helplessly as her thick red tentacles shriveled. The Succubus's wounds started healing visibly, her putrid and burned skin returning to its healthy red color. A glance at Lupie told Sam she didn't have much longer; all the Bloodmorph's normally rosy skin and healthy fur were white and pallid, her face was gaunt like she was a starving person, and even her muscle structure was diminished, leaving her looking like a walking skeleton with skin stretched across it.
"No!" Sam screamed into the daemon's face as the red woman slowly got to her feet. In a desperate attempt to save Lupie, Sam used her void sword to sever the blood tentacles still embedded in the daemon's chest. When that worked, Sam grabbed Lupie in her arms and shouted through her party chat for Nul to open a portal for them, hoping the slime was close enough. To her relief, a rift in reality appeared immediately, and she leaped through.
Before the portal could close behind them, a barbed wing tip punctured Sam's chest, barely missing Lupie. Sam had just enough time to let go of Lupie before she was sucked back through the portal and into the waiting and healed arms of a very pissed-off succubus.
Checking her quarantined energy levels, Sam thought, “I might survive this,” as the enraged daemon grabbed her and ripped her wing from her chest.
“You impetuous fool!” The Succubus screamed in Sam's face while holding her by the arm with her feet dangling off the ground. “You will—"
Sam would never know what the woman was going to say because, at that instant, the mana stones she had left in the woman's chest cavity before she healed over them detonated.
Having anticipated the explosion, Sam severed her own arm with a mana blade and formed a kinetic dampener around herself. But the force of the blast was too strong, and she felt the destruction of her spell as she blasted to the ground, fully anticipating being splattered into a paste by the force of the impact.
To Sam's surprise, however, she did not hit the ground. Instead, she found herself flying upward a few dozen meters before another portal opened and deposited her on her back right next to Lupie and Nul.
After a mental scan of herself, Sam found she was in surprisingly decent shape for a person who had just fought an e-grade sex daemon hell-bent on murdering her.
Looking at Nul, she said, "Thanks for the save, little buddy.”
A high-pitched whine from Lupie got her attention, and when Sam reached over to touch her friend, she gasped in horror. The Bloodmorph was nearly dead and still bleeding out.
Sam's started pouring healing energy into the small girl, but to her even greater horror, it wasn't enough. Whatever the daemon did was still damaging Lupie on a level Sam's skill could not counter.
“No, this can’t be happening. Hang on, girl," Sam said as she summoned dozens of healing potions from her inventory. Cradling Lupie's head in her lap, Sam gently parted her lips and poured a large health potion into her mouth, sighing in relief as Lupie swallowed the red liquid. Nothing happened, and Sam could still feel her friend's vital energy slipping away. Wrapping several mana threads around Lupie's severed leg stopped the bleeding, and it slowed whatever spell or curse was killing her, but it did not stop it.
“Please…” Sam said to no one as she tried desperately to heal the small figure in her arms, but nothing she was doing was helping. Pulling Lupie's frail, shriveled body up to cradle her in her arms, Sam could only rock back and forth, trying to comfort her as best she could. The muted whines coming from the Bloodmorph broke Sam’s heart, and she began to cry as she held her dying companion.
"I'm sorry," Lupie whispered so softly that Sam barely heard the words, "I should have done what you said…and ran away…”
“No,” Sam choked, “you did good…you are a good girl. You saved us. I’m so proud of you.” Sam couldn’t control her sobs. Even as she spoke, she was pouring health potions over the stump of Lupie’s leg, but they may as well have been water for all the good they were doing. She felt Lupie’s body relax as she drifted to sleep and tried to shake her awake, but it was useless.
“Nul save Lupie. Call friend,” The little slime said from next to them.
Sam looked at Nul with hopeful disbelief in her eyes. “How?” She finally asked.
Instead of answering, Nul opened a portal a few meters away. Unlike Nul's usual portals, where the destination could be seen, this portal's event horizon glowed gently with a milky white light.
Before Sam could ask what was happening, Nul bounced over in front of the portal and called out, "I need a healer for blood daemon attack! Come now!"
Thoroughly confused but still hopeful, Sam held her breath as she watched the soft white glow of the portal shift to dark green. Then, a small tangle of vines plopped out, and the portal whooshed out of existence.
“What the fu—” Sam started but was cut off by a high-pitched voice that sounded like an annoyed grandfather who was also an angry child.
The pile of vines formed into a roughly humanoid shape, barely tall enough to reach Sam's knee if she were standing. It was apparently quite angry, "What? How dare you summon me! Who summoned me? Was it you, young man?"
Sam looked around for the young man the vine creature was talking to before realizing it was her, "Um, are you talking to me?" She asked hesitantly. In Sam's defense, the vine monster didn't have eyes, so she had no idea which direction it was facing.
