Random Portals

Steven was engulfed in black poison for the second time today, and right after, he had cleaned his clothes. However, this time he didn’t waste any time and had the dragon sent to inventory before its poison mist even had a chance to reach the others. The entire room fell into silence.

Steven got his first look at the Elder demon. It was not at all what he expected. A fat dark red skinned demon stared at him with confusion written on his face. The large potbelly, pig nosed demon was not very intimidating. The only thing that even looked threatening were his typical demon wings on his back. It would have given Steven pause, but since coming to this world, he had seen much worse such as mimics.

“Okay, Mr. Demon, we will give you one chance,” Silvia said. “Turn tail and run or face the wrath of Steven.”

The Elder Demon’s eyes were wide with shock but as Silvia spoke, his eyes slowly began to narrow.

“Did you just say the wrath of Steven? Do you expect me to turn tail and run from a name like that? You may have had me with a different name, but the other demons would never let me live down running from someone with the name Steven.” The Demon began to laugh a booming laugh. “I don’t know how you destroyed the dragon with such ease.” The demon said, looking right into Steven’s eyes. “But it’s obvious you are some sort of dragon slayer. It’s just my bad luck to be matched up with the likes of you. And Wisp, I absolutely hate you I've always hated your kind. Do you honestly think a demon would ever run from a lowly Wisp? Your kind are only food for us. Just a bundle of essence waiting to be devoured.”

Steven was trying to formulate the best plan of action. He couldn’t just send the demon to his inventory, he had already tried it with a demon assassin. He didn’t expect it to work anyway, but he had to try. Nev was already on the move with her entourage of mimic drones. The demon was chatty, which was fine with him. It would allow Nev to get in position.

Sirus and his warriors stood behind Steven, ready for a fight. Although they were there mostly just to help if more assassins came.

Which was exactly what happened. A large four armed demon with a massive great sword appeared from thin air, swinging his enormous weapon directly at Steven’s head. The next moment, time slowed for just an instant and the assassin’s great sword clattered to the ground twenty-five feet away. The demon was just as shell-shocked at losing his weapon as Steven was by getting attacked. It took the Demon a long moment before it pulled out two smaller swords. The swords were still as tall as Steven, and the demon had to wield them with two hands each.

“Well, the moment of surprise is gone, but you are still a low level weakling. You will die all the same.” The assassin said.

Steven wasn’t overly worried about the assassin since he had plenty of mana now and could just teleport away if need be. He held his spear in his hand and activated his roots, one on each shoulder, in case he needed to change into spider form.

The assassin charged him head on but Steven was ready for this and already had a small portal ready. He sent a root through, immediately grabbing the assassin’s ankle from behind, causing him to trip and fall face first on to the dungeon floor. Not wanting to waste his opening, he created another portal above the assassin and stabbed his spear into the back of the demon assassin twice before he vanished, reappearing some distance away. Steven dismissed his roots, afraid of draining his mana too low. Steven frowned. Despite getting the best of the assassin, he had barely done any damage. His health bar was still at ninety-one percent. Seemed he would have to use his spider form to get any solid damage in. The assassin was hesitant to attack him, and from what he could tell, he was trying to figure out how to deal with him. Steven didn’t think his root trick would work a second time, as the demon nearly moved his foot the first time.

“You are an interesting human. I give you that much. I didn’t expect this fight to be so thrilling, much less last longer than the opening salvo.”

Steven didn’t respond and instead took a quick glance at the Elder demon and Nev. The wings were bound by webs and Nev was on top of the demon trading blows, while her drones held off the demon’s minions. He wished he could help, but the assassin was all he could deal with at the moment. If he left Sirus and his warriors, they would no doubt get cut down. Steven’s shards were well suited to deal with assassins, unless he ran out of mana.

It was up to Silvia. She would make her move soon, and hopefully that would be enough to deal with the Elder demon. With Nev’s help, the assassin wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Not a talkative one, I see. Well, that’s alright, I’ll have your corpse reanimated and have a chat with you then.”

