Chương 62: Face your fears they can't- okay they can only hurt you a little. ~promise

~promise Of all the threats that plague our world (read monsters) the worst can be agreed to be demons. While the main churches seems to believe the undead and those that practice necromantic arts are just as damaging as cultists… the truth of the matter is that even the most bloodthirsty vampires and depraved Lich wannabes cannot hold a candle to the true horrors of the abyss.

Its hard to stay out of the politics of religion – especially as both sides have a black and white "if you're not with us you're against us" view of their age old war. But in as neutral a manner as I can possibly state a vampire kills what. A dozen mortals a year? Necromancers are even better. The times a necromancer has slaughtered indiscriminately for power can be counted on a single hand.

Most necromancers seek out graveyards and battlefields and seem content to throw their armies at churches instead of villages. In comparison, nearly every time a demon is summoned by some insane cultist, countless die. The worst example is from an ancient city where it is estimated over 25 million people died from a single demon summoning. The city of Alma had steadily been growing into the largest city in the world at that time before a massive travesty befell them.

Less than a hundred people survived that day, and all spoke of a massive tentacled whale that flew through the air and sucked everything into its maw. One of the survivors was even a seafaring transcendent who spoke of the creature that came thorugh and how it dwarfed sea monsters in both scale and power – and sea monsters are wildly known to be some of the strongest. To end this tragedy on a sad note: the demon itself wasn't even slain by some vengeful hero.

It simply ripped itself out of our dimension once it had its fill. That means that demon is still out there – and we have no clue how many more of that magnitude might exist. For this reason, even necromancers will complete kill quests issued by the system if they find cultists in their area. Excerpt obtained from a heretical book about the dangers of demons. With a goal in mind, Innearth slowly shook off the strange state he was in.

It was almost like he had been pretending to be insane and – despite having had troubles trying to prevent his split personalities from manifesting – all he needed to do now was shake them off. I'm bored with you guys. Come on. You don't exist. And. Just like that. They didn't exist anymore. There was just him and his monsters. … and a faint embarrassment as he stared about his pointless floor of whimsy. I don't think I want to show people this floor.

Adventurers might start thinking I've gone fully insane and seek to crush my core. No, this floor of rejects can stay buried. Reviewing everything he could think of to set up he decided to revert that decision. This floor can be the location of my portal to Doc… I wonder if he'll help me set up a second portal from here to my first floor? He did say he got them to work over short distances without spawning demons.

Clearing away a section near the middle of his bizarre floor, Innearth made a stone dais that represented where the portal would sit. Working outwards he designed large compressed crystal pillars as dragons' teeth – brushing up against Diamond mana while doing so. The hydra would be the gatekeeper of the portal and hopefully be in charge of slaughtering any demons that managed to slip through.

Its companions became policing monsters that spread about the floor like secret police whose job was to find the insane amongst the bizarre. Copying some of Doc's defences, Innearth tried to set up chokepoints around the dragons' teeth by making plants with cracked cores. They would constantly release a stream of mana – hopefully drawing the destructive invaders towards them. Around each trap was a wide array of different – hopefully lethal – trap plants. A void rose from the mysterious island.

A magma and flame bush. A sharp and poison-filled vine that shot out and retracted feelers. A spinning saw filled with ice and regrow-able, easily shattered teeth. But of course, demons were strangely resistant against most magical effects and would dull the traps he set up as long as they could suck the mana out. So Innearth tried to use madness principles to give himself an edge.

As a combination of Life and Death mana, Demonic mana – and thus the creatures that existed through said mana – was weak against both kinetic and mental mana types. Doc had a kinetic affinity and was able to make cages of perfect kinetic dispersal and repulsion… That was still beyond Innearth and he didn't know if he would ever reach that point. … But in exchange for not being quite as skilled with kinetic mana he could also layer mental mana about his areas.

If cages and kinetic defences were less effective why not combine them with mind control and compulsion? First, he set up a node in every single one of the dragons' teeth that extended around them in a tight radius. They were designed to further direct them towards the traps but also to confuse demons slightly in an attempt to make them easier to dispatch. FED could probably have done a better job of it as a mental core but…

well most demons didn't seem to have a lot of intelligence, so it was almost easier to manipulate them roughly. A simpler and rougher hammer of confusion and compulsion would be easier to notice and fight against… but also stronger than the more subtle versions and thus more effective. Then, using his own combinations of void and kinetic movement, Innearth designed methods of suppression and gravity from both above and below.

