Myrsvai idly tapped his staff against the stone ground. A level 70 floor boss would be quite the challenge, but he was nearing another level up. Perhaps if they looped back to find more mobs, they could get the little experience necessary. If not, he would undoubtedly level up from defeating Lophiforma.

“Fight now,” Suta said.

“Are you certain?”

They stood just outside the door into the arena. The yellow barrier hummed nearby. With the boss using such a massive weapon, Myrsvai would be at a disadvantage. He hadn’t fought all that much while running about to avoid attacks. He had spent too much time standing still while focusing on buffs for Suta or demons.

The floor boss had been relatively easy with Thalgodin assisting, but now that the neural demon was sent back to the Abyss, it was only Suta and Myrsvai once again.

“Yes,” Suta said.

“If we each summon three, it should make the mana management simple enough. Do not hesitate to unsummon or kill an untamed if necessary.”

Suta nodded. Violet fire swirled around his feet.

“If the boss is still alive and you’ve steadied yourself, summon as many as you think you can handle. We want a swarm.”

Suta nodded. He pulled the fire from the ground, swirling up his body until it covered his fists. “Ready.”

Myrsvai took a deep breath. His magenta fire was already gathered at the tip of his staff. It had been a long time since he pulled an untamed demon from the Abyss. Gavvuntar was the only one he had ever had to battle for control. Today, he wouldn’t be fighting any of the demons. He didn’t need to resummon them after this battle.

Suta would open a portal from the Fighting Pits, attempting to pull at least one blood demon from that realm to heal the others while Myrsvai would reach out to the Cackling Wastelands for frantic demons, though if mirth demons arose, he would happily take them too.

Thalgodin had been unsure of the plan. The Lords of the Abyss and the demons who had formed agreements with heroes were normally calmer. More civilized, even. True demons, true beings of the Abyss, were monsters.

If the plan worked, it would be possible to try it again, perhaps even to a higher degree, on the tenth floor. There was the inherent danger of unleashing a bunch of rampaging demons into a limited space, which Myrsvai himself was occupying, but he had to hope things went according to plan.

There was also a backup, a safety net. Suta was prepared to follow through with his own plan in order to keep them safe.

“I’ll follow you,” Myrsvai said.

Suta stepped through the door without hesitation. His fists flared bright with violet light as he calmly approached Lophiforma. The huge cetanthro boss dragged his weapon across the arena, laughing the whole time.

“A little runt comes to fight,” Lophiforma said.

“Here we go,” Myrsvai whispered. He stayed near the yellow barrier and closed his eyes. Opening a portal to the Abyss was the easy part for him. He had done enough research and had enough experience that he could always manage to replicate his earliest experiments.

The problem with opening just any portal was the unpredictability of what would appear from the other side. There had to be intention along with knowledge of the realms of the Abyss to open a portal in a specific spot, to call upon a specific demon.

In the right setting, Mrysvai would have no trouble fishing for a mirth demon or a schemer. He could pluck one from their home without much difficulty. Only weak, low level demons could be taken in such a manner. While they often weren’t nameless grunts of the Abyssal armies, they weren’t anything special, not unless they trained like Thalgodin, Poti, Gavvuntar, or even Bastronum.

It was fully possible to summon an army of nameless grunts, of fodder to distract the boss while Suta and Myrsvai attempted to kill the massive cetanthro, but that would likely fail. That was a strategy many early magi used before finding any allies in the Abyss.

With his eyes closed, he envisioned the Abyss to the best of his ability. He had never been, but his connection was strong, especially after his conversation with the Vile Fiend.

Suta’s connection was visible in the back of Myrsvai’s mind. The familiar effortlessly opened a portal to the Fighting Pits and grabbed three demons without even seeing who or what they were.

A collision of powerful beings caused a shockwave to burst through the water, knocking Myrsvai back into the yellow barrier. He was still navigating, still pinpointing the exact place to find the frantic demons. The Cackling Wastelands were an endless salt flat, but navigating was somehow like traveling through a maze.

Weak.

Suta was engaged in combat alongside the demons. That was a benefit of an abyssal familiar. The demons rarely saw Suta as anything other than a comrade. One of their own.

Frantic Demons likely wouldn’t be as friendly.

Myrsvai’s consciousness bumped against something that immediately slashed with long, unbelievable claws. It was a freakishly tall creature with bone-thin limbs and a face that was just a whirlpool of teeth.

