Underworld - Book 3 - Chapter 30

I rushed forward with 57,600 MP flowing through me each minute like rivers of fire. Instead of destroying me, my muscles raged. Empowered, my Warhammer flew faster than the human eye could see, intercepting Waldemar’s axe.

A concussion sounded preceding the storm. The first boom rattled me to the core. It wasn’t a storm of wind and lightning, but an outbreak of thunder with each exchange. 

His follow up attack arrived as I struggled to comprehend this level of power. Mel’s weapon blazed into its path, a poleaxe of black steel that was blasted aside.

Darting back just in time to dodge the attack, I lunged as Waldemar’s axe was already screaming for Mel’s head. Even with his pole weapon’s long reach, it couldn’t compare to the gigantic axe. Ducking under the blow, Mel tried to jump back but was clipped. It was enough to hurl him across the floor.

I swooped under the same blow, driving up with my hammer and targeting his upper shin. As the tallest minotaur we had faced, approximately fifteen feet tall, the same attack would have been to the knee of even the greater minotaurs. Finally, I connected. Even with 5,500 Strength, it was like hitting solid stone.

Coming in from the flank, Mel threw a chopping blow at his back. Waldemar didn’t budge as he took the full brunt of the attack. The twitch in the crease below his eyes revealed that he wasn’t completely immune.

Taking his axe up in one hand, the minotaur captain spun it like a bow staff, then grabbed it's handled and whirled it through the air with the command of a master swordsman.

I dove back but couldn’t escape the flurry of attacks. His axe caught my shoulder and sent me spinning through the air.

Before I hit the ground, I was able to bring myself under control and landed in a three-point stance. Mel wasn’t so lucky. End over end he cartwheeled over the chasm at the middle of the room and came to a skidding stop as he smacked face first to the floor.

With some ground between us and the enemy, I examined Mel to find he had 181,900/248,800 HP left. Thankfully the enemy hadn’t had any critical hits.

“Mel,” I said over general chat at a level I hoped would be difficult for Waldemar to hear. “I can’t heal you while you're covered in Dark Magic. If it you get too low, change back so I can help then high tail it out of here.”

“If,” He replied. “Any ideas?”

“A few. Let’s keep these positions. One of us in front, the other behind.” I took a quick look at my own HP which was at 461,373/552,572.

“Got it.”

Waldemar’s targeted Mel next. Racing after Waldemar, I told Mel to run. I decided it was time to try something I had been holding back.

He bolted to the side.

As our enemy turned to pursue, Magma hit him square in the face. It quickly devoured him beneath its flow as it gushed out of my hand. I stood there showering him and cut off its flow at 80,000 MP because he was already covered in excess magma.

Like a wet dog bathed in melted chocolate, our enemy began to shake himself to be rid of the molten rock.

I saw his mana take a hit through the mana realm, but as he loosened his joints and cleared it from his eyes, he raised his arms in the air as if to dare us to do better.

You can’t be serious!

Instead of letting Waldemar decide who to attack next, I raced toward him.

His axe spun with the agility of a baton and smashed into my hammer as I held it out before me. It sent me skating to the side.

Before Mel’s poleaxe connected with his lower back, the boss mob flicked it aside.

I was already on my way, driving my Warhammer into his hip. His balance faltered and he stumbled forward a step.

Mel had taken the chance to jump back. I did the same as his axe swept by.

We were finding our rhythm.

“Go high,” I whispered through general chat. 

I wasn’t sure if Waldemar had super hearing, but Mel was already on the attack. Trying to keep us both on the flank, the boss mob turned sideways to intercept him. As I had requested, Mel leveled an overhead chop high at his chest.

The minotaur captain easily defended, but I had danced in behind him. Winding up like a batter, I lunged forward with my front foot and rotated my torso with all of my strength. My three-pronged hammer punched through his ankle, knocking it into the air. With him firmly off balance for the first time, I lifted my hammer as he fell back. His impact shook the ground beneath our feet. 

My spike spun to face him before clamping down like the fang of a vicious beast. As I retrieved it to mount my retreat, it left a bloody wound in the side of his gut.

