Reborn to Devour: A Demonic LitRPG

Though there was no concern that the flooding above would reach us, we were confronted with a very different version of a flood. The darkness belched more and more specters from its inky depths to try to overwhelm us. Where we killed two, four appeared.

It wasn’t all bad, these creatures were piñatas of XP. Tens of thousands seemed to roll in every minute like we were dueling against wallets. The best part of it was that Herzblatt was doing all the work. After their proclamation and leaving the real blood on Yoshitsune and my hands, I wasn’t very interested in bailing him out of this predicament. If he was about to die…maybe.

Yoshitsune was more forgiving than I was. The sheer multitude of specters allowed her lightning to bounce among several creatures. With another chug of a mana potion, there were only a few minutes more of spells before she was bled dry.

“I’m going to need some help, lizard,” Herzblatt groaned as he cleaved several specters into mist. Numerous small wounds covered his body and stained his body crimson.

“But I thought you said that you had this,” I responded, fully prepared to allow Herzblatt to die if it meant that I could earn over 100,000 XP in this encounter.

“I…overestimated myself,” Herzblatt groaned. “Also we only keep this XP if we win.”

Damn. My greed outweighed my pettiness. I stepped forwards and swiped my claws and tail through several specters. With my left hand full of a swinging lantern, my left side was completely open to the assault.

I left backwards to give myself some space. I summoned a chain and used it to fasten the lantern around my neck to create the most avant-garde necklace of all time. With the light bobbling with every movement to make the world move in unsettling ways within my mind, I joined the fray to press on. They were not especially tough, a claw or a couple tail attacks were enough to keep them at bay. But, like death by a thousand paper cuts, their minor attacks began to build up.

A slash here, a spell there to chip and freeze my scales. There was still no thinning to the enemies and our resources were dwindling. It felt like spraying a gas pump into a campfire.

“Fuck it!” I shouted. “We just need to jump!”

I turned and ran towards the nearest gap; the footsteps of Yoshitsune and Herzblatt were hot on my heels. No specters waited for me in the gap between layers to scrape me with their cold.

Light from the lantern was useless. The magical darkness shrouded the lamp to make it as useful as tits on a bull. The ground came up quickly like a concrete wall while drunk driving. I had to spin my body and use my back to soften the blow for the lantern. I heard the other two tumble against the stone while I got to my feet.

Specters were hot on our heels. I summoned a rain of tar to meet them in the gap. Screeching and sizzling met my ears as I grew ever richer. Still, it was not enough to dam the river. Specters flew in stacked on top of each other so that they could shield their comrades and allow more to flow through.

“Get up!” I ordered as I hoisted Yoshitsune onto her feet. “We’re not done with this shit yet!”

Herzblatt had to scramble onto his feet on his own. A sword so long that you would only find in cartoons appeared in his hands. He swung the slab of glowing steel to vaporize about fifteen enemies and give him the breathing room necessary to turn tail and run.

Another leap turned to another correct guess. Once more, I was turned into a meat basketball as I bounced myself onto my feet faster. Second verse was the same as the first when it came to what followed. Only difference was that whatever brain remained in their undead form still worked enough not to spill through in the same funneled fashion. Instead, they came from all sides like a swarm of wasps to sting us to death.

“This way!” Herzblatt called out, deciding that I had control of the faith wheel for a little too long.

But, Yoshitsune had already automatically moved to follow. There was not enough time to get to any antics so I followed behind. This time, I was the straggler that had to fight my way free. It felt like fighting a snowman as every contact left numbing ice against my scales and filled my mouth with the sensation of chewing dry ice.

The specters weren’t keen on giving me as clean getaway as Herzblatt earned. Claws and teeth dug into my flesh to try to pin me to the stone. My legs pumped like the driving wheels of a locomotive and my mouth spewed smoke as my Dragon Heart pumped searing blood through my veins. I felt like a pro running back churning through a squad of sumo wrestlers trying to tackle me as I flung myself off the edge and down into the darkness.

We hit freefall but the fight didn’t end. My hands pried off arms and teeth while I obliterated anything that I could reach.

What I couldn’t was crushed under my back as I slammed down to safety once more. Silhouettes of dust formed into the ground like nuclear bomb victims before the flock of specters scratched at my head again.

“We have a problem!” Yoshitsune shouted as she fought off enemies with her blade. It seemed that, this time, there were some already waiting at the next layer.

“What is it?” I asked impatiently.

“Neither of the gaps feel right!” Herzblatt answered instead.

I was about to scoff and call them all manner of colorful words that I was glad Yoshitsune wouldn’t know, but I oddly agreed with them. The gaps looked no different than the holes that we had already leapt down. But, this time, an intuition in my head informed me that both options would result in a freefall to messy deaths.

So, in other word, we were fucked.

A feeling similar to surrender filled me as a reaction. My knees grew weak and my mind exhausted as the adrenaline seeped from my body. But, after getting whacked over the head with a ghostly hammer, my mind reset. No, it can’t end like this. I made way too much money to fall to my knees and succumb. There had to be some other way for us to get out of this.