Steven’s brow creased at that. This assassin would reanimate his corpse just to talk to him.

Suddenly, a bone cage surrounded the assassin and spikes began piercing the assassin. Though this only lasted a few seconds before the assassin’s body grew and broke out of the cage. Only to be bombarded by several spells from the warriors. Although only Sirus was able to do any damage, the assassin changed back to normal size as several red balls of lightning appeared over his head and began shooting towards every one that attacked him. Three of the five Naga warriors fell immediately, and Steven was unsure if they were dead or just unconscious.

Steven threw his spear at the demon assassin, only for it to get blocked. However, the lightning triggered shaving off a few more percent of his health. Even after the bombardment of spells and Sirus’s attack, the assassin was still at seventy-one percent. The issue was the demon’s level was far greater than Steven’s.

Steven sent the assassin’s great sword from the start of the fight to his inventory and recalled his spear. At this rate, he would run out of mana and be forced to use a potion, and he wanted to save that for Sorin. The assassin then appeared behind Steven while in mid swing, intending to take his head in a single swipe. Steven wouldn’t even had known what was happening if it wasn’t for his shard activating. As the sword clattered to the dungeon floor, and the assassin appeared back in front of Steven at a distance, cursing. Steven sent that weapon to inventory as well.

“Your shard ability is a nuisance. But it surely has to drain your mana rapidly. And you will soon run out and die. Sirus stepped up next to Steven, blood dripping from his chin.

“Watch out for the red lightning. It’s dangerous.” Sirus said, “I sent the others back. They are no use here.”

Steven nodded. “And are you okay? Do you need a potion?”

“I will be fine.” Sirus said.

“Isn’t this cute, a human and a half Naga working together? Let me see if I can't…”

Dozens of explosions went off behind the assassin and he stopped mid sentence before vanishing and reappearing just out of reach, staring at the Elder demon in disbelief. Half of the pot bellied demon’s body was gone as several adolescent wisps flew around Silvia.

Steven thought he had seen something black growing from the wounds of the demon, but decided he needed to deal with the assassin first. Creating a portal, Sirus shot his bone lance through while Steven shoved his spear through the portal. Both attacks landed on the assassin, however that was all they could manage before the assassin vanished and appeared behind Sirus. Instead of going for his neck, he stabbed him in the back. Steven tried to activate his ability, but it was too slow and all he did was waste a hundred mana trying to stop the assassin. Sirus fell to the ground in a heap. The assassin then came at him. However, instead of going for a lethal attack, he just stabbed him with a dagger in his stomach twice before the assassin immediately jumped back.

“Seems your ability only works when you are going to take lethal damage.” The assassin said with a wide grin, “all abilities have their weaknesses.”

Steven couldn’t respond as he was doubled over in pain from the stab wounds. His health bar was still at seventy-three percent, but it felt like his insides were on fire. The assassin then came in for a final blow, but Steven’s ability triggered once again. As it did, several drones dropped next to him. The demon snarled before vanishing back and grabbing his one remaining sword. More explosions had the assassin glancing back at the Elder demons fight.

“The poison will kill you quickly. Please excuse me. I need to help deal with that pesky spider and wisp.”

Steven’s mana was low, and he wasn’t sure if he should use a mana or health potion. Making his decision, he downed a mana potion. His health bar was still above seventy percent. The Assassin was heading right towards Nev, who was locked in battle with the Elder demon that now had half his body made of some strange black stuff. Steven did his best to push down the pain as he activated his roots on both his shoulders. Then opened a large portal before shifting into his spider form and dropping through. He landed just in front of the assassin, who stopped and stared wide eyed at this new threat. Steven had meant to drop on top of the assassin, but his timing was a bit off.

“What are you?” The assassin asked.