Mel’s threw a perfectly aimed slash at his throat. 

The wrathful cry that escaped from our enemy held no special power of its own, but the violence that followed was an exclusive kind of crazy all on its own.

He sat up from the ground to meet Mel’s poleaxe with the brow of his head, butting it out of the air. Leaning toward Mel while still sitting down, he swept him from his feet with his horn and began twisting his head in a frenzy.

Coming to all fours, the minotaur left his axe where fell.

Struggling to get to his feet, Mel tried to get up and run when a charging bull’s head the size of a small bulldozer plowed into him and lifted him from the floor. Waldemar didn’t just buck him but stood as he did with hellish speed and pitched him into the air. 

I heard as much as I saw the impact that he had with the ceiling. He fell out of sight to the second floor.

“Mel!” I cried in horror, unsure if he had survived. “Is he alive?!” I demanded, hoping someone was close by. I was too afraid to heal him in case he was still covered in dark magic. If he was too close to death such a mistake would surely kill him.

I didn’t move from where I stood. Seeing Waldemar standing there suddenly still, I could feel that something had changed.

Energy gushed from him as if a powerplant was charging up. Then the energy faltered, only to swell a moment later with more power than at first. Like the cadence of a heartbeat, waves of force settled into a steady tempo that beat against me as I faced him. Any magma that had dried on his fur was repealed like dust. Besides the wound from my Warhammer his skin was completely unscathed.

Through the mana realm, I saw it clearly. Just as I could channel my Light Mana into my body to give it power, he was using his mana to do the same.

His fist appeared before I could react, hurling me toward the wall. Colliding sooner than I could comprehend, 3x Fire Incubus Form kept me conscious, but my HP fell down to half. 

I burst from the man-sized hole in the wall and healed myself to reach just over 300,000 HP. Looking at my mana, I only had four and a half minutes left.

As much as hope seemed to be drifting away, I had yet to give it my all.

Setting off at a jog, I headed straight for him.

He charged like a raging bull. His axe was long forgotten.

My hammer met his fist but was driven back.

His horns swiped through the air from side to side as his fists lobbed at me at an impossible rate.

Out of desperate need, I summoned Skeleton Warrior’s Shield and channeled 2,000 Mana Per Minute into it so that it was thick enough to take a hit.

Mana Sight was completely useless to me now, but somehow, I was blocking everything he threw at me. With each attack I found myself driven back an inch at a time.

Defense was all I could muster. There was no gap in his attack, only a frightening onslaught of death carrying blows. It was no longer a question as to whether I could keep up. The question was whether I would make a mistake before he ran out of gas. It was my only way out. I watched as his mana was slowly being spent.

A few seconds later, I found myself nearing the wall at my back. He would soon drive me into it, leaving me no way out.

1,000 MP of Alpha coated my Warhammer. I just hope the repellent neutral energy wouldn’t react with my weapon’s flames. 

As Waldemar’s horn dipped in to skewer me, my hammer intercepted it, smacking it back. The force was enough for me to dip in under his fist and take a new position behind him.

Thinking I had finally won an exchange, I had no time to react as he bucked forward and kicked out with his hind legs.

Both of his hooves caught me in the shield, shattering it as they sent me flying to the other side of the room. I landed on the floor with both feet but was close enough to the wall that I slammed rear first into it. The stone crumbled, leaving me a ruined throne.

Against such a superior killing machine, what could I possibly do?

“He’s alive!” Aeris said through general chat referring to Mel.

I wanted to rebuke her. She had just fallen from the air a few minutes before and had to be near out of mana herself. Couldn’t she have let someone else check on him? I knew it was just that my emotions were running high and feared for her safety, so I refocused on what could be done.

“I’m here.” He confirmed but was still out of sight. “I don’t think I have anything left.”

“How much mana do you have?”

“About 50k.”

“Okay. Then do exactly as I say…”

After rattling off to him my plan, I once again removed myself from the wall. Waldemar was already facing me, reading to reengage.

I took off at a run, this time, in the opposite direction. Jumping over the chasm in the middle of the room, I landed and quickly hit full speed.

