Finishing The 7 Nightmare Levels

The fourth level was a darker, vivid hue of red compared to the others I explored. The air was more contested. The screams and disarray were more invoking. There were clusters of stray eyes melded in the walls, staring apathetically.

I still kept to my strategy of trying to sneak and maneuver around the enemies as opposed to fighting. Their numbers always felt endless in each level.

“[Carnivorous Craving]” I yelled. This ability hasn’t gotten old yet. I was spamming my first basic attack.

I invoked two such mouths on my arms. It was most efficient for my spirit energy to only hold two carvings at once. There was a secondary purpose. Arms had the best reach and could be combined with punches.

I bit my tongue and readied my healing magic. I swung wildly at the scorpion and giant spider horde. It was risky, I realized, to lose my limbs; I wasn’t sure when I would be able to get them back. Asa had greater healing, but that would be in the far future.

I focused on fighting this time to gain experience with the battlefield and its emotions, and my own abilities.

I guessed that one hour had passed. Still, I remained in this personal purgatory, splattered in heated blood. I realized that I wasn’t growing cold to combat like a grizzled soldier. That just wasn’t who I am. I always fought with an expanse of flickering, passionate emotions. They made me lose my head. I used up too much spirit energy.

[“How much longer, Ydunn?”] I pressed.

She snickered. [“That was the first round. What is love making without multiple rounds? Do your job and don’t complain, my beloved. No breaks for the restless.”]

I was appalled at myself and her. I could tell my energy stores were tired. I could also tell that Ydunn was doing her damndest to give me a hard time.

Through days of experience and usage, I had a firmer grasp of spirit energy. I could view its once invisible container located right inside my head. Approximately one-third of it remained full.

I would adapt by fleeing rapidly and avoiding combat. This strategy should work. It always did decent.

I worked up a decent run, scorpions and spiders largely trailing behind, and I was able to save energy. My eyes and legs grew heavy as the shadows in front of me revealed bat-like brains. They were black, overgrown, and misshapen creatures with pitiful, pink wings in their posterior with talon-bearing hind legs.

They didn’t look like much of a threat, yet no new enemies should be underestimated.

My tactical escape was unreproducible, with flying enemies unleashing a new front of attack. They didn’t do much damage; their only attack was to dive and go for the eyes. It forced me to shield and be ready for the attack with immense focus, slowing me down further. My eyes couldn’t be lost.

The problem was that the bats mixed in faints or false dives, which made me block more than I should of, and if I removed my blocking form, they could begin the dive anew. It was a real problem.

I had to become accustomed to considering these trials as life or death. That was my philosophy.

As the demonic adjacent beasts grew closer and confident, I knew I had to rely on my magic. I let my [Carnivorous Craving] run rampant with a goal. I realized, kind of like a video game pet or system, I could give them a command. The two carvings on arms were [ranged] over the default [melee]. My experience with the magic guided the black, tendril-like tongues to rebuke and even pull in and defeat the dreadful bats.

A needed success. With aerial superiority established, my fighting was easier. I still needed to get out of here, although I had no clue when Ydunn would call it.

Just as I was thinking that, I was brought back to the real world where Ydunn patted me on the back. I didn’t process it. The sights I saw and my close chance with death wouldn’t leave my head.

Ydunn taught me that as a result of a fourth-level emblem, I acquired the [Orb of Unbridled Affection]. It was a murky black orb that reflected seemingly random aspects of the user’s physicality in a cast. My first one had a reflection of my arm and heart.

I designated a full day to experiment and prepare for the next level. Using part of my mental concentration, the orb could be levitated quite easily in three dimensions. With permission, I tested it on trees; it meshed the separate wooden fibers, purple and almond colors, and inner spirals of the trees together around the point of magic. On contact, it produced a reverberating clanging. It caused some type of fusion between the materials the orb ran through. Curiously and regrettably, I could only cast three orbs. Definitely, mana-intensive.

The fifth level was an even more crimson red. Immediately, brown and irking giant centipedes were upon me. Each hulking body took up nearly the whole corridor, and each had human limb-sized apandeages on the front. The number of which sent a shiver through my whole body. I wouldn’t leave them up to a carving. I cast [Orb of Unbridled Affection] toward the closest monster and lowered it downward. I battered its head open, and the body’s remnants were left in a gruesome, organic amalgamation of the path of contact.

The sight was so bad that it even gave the other monsters pause.

I guess the goddess of love is one of those evil gods. I didn’t see much proof of otherwise these days.

I used their hesitation to escape, and I found an easily accessible ensnared human face. Ydunn told me this was the last spell learned of her emblem. Further levels simply introduced greater compatibility with the magic.

Would the [Orb of Unbridled Affection] be able to free this soul? I had no other ideas or magic.

I had an underlying feeling of dread that I pushed down. No time for hesitation. The monsters could arrive soon.

I focused and cast out the magic, aiming to carve a human body’s shape out of the wall. Maybe the rest of its body was sheltered past my sight.

It went horribly wrong. The face unintelligibly muttered as the orb entered the wall, and its eyes turned and turned backward until it was just white. The face froze, mutated, and disappeared into the wall until only the white of the eyes remained. The newly created wall was a tan knitted amalgamation of flesh’s marriage in the wrong places, and all too compact and dense.

What. The. Actual. Hell.

I relinquished my stomach’s contents onto the fleshy floor. I wanted to bash myself in the head for messing up and being too liberal with my approach, but I didn’t have many more opportunities to come into the talisman, presumably. I wasn’t going to leave any option on the table when I thought it could save the people trapped inside.

I fought the rest of the monsters in silence until I was transported out.

On the sixth level, I ran out of mana against a horde of centipedes. After running for hours, I used four [Orbs of Unbridled Affection] on five giant centipedes and ended up having to rip off a centipede arm to use as a makeshift weapon against the others. It wasn’t effective. I had to use it as a shield instead to block them from ripping my limbs to shreds. Ydunn pulled me out into the divine realm soon after.

The seventh level was so crimson red that I thought the air itself was red mist. Learning from before, I was uncharacteristically patient with my [Orbs of Unbridled Affection], making sure I took out three giant centipedes with each. Not only was this efficient, but the largely intact bodies worked as natural barriers, which I worked to my advantage.

Every creature except the giant centipedes was easy. The higher level of the emblem enabled [Carnivorous Craving] to be more than enough to deal with the small stuff.

I actually took out enough enemies that the realm was empty. They stopped coming. And so I was transferred out.

Hmm. I had seen everything in the magic kept close to her bosom, and it was good training, but that’s the end of anything good I can say.

Ydunn interrupted my thoughts by getting closer and going for a kiss? I was surprised, but not stunned. Right in time, I put my hand up to my mouth, and it absorbed the kiss instead.

She seemed offended. “You are no fun! I’ll get that kiss from you soon.”

“Soon?”

“Yeah, you are medium. You are mine. We are going to have so much fun together!” She said ecstatically.

That confirms what I was thinking. It is going to be hard to leave.

Ydunn continued, yet I barely paid it mind. The words were undertones in my head. “Amazing, you’ve gone through the entire talisman, Astrid! Very few humans have ever done that.”

I imagine that due to her nature as a god, she has hundreds of times more magic than I do. What is going to happen to me if I get caught? When she gets serious?

She is unpredictable, but I’ll die. It is that simple.

I would need to plan a perfect escape.