Artistic depictions of frantic demons had been close, but they had missed the absolutely overwhelming presence. It wasn’t something that could be explained. Myrsvai suddenly rethought his plan, but a quick ping of impatience from Suta caused Myrsvai to smash his staff down.

Three frantic demons immediately emerged, snarling and growling. Myrsvai closed his connection to the Abyss as fast as possible as he fought a fourth frantic demon who was trying to emerge. He overpowered it, forcing the portal closed.

“Allies?” Lophiforma asked. The cetanthro laughed. “Now, it is a battle.” He shifted his stance and swung the heavy chain. For a moment, the massive metal ball only dragged across the stone, then the chain snapped taut and the ball swung at an insane speed through the arena.

Suta dropped to the ground while Myrsvai pressed himself against the yellow barrier as the ball passed. It struck a frantic demon, causing the entire top half of the demon to explode into a cloud of blood.

The ball hit the ground, sliding, creating a furrow in the solid stone. Lophiforma laughed.

A blood demon near Suta slit its own throat and pointed, sending lances of blood flying through the water. They pierced the cloud of blood, all that was left of the frantic demon’s torso, and held firm as if they had hit a wall.

Stolen story; please report.

The blood demon closed its meaty hand, forcing all the blood back into the frantic demon’s still-standing legs. Its top half immediately reformed.

The frantic demon cocked its head.

“Huh.” Lophiforma was already dragging the chain back for another swing. “I will have to crush your whole body.”

The other two frantic demons, who had turned invisible, rematerialized directly behind Lophiforma and stuck all of their needle-like nails into the cetanthro’s back.

Suta backed away until he reached Myrsvai. He kept his eyes constantly focused on the six demons as he positioned himself directly in front of Myrsvai’s legs.

The blood demons sent lances of blood at the boss while keeping their distance from the frantic demons, who were trying to tear apart the muscular cetanthro.

Lophiforma brought his weapon around again, cutting the frantic demons in half with only the chain while the metal ball flew around the arena at incredible speeds. Just as the frantic demons were healed, Lophi leapt back and brought the metal ball down hard enough to cause the entire eighth floor to shake. It crushed one of the frantic demons beyond anything that could be healed.

Myrsvai felt the loss of its connection, which also meant his mana drain calmed considerably, but he still only had another thirty seconds before every demon other than Suta would be unsummoned automatically.

Lophi caught a frantic demon by the face with one of his finned hands and crushed its entire skull. Its countless teeth punctured his hands even in its death, causing him to leak even more blood. There was already a cape of blood descending from the cetanthro’s back after the initial sneak attack.

“Now,” Myrsvai said, transferring the order to the blood demons. Since he had no control and no agreement, it was more of a concept. An idea.

Still, he had enough power over them for it to work.

At once, all three blood demons focused their magic on Lophiforma’s blood, poisoned it, and sent it back into the boss’s body. Doing so caused numerous other gashes to appear as the blood forced its way in, whether or not there was an opening.

It stunned Lophiforma, who took a step back and dropped the chain of his weapon just as all the surviving demons vanished in a flash of abyssal fire Sometimes when a summoner’s mana runs out, the demons are left to roam and rampage. Luckily, none of them had managed to keep a grasp on this plane.

Suta nodded eagerly. Luckily for Myrsvai, at his current level, summoning Suta only took the initial chunk of mana and didn’t continue to drain any. Running out of mana for a high level magus ran no risk of unsummoning their familiar, not unless that familiar was covered in buffs. In this case, Suta only had the boon from the Vile Fiend and nothing more, leaving him untouched by the sudden loss of mana.

Lophiforma’s gills flared. He turned his head, causing the light hanging in front of his face to bob. “Well fought.”

Myrsvai nodded.

The fish raised one hand, clenched into a fist. His other was beyond mutilated. It was little more than a mass of bone and flesh. “I fight until I die.”

Suta smashed his fists together. “Duel.”

Lophi gave a barely perceptible nod. “Come. Let us battle.”

Suta dashed.

They had no mana. There was no buff Myrsvai could give. And yet, Suta jumped directly into a fight without hesitation.

The little familiar deflected a punch from the cetanthro and struck a jab at his elbow, causing it to snap.

Lophi gasped, stumbled and fell to his knees.

Suta bowed.