He slowed after following me to the middle of the room. His suspicion gave him pause. It was as I had hoped.

Reaching the wall at the entrance to the Outer Perimeter, I jumped. Landing high above the arched doorway I pumped my legs and continued to climb. I didn’t have Aeris’s ability to fly, but extreme stats made almost anything possible. Running up the side of the wall, I neared the ceiling and jumped back. Spinning, I face down taking in the aerial view of the entire room. Sadly, there was no time to take in the awesome sight.

Below me to the left, on the second floor, I saw Mel back in his normal form gathering all his remaining mana into a single large blast. Aeris was there, looking over the ledge at Waldemar below.

The fighting that had just taken place had lasted only seconds but had drained me of a full minute of my 3x Fire Incubus Form. What I was about to do would use up even more. I only had 220,000 MP left. If this was going to work, I had to use the perfect about of mana to combat Mel’s. Too much would have my spell overwhelming his. Not enough and his would win out. If I could match his exactly, the reaction between our mana’s would cause max devastation.

Light Magic shone from the scepter beneath the bone breastplate like a ray of the sun. The mana all met at a single point to create a massive Health Bomb. My full attention was on feeling the power behind Mel’s attack. My mana reached just over 40,000 as his spell reached its max.

Waldemar bent low as if readying to flee. We were ready. I let loose.

Instead of trying to escape, the minotaur captain leaped into the air to meet the attack head-on.

I willed it to fly faster as Mel released his own enormous blast.

With the top of his head readied to punch through it, the boss monster collided with my attack. A colossal bolt of light-consuming lightning struck my Light Bomb as it went off. An all blinding glow pieced through my already closed eyelids as light and darkness met. Thunder shook me where I was. Propelling me like a giant fist into the ceiling it held me there.

Light and darkness quarreled like raging titans. Anything and everything that got in their way was crushed. Even at this distance, my HP was decreased to 187,221/502,572.

As the blinding light returned to normal and my eyes began to focus, I found it hard to breathe. Mel and Aeris had been at the same level as the blast. There was no way they could have survived.

Without the pressure holding me against the ceiling, I began to fall. My eyes searched frantically for Aeris. The stone of the second floor where they had been was gone. A large chunk of the second floor to both sides of the room had been carved out like a giant sphere in the middle of the room. There was nothing of it left.

My heart pounded even as my mind struggled to accept that they were gone. Landing on the ground twenty meters from the middle of the room, my worst fears were realized. Waldemar was standing there mostly unscathed except his mana had been cut to a third.

Not only had he survived the impossible, but the damage he had sustained was taken from his mana instead of his health like some kind of mana shield. 

Fire Incubus Form reverted back to 1x as I looked on in a daze.

“Elorion! We’re fine! Travis is fine too!” Aeris shouted. She didn’t bother with general chat but had called from behind the wall by the entrance to the Inner Perimeter.

“How…” I replied through chat.

“Let’s just say Mel doesn’t weigh much. The others are still recovering, but they could probably give you some support.”

“No!” I demanded. “I will give you as much time as I can.”

Looking down, I had somehow kept ahold of my Warhammer. This weapon Russ had provided me had exceeded my every expectation. If I would have had to use my scepter and a channeled Skeleton Warrior’s Sword, it was possible that I wouldn’t have the mana left for what I was about to do next.

Power still pulsed from Waldemar. He walked toward me, arrogance radiating off of him as dense as his energy. He knew he had already won.

I took off at him, holding nothing back.

He mocked me with a grunt and sped his approach. If it was at all possible, I could have sworn he was smiling at me.

A gale of power exploded from me as I powered up to 4x Fire Incubus Form. At 115200 Mana Per Minute, I had less than two minutes to mount a comeback. With 6,000 Strength and 5,500 Dexterity, I healed myself just enough so that I reached 250k HP. It should be enough to take a single critical hit.

He didn’t anticipate my boost in speed.

With two hands bracing my weapon, I drove its top spike into his gut. Pushing through, I lifted him from his feet and thrust him back.

Before he could land on his hooves, I hammered his lower legs aside and followed up with a mighty uppercut, battering him into the air.

