#117 – I regret absolutely everything

I didn’t waste any time in running away as soon as my gun self fired off its volley. I wasn’t under any illusions. Despite going all out, that thing was still probably alive. The deafening explosion followed by the earth-shaking roar I heard behind me could either mean that it had died or it could mean that it was now pissed off. I used my bracelet’s time-slowing function and swapped Analysis for Flameguard again to propel myself forward. This time though, I was careful not to go too fast and crash into a wall again. Soon enough, the walls around me began to shake and I quickly summoned John to look behind me. Sure enough, that thing was hot on my heels, despite my improvised jets and the time being slowed. AotoNana:Dammit! AotoNana:I knew it wouldn’t do anything! Although at the very least, there was also a massive smoking charred hole dripping with plasma and death water where its eye used to be. Not that it seemed to bother it that much. One would think that such a wound would be more debilitating but noooo! I rounded the corner, just barely managing to steady myself with bursts of Flameguard and looked forward to see one of those giant worms lazily crawling its way through the corridor and completely blocking my path. I nearly stopped in my tracks – which would have killed me – but instead, I just swapped Armsmaster for Fire Breath and shot a superheated fireball at it, before covering myself in fire completely and charging forward. The fireball hit its mark, creating a scorched hole in the worm, and I plowed through it – ew ew ew! – barely slowing down. Unfortunately, the Millenipede had no problems with bulldozing its way through the charred worm carcass either, smoothly following me through the narrow cave with its many legs clicking and clacking and dammit stop thinking about that! I rounded another corner, this time with more grace, and then decided to deploy an idea chat had been suggesting. I whipped out my super fast tentacle out of my calf and slapped the ground behind me while channeling Crystal Dragon’s Stomp through it, before quickly retracting it as crystals sprouted just behind me. A few steps later, I did it again, then again, and again, creating a line of spiky crystals trailing behind me. I summoned John once more to look at how effective it was. It wasn’t very effective. The thing just rammed through everything, barely slowing down. I grit my teeth and stopped making the crystals since it was pretty much just wasting Ether. What else?! I swapped Fire Breath for Rend, made sure there weren’t any obstacles in front of me, and then risked turning around to fire off a Rend empowered with Mind Breaker at the thing, before facing forward again. I could hear the moment my attack hit as the thing’s howls nearly burst my eardrums. I almost tripped from disorientation at the sudden pseudo-sonic attack, but somehow managed to keep running. A moment later, I once again summoned John to check out the situation behind me. The thing was still moving forward, but that was apparently just its prior momentum, seeing as its legs were just flailing around instead of skittering with purpose. AotoNana:It worked?! Finally an attack that had an effect! Feeling emboldened by this, I slowed down, turned around, and fired off another empowered Rend – ow, my head – before taking out my gun self and taking a few seconds to charge it up. While I was doing that, I sent John forward and into the beast’s gaping maw, as per the chat’s suggestions. You know, just in case there was some very obvious weakness inside the thing. Now, unfortunately, I couldn’t use Heat Vision through John, so it was rather hard to see. But that was exactly why I was currently charging a volley of missiles filled to the brim with plasma and fire. Just as the thing seemed to have recovered, I let it rip – ugh, starting to feel sluggish – straight into the thing’s mouth just as it opened it wide to roar again. John’s view lit up – thank god he was immaterial and couldn’t be hurt – and I turned to continue running again. The creature behind me roared once more but unlike with the mental attack, didn’t stop for too long before it continued following. Despite there being a fucking explosion in its stomach at the moment. A few beats later,the pure whiteness in John’s view began to fade, revealing a grotesque scenery of charred flesh and sizzling liquid dripping from the walls and ceiling. It also revealed something very green in the distance, smack dab middle in the fleshy tunnel that was the Millenipede’s innards. I immediately commanded John to teleport closer to it and my eyes widened as he got a better look at it. The thing looked kind of like the Key Sword from the water park dungeon, stabbed into the ground of the Millenipede’s stomach like the Excalibur, and shining in the exact shade of green the stairwell had been. AotoNana:Oh no. AotoNana:I have to get that thing, don’t I? AotoNana:Ugh, why can’t John pick stuff up? Or even the ability to teleport to him would have been amazing. As it was right now, I would either have to defeat the thing and then cut it open to get the key sword, or... Jeofffff:you have to jump in and kill it from inside probably Or that. Fuck. The light from the explosion inside the thing had already faded, but the occasional flames and plasma – sizzling on contact with what had to be the monster’s stomach acid – still gave enough light for John to see. ...And he saw more insects crawling their way from further down the Millenipede’s innards to climb all over the Key Sword. What the actual fuck– SunOfABeach:that’s not how centipedes work KaiEbikoOfficial:oh my god thats gross Eclipsoon:you could use aquaport to get inside somehow There was a split in the path in front of me. A genius idea suddenly came into my head and I executed it without hesitation. First, I summoned my tentacle behind me to spawn a blockade of crystals again. Not because I thought it would stop the monster, but to obstruct its vision. I followed that up by summoning my axe self and yeeting it in front of one of the entrances, making it explode into crystals and blocking that entrance. Finally, I ran into the other entrance and once again stomped with my tentacle behind me to cover this entrance as well. The result was that once the Millenipede broke through the initial crystal barrier, it would