NOTE: Happy new year, guys! Sorry for the month-and-a-half-long hiatus, but I needed to take a break from writing while enjoying the holidays with my family. Anyways, I'm back now, and LUH is coming out full swing! Expect chapters every day this week, with releases coming out 4-5 times the week after. Thanks for continuing to read the novel. Enjoy!

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-SEVEN

Monster Envy, Part 2

Raven Knight didn’t repeat her earlier question, which Sam guessed was due to her elation at finally being free of her erstwhile prison. Although he could see the curiosity etched in her expression, and he knew that he’d soon have to think up a lie she’d accept to keep her from learning about Triple-A.

Meanwhile, Sam could also hear the loud hissing of dozens of snakes close behind him. And, as he gazed into Raven Knight’s face and saw the glint in her eyes morph from relief to unease, Sam knew they were about to have company.

“Hold on!” Raven Knight yelled.

Her fingers tightened around Sam’s hands—and then they were falling.

It was a strange sensation—like freefalling down a hole that was so cold goosebumps were rising over Sam’s exposed flesh. Afterward, Sam felt like he was floating in the water, although he didn’t get wet. Blackness covered his vision so that he could see nothing except for Raven Knight whose body had also lost its color as if something had just wrapped her in gray film.

He tried to speak, but no words escaped his lips. He gazed questioningly at his companion, and Raven Knight mouthed, ‘Quiet.’

Her left hand let go of Sam’s right hand so she could point a finger upward.

Above them was a murky window. Beyond it was the scene they’d just escaped, but now they were looking it at from below.

‘How?’ Sam mouthed back.

Raven Knight pointed to the blackness around her, leaving Sam with the assumption that she’d pulled them down into her shadow, and they were now in some kind of shadow plane. He recalled that she’d done something similar in their fight with Bloodfyre.

Sam asked Triple-A for confirmation but the system gave no response.

Interestingly enough, this was a familiar feeling for him—wading in darkness. Although he felt none of the terror that came with being in that armpit of the abyss that he’d been trapped in. Also, Raven Knight’s hand was extra-warm in his, and that warmth was enough to help Sam keep his cool.

The trunk of a large snake slid past their window, forcing Raven Knight to pull them further down the depths of her shadow.

‘Can she see us?’ Sam mouthed.

Raven Knight shook her head, sending relief flooding through Sam’s system. It was short-lived, however, because the heroine then added, ‘Sense us.’

She mimed reaching down with her free hand and plucking something out of the air.

‘Catch us,’ she mouthed.

‘Holy Zeus,’ Sam mouthed back. ‘What do we do?’

During his parkour session, Sam had calculated the odds and come to the conclusion that even with Raven Knight’s help there was no way for two beta heroes—yep, he was extra-proud of that new distinction—could defeat such a legendary horror like Medusa.

‘Escape,’ Raven Knight replied.

She began to glide backward while pulling Sam along, while he kicked his feet back like he was swimming at the bottom of a pool. They made it a good ten feet and close enough to the land bridge connecting their island with a Medusa-free island when a scaled hand plunged into the shadows, its clawed fingers grasping at the air between the two heroes.

Sam’s eyes widened as he swung Gram at the gorgon’s wrist, but Raven Knight stopped his attack with her rapier’s thin blade. Then she wrapped her arms around Sam’s waist and glided them both away from Medusa’s hand.

‘Attacking cancels my Shadow Walk.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’

They swam forward down a straight and narrow path that Sam assumed was the land bridge that separated one island from another. This revelation led to another, one that sent a chill up his spine. He assumed that Raven Knight’s shadow was moving along the ground’s craggy surface, but without the other statues’ shadows concealing their path, they would be completely exposed to Medusa’s gaze. Sure enough, two scaly hands plunged into the depths, with one claw grazing Sam’s cheek before Raven Knight managed to drag him away.

Then Sam felt claws rake against his back, but his armor kept Medusa from finding purchase. He would have been caught eventually, he was sure, if it wasn’t for Raven Knight’s help. She was far too adept at swimming in the shadows for Medusa’s clumsy attacks, leaving Sam to wonder how she’d ever been caught by the gorgon in the first place.

They quickly reached the next island, allowing their shadow to blend with the shadows of the statues above them. Sam thought this was a chance for them to breathe and plan, but Medusa had other plans. The falling debris of what was once a person’s petrified body fell over their window, making the pair realize that they would soon lose their cover.

A new chase began, one far more haring than the previous game of cat and mouse, because Medusa seemed to be more desperate to catch Sam and Raven Knight than the toying around she’d done with Sam. He figured it had something to do with why Raven Knight had come to this damnable place in the first place.

In response to his silent questioning, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a drachma. It was different from the drachma of the surface world, however, as this drachma was made not of gold but something red. Maybe blood. Sam wasn’t sure. He didn’t like to think about that morbid fact. It also wasn’t lost on Sam that he could see the drachma’s color despite him and Raven Knight looking like they’d fallen into a black-and-white twenty’s sitcom.

‘What is it?’

‘Fare for the boatman.’

Sam’s brow furrowed.

‘Why would we—’

Something grabbed his shoulder pauldron and yanked him out of Raven Knight’s grasp. He was sent upward, plunging out of that eerie cold and into the familiar heat of an underground magma cavern.

“Lion Roar!” Sam yelled.

His command was followed by the bellow of a mighty beast emanating from his shoulder, causing the scaled hand that had caught Sam to drop him unceremoniously on the ground.

Keeping his eyes glued to Gram’s shiny blade, Sam quickly got back to his feet. And, noticing that Medusa was still shrugging off the effects of the Lion Roar’s ability to instill panic into his foes, Sam began to perform the steps of an attack he’d only perfected recently. He knew it was his one chance. So did Triple-A. The system was back and encouraging Sam to land a decisive blow that would render the gorgon incapable of wielding its most dangerous weapon—her gaze.

It was his first time performing them in a real fight, but Sam’s one-two-three combo had been polished so seamlessly that it would have looked to the casual observer like a simple wide swing of his sword. One that sent ripples of sword aura exploding out of Gram’s sharp edge to penetrate even the mighty defenses of an alpha-level horror like Medusa. Myriad glowing blades danced in the air and struck the gorgon without reserve, causing dozens of deep cuts to appear on her scaled flesh, with the largest one cutting across her eyes.

Medusa screamed a horrifying scream that sent chills racing up and down Sam’s spine, but the sheepish grin on his face didn’t vanish.

“Got you,” he whispered.

The dozens of snakes on the horror’s brow reared their little heads toward Sam’s voice, and then the gorgon who’d been blinded momentarily lunged at him in vengeful fury. She would have gutted Sam then and there if it weren’t for two things happening at the same time.

Shadows sprang from the ground and wrapped themselves across Medusa’s serpentine lower body, preventing the gorgon from reaching Sam while also keeping it in place long enough for the Ceryneian Hind to ram its antlers into Medusa’s side.

“Yes!” Sam yelled excitedly.

To his immense relief, the Ceryneian Hind had disregarded Sam’s request of hanging back and eventually followed him into the gorgon’s temple. It smashed into Medusa, its magical antlers piercing her scales, allowing the hind to raise the horror into the air and then throw her over the edge of the ledge.

Without waiting to see if Medusa had fallen into the lava, Sam jumped up to the Ceryneian Hind’s back. Then, seeing Raven Knight rise up from her shadow—her expression fixed warily on Sam’s mount and the dark ichor that decorated its horns—Sam reached down for her with his hand. And, with a grin that came only when Sam got to nerd out, he said, “Come with me if you want to live!”