The "dragons' teeth" he had designed to slow down and direct demons were protected kinetically as the most effective magic against the devices and more effects were added that pushed demons down to the ground and stole their movement. At some point, Innearth began refining his defences one last time with a "gauntlet" of changes by the crystal dwarves. The newest overseer would design steps and changes and then the grunts would distribute the work among them.

Most of the runes and crafting processes were hard to apply to the defences that were already activated – so Innearth was forced to partially dismantle a lot of them to help the dwarves focus on one part at a time. The changes were slight due to the already overwhelming effort that Innearth had put in – simple effects that increased the efficiency and strength of the pillars traps and buried plates. Flaws or cracks that demons could use to slip through the defences were shored up.

The combination of Innearth's trapmaking and the dwarves' runes harmonized into a proper ritual. One of defence and suppression of demons. Some effort was put into trying to whitelist his own monsters or focus only on blacklisting demons but… at the end of the day that was introducing a flaw into the system purposefully that might be exploited.

The best he could do was set up a living quarters for the "hydra and co" inside the suppression array, then provide paths that could be turned on and off from outside of the area. The hydra would spend its time 30 meters or so to the side of the stone dais and could be called upon relatively quickly to either send companions through to the area or mobilize itself.

The brute force compulsion didn't work against the hydra or its companions, but the increased gravity and kinetic defences would make their movement uncomfortable if they moved away from their living zone. Finally, Innearth was done. He had done everything he could think of – even laying null stone below and above his array to "fight fire with fire". Setting up a stream he waited for Doc to review his defences. ZeMadDoctor: You're ready? Alright then.

Please feel free to work through the proof you can handle your side of the portal. Without responding, Innearth created a slime of Demonic mana. Instead of waffling about with using both life and death mana in separate parts of the monster, he made a single seed of combined mana and material in the center of his goo. Shaking slightly the slime seemed to suck inwards and flip inside out – switching from a clear state to a rainbow sheen as its shape rapidly began spooling.

A demon pushed into the location his slime had previously been. A form that made Innearth feel disgust while looking at it. Tongues seemed to fan out of the twisting shape that started to form – like a hundred labradors were shoving their tongues violently through a net. Seeming to orient itself, the demon turned to run into the surrounding suppression field. Before it managed to even reach that far, a bubbly H shaped monster walked up behind it.

The H walked in a wide stride over and then stabbed its right leg down onto the creature. Squishing out, a slobbering shrieking sound rose as the H ground the pathetic demon into the ground. After dying the simplest demon expanded with strange stringy guts – as its 4-dimensional shape was forcefully violently cross-sectioned into 3 dimensions and left in a heap. ZeMadDoctor: Wasn't so bad. I'd have been surprised if that did anything. Surprised by the shape of the monster. The one that finished it off. I mean.

It has two legs and two arms but… it's not what I would consider combat shaped. Next level? Innearth: yeah just give me a minute. That was strangely cathartic. I almost want to summon more weak demons to squish. After collecting himself Innearth spawned a tier 1 cored lesser snake. Not bothering to make an actual monster, he simply ripped the circuit out of the schematic and lay a rod of demonic bait in the center. Immediately Innearth felt a presence seem to pull itself into the "sacrificed" before him.

Instantly the snake was shredded into what appeared to be a ball of yarn. A fractal of "wires" spread out from the crumpled heap and scraped into the ground and itself – before slowly gaining shape. Moving and bouncing, the yarn wrapped itself into what looked like a humanoid cloth doll made of hair and tendons and bloody floss – and then the demon stood up. This time while staring at the demon Innearth felt a faint tinge of anxiety.

Irrational purposeless fear that wasn't even directed at the cause of the effect floated about his mind. And this time all of the hydra's companions moved forwards to subdue the demon. Flickering mana shone between the D and one half of the humanoid monster as they cast quick shards of nail-like crystal towards the beast. Swiping forwards with its sword, the other half of the humanoid monster hopped forwards and cut through a swath of demonic hair.

This demon was silent and purposeful as it lashed back – swiping the single legged monster over and moving to skewer it. From the side a mass of limbs that looked almost demonic itself – but carried none of the mind skewering effects – crashed into the beast flinging it across the small platform. As the demon reached the edges it seemed to pause, unharmed but confused, before digging strands of hair down into the ground around it.

