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33. Foul Feeder
🕑 Added 2024-10-08 16:00:08 +0000 UTCThe slime loomed over them, dark and dangerous. Big, fat drops of acid splashed down from above. The Armalgam stood beside Levi, and the Spinal Cord lifted from his hips, swaying like a cobra. Colin fell back. Isa stretched, eyeing the slime up. “I’ll help, this time. You’ll still get plenty of EXP even with me fighting.”
“I’ll take all the help I can get.”
The giant slime spread wide, pressing all the way to the wall on either side. It stretched up as well, reaching to the ceiling. Trembling, the wall of slime approached them.
“I can’t disagree with that tactic,” Levi said, looking the wall of slime over. He shook his head. “I mean, yeah. That’s the ninety percent solution to anyone who falls down here.”
He stepped back, grabbing Colin by the wrist. “Stick close. Isa?”
“Yep.” She drew toward Levi as well.
He gestured with his free hand. The Armalgam clambered up his body. Two arms gripped his shoulders, while the other two linked over his head, creating as large of a platform as possible. He called up enough of the Spinal Cord to cover the length of his body and set it spinning in front of him.
Levi took a deep breath. He leaned forward, bobbing on the balls of his feet. “Healing duty, Colin.”
“Yes.”
“And I’ll keep the undead un-alive.”
The wall closed in on them. It jiggled overhead. Acid splattered down all around them.
“Three. Two.”
Levi burst off, charging into the wall. Colin and Isa ran with him. Isa kept pace, while Colin ran with all his might.
The Spinal Cord struck the surface of the slime and sent the jelly flying. It carved a hole into the surface of the wall, but at the same time, the foul feeder corroded it away. Levi pushed mana into it, forcibly healing it, but couldn’t keep up with the pace of the corrosion. He spooled out more Spinal Cord as the foul feeder ate it away.
Overhead, the Armalgam corroded as well, but slower. It wasn’t being weed-whackered into acid, so it could hold up a little better against the corrosion of the foul feeder. Levi fed a small amount of mana into it, just enough to stave off total corruption, but focused most of his mana on the Spinal Cord.
Despite his best efforts, the cord shortened with every step. One spine vanished into the foul feeder, then another. Brown, oily slime parted around them and closed in behind them. They existed in a breath, in a bubble, in the space between a thought. Death in front of them, death behind. The air was thick with acrid acid, burning their lungs and eyes. Levi’s skin grew raw. Wounds opened in his arms and chest. Gold magic settled over his whole body, constantly healing it, but it couldn’t keep up. The acid did too much damage, too fast.
“How much longer?” Colin asked. He tried to hold it back, but fear crept into his voice.
Levi said nothing, too focused on keeping the Spinal Cord alive and spinning to reply.
The slime darkened. Faintly, Levi could see something beyond its limits. The Spinal Cord shortened, down to two spines. Levi took it off his waist and held it in his hands, letting it use everything it had left. Darker and darker. The slime thinned, growing translucent. The Spinal Cord eroded. One spine remained.
“Come on!” he shouted suddenly. Gripping the spine firmly, he shoved it forward. The final spine diminished to a few bones—and broke through.
Levi stumbled out. Isa flashed past him, escaping into clean air. Behind him, Colin stumbled out, coughing and waving his hand. The slime continued on behind them, seemingly unaware of the hole burrowed through its center. As it finished crossing the room, the hole slowly closed, but at the same time, the slime grew smaller by that amount.
“At least we did damage,” Levi muttered. He looked at the short length of spine left in his hand, then sighed and tossed it away. The spine dissipated to dust, no longer animated by necromancy. Even if he shoved all his mana into it, he wouldn’t be able to heal it back to its former glory. His undead healing could only repair what was there, not return lost body parts. Once a spine was corroded away completely, it was gone. He couldn’t recall a spine that had already rotted away any more than he could reanimate an undead that had collapsed into dust.
He looked at Isa and Colin. Isa pulled her suit away from her body, gazing at the ruined fabric in despair. Colin’s hands were bright red, his gloves completely ruined. The Armalgam hopped off his shoulders. It landed, only for its arms to slip out from under it as the exposed bone on its top almost gave way.
“Not you, too.” Levi put his foot on it, forcibly healing it with a surge of mana. He gestured Colin over. “Come on, you too.”
Colin hesitated. “You should save your strength. You’re our primary fighter.”
“Don’t say that before you see me fight,” Isa said. Dropping her suit, she stepped forward and cracked her knuckles.
“You gonna finish it off?” Levi asked.
“I can’t do that, but I can weaken it. Foul feeders are pretty vulnerable to fire, but one that big won’t go down with one spell. Or at least, not one of my spells. I’m not a magic specialist. More of a generalist.”
“Pity,” Levi muttered. He looked around him. He’d half expected to find a field of bones on the far side of the slime, but he’d underestimated the foul feeder. It left nothing behind. Not the bones, not the flesh, nothing. The stone floor shone in the low light, gleaming and polished from the foul feeder’s acid. Overhead, green light shone through slits in the floor where the other end of the pitfall trap provided another opportunity to fall into the slime pit.
