The desire to turn on my heel and run was palpable, but ignored. This monstrosity got stronger by the day and I could feel how close it was to evolving. The jump from 0 to 1 was a large leap in power, but grade 2 would be another insane burst of power. Even though I desperately wanted to go, leaving wasn’t an option. This was do or die.
Naea hadn’t been able to tell me what the grade limits were but Shub-Nagorath both looked and felt close to bursting. The gruesome pile of screaming, ululating mouths, bubbling sections roiling with limbs was slowly moving along the ceiling, tassels of abhorrent skin and muscle hanging down and brushing the floor.
The closest Dark Young attached themselves to the end of the tassels and made a noise uncomfortably similar to my own familiar when she ate bodies. “Do I sound-”
“No,” I cut Naea off. She could feel the lie in my reply and barked a laugh. I threw her a quick glance and felt my wellspring of pride become renewed. She looked fierce. The blade in her hand fit perfectly. Her wings were sharp, whipping quickly to keep her hovering in the air. Her musculature looked more defined than even a few days before. Confidence, both in herself and me, straightened her back and hardened her wide eyes.
Those features would change once the fight started and Battle Bond altered her appearance. Slower and more powerful wings, quicker and more predatory eyes, along with a similar upgrade in strength I received from Infusion. She wouldn’t be a great match up, but I would bet at her current peak, she could face the Scorepion Manager on her own.
Of course, all of this growth culminated in the shimmering aura which surrounded her. She glittered like a jewel in the darkness, a literally diamond in the muck right now. The Dao of the Fairy Dragon was a sister Dao to my own, and the two crooned as my own aura rode out to meet Naea’s. Together our Dao illuminated the filthy gloom.
At our show of force, the Mother of Gluttony raged. The Dark Young which had begun suckling at her tainted teets were flung like bullets as she began to spin in place like a top. Some smashed into walls, but more than a few flew straight for us. “What the fuck?” I asked the question once, while dodging, and left it in the air for the rest of the fight. With a smooth movement, I pulled a Storm Arrow from my inventory.
Like a drumstick, I spun the arrow around my fingers, charging it with mana. If she wanted to fight from a distance, I was more than happy to try and meet her there. Closing in on the thing physically was so awful an idea I wouldn’t do it if I could avoid it. Once the arrow was heavy with magic, I stacked four Infusion charges on top of each other. My muscles bulged and the air around me became heavy with the excess mana of my actions.
Storm Arrows being over a metre long, I took a single step back. Two steps forward, crushing the rotten rock at my feet before I launched the projectile. I’m goddamn Zeus, I marvelled, watching the lightning bolt seek its target like a laser. My Infusion ran out in seconds and the manoeuvre cost me a sixth of my total mana, but it was worth it.
A magical flare, the cave was bathed in yellow and blue lights as the arrow made its way to the ceiling. With all the speed and force the return stroke of a lightning bolt creates, the Storm Arrow flew true. The comparatively tiny projectile sunk into half-real, half-nightmare flesh. An instant later, a tiny sun was born from the collision. A hundred mouths moaned at once, some with pain and others with pleasure.
“Seriously, fuck this thing. It’s the worst.” I began charging arrow after arrow. It seemed to be working, at least. Naea created a zone of death around me so I could become an artillery. Despite the dire surroundings, and they were dire, I had finally done it. Through a confluence of good luck, bad luck, and a complete disregard for sense, my transformation was complete.
I stood stationary, gathering magic fuel into magic lightning arrows, while my familiar fought off twisted abominations from my nightmares. My familiar, a fairy, who carved through the air as a sword wielding lightning bolt and had the slightly draconic features of my own personal flavour of magic. All of this so I could hurl multiple javelins of lightning as a monstrosity Lovecraft would be happy with but name uncomfortably.
I had made it. I couldn’t feel more like a wizard if I tried. All I needed was a robe and a silly hat. My chuckle was lost in the cacophony of the underground lair. Naea’s movements sound like the crack of a whip and in spite of the damage she was taking, Shub-Nagorth’s many mouths were cackling ominously.
Loath as I was to stop playing lightning launcher, the second boss of the dungeon was no longer willing to just take the damage. “Move!” I roared, using the vestiges of another Infusion charge to throw myself backwards towards the tunnel we had entered through. The spot I had just been standing became a zone of death as black spikes of metal punched out of the ground. The insidious Dao within the attack felt especially deadly.
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A scream caused my blood to freeze in my veins. I watched as Naea fell and shadows began to converge on her. Of course, they were swept away by my anger. Anger and the inexorable advance of the Yo Staff at full strength, that is. She was hissing in pain on the ground, so I scooped her up and made some space. Instead of calming, Naea’s agonised howling increased by the second. Her left wing had been torn in half by a jagged spike.
I opened my soul to her through Battle Bond, flooding her with mana. Doing so while avoiding the strange attacks of the Mother of Gluttony was costly on my reserves. It was easy to see my mana wasn’t helping Naea, as it seemed to be devoured by the wound. She needed something else.
The damage had been caused by an attack created by Dao, not magic. The Dao itself was doubly dangerous because of the poisonous nature Shub-Nagorath cultivated. She was a diametric opposite to the purity of life, and it showed in everything she did.
Frantically avoiding attacks, lashing out with a swipe or a jab with the staff as I did so, I threw my Dao over Naea. Instead of protective me from the ghastly aura of the boss monster, I wrapped Naea in it like a blanket. The pitch blackness of the room became terrifying, the horrible sounds from all around me ate at my psyche.