Steven didn’t waste any time as he charged in. The demon was fast but couldn’t keep up with the boosted attributes of his spider form and was wrapped in roots with in seconds. Before the assassin had a chance to even move, Steven had ripped off an arm and a leg from the assassin with his mandibles. Steven then went for the kill. But the assassin used whatever vanishing shard he had and appeared dozens of feet away, staring at Steven in wide-eyed horror as black blood gushed from his missing limbs. Unfortunately, Steven couldn’t open a new portal while in spider form, and his mana was draining quickly, so he rushed at the assassin with all the speed he could muster.

The assassin snarled, “This isn’t over.” He was then engulfed in black flames.

Steven waited a moment longer before changing back into his human form. His mana was low after that brief fight in spider form. A quick glance showed he was at just over two hundred mana. Realizing the fight wasn’t over, he turned to the Elder demon.

Now that he could get a good look, he realized the demon was now half made of some sort of black tendrils. Wisps continued to blow up on the Elder demon, but they were few and far between. Steven knew those were just the wisp Silvia convinced to help her. Most the wisps refused to fight anyone but Sorin. When Steven noticed Nev’s health bar below, half, he immediately started in her direction.

He tossed a health potion to one of the drones. “Go help Sirus.” Steven then started at a light jog towards Nev and Silvia. While in mid jog, Steven opened a portal and jumped through, spear in hand. He landed directly on the back of the Elder demon, shoving his spear into the back of the demon with all his might, which was barely enough to penetrate the flesh of the demon and Steven continued to fall towards the ground. In his mind he imagined piercing the demon with his spear and stopping his fall but things never went as planned at least his lightning proc’d off causing the demon to seize up momentarily giving Nev the chance to rip into the chest of the Elder demon no doubt going for his heart, however she didn’t have enough time and the demon roared in defiance as the stun wore off. He then used some sort of ability to sling everyone aside from Silvia across the room. Somehow Steven and Nev got thrown in the same direction. Although she landed on her feet and he landed in a heap on the ground.

“Thank you, Master.“ Nev said as she downed a health potion and charged back in.

Steven didn’t have many options for attacking outside of his spear. He didn’t have much mana left and didn’t want to take his spider form and run completely out of mana. Since they expected Sorin to immediately come at them afterwards. So he froze, unsure what to do.

He wasn’t sure if his inventory ability would work on Sorin, since he was a vampire and not the traditional undead. Silvia had told him it should, though. He was afraid of relying on that. Steven then realized he did have a ranged attack in the form of portals and his spear. Even if it didn’t do much damage, the lightning would make a huge difference. So Steven began opening portals and stabbing the demon. It took seven more tries before the lightning went off again. The demon seized up and Nev was able to do some hellacious damage on the demon. His health bar was already down to thirty percent. It was only a matter of time at this point. Steven continued his assault. He was starting to feel pretty good about their odds right up until the demon hit twenty-five percent and everything changed.

At first, Steven thought the demon had fallen in half, but he quickly realized that wasn’t the case as an enormous explosion of fire blasted them back. When the smoke cleared, there stood two Elder demons. One made of the black tendrils and the other was the Elder demon back at full health, looking like he had never been in a fight.

Steven was out of the blast zone, and just stared wide eyed at the scene. Nev had been right in the middle of it and her health bar was now at forty percent and missing several limbs.

“This isn’t good.” Silvia said.

“Can you convince the wisps to help?”

“No, most refuse to fight anyone but Sorin.”

“Do you have any suggestions?”

The demon began laughing in a booming manner. “Do you see now? How futile your attempt is. This is the true power of an Elder Demon! You mortals are just fodder for me to grow to new heights. Just give up and I’ll give you quick deaths, aside from the wisp I’m going to feed on her soul slowly till there is nothing left of her to go back to the void.”

As the demon spoke, Steven’s eyes were glued to the black shadow tendril demon. The thing looked horrific, almost as terrifying as the mimics, although it just stood there unmoving.