be faced with two blocked off entrances with hopefully no idea which one I used to– The crystals behind me exploded as the Millenipede barged its way through. AotoNana:Dammit! Either it could somehow track me without being able to see or the monster had just happened to pick the right route, because of course it would! My luck was just– ...Wait. Hold on. This thing normally lived in total darkness. SunOfABeach: it probably senses your ether or something JamieWasTaken3:bruh I was an idiot! AotoNana: How come it didn’t sense me when I hid earlier?! Eclipsoon: maybe it just wanted to spook you before but now you angered it JamieWasTaken3: mb he was too tired to notice before JamieWasTaken3: cuz he just woke up Another split in the path. Three-way this time. I didn’t even bother with misdirection this time and instead picked the tunnel that looked the most narrow, hoping that the monster would be too fat to fit. It was a bit too fat to fit. But unfortunately, that just meant that it began forcing its way through, causing the entire cavern to shake and making me very concerned that it was about to collapse. Dammit! I really needed to think of something and fast! My fully powered gun didn’t do anything, the crystals didn’t do anything, my axe– I summoned my axe self to my hands, powered it up with Demon Queen Flames, and then did a spin at the next corner to toss the axe back at it before reusing the momentum of the spin to continue running. I almost tripped but somehow managed to kept my balance. There was a clank behind me and then it was back to the usual rumbling of the caves around me. I quickly teleported John out of its stomach back outside and looked around to see what had happened. The Millenipede looked exactly the same – save for its eye being cleared of death water and plasma now – and I couldn’t even see my axe self. It must have fallen to the wayside after it had hit it. Like a fly on a windshield. – Yeah my axe didn’t do jack squat either. The only thing that actually did anything to it was Empowered Rend and even that was just a temporary setback for it. And it wasn’t like I could spam it. I didn’t have infinite Intra to spare. Was there really no other option but to jump into its sword-filled mouth? I fucking didn’t want to though! But that was probably the point, wasn’t it? Trials of ‘courage’, ugh! Fuck you, Fate Weaver! You are the douchiest asshole I’ve never met! Come and fight me IRL, you coward! There was a dead end coming up. I had picked the wrong path. Fuck! I skidded to a halt and turned around to face my giant centipede-shaped impending doom. Thousands of thoughts ran through my mind as I scrambled to think about how to do this without instantly being crushed to death or shredded by its jaws. I rummaged in my pockets and retrieved a handful of the Tsunami Grenades I’d gotten from my second runthrough of the water park dungeon and grit my teeth, readying myself for what came next. I waited till the abomination was several strides away from me before hitting it with Mind Breaker. It reeled but its momentum kept it going just like before. Unfortuantely, it also caused it to close its mouth. Fuck! I hit it with another Mind Breaker again immediately and instantly felt like someone had stabbed a dagger through my brain. My vision was fading and it was becoming hard to form coherent thoughts, but I hyper-focused on what needed to be done at the moment. The second mental bullet made it open its mouth wide with a pained roar. I didn’t hesitate, I jumped forward and smashed all the grenades I had right in front of me, causing our immediate surroundings to instantly flood with temporary water. From then on, I just waited till the water exploded into its throat and enveloped me in its entirety before I Aquaported straight past the sharp teeth and into its stomach. Naturally, that was only the beginning of my suffering. The moment all the temporary water vanished, I found myself knee deep in fucking acid. “Ow! Fuck!” I automatically shouted before using my hydrokinesis to push the acid away from me. It wasn’t as easy as normal water, but not as difficult as plasma, so I managed. Despite the thing’s huge size, its innards were actually pretty cramped and oh god I was inside a giant insect– Shut up, don’t think about it. JamieWasTaken3:holy shit that was fucking metal KaiEbikoOfficial:nana are you okay??????! KaiEbikoOfficial:that was brutal! My head was absolutely killing me, but I couldn’t stop right now. Not when– My surroundings then violently shook, as if a car I had been riding in crashed into something. It made my control of the liquid around me falter and threw me face first into it. I reflextively screamed from pain at having my face burned, but that only made the acid flow into my mouth and– I choked and scrambled to get back up before quickly retaking control of of the acid and pushing it the fuckaway from me. Before I knew it, I was on my trembling knees and forearms, vommiting back the Millenipede’s stomach acid along with some of mine. A few moments later of heaving, trying to recover from this absolute nightmare of a series of events, my surroundings began to move again. I coughed and wheezed and then hastily looked around me, quickly realized that it was pitch black, lit my forearms on fire, and with the light from it, saw the walls around me moving. What the fuck is happening?! Is that thing about to attack me while I’m inside– Eclipsoon:it’s probably going back to its perch Eclipsoon:don’t panic I kept heaving and coughing – fuck, that acid must have burned my throat – while eyeing my surroundings with slightly less panic than before, but still completely and utterly terrified. After a few minutes where I knelt, frozen by fear and indecision, the movement stopped. Another minute of anxious waiting later, it didn’t resume. Gradually, I slowed down my breaths and got up on my shaky legs, still terrified that it was going to start moving again, or that it would spit me out, or fill its stomach with more acid, or that millions of smaller bugs would invade my nervous system and– Deep inhale. Deep, shaky, exhale. I hated this place so much. So so much. Why couldn’t it just– I froze as my eyes swept over something that had apparently been behind me all this time as I’d emptied my stomach. A red door. I didn’t even think. My first reaction was to reach out and grab the handle.