He flew over the chasm in the middle of the room and plummeted to his back.

I dashed forward, clearing the gap and landing on the other side in an instant. I could not give him chance to recover.

Lowering the spike of my hammer at his throat, his fist shot up.

Any hope I had remaining of being able to beat him was battered out of me as he knocked me into the air. The waves of power emitting from him sped into a faster rhythm as he grew more powerful.

He flew up passed me faster than I climbed. Appearing above, even as I tried to move my Warhammer into place, he moved faster than I could comprehend, headbutting me to the ground.

I came to a moment later at the foot of the bridge with him standing over me. His chest shook as he laughed at me with a series of snorts.

At below 50,000 HP, I healed myself quickly and was forced into the realization that this was no longer a fight to buy the others time. I was about to die.

I tried to shoot up when his hove stomped into my chest and buried me into the ground.

Even as my healing magic fought to keep me alive, my mana was dwindling fast. I had less than a minute in this form.

I began kicking and hitting him with all the strength I had. He didn’t budge. Even in 4x Fire Incubus Form, I was nothing to him.

There was one thing left for me to do. With my remaining MP, I would cause as much damage as I could. He had about a quarter of his mana left. With any luck, my final attack would be enough for the others to finish him after I was gone.

Dropping my hammer, I let my mana flood into my hands. It would be a little less than 100,000 MP, but an Alpha Bomb should take a good chunk from his remaining MP.

“Aeris, I love you.” I declared through general chat.

“Boys are idiots.” Olivia sighed, responding in her place.

Rope sized vines shot up from behind Waldemar and wrapped around his legs and waist. Larger ones followed immediately after, helping secure a stronger grip.

The minotaur captain grabbed those at his waist and ripped them apart like they were made of grass. He glared into me and pressed more of his weight into my chest.

The largest vine I had ever seen looped around him like a giant python. With a radius of five meters, the vine blocked my view of Waldemar’s face just before it yanked him off of me.

I made it to my feet while holding my mana in place.

He had his beastly arms encircling the vine around his chest. He began to squeeze, trying to crush it.

An all familiar strategy took shape.

As he disjointed the magic vine and moved onto the one at his waist, I used what was left of my remaining speed and launched myself to his chest. 

With my arms and legs entangling him as securely as possible, I called out to Olivia to fasten me to him.

“You’re nuts!” She screamed.

Despite her protest, a second enormous vine wrapped around him at the chest, wedging us together. Succubi’s Caress began to gulp at his remaining mana.

At its relatively low level of 13, the spell only leeched 113 Mana Per Second with a normal touch. There were two things that made it work even faster. I already had contact with the open wound on his stomach and the more surface area I could cover the more mana I could take. It had worked on the Fire Incubus Feuer. Why wouldn’t it work now?

Waldemar dug into the lower vine and split it in two. The upper vine tied his arms to his sides, but his hands were free to tear at it from below.

His mana declining quickly, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough.

As reluctant as I was, I released 4x Fire Incubus Form and returned to 2x. It would buy me some time. I needed to speed up mana leech and there was one thing I could do to greatly improve it.

Bone Appendages exploded from my shoulders and hips. They wrapped around his arms and back, under his armpit and around his neck. Below they wrapped around his legs like a blacksmith tightly wraps the cord on a blade’s grip.

As he finished dismantling the vine between us, he moved to pry me from his chest.

My skeletal plate mail expanded in size as Bone Titan’s Defense took shape. It thickened the armor around me, but this time I also extended it to reach around Waldemar’s torso and envelop him.

It was little more than an annoyance to someone with his outrageous strength. He battered it, sending new cracks and fractures each time his fists connected.

Sending mana into it to repair the damage, the drain on my mana was too much. At the rate my mana was being depleted, there was no way I could outlast him. I let Bone Titan’s Defense fail.

Reverting to 1x Fire Incubus Form to keep the protection of its armored skin, I moved to do something that could backfire. I began to heal myself. 