I had nowhere near the skill at manipulating the strange energies of Dao as I did with mana. This was all I could do for Naea. It wasn’t the same as healing her with Dao. I knew immediately this was something my magic was not capable of. Instead, I was going to overwhelm the infecting Dao and force it to either flee or be destroyed. That was within my purview.
All the while, I clumsily ran around the room like a headless chicken. Without my Dao to protect me, the intent behind the foul magic in the room became pervasive. Doubts, anxieties and phobias sprang into being constantly.
I didn’t avoid attacks through skill, but luck and pure speed. I slammed into a wall, surprised to see that it was made of fire. The Dao within the flames was earthen and something about looking at the flames made me feel nauseous. They barely gave off light, clumpy perversions of what fire is meant to be.
Naea’s body was a battlefield. Her wing had an encroaching army upon it and the Dao of the Fairy Dragon didn’t have the strength to fight it back. Naea’s Dao was one of support and trickery. She could not hold back the advance of mutated and aggressive forms of earth, fire and metal. Her whole left wing had turned black and hard like slate. However, Naea’s Dao was also uniquely perfect at receiving aid from my own.
Like a protective parent, my Dao planted itself between Naea and the damage. Without any kind of control, I had to just let my Dao run rampant in the same way the invasive energy did. However, where the unnatural venom met the draconic defence, it was broken against it like waves on rock. As the injury was dealt with, Naea’s mana could take over recovery.
It was sloppy and painful for Naea. The wound was essentially being cauterised by oppressive Dao but she weathered it. I was beginning to pant from stress when she tapped my face. I looked down and saw gratitude in abundance. “I won’t get hit again,” she nodded. “I promise.”
“Oh damn.” I let her go, shocked. We hadn’t discussed what happens when a promise to a fairy is broken. Naea had just given me her first, and I didn’t see how it could be a certainty until something shifted. There was a pulse, visible as a warping of everything in sight. A wave passed through the world, with Naea at the epicentre. The Dark Young started to flee.
I took the small break to watch in amazement while catching my breath. Naea’s Dao had been drowned by Shub-Nagorath since we entered the underground, but the script had been flipped. The dragon part of her Dao was expressed in full as she took to the air and flew straight at the Mother of Gluttony. She moved faster than the Storm Arrows I had been peppering it with before.
She began immediately getting to work, slicing away at the boss monster. Chunks of flesh and sheaves of muscle fell away as Naea arced across the bruise-coloured blimp. Some of the pieces screamed as they fell, groaning while the magic inside them died. The Chibizashi in her hand grew to ridiculous proportions each time it fell or stabbed into the half-shadow flesh.
Screw this thing, seriously. The damage was mostly superficial, but also impossible to ignore. Naea became the most annoying mosquito ever, the cosmic horror unable to swat her for all it tried. Even though I was tired, her actions inspired me to move. Couldn’t let my familiar do all the work, after all. “Pull back!”
Naea had done a fantastic job of shearing the outer layers of Shub-Nagorath’s form away. Along with the charred blobs still dropping to the ground from my earlier lightning storm of attacks, a solid mass was starting to show. Unlike the rest of its undulating body, this portion was firm and never seemed to change. The flesh tried to cover it, but enough had been lost it couldn’t hide it any longer.
It might as well have been glowing red, screaming “hit me, I’m the boss’ weak spot!”
I obliged. I layered Infusion after Infusion on top of one another. The first surge of power had drained before I stopped. I started moving, continually applying the skill over and over. My mana reserves were vanishing quicker than I had ever used them before. My body vibrated and my skin tore, unable to contain the magic to only my mana pathways.
My magic had been altered by a racial change born of the Hurricane Heart. My pathways were forged anew by evolution to grade 1. Mana of an entire grade quality higher smashed through me, fuel to my greedy technique. A foolish enemy tried to intercept me and was thrown to the ground by a lightning bolt, Harmony of the Storm boosted to maximum as well.
The rock was closer to clay than stone and disappeared with every step. A crater formed from the pressure of my leap. Like the javelins of lightning before, I became a laser-guided missile straight for the heart of the beast. I had avoided physical contact until now, so it wasn’t on guard even though its many eyes could certainly see me. Naea’s attack was too distracting.
The fairy disengaged right as I channelled Infused Strike to its utmost maximum. The Yo Staff swelled as my Dao filled it with intent. Golden filigree danced up its length but I didn’t have time to inspect. Less than a second had passed since I took to the air. I crossed the half kilometre distance in an instant, smashing the sound barrier and swinging the staff with all the might my attributes and achievements had granted me.
The guttural grunts, insane whooping and disgusting weeping all stopped as one. The silence was like an attack all of its own. Every available area of flesh on Shub-Nagorath’s huge form became an eye, all of them looking at me with fury. I kept pushing, facing her horrid gaze down and roaring in her face. No time for words, no energy to banter with a wannabe old god, I completed the swing.
The sudden quiet which had descended was broken just as quickly by an incredible shattering sound. A burst of energy filled me once, twice… five times in total. I accepted one of the level up prompts before I even landed, rejuvenated by its effects. We did it. I wasn’t sure now if I had actually believed we would be able to. I checked my quest progress and confirmed it.
After a hard fought battle, the second boss of the dungeon had fallen.