Immediately thin wires began to pulse as the fractal of wires spread out like the roots of a tree. Colour leached out of the ground as the demon drank mana and seemed to solidify more. Its length grew ever so slightly thicker with a wash of colours moving up and down the lines like veins… But this close to the edge of the suppression array and in the midst of drinking from the ground it sensed the nearest "bait". Retracting its straws from the ground it turned to glide towards what it recognized as a meal.

Dashing through a forest of pillars, the demon's charge slowed and strained as it found it was unable to break through these strange constructs that now surrounded it. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Compressed down into the ground on both sides its movement slowed as its humanoid shape was flattened into a disc. Straining forwards slowly the disc stretched out into a thin snake-like shape.

Its movements were laboured and despite trying its best to suck the mana out of the air around it the spellwork itself remained stable. Inching forwards the demonic yarn snake attempted to find its meal weaving back and forth between pillars with a single minded determination. … and then a wave of fire and molten globs of mana spread out onto its length.

Bits of the yarn greedily lapped up the mana even as it ignited but the heat was higher than it could out consume – mana absorption instead of nullification along with the seeds of actual fire and actual magma that lingered in the spell. ZeMadDoctor: Well… that last one got quite a bit further but you seem to have managed it pretty well. It really depends on distance between us but I don't think stronger ones than that will slip through…

at least if we keep portal activation time to a few seconds and don't repeatly use it in a short amount of time. ZeMadDoctor: Do you want me to help you set up defenses for a tier 2 summoning? Innearth: Sure. When he was younger, he might have refused the help but by now he had been thoroughly burned by demons and didn't want his pride to lead to an accident. Innearth wasn't fully able to mimic "Phantasmal Patterns" use of the system to let one build through the camera…

but what he could do was provide several cameras showing his whole setup – a second set of shared experimentation panels. And then a third set of overlapping "trade in place" panels that would let doc transfer between his staging area and the real positions. … Inelegant but it worked for his purposes. Doc quickly and roughly made a domed cage of perfect kinetic repulsion that faced inwards.

Then he split it into parts and began refining those sections precisely – passing over all of his rough outlines and deepening the constructs. Somehow, he only needed thin wires to host the constructs and the way they were shaped spoke of a use of magic that went parallel to Innearths own experiments. Placing the cage in place Doc looked about the rest of Innearth's defences approvingly and then dropped it. ZeMadDoctor: not much else I can do. The cage will work much better if you can claim it.

But I can't confirm it will be as strong as mine… I think you mentioned your dungeon circuits worked really well with crystal mana? These resonate with my kinetic affinity… Innearth: well… I appreciate it all the same. By the way. I think you're already doing me a favor with helping set this up, but do you think you could help me figure out how to get adventurers out of this area and into a better part of my dungeon? I feel like I don't want to send them through the suppression array I've set up for demons.

ZeMadDoctor: … of course. And as much as I am helping you. I'm also doing this to see what will happen. I've pushed my portal design. To as high a height as I can currently imagine - by paradoxically giving away some of the control of the design. To my research team. ZeMadDoctor: Once I can prove you won't get overrun on your side. And that I'm not inadvertently sending off a demon infestation… I'll fix you up a way to transfer adventurers to and from the long distance one.

Should probably set up something similar on my end. Innearth: Great. Alright, I'm going to summon the next version. Innearth made another lesser snake sacrifice this time with a tier 2 core and gave it life. The snake shook violently and then melted – an ominous feeling filling the air and then dissipating. ZeMadDoctor: Ah. Yes. You either have to strengthen the monster's body. Or increase the amount of demonic mana in it to a proper offering size. Its thankfully harder to summon one of these by accident…

although if there were other monsters in the vicinity it might have jumped between them killing enough to maintain a foothold. Innearth: … okay. Remaking the offering, Innearth made a large bar of demonic material in the center instead of a thin rod. This time he had to hype himself up to finish the process – the faint brush had made him rethink everything he had done up till this point. Do I really want adventurers this bad? … Yes. Yes I do. Giving life to the snake instantly sacrificed it.

This time, with more power to aid its transition, a bulge of power seemed to roll out of the snake and then flip as the process took several painful seconds. The snake seemed to shed its skin, arms and legs crawled out of its back and pushed upwards – a "flipped" humanoid demon pulling itself out of a hole it had no way to fit in. The demon had eyes, a nose, and a mouth but they were "upside down" – in that the grinning teeth were near the top and its bloodshot black eyes were at the bottom.