My eyes widened, the answer was right in front of me the entire time.

“Let’s jump right down the middle!” I called out as I inched towards the hollow center of the tower.

While I expected some pushback, and nearly got it from Yoshitsune’s bewildered expression and opened mouth, Herzblatt grinned widely. It made me uneasy that he was so excited about the idea, but it was better than refusal.

“You’re a real man of faith!” Herzblatt exclaimed. “If it all feels like death, then go for the most dangerous option. It’s a true leap of faith!”

Herzblatt nearly launched himself off the edge with a joyous laugh. It made harrowing echoes off of the walls and probably traumatized anyone else still alive. I looked towards Yoshitsune who still seemed unconvinced. Poor her, she didn’t have a choice.

I ran towards the edge and jumped out like a tourist off of a beach cliff. Yoshitsune, obligated not to leave me, fought her way off to the side while the population of an entire nation’s worth of graveyards followed us down.

We raced down the tower. Wind whipped passed my ears and my eyes watered. The seconds steadily ticked by in my head. One jump. Two. Three. Four. Five.

It was the equivalent of falling on six trust falls down the gaps. I already counted us dead after I passed the count of three. Not to mention that the cackling and praising of God was still being delivered by the dog priest just out of view. Oh well, it was still the coolest way to die out of the options that were presented. It was always unreasonable to assume that everything would go right the first time. Even failures were important to grow strong. Goodbye, money, it would take weeks to see you again.

A soft glow could be barely seen through the darkness. Then, it turned into the shape of the massive sword and swung down mightily at whatever was just below.

“Die beast!” Herzblatt shouted as an ear shattering screech rumbled up the tower.

I instantly readied my claws as I heard Yoshitsune sparking up. A sizable silhouette appeared beneath us. Large undulating cables spread in all directions like power lines. They spread around us and turned invisible before reaching the specters.

The puppet master behind these phantoms came into view. A creature that looked like if Andre the Giant became a zombie wizard appeared underneath us. They dwarfed the dog that tumbled next to them and were preparing some sort of spell. Black clouds formed around their hands and more specters emerged from the ground.

I lacked the luxury of thinking more than that. My cannonball of a body finally landed on top of the creature. My health nearly completely disappeared from the impact and blood squirted out of my mouth like I was a ketchup packet. Fortunately, I still had the agility to carve a long red line down the creature’s side.

But, as it turned out, I was nothing more than a pathetic appetizer for what my partner was bringing. Like sticking a metal fork in an outlet, Yoshitsune plunged her sword deep into the creature as she exploded in a shower of sparks.

Orchestrator defeated. You gain 10,000XP.

Microwaved flesh sprayed from the creature and covered the three of us in rotten reanimated flesh. The wave of specters that flowed down behind us screeched into mist.

Blinding light entered my eyes as the darkness disappeared to be replaced by daylight. I blinked several times and looked up to see the ceiling impossibly far away. Other groups of demons could be seen at various heights looking over the sides of their perches in confusion.

However, they did not have much time to think about what had happened. The various platforms that lined the tower suddenly were retracted back into the walls and sent any that were still on the descent a screaming fast pass to the bottom.

Demon after demon reached the bottom of the tower with nothing to slow their fall. Blood shot from all sides of their corpse like a water balloon filled with tomato juice. Splat after splat after splat like bugs on a windshield greeted us with new waves of blood until an unsettling stillness filled the tower. We had eliminated our competition in one move. And, as the ones that killed the thing keeping the platforms up, we were credited with all the kills; a nice bonus prize.

“I guess we made it down first,” I commented.

“Not exactly,” Herzblatt responded as he took a step away from a blood puddle. Though he was not directly responsible for the deaths, a remorseful look was in his eye. “I’m not sure if anyone has jumped the way we had and survived. We were supposed to go down one of those to reach the boss room.”

Herzblatt pointed to a large slot in the stone waiting beneath where the platforms were. If our route had been the correct one, we would have slipped through there and made it to the other side.

“Are we ready to see who’s waiting on the other side?” I asked.

My eyes drifted over to Yoshitsune who was trying to drain another potion to repair her shoulder to full. I knew that she did not have many resources left and, if anyone was waiting for us, she would be the first one targeted.

“We are only allowed to be ready, even if we are not,” she replied with a nod.

We hopped down the gap in the stone and fell slowly. My brain rolled as the forces of the tower flipped. What was once down was now up. We ascended to reach the final platform of the tower.

A bloody scene awaited us. Corpses leaking their life force were scattered like children’s toys. The eagle I saw from the first group, the cage of the helmet opened, dug his beak into the abdomen of another demon like they were Prometheus. He flipped his head up, a small flap of flesh dangled from his mouth as blood dripped against the metal. On the other side of him stood his comrades. Their muscles already tensed to pounce on us. But, before that, a message was delivered to all of our eyes.

Notice

All remaining players have arrived. Summoning Boss.