Chương 52: 1-51 Into the jaws of death

Josef's first thought was to just take the plunge, jump down and try to grab her. As his legs moved to fulfill his half-baked plan, doubts crept into his mind about whether he could even do anything to pull her from that pit. How was he supposed to accomplish it? It wasn't like his chance of climbing out of that bowl was any better than hers, and that's without taking the deluge of sewage and stone that was making its way down. No, jumping without a plan wouldn't do him any good.

Not to mention that he was hardly athletic enough to clear the distance to her in one go. Instead, he opted to accumulate space mana in his body, readying himself for a Blink. If he couldn't make it by physical prowess alone, he would make use of magic to fill the gap. But could he also use this way to get her out of there? He had never teleported with someone else before, and he didn't want to leave half of her behind by accident.

In addition, since filling his own body with the mana he intended to use for the spell, he doubted it was even possible to bring along someone else this way. Not with the way his spell was working currently. Meaning he had to improvise on the fly once more, something he wasn't all too happy about, especially after getting squashed only minutes ago. Spanning the magical line towards the frantically scrambling Linda, Josef finished his spell and let the magic take him to the side of his companion.

"I'm with you, hold on!" he shouted over the noise of the rushing sludge. He tried to steady himself against the stream of sewage coming his way, and the stones painfully plunking against his bruised face, though he was quickly losing ground. Still, he was holding on better than the knight, mostly due to not wearing heavy armor that would drag him down. Which meant that with every second that passed, she descended further down and away from him.

At this rate, she would slide away before he could even build up the mana for a regular Blink, much less experiment with taking her along. Thankfully, he had just the way to create a handhold on this sludge covered surface. Pulling out the ice staff, having stowed it away once more when they had to vacate the monster's head, he jabbed it down. Sending a spike of mana through it, cold quickly spread around the point of impact, and froze the nearby sewage solid.

Linda, aware enough to spot what he was doing, did her best to lunge for their newly created anchor point. Unfortunately, between her weight and the slipperiness of the surface below, she barely covered any ground and could only grab his leg. As she held onto his body with all her weight, Josef found himself in the very uncomfortable situation of holding all of their weight with only a single arm. After all, he hadn't fully restored the other one after getting broken through blunt force.

Not that he hadn't gotten started at it yet, as Regeneration alone did its best to help with the process, but the bones were in enough pieces to make healing it a difficult matter. If it weren't for that spell aiding his body, he wagered he'd already pulled something in his arm. Or maybe he was continuously pulling a muscle and restoring it within the same second? That would check out with how painful this was getting for him.

Just as he was considering how he was to work on a spell in this situation, rescue arrived in serpentine shape, as Pretzel arrived at their holdout. She didn't slide down from above, though, but came swimming from the side. Moving close to the ground with her streamlined form, she was actually more than capable of traversing the green deluge on her own. At least now, after most of the stone had passed and only the putrid fluid rushed down on them.

Wrapping her tail around Linda's upper body, she snaked her head up beside Josef and bit down on the freezing metal rod. The face she made upon doing so expressed about as much discomfort as her reptilian anatomy could display. However, the only feeling that pushed through their link was sheer determination, an unwillingness to fail. With some of the strain removed from his own body, Josef could finally work on his attempt to teleport all of them out of this mess.

He knew that filling Linda's body with his own space mana wasn't feasible, so instead he opted to try a different approach. Who was to say that his initial solution of accumulating it in the body was even necessary in the first place? It was a solution born from a desperate situation, so it was only fitting if he would revise it during similar circumstances. Creating spheres was something he had become thoroughly familiar with in recent times.

It was made easy by the fact that mana liked to spread somewhat evenly around whatever point he directed it at. Now, that spot was somewhere between Linda and him and expanding continuously. An issue with this approach was the large mana cost involved. Not only took it crazy amounts of energy to fill an orb of almost three meters in diameter, it was also precariously unstable.

It thoroughly reminded him why he never used a Water Prison larger than a beach ball in combat, because keeping that much mana in one structure was tough. The natural spread of the stuff just wasn't even enough to scale up well. The borders frayed, energy wasted as it flowed away, and the shape became bulbous and uneven, as environmental influences beyond Josef's understanding pushed and pulled at the sphere. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Even so, he barely managed to encase the three of them after squeezing and flattening his creation against the ground. It was the ugliest thing he had formed so far, but he hoped it would work. Choosing the shortest route to semi-solid ground, he cast out a line to the top of the creature and wished for his spell to cast. Magic was a wonderful thing that could create miracles from intent, mana and wishful thinking. However, even that wasn't enough to translate his attempt into a feasible spell.