“Yes, I’m talking to you!” The voice snapped, “Do you see any other humans around? Of course not! Now give me a good reason not to kill you all for so rudely awakening me from my nap and make it snappy!”
"I summon you," Nul said, utterly unperturbed by the angry vine monster, "you heal, friend. She attacked by daemon blood mage."
The angry vine monster half stomped, half writhed over to Nul, and tried its best to loom over the little slime. Its tone was slightly more polite when it spoke to the void slime, "Ah, of course, of course. I'm sorry I didn't see you there little voidling." It went right back to being angry, "Now listen to me, if you ever pull a stunt like this again, I will personally open a portal to the Fae lands and toss you inside for all eternity! Next time you open a portal to the Fae Plane, you had better ask politely for help, or no one will assist you! I was taking the most wonderful nap when your demand forced me here in this disgusting dimension! It stinks here, and look at the soil; there are no nutrients! Also, why does it smell like a burnt daemon?"
Sam took a second to identify the vine creature.
Vine Fae (Pure) [Level N/A]; Class N/A; Affinity – Vitality, Curse
"Shit, Nul, what did you summon? I wonder if this is the Summon Lesser Beast spell. But this guy isn't a beast…are fae creatures beasts? It doesn't matter; help Lupie first, then worry about the consequences later!” Sam thought even as she said, “Nul was just trying to help Mr. Fae,” Sam said, trying her best to be polite. “We defeated a succubus recently, but my friend has been cursed, and I cannot heal her. We desperately need your help."
The little vine person waddled over to Sam and Lupie, grumbling about how kids these days didn't respect their betters and how, back in their day, they knew better than to pick fights with higher-level opponents.
Despite all the grumbling, the Vine Fae reached out and touched Lupie's chest with its hand; vines spread across the Bloodmorph's body, and a green glow soon enveloped her. Even Sam felt her vital energies being refilled at an astonishing rate just from being in contact with her friend.
As powerful as the spell was, it still took nearly twenty minutes for the color to return to Lupie's pallid cheeks. This proved to Sam that if Nul had not summoned the fae, Lupie would have most certainly died.
Lupie finally returned to them with a light gasp. Her amber eyes fluttered open to stare into Sam's. She smiled at the Pathfinder and said, "You really think I'm a good girl?"
"Yes," Sam said with tears of joy, hugging her friend close, "You are a very good girl." She looked at the Vine Fae and gave her heartfelt thanks, "Thank you—”
Sam’s notebook and quill appeared, cutting off her words. Opening up to a blank page, words immediately began appearing:
Call him Master Fae when you address him and tell him I said hi and thanks. And for the love of the Collective, be polite when speaking to a fae; they can be…temperamental. Even the weakest of them are far beyond the power of most gods when improperly summoned. -Petal
Sam wrote a quick thank you note in her notebook and stored it. She gently slid out from under Lupie and got to her knees so she wasn't standing over the Vine Fae. With a bow, she said, "I am sincerely thankful for your help, Master Fae. Also, um…Petal says hi and thank you."
The fae responded by running his vines all over Sam's body, using them to poke and prod her. It wouldn't have been so bad, except, as usual, she was naked. Still, she tolerated the creature's strange actions, and before long, he retracted his vines and said, "So, you are a voidling as well. Rare to see more than one at a time, but there is something different about you…you aren't pure, are you?" When Sam shook her head no, he continued, "Ah, a hybrid of sorts, well, this is new. I cannot wait to return and rub it into my peers that I found the first voidling hybrid!" The vines writhed in what Sam assumed was eager anticipation. She decided not to mention that it was them who had, in fact, found him and not the other way around.
Clapping his hands together, the Vine Fae turned to Nul and said, "My task is complete here. Send me back now, and next time, you had better ask politely, or do not even try to summon me again!" The green portal opened immediately, and he shuffled over to it, turning back to Sam just before entering and saying, "Tell Petal she is welcome to stop by anytime and that I will make sure Master Wartoc will not try to dissect her again." He stepped through and was gone with a whoosh.
Sam relaxed, feeling sick and relieved at the same time. Lupie chose that moment to tackle her in a hug, saying, "I was so scared! At first, I thought we were going to die; then I thought it was just me that was going to die because I was stupid! And then I wasn't sure if the fae was here to kill us…he was furious."
“Hey, there," Sam said soothingly, rubbing Lupie's back as she consoled her, "it all worked out, and now we're all okay. I'm just glad Nul knew how to summon that fae."
Lupie pulled back and looked to where Nul was staring at them, unmoving, "Thank you for saving me, Nul. You are a good friend!"
Nul wiggled at the praise and bounced over to plop on Lupie’s head. The slime made a weird little purring sound and said, “Levels…” as it melted onto his new mount.
"Oh yeah," Sam said, "We killed another e-grade monster, didn't we?" She checked her notifications and immediately cursed, "Oh, come on! You have got to be fucking kidding me!"