“No.” Lophiforma stood again. One arm broken, the other mutilated, and blood leaking from his whole body, and yet, the cetanthro boss continued to resist death.

“Finish it,” Myrsvai said.

Suta lifted both hands and stood, ready to fight.

Lophiforma gasped again as wisps of black, poisoned blood drifted from his mouth. Others would let the boss die from the poisoning. Some would feel bad and try to end suffering. Some would enjoy the suffering and watch. There were all kinds of heroes. Few were martial artists like Suta.

He punched the fish directly in the face, causing the huge boss to collapse onto his back. Before Lophi could recover, Suta climbed onto his chest, jumped straight up, and landed with a blow that drove his clawed hand into the fish’s chest.

“Impressive,” Myrsvai said.

Suta grunted and tried to pull his hand out.

“Are you stuck?”

“No.” Suta tried to pull his arm out again, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Suta.”

“No.”

“Suta.”

He tugged again, then slumped. “No.”

Myrsvai walked over, intending to pry the familiar out, but before he reached the corpse, Suta successfully ripped out Lophiforma’s entire heart.

“What are we meant to do with that?”

Suta walked over and calmly put it in Myrsvai’s bag and closed the flap. “Alchemy.”

“I don’t know if alchemists can use cetanthro hearts. That’s not an ingredient I’ve ever seen mentioned in recipes.”

“Miya will use heart,” Suta said.

“Fine. We can bring it to Miya.”

Before Myrsvai could set off across the arena to the stairs, Suta started violently shaking Lophiforma’s corpse, causing coins to scatter across the stone ground.

“Rich,” Suta said.

“It was maybe fifteen coins, Suta. Hardly worth the time right now.”

The familiar was already going around, carefully picking up every single coin around the arena. Myrsvai watched with patience. His mana needed time to recharge, but he also had no reason to stop Suta from enjoying himself.

It wasn’t as if the ninth floor would be easy.

***

“Can you tell me why I just killed that boss when I know there won’t be anything good in the chest?” Owin sat on the ground with his fists clenched, trying to ignore the itchiness covering his skin. Little bumps had formed where the bristles had been plucked all over his body.

“Because of your good, curious nature?” Shade flinched as Owin moved. “Don’t slap me again.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

Shade very gently slapped Owin. His olm skin glove was soft as Shade patted his cheek a few times. “I believe we are now even.”

“Sure.”

Shade offered a hand and pulled Owin to his feet. “Why such negativity? There could be anything in that chest. All of your hopes, dreams, and even nightmares.”

“I don’t think my nightmares are going to be in that chest.” Owin started up the hill before turning back to Shade. “Neither of us sleep. We don’t have dreams or nightmares.”

Shade shrugged. “That leaves your hopes.”

“I don’t think there’s a shard in there.”

“It would be neat if there was.”

Owin made his way up the last of the hill and placed both hands on the chest. “It won’t be anything good.”

“Acquiring the full chitin set is more than enough for one journey through. I think we will survive finding only sand in this chest.”

Owin pushed the top open and stared inside. “It’s an arrow.”

Shade tripped and hit his face on the edge of the chest. He jumped back to his feet and looked inside. “It is. Are you going to take up archery? Perhaps I’m a hunter right now.” He grabbed it, pinching the arrow between two fingers. “Uh, no. I’m not. Or I just don't know how hunters work, which is probably more likely.”

“Does it do anything?” Owin asked.

Shade’s index appeared. “It says I have to be a hunter to find out more, so . . . I’m not a hunter. Are you? Deficient wizard? What are you? Some kind of loser?” He put the arrow into Owin’s bag. “Time for some more krakens.”

“I don’t want to fight more krakens.”

“If you had a bigger weapon, you might do better.” Shade pulled the Incandescent Blade from its sheath. “At least keep this out for the floor. Your strength is too high to rely on daggers. You’re not an assassin who gets passive benefits for using a variety of weapons. We just want whatever is the best.”

“What about that spine sword you put in your box?”

Shade shook his head. “Not here. It will be better against smaller mobs. I think. I don’t actually know, to be honest. Its description made it sound like it can do some weird things, and I don’t think we need anything weird right now.”

“Everything we do is weird.”

“Then let’s not add to it.” He shoved Owin back toward the hill. “Onward!”

Owin held the Incandescent Blade in front of him. “You just want me to hit the krakens with this as hard as I can?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“No.”