The further Kai and Finn pushed into the mimic’s twisted, organic interior, the less it resembled any natural structure. Gone were the cave-like walls of veined flesh.
Here, the tunnels narrowed, warped, and opened again in impossible ways. Gravity felt like a suggestion, and Finn was pulled in different directions at times.
The air tasted metallic, thick with the scent of ozone, acid, and something fermenting.
And then they came.
Tiny, misshapen creatures peeled away from the walls like blistered skin. They had rudimentary wings, transparent and wet fly-like wings, but their bodies were malformed globs of flesh, some with teeth, some with feelers, others with bulbous eyes that twitched in all directions.
They flew in unpredictable patterns, buzzing toward Kai in swarms, shrieking like boiling tea kettles.
The sound pierced his ears and made him wince.
Finn bobbed and weaved through the tight spaces. From his back, Kai raised one hand and unleashed spell after spell, the air thick with the scent of scorched mucus and mana.
Kai felt two separate sources of mana from deep within. One felt alien compared to the mimic, and the other fed all of the life forms coming after them.
Kai directed Finn to the latter.
Out of all the types of spells he used, two types of elemental magic worked best. Ice, and fire. They couldn’t deal with extreme heat or cold.
"Ice Javelin! Flamethrower!"
One after another, elemental magic filled the tunnel with bursts of flame and jagged ice.
The creatures burst apart mid-flight, dissolving into slush and viscera. Still, they came, hundreds of them, like an immune system trying to flush out a virus.
"They’re like... half-formed antibodies," Kai muttered, flinging an arc of necrotic lightning into another cluster. "This thing’s trying to evolve a defense system to finish us off."
’I really need to conserve my life essence, though... I only have so much soul ichor left.’
[Life Essence: 12,903/27,500]
Finn veered hard to the right and Kai was flung from his back. He fell. Straight down towards the acid.
Calmly, he summoned his shadow magic, encasing it around his hands, and then shot it up toward the ceiling of the giant organic cavern.
It struck true, and embedded itself deep in the flesh. Kai hung there precariously, mere metres above the rising acid.
"Come back, Finn!"
Finn flew back towards Kai, shaking off the horrific creatures trying to take him apart.
The shadow wedged in the flesh above Kai trembled as it became dislodged. Kai fell. Without time to send up another giant spear of shadow, he breathed deeply.
Finn sped up. The runes on their body growing ever brighter Kai reached out his hand, and grabbed Finn’s hand just as his foot touched the stomach acid.
His boot, with his strengthening magic applied to it, resisted the acid until it dripped back to where it came from.
Hundreds of the creatures flew towards them.
Dodging the ones that Kai missed with his magic, Finn flew forward.
They narrowly avoided a gland-like door that tried to slam shut behind them. It acted like a science fiction security door on a spaceship. The mimic was adapting. Doing everything in its path to trap them.
Kai clenched his jaw. "No time to admire its biology."
He kept casting until his mana reserves began to feel the strain. Eventually, the acid below them disappeared, giving way to drier terrain.
A massive valve pulsed ahead like a beating heart, and when it opened with a wet squelch, they passed into a different chamber entirely.
Kai directed Finn to land, and Kai’s feet sunk into the soft flesh.
Here, the temperature dropped. The walls no longer dripped acid, but instead glistened with a thin sheen of slime. The air was quieter. Still hostile, but less chaotic.
A rumble echoed from deep within the chamber. Then, they emerged.
Mucus-covered shapes lumbered from the darkness. These creatures were small, dinosaur-like monsters with stubby tails, twitching heads, and jagged claws. Their eyes were cloudy. Some had too many limbs, others none at all. But they charged all the same.
Kai raised both hands.
’Flamethrower!’
With a constant blast of fire, he incinerated the first wave. Heat-based spells caused them to shrivel and combust.
’Frozen Zone!’
Cold shot out and cooled the area around Kai, spreading like a virus.
The frost shattered their malformed joints. They weren’t smart, not coordinated. Just muscle, meat, and instinct.
"Let’s see if you’re... usable."
He raised a hand and muttered "Raise Undead."
Nothing.
The spell fizzled. No response.
Kai frowned. "Not even a twitch. They’re... not alive. Just extensions. Like organs given orders to kill."
He tapped Finn’s back. "Return."
With a pulse of shadow, Finn dissolved into Kai’s shadow space.
Kai exhaled slowly, brushing sweat from his temple. "Alright. Time to stop playing around."
With a focused gesture, he drew on his shadow space, thick like soup, and pulled forth his elite undead.
One by one, his A-team emerged in circles of crackling necromantic energy:
Joran, the hulking, runed anti-magic brawler, cracked his knuckles with a grinless scowl.
Joe, the towering death knight with a blackened, chipped greatsword.
Rhea, her skeletal armour that Kai pieced together from the dead in Mirth, stepped forward with the poise of a general. Her gaze swept the chamber with cold efficiency.
Kael, the lightning-fast swordsman, spun his twin shortblades with impossible speed, runes flickering along his arms.
Merri, draped in shadow and silence, faded in and out of sight even while standing still.
And finally, Ralts, the chaos lich, her body a swirling storm of entropy, her bones warped with sigils no sane necromancer should touch.
Kai knew as much, because she seemed more and more sentient each time he brought her out.
She hovered just slightly above the ground, chuckling softly as if amused by the world’s suffering. By Kai’s suffering.
Kai straightened, eyes hard. "Let’s move."
The undead flanked him in formation, ready.
His force annihilated all of the dinosaur-like creatures that swarmed them.
He didn’t even have to lift a finger.
In this place, where mana was so dense it dripped like sap from the air, even gods would struggle to sense necromancy.
Kai was untethered, unseen, and fully in control.
Whatever the mimic had planned next, he would answer it with ruin.
’I’m not dying here.’