Ank

Both the creatures that came off the purple portal consisted of a dozen animals and mosnters’ heads stitched together into a ball of two meters in diameter, but each cranium had a perforation of a different size, exposing the brain.

“What… is this…?”, Nif asked.

“I don’t know, but it is [Level: 110]”, I said, as my sister and I shielded the rest of the [Party]. Turning back to the others, I concluded: “Stay away.”

There wasn’t any more time to dialogue; all of the creature’s mouths stitched into the [Treppaned Experiments] opened up, and with a guttural scream, they conjured magic: a dozen of smaller portals similar to the large one behind the enemies opened up, and deformed hands extended out of it, in pursue of my sister and I, the limbs extending impossibly long.

“[Lungs Strengthening]!”, Tapa quickly conjured, and gave back some [SP] to Hunah, adding it to the energy twin my twin sister had naturally recovered since the end of the boss fight.

Immediately after this, Hunah jumped into action and cracked her whip, cutting and slashing the hands that came for her.

Just like when we battled inside Incute’s pocket dimension for the first time, both of us understood we wouldn’t be able to win against the enemies if they fought together, and so I moved away from my sister, who wasn’t so much concerned with her lack of [Stamina Points] anymore, and brought one of the [Treppaned Experiments] with me; my magic-user mummy used the same electrical attack with which he stopped the hatchling dragon’s breath, and carbonized the limbs that pursed me so that they crumbled under their own weight, into ashes.

“[Summon: Fake Dagger]”, just like my sister, quite far from the ideal energy reserves, I was forced to summon a weaker weapon before dashing after the enemy.

That abomination of a creature, however, was [Level: 114], it didn’t have only one attack, and as I was approached, the [Treppaned Experiment] let out another painful scream, and all of the mouths around its levitating and somewhat spherical body started to spill out blood, which pooled underneath it. Just as I was about to hit the creature, then, the blood morphed into dozens of vicious spikes, which shoot upwards.

I was protected by the copper armor I summoned previously, and ended up simply pushed back as my protection vanished in magical particles.

Even before I touched the ground again, however, the blood pool quickly moved to beneath me, and the spikes appeared a second time.

Until, that is, they were completely evaporated by the [Thunder Idolater]’s electrical magic.

I fell back safely, but the monster ahead just turned its attention to my summon, all of its dozens of animal and monster’s faces frowning and bearing their teeth, angered. My opponent flew straight, and at incredibly high speeds; while bringing out of a new portal a giant gaping maw of a crocodile; after my summon, but I saw that as an opportunity, and as the monster was passing by, I managed to follow it with my eyes thanks to my high [Perception], and drove my greenish transparent dagger straight into one of the thing’s exposed brains.

The monster screamed in pain, as it flew away, and I saw, thankfully, that even my weak attack was able to cause massive damage to the being:

[Treppaned Experiment

HP: 4331/5000]

My magic-user summon didn’t let the chance slip, and threw a ray of lighting at the wounded enemy, but this last one brought another bunch of hands from small portals, and these ones protected the monster for long enough, so it managed to regurgitate a black goo, which flew upwards and formed a ball right over the levitating [Treppaned Experiment]’s body.

I didn’t need to order my smartest creature for it to understand the danger of that black bubble, and the [Thunder Idolater] jumped before me, as the bubble exploded, and covering the surroundings in a rain of some kind of super corrosive substance; my summon shivered, but its dry throat didn’t allow it to scream as the leathery skin of the mummy was melted away, and the creature died, before exploding in a cloud of green particles.

I looked back, checking on Hunah and the rest of the [Party], but the corrosive rain didn’t seem to have covered a large arena, and they were fine. Turning back to the enemy, I knew I didn’t have any other options but to kill it immediately as I barely had any more [Magic] remaining, and my [Stamina] wouldn’t last for much longer either.

“As long as I don’t lose any limbs, it should be okay, right?”, I asked, as the monster created yet another incoming wave of guided hands.

I dashed forward, and slid under the first couple of hands, jumped over the next few that had changed their trajectories, and I was forced to cut off the last half a dozen, when my summoned weak dagger broke. It didn’t matter, however, for I almost had the monster in reach already.

The [Treppaned Experiment] did the blood pool trick again, but instead of retreat to avoid the attack altogether, I let it hit my legs, sides, and face, cutting and impaling me all around, but not mortally in any way.

Then I grabbed one of the heads of the creature. And punched, straight into one of the exposed brain.

The monster cried in just as much pain as I was, but I kept punching. The monster started to vomit the corrosive black goo again, but I didn’t stop for this either, punching, exploding brains after brain with my closed fist, dealing critical attack after critical attack, and demolishing the enemy’s [Health Points]. The magical acid rain started to fall again, and while my new cloak protected my head and back, the skin and fat on my limbs were quickly eaten away, then my muscles, but just as it was becoming hard to move my hands, to continue to punch, the ball of stitched together heads fell on the ground, suddenly not levitating anymore, nor screaming, nor answering to my attacks.

As the “[You leveled up!]” message ringed inside my head in quick sequence, I let myself slide from the monster’s corpse to the ground, and took deep breaths. I spent my twin sister a glance, and noticed she also managed to kill her opponent; many of the heads that made the disgusting spherical creature had been cut off by her whip; but she was in the same bad shape as I then.

“…Fuck! Do you two always fight like this?!”, I heard Jao breaking his controlled and positive [Party] leader persona for the first time.