“Cleanest godsdamned pitfall trap I’ve ever seen,” Levi commented. He thought for a minute. No bodies. No bones. Not even scraps remained. The foul feeder had doubtlessly killed dozens, but it had eaten them so thoroughly that there weren’t even piles of foul feeder crap for Levi to attempt reanimate. Still, cold energy shimmered around him. The room was full of death, inundated with it. Every breath reinvigorated him. His core brimmed over with mana, but he had nothing to put it into.
Nothing? When it came to undead, there was a whole world of variety available to him. There were zombies, yes, and skeletons, even vampires… but what about ghosts? Shades? All manner of immaterial undead?
“Hey, System. How about it, huh? Can I raise some of these ghosts?” Levi asked the thin air.
Colin raised his brows. “That’s a good idea. Do you think it’ll let you do that?”
“I dunno. Worth a try,” he said.
The slime hit the far wall. It rebounded off the wall and crawled toward them again, approaching them at the same exact speed it had charged them the first time. Isa stood at the halfway point. Her lips moved, muttering a spell. She focused on her hands, pressing them tightly together. A small red light flickered between her palms. With each passing moment, it grew brighter. Heat and light swirled around her.
“Ha!” She threw her hands out. A small spark of fire sizzled out from her hands and danced toward the slime.
Levi stared. “After all that posturing, that’s all we get? I thought we were gonna get a fireball, at least.”
Isa rolled her eyes at him. Behind her, the mote continued bobbling toward the slime. “Patience.”
“No, no, I get it. It’s hard to perform under pressure. We’ve all been there.” He reached out to pat Isa’s shoulder.
The mote of fire touched the slime. The spark spread. Lines of fire burst out from the compressed point of light, and it surged up the slime’s surface. In an instant, it completely engulfed the foul feeder. A wall of flames raged to the sky. The foul feeder fell back on itself. It thrashed, batting at the fire. The slime wall collapsed as the foul feeder desperately rolled around, battering off the flames.
Levi’s eyes widened. He sucked his lips in, then let them out with a breath. “Welp.”
“It might be hard for you to perform under pressure, but I never miss a beat,” Isa said smugly, tossing her hair.
“Yeah, yeah.” Levi pulled up his System. Let’s see if it’s done anything about my plea. It’s a standard necromancer’s move, seems like something reasonable to ask for.
Levi | 18 | Lv 28
Class: Necromancer [SPECIAL]
Str: 33
Mag: 60
Dex: 30
Spd: 32
Def: 15
Res: 57
[Swordsmanship]
[Shadow Manipulation]
[Shadow Step]
[Raise Dead]
[Drain]
[Shape Dead]
[Heal Undead]
[Call Ghosts]
In places inundated with the unquiet dead, call their grudges and resentment to you. Once you accumulate enough resentment, unleash it as a corrupting beam of necromantic power.
“Nice,” he muttered. He took a deep breath, then threw out his hand and activated the skill. “Calling all ghosts!”
The cold energy he’d felt since the moment he arrived in the pitfall trap suddenly… woke up. There wasn’t another way to describe the sensation. Until he activated the skill, the energy had simply been there, passively waiting for him to absorb it. But now it had eyes. And it was watching him.
To his surprise, it didn’t immediately rush to him. Instead, it waited. It had been woken, and it wanted to know why.
Levi cleared his throat. “Hello. I bet you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you together here, today.”
The slime battered out the last of the flames. It hoisted itself back up, no longer a wall-to-wall ten foot thick monstrosity, but still plenty large. If it had been twenty feet wide by ten tall by ten long before, it was ten by five by five now. It charged toward them, faster for having less mass.
“Levi, whatever you’re doing—speed it up!” Isa said, retreating. Colin retreated with her, keeping a nervous eye on the foul feeder.
“Right, right. So. Listen. I get it. You were killed by that slime over there, and that’s some real bullshit. I mean, a slime? Killed you? How lame.”
He felt the energy turn away. Some of it felt as though it was returning to sleep.
“Whoa, whoa. All right. No more jokes. Listen, guys. I know you’re dead, and I know you’re not happy about it. Some dumb unfair pitfall trap dropped you directly into a huge, crazy dangerous slime? Totally unfair. So listen. Give me your power, and I’ll wipe out that slime—no. We can destroy that slime.”
Eyes turned toward him again. He felt the weight of unseen attention on his shoulders. Grinning, Levi spread his hands. “One last time, from beyond the grave, let’s hit this slime where it hurts, huh?”
Darkness flowed toward his hand. First a trickle, then a stream, it began pouring toward his hand. Green light flickered in the depths of the darkness, pouring through the eyes and mouths of screaming faces. A ball of green light formed in his palm. It bubbled with black smoke riddled with faces. Each face only existed for a moment, just long enough to mime a scream or cry a few tears before it was pulled down into the depths of the smoke again.
Isa eyed it hesitantly. “Is that spell evil?”
“What? Why would you say that? I’m just gathering the resentment of the dead and using it as my own power. What part of that sounds evil?” Levi asked innocently.
“All of it,” Colin said.
Isa gestured at him.
“Yeah, but I’m using it to destroy the slime and save our lives, so it’s not that bad, is it?” Levi pointed out.
“I wasn’t going to stop you. I was simply pointing it out,” Isa said with a shrug.
The slime closed in on them. It pulled itself up tall, preparing to slam down on Levi.
Levi danced back. At the same time, he threw out his hand. “Go!”