My natural healing aura was an internal thing that didn’t affect anything outside of me. Healing or even regeneration didn’t work the same. If anything was close enough, it would feel the effects of my spell. After seeing it survive the detonation of light and dark magic, I couldn’t be sure how this would affect him. Through the mana realm, all that I saw of him was Earth Mana. I had no idea if he had a Light or Dark Mana Core. Or possibly something else.

I became a giant leech upon our enemy’s chest. As he beat the life out of me, I stole as much mana as I possible and used it to heal myself.

Fire Incubus Form had made me tough enough to survive this long, but beneath the minotaur’s onslaught, the pain was unbearable. It blinded me just as thoroughly as staring at the sun.

Queasiness overtook me as my limbs lost all strength. Their grasp around Waldemar faltered. Fire Incubus Form receded entirely. What was left of my armor and bone appendages began to crumble. Mana Sickness took effect. 

It was hard to say if I was conscious or not, for my exhaustion was so complete that my mind could have just reset itself and I wouldn’t know. The only thing I had been able to hold on to was 3x Advanced Mind Buff.

When the world made sense again, I found myself in the clutches of a fifteen-foot minotaur. His two hands were so big that I found his finger intertwined around my back and reached all the way around my chest. How was I still alive?

Looking up, I saw his head drooped forward with his eyes shut. He had also run out of mana but his strength was so immense he was out on his feet.

Terror overtook me. He could regain consciousness at any moment and end it in an instant.

A bone appendage shot out from my palm and jabbed into the wound in his side.

The pain seemed to jolt him awake as his eyes shot open but seemed unable to focus.

I activated Succubi’s Caress. As his mana filled me, my own wooziness started to improve. I retrieved Lydia’s Health Potions and downed as quickly as I could.

His eyes rolled as he started to sway. 

Two bone appendages shot from my feet to fasten around the back of his knees. I pulled with both hands against his forearms that held me in place. Finally, I slipped from his grip and drove my head to his chest. It may have been the least effective headbutt in the history of the world, but it did have the effect I required. Waldemar rocked back and began to fall.

My mana wasn’t being replenished as quickly as I expected. The skeletal armor that held my scepter to my chest had crumbled and my scepter and orb had fallen. The bone appendages wrapped around his legs I redirected to search across the ground as we fell. Skeletal Armor covered me as he hit the floor.

With my appendage in his gut, I leeched mana faster than he could regain it. In my opposite hand, I summoned Skeleton Warrior’s Sword and stabbed him in the chest. It did no good. His body was a rock.

One of my appendages found my scepter and grabbed ahold of it. Bringing it to me, I uncast my sword and equipped it. Casting 4x In The Buff, I channeled mana into Skeleton Warrior’s Sword once again to overtake my scepter. At its point, I empowered it with Alpha. Once again, I drove the blade down.

-165,777 HP

A giant fist gripped ahold of my arm that held my appendage in his gut. As impossible as it was for him to move without mana, his strength welled up and he began to crush my arm. Suddenly, he rocked wildly and swung me. I flailed to the ground.

My appendage has lost its grip, but that didn’t matter now. Mana Sickness had given me a shot at him, but the damage I did wasn’t even a tenth of his total HP.

The creature that rose up on all fours wasn’t the minotaur captain I had faced just moments ago. In his moment of need, Waldemar had reverted to a primal state. He bucked and kicked in every direction. I hurried to roll out of the way.

Even joining the strategy that had taken out the Fire Incubus with the power of Fire Incubus’s Form had made me no match to this minotaur’s battle prowess. He was beyond me.

A group of voices cried out as they streamed toward us. They appeared out from behind the wall that hid the entrance to the Inner Perimeter. Our bashers were heading this way.

“Now!” Trevon said from above.

I scampered to get out of the immediate area entirely.

Zorik’s unleashed a downpour of water that he had gathered overhead. A shaft of blue mana joined with it as it swamped the raging bull.

With his feet in an outstretched kick, Waldemar froze solid in a small glacier of ice. His mana regen wasn’t very impressive, so as soon as he was hit with the spell his mana shot back to zero and any additional damage went straight to his HP.

I released in the buff and let 3x Advanced Mind Buff fill me with as much mana as possible.

Trevon and Zorik weren’t alone. Everyone had come.