All Josef got was a wellspring of frustration rising in his own chest, as the precious not-quite-bubble of energy around them dispersed, pulling away from his influence. His spell had failed. Taking a deep breath, he formed his remaining mana into little tendrils so he could drain whatever was left of the spell in his immediate surroundings, as well as from the goop running down around them. The feeling of failure stung, but he had already expected that his first try might fail, so he was prepared to carry on.

After he spent several precious seconds on mostly refiling his own reserves, he began his second try. This one was going to take inspiration from something he had only just learned after using the staff.

"Linda, I'm about to stab you with my magic. Don't panic!" he warned her briefly. By the face she made, she clearly hadn't followed his instruction.

"What?" For this attempt, he shaped his space mana into a tendril, much as he would whenever he drained energy from his surroundings. However, his intent was quite the opposite this time around.

"I hope you're good with mana, because I need you to let this change your own!" Pressed for time, he didn't wait for whatever was about to come out of the bewildered knight, and jabbed the tendril into her lower abdomen, right around where her core was likely to be located. Linda gasped audibly at the sudden sensation she no doubt felt, but instead of screaming at him as he first expected, her face instead morphed into a concentrated expression.

Either she had grasped how this approach connected to his usage of the frost staff, or she had been taught how to do something like this during whatever lessons she had received in the past. Either way, he soon felt a familiar sensation coming from her, a thrum that felt similar to what gathered inside of him whenever he wanted to teleport. Though this one was slightly different, like a slight change in tune. Even so, it felt connected to him, quite literally as he hadn't withdrawn the tendril from her body.

Seeing her continued concentration, he didn't want to interrupt, but the boss monster wasn't quite so courteous.

"Hurry!" he urged her, eyeing the massive maw that was forming on the central mass of the creature. Clearly, the elemental had grown tired of watching them struggle and intended to speed up the delayed meal delivery. The jagged contour grew deeper into its body, as the newly formed jaws spread further apart. At that point, it looked as if the entire monster was nothing but a giant mouth, and with a sudden jerk, it moved in on them.

Not one to remain idle in the face of danger, Josef quickly created a line straight up, eyeballing a small distance above where the monster's head would be after the bite. This one had to work because there was no third try afterwards. Maybe he could still get out of its jaws himself, using the spell he already had, but it would mean certain doom for the knight at his side.

"Just pick your favourite limbs and ditch the rest! Those grow back anyway!" A measure of humor had sneaked into his words, an expression of the primal terror he felt from the massive maw descending on them. Waiting for the last possible moment, coordinating with Pretzel, he sprung into action. As he yanked the staff back into his hoard, his familiar loosened her grip and dove into the safety of his chest, unsummoning herself. Then, as gravity took hold of them, he pulled on the line.

Magic responded to his will, and the world moved around them. From one utterly terrifying instant to the next, they were up in the air. And not a moment too soon, as after merely a second of airtime, they landed on top of the creature that had just closed it maw around the spot where it believed its food. Suppressing the notification vying for his attention, he instead let a momentary relief flood his mind. They had made it.

Josef couldn't suppress his laugh as he looked at his companion and saw that they had both made it out without leaving behind a limb. Though the teleportation had still taken a sacrifice, as she was now very clearly without her armor. Either the spell couldn't account for the metal suit, or it had been incompatible with the magic in another fashion. Fortunately for both of them, Linda had worn a proper set of clothes under the armor, but they certainly wouldn't get that equipment back from where it had ended up.

Something told him that she wouldn't want it back, even if they could, considering where it had just ended up. Unbothered by her loss, she too laughed, albeit with a slightly more unhinged note.

"Well, we made it out, but the thing still needs killing," he finally managed to get some words in when she had to catch her breath. At least he could drain some mana from his monstrous seating arrangement while he was waiting. Pointing at the dent that remained from their last assault, right near where they had just landed, he pulled the staff back out. Renewing the melting ice that covered the wound and prevented its regeneration, he continued to push the ice into the body below him.

Going by its display just now, he hoped that the core wouldn't be much further into the body. After all, they only had so many walkways remaining before they ran out of spots to jump on. They were on a timer, sort of, even though his new spell might just make those crumbly things obsolete, if he used it well.

"Thank you, Adam," Linda eventually admitted, as she got back to violating the newly created ice patch.

"Your welcome," he took a moment to answer, surprised by the fact she had used his fake name. Right, he had never revealed his real one, had he? Pretzel would do so regularly, but no one else could understand her. Remembering to let the serpent back out, having her rejoin the battle, he added.

"Also, call me Josef. That's what my friends do." Maybe it was a little sentimental, but you didn't escape the literal jaws of death together without building some kind of bond.

"You lied about your name?" she huffed, indignantly pointing a finger at him. Well, they fortunately had a couple more rounds with the boss to iron things out.