Each of its limbs were facing the wrong way with the legs having backwards joints and its arms seeming to be placed facing upwards – so it looked like the demon was holding both of its arms in the air. Staring around and licking his lips the demon paused a strange grimace that vaguely looked like shock crossing its face when it saw the "letters" advancing towards it menacingly.

Beginning to laugh the demon spoke as he looked at each monster in term and then spun around and looked vaguely towards where the camera Doc was looking through was situated. Innearth: … doc I'm getting a bad feeling about this one. ZeMadDoctor: Don't worry that's normal for this level of demon. I've managed to contain the level higher than this before you should be fine. tier 4 cores... well you saw some of the arch demons in my tour. Ones we couldn't see? Stuff like that.

Innearth watched the demon continue to speak – the sound twisting and ringing but ultimately nonsense to him. Innearth: Its presence is making me feel really gross so I'm just going talk okay? Watching this I'm wondering. If demons are weak to both kinetic and mental mana and spells what about curses? And spinning that around are MIM's weak against Demonic mana? ZeMadDoctor: That is a great question! It's really hard for me to experiment with curse mana – my kinetic affinity makes mental mana worse than a chore…

but I tried introducing one of the curse materials I made to a demon and they seemed to like it. ZeMadDoctor: So… my initial experiment leads me to believe curses don't work well against demons. A weapon made with demonic mana probably wouldn't work well against a MIM either. Innearth: huh… I guess dust wouldn't be a good way to control steam either. ZeMadDoctor: … surprisingly I haven't touched the T1 madness materials. I've been meaning to for ages. But everything else just seemed more important. How is that?

Innearth: Want me to spoil the experiment? You should be fine if you want to go in blind. We can talk about our findings afterwards! ZeMadDoctor: Sure. That would be fine. As Innearth tried to distract himself, he watched the demon stop talking and begin breathing in. Mana and colour seemed to fall into the whole front of their body as they did so, a rumbling filling the air.

The primal fear and mind breaking effect of the demon's presence sharply spiked and Innearth started flashing back to the question mark demon's attack again and again. It's happening again. I'm going to lose everything. I don't want to rebuild again. I'm going to die, aren't I? As the demon sucked mana towards its front, two… lungs, seemed to appear in the air behind its shoulder blades. Pink constructs unfurled outwards behind them as they filled with mana and looked more and more like fleshy ballooning wings.

The demon appeared to be more real than its surroundings. As colour rose in its continence and more mana let it "relax" into a more unreal shape the dull surroundings seemed to fade away. Like the weaker version the demon stopped and seemed to taste the traps in the air. Lunging forwards faster than anything Innearth had ever seen the demon ignored the letter-shaped monsters and aimed for the nearest bait.

As if being swatted out of the air two meters into the suppression array the demon slowed and squished down towards the ground. Landing, a rough guttural shriek was let out as the demon stared at the pillars – seeming to understand they were the source of its discomfort and hating their existence. Swiping its claws against pillars it watched as fingers squished into empty air around them and then was repulsed.

Shaking its head the demon seemed smart enough to know to fight against the less subtle mental confusion but weak enough against it that as time went on its mind was beaten down harder and harder. It was at this moment that the monsters behind it attacked. All 8 of the companions were here to attack and magic shots landed across the demon's flank barely causing a scratch. A sound in the distance indicated the hydra was coming to help.

Pushing forward arms crossed in front of it – as if walking through a wind storm – the demon continued on towards the bait. Crashing from the side human centipede slashed against the demon's back finally drawing hissing rainbow oil slick black blood. This made the demon finally switch targets. Lunging forwards it lashed out fingers digging into centipede flesh and ripping a chunk out to bring to its mouth.

The lung wings behind the demon beat furiously against the suppression around it as the demon ate and moved forwards once more. Snatching the D as it shot an arrow of crystalline mana like a bow towards it, the demon laughed before biting down. The hydra's companion died to the trial as it was eaten like a weirdly shaped doughnut. Turning to the "O" shaped monster the demon said something gesturing towards it its intent clear – "come over here so I can eat you, I would like another doughnut".

And then the hydra was on the scene. Lumbering forwards it moved with momentum and purpose – one head's eyes blazing with more fury than the others. Each head was a circuit terminating in a tier 9 core and despite having not been designed initially to fight demons, the boss started to overwhelm the intruder with a massive amount of energy. The head who had lost its companion grew a massive boulder of ice over 5 meters in diameter in less than a second – then smashed it downwards towards the suppressed demon.