It was only a moment before the enemy broke free of the ice, but I threw myself to the floor as Audrey dropped a ball of fire on his head.

Instead of exploding, it latched upon him like a blanket of napalm.

Like a pin of stone spikes, Clarissa surrounded him to make him think twice of trying to go far. They reached six feet in the air and jabbed him from every direction as he moved.

Our bashers surrounded him, readying for when he broke out.

Waldemar shouldered into the spikes on each side, pulling back from them with a snort. Lowering his head, he leveled them, heading right for Jess.

She faded out of the way, as the minotaur charged passed. Skyler sped in, empowered by his ability, and clobbered the bull’s rear hoof.

As the mob took his next step, one foot wasn’t there. He teetered to the side before crashing to the floor.

At once our bashers were upon him. Sledge Hammers beat against his back as swords stabbed his gut.

Russ dodged a swinging horn, before pounding him in the nose.

Before I could call out for them to retreat, they fled after getting a blow or two in so as not to be trampled. A forest of vines rose up around Waldemar as he rolled to his feet, helping their escape. The little damage they did also drained him of mana, not allowing his real strength to return.

A sonic boom sounded as Aeris shot from the ceiling in a flash of silver light. The distorted air around her was pulled together to join with the mana of her attack and driven into a single point on the back of his neck.

Only Mana Sight allowed me to see her swoop out of the fall so as not to collide with the enemy at death-defying speed.

Waldemar collapsed and the floor beneath him crumbled.

I heard the rapid movement of steps in the distance. The bashers made a path as Travis shot from the far side of the room, cleared the chasm without even seeming to jump and drove his spear into his ribs. It wasn’t just one spearpoint, but thirty of them that broke the skin and left him bloodied.

The smile that dared to pull at the corners of my mouth was wiped off of it as the boss monster came to his feet. A couple of million MP must have been spent all ready to put this monster down, but it still hadn’t been enough.

I took a look at my status to see I had just over 30,000 MP and 8,866 Mana Per Minute at my exposal. What could I possibly do that hadn’t already been done? Waldemar’s toughness would soon be our downfall. 

“Olivia, keep him as still as you can!” I said through general chat as I began ramping up to 4x In The Buff and ran at him. My scepter I rejoined to my armor at the middle of my chest.

She answered by surrounding him with even more vines. 

As he ripped through them, blankets of jagged ice smacked into him from above. Trevon was desperately trying to slow him with everything he had left.

I closed in barehanded, waiting to cast.

Waldemar burst through the last patch of Olivia’s vines and began to regain speed.

Stone Skin overtook my arms as Magma Fist blazed into life over both my fists. Magma had done little good before but now I lunged for its open wounds.

My fingers clawed into the flesh at its ribs where Travis had left it full of holes. My Magma Fist glowed as the heat rose to the highest level I could employ. Reaching for the wound on its neck, my other hand dug into the much deeper wound that Aeris had produced.

Waldemar stood as he arched his back. He clawed at me with both of his hands.

Securing my grip in the wound on his ribs, I pushed at the hole in his neck. Just as I had melted my way into Feuer’s throne room, my strength and magma worked together to push my way in. His Earth Alignment meant little now as my grip clamped down on his spine. After a few moments and a final squeeze, I felt it give way.

With the little extra mana I had left, I struggled to charge Forced Learn and release it as his mana spilled out.

Minotaur Essence received!

As he crumbled to the ground for a final time, I yanked my hand from his flesh and rolled off, letting Magma Fist and Stone Skin fade.

The 27 levels that filled me ensured I was safe to rest.

A dozen shouts of joy sounded at once as a bunch of annoying people decided it was a great time for a huddle. Russ picked me up off the floor and hugged me, while Skyler stood right next to him and pounded me on the back. Our bashers were there a moment later in a jumbled mess that pressed into me.

An exhausted laugh escaped me as our casters joined in soon after. Some sight we were. A minotaur’s blood was spilling out on the ground beneath our feet and we embraced in its wake.

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Author's note: I'm working on the final chapter now. Not sure if it will be out tonight or tomorrow, but we are nearly there now.