On the side, a head with two spindly arms waved them about as it created various kinetic constructs blocking the demon's dodge away from the ice boulder and empowering its allies. Another head this one with "polka dots" of different coloured scales sent a spell through its connection to the X shaped companion who began lifting off the ground and spinning – a void singularity forming in the air in front of it and pulling outwards into a bullet shape.

The boulder heavily battered the demon before a second and third appeared seconds later. The head that had an incredibly strong ice boulder skill hit first and the most frequently, but the rest of the heads with their more drawn out spells had their shot as well. Most heads with a more generalized spell network took longer to cast their spells, but when they managed it the design was tailored more directly against their foe.

Sucking Inwards to heal, the demon was battered by sharp spells above both its ability to absorb them and its ability to heal from them. After a dozen cages spinning ropes, bolts and waves passed over the demon, it finally started unravelling. Pillows of mass ballooned out from strange unsymmetrical positions as it flipped around and became a smouldering frozen blob. Content the threat was neutralized, seven of the heads stopped attacking and turned to look at the remaining head.

The head that had lost its companion continued to batter the remains with massive boulders in rage. Again and again strikes landed and despite not having a proper mouth to scream with or tear glands to cry with behind the two crystals that made up its eyes… the distress and anger and frustration of Innearth's boss was evident. ZeMadDoctor: … you know I've never had a dungeon monster act so emotional… it makes me feel kind of weird. Why is it doing that? Innearth: The uh… soul bond does that when one of the two die.

Haven't figured out why. ZeMadDoctor: Well its creepy. I'm going to transfer the portals over. It seems your side is well defended. Didn't even have to use my final failsafe. Innearth: Sure. Just give me a bit and I can help you set up where I want the second one to go. I'm thinking they initially teleport into this stone dais. Survive in it while I remove any demons… maybe have them fight a mini boss or two and then open up the portal to my beginner area?

ZeMadDoctor: They will have to stay in the decontamination area you made for at least a minute before activating the second portal. Otherwise… well distance works differently in the void but they are still physically nearby. Something drawn to the first portals opening might break through the second portal if it notices it opening right after nearby. Innearth: I thought you said the second ones are safe? ZeMadDoctor: Yeah they are. I'm just making them even safer. Going from a 99% you'll be fine to a 99. 999999%.

Innearth: Okay. And yeah I'm having second thoughts about sending them to the beginner area… I assume anyone who can last in the ring might be better sent to near the crystal caverns… Okay. I'm making a new small floor. Currently, I have 3 floors for a zone and then a transition floor… but I've skipped the area between the magma halls and the crystal caverns. Plomping adventurers down there should be good for it – will even complete the pattern better. ZeMadDoctor: Just tell me where you want it.

Innearth: Here's a good spot. Setting Doc up with portal areas, Innearth made a floor at a single room right after the magma spider sisters. He quickly brainstormed some ideas for a theme then decided the black and red should be separated from the blues and purples of the crystal caverns with a nice green floor. Dirt and Life mana made incredibly fertile ground to transplant some grass and bushes while mud mana made sections that stayed damp and provided the plants that needed water enough to live on.

Innearth turned to the market to start picking out plants he liked the look of and asked Amy for ideas. While the dungeons continued on with their life and planned out future constructions, a hydra head mourned and slowly cultivated a hatred. A hatred for any and all demons and a burning desire to kill any that passed nearby. Its "Job" became the only thing it cared about and its burning purpose slightly rubbed off on its fellow heads. Working together all 8 heads made a pact.

They would never let another head go through the same loss their brethren had faced. And thus a ritual was created. Each head that had a way of creating spells – along with the one half of a humanoid that could – started to combine their efforts. As more and more magic was done and overlaid the spells lost some of their rigidness and blended together – the separate intents coming together and forming a sort of wish to the mana. A promise.

Only one of the hydra heads could cast spells using a medium and they took the brunt of their fellow's desire and mana to make the spell more permanent... slowly writing out a rolling script in some ancient language upon the stone at the center of their "living area". Their looping script fuzzed as the others' spells landed and attached onwards, while soul bonds were fizzed from a star to a net. Several hours of continuous casting was what it took to set up this ritual.

Several hours of continuous casting was what it took to upgrade their soul bonds. Now they were linked even more inseparably. The ritual they completed nearly perfectly copied an elven hunting party and now, none could die unless they all did. Even if ground into a paste with shattered cores and destroyed flesh the ritual helped pull their souls into a network between them protecting them from true death. Given time they could be revived once more. It was too late for D to be saved.

It was not too late for the rest of them.