I was sure that I fell asleep in the smoldering comfort of the magma, but that was decidedly not where I was anymore. Rather, I was inside some sort of cavern that had walls that didn't look at all like the stone I remembered. Instead, they looked almost fleshy with a kind of wet gleam to them. They also had a kind of slight glow to them that bathed the world in a dim, eerily shadowless light.
How did I get here? I tried remembering anything that may have happened, but I only drew blanks. At that moment, I noticed something that I had missed before in my confusion.
Huh? Where were my legs? Instead of my usually rather thin legs that I expected to see when I looked, I only saw two uneven, lightly bloody stumps sticking out of my lower body.
It didn't really hurt much and had already healed to the extent that I was no longer losing any blood, but that didn't help to dampen the panic that immediately blanketed my mind. I hastily looked around, trying to make sense of my surroundings, but I wasn't able to answer any of the questions I had. There was also no trace of my missing legs anywhere.
Suddenly, I felt some sort of shift, and where ever or whatever I was in started moving. It was hard to tell without any sight or anchor points to rely on, but the transition from being stationary to being in movement was unmistakable.
For real now, what's going on? Did something eat me, or what? I still couldn't make sense of it all. Also, why didn't I wake up when I somehow lost my legs? I couldn't have been that exhausted, could I? I just went to sleep normally like one any other day. Or was my [Pain Resistance] somehow responsible for that?
I called up my status in a desperate attempt for some normalcy. At least that should work, right?
Luckily for me, it did work.
[Name: Hanah Mayflower
Race: Human
Level: 13
Mana: 280/280
Achievements: [Hero Candidate], [Predator I], [Molten Rebirth]
Class: Firefly (Uncommon)
Active Skills:
[Candlelight Lv. 12]
[Flash Lv. 2]
[Minor Fireball Lv. 7]
Passive Skills:
[Photo-Thermic Synthesis Lv. 18]
[Minor Fire Affinity]
[Minor Light Affinity]
General Skills:
[Identify]
[Heightened Senses Lv. 5]
[Pain Resistance Lv. 13]
[Fire Resistance Lv. 6]
[Mana Sense Lv. 1]]
Doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know, though. [Pain Resistance] and [Photo-Thermic Synthesis] leveled up once each, but that was expected when you looked at my legs that just seemingly vanished for no reason at all.
In a fit of helplessness, I did the last thing that appeared in my mind and half-heartedly threw an [Identify] at the walls. I hadn't expected much when I did that, but the results spoke for themselves. As far as I knew, [Identify] only worked on either living beings or objects like gear that was integrated into the system. What greeted me after identifying was the text [Leviathan of the Volcanic Depths, Lv. ???].
Really now? Was that really necessary? After everything I already went through, now this as well? Can't I ever catch a goddamned break? Fuck this.
I really wanted to cry, but no tears left my eyes. It was always the same, wasn't it? This world or back on Earth, it barely made a difference. No matter what I did, I couldn't turn my life around. Being betrayed and almost killed by that bastard Blake wasn't already enough, no, I just had to be eaten by some fuck-ass magmatic fish or something, which also somehow bit off my legs in the process.
Just why? What did I ever do to deserve this? It's not like I wanted this! Still, I just keep on receiving hit after hit with no chance to fight back. What's the point of it all? Why did I survive my fall down here, just to be doomed anyways?
Now I lie here, numb and broken in ways I never could have imagined before. I didn't even care about my missing legs anymore, they could also go fuck themselves.
For the next hour or so, I didn't do anything but aimlessly stare at the fleshy ceiling that shifted with probably every movement the leviathan made.
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I hadn't noticed it at first, but I was actually slowly moving in one direction as well. The rhythmic pulsations of the hard flesh were slowly pushing me further through the interior of the leviathan.
I wonder where I was at this point. Was this just the beginning of my journey through its esophagus, or was I already close to the stomach, if that thing even had one. I barely knew shit about the anatomy of fish, let alone about the anatomy of some sort of mythical leviathan creature.
In the end I really didn't care, though. Just let it end it all, I didn't feel like living anymore. Let this leviathan digest me, and we'll all be happy, won't we? Sorry, Mom, I doubt I'll make it out of here, let alone make it back to earth to see you again. It's just so unfair, you know? What am I supposed to do if everything and everyone is playing against me?
Soon enough, I reached what presumably was its main stomach. Funnily enough, it didn't look too different from the magma pools I was in before. The liquid I ended up in was a different shade from the magma, but it generally carried the same color.
The liquid itself was unimaginably hot, definitely more than the magma, but it was also very corrosive. It was painful, but I was long past caring about that. Instead, I was just waiting motionlessly for the end. There were worse deaths than being digested by some mythical-level creature, were there?
...
Time continued passing, but I hadn't died yet. I had no will to live anymore, but I couldn't even die. [Photo-Thermic Synthesis] didn't allow me. The corrosive liquid was strong, but not strong enough. It wasn't even close.
Heh. For some reason, I found that incredibly funny. Here I was, wallowing in despair and nihilism, but my own body refused death on a level I didn't even have any control over. I could end it myself if I wanted to. Cutting off my own head would be enough to guarantee that, but I didn't. That would be too easy. I would basically be completely admitting defeat at that point, and I wasn't willing to stoop that low. At least not yet.
No, I still had some things to live for, didn't I? First of all, I wanted to get out of here. Out of this leviathan and out of the Great Labyrinth. To reach the surface and feel the sun again. Oh, how I missed having an open sky above me. It represented a kind of freedom that you only realize after it was taken from you. The unwilling stone that was ever-present in the depths was like tightly bound shackles that just refused to let go.
Around me, [Candlelight] flared to life. If that thing really wanted to eat me, it had chosen its own end by doing so. I would probably die very quickly if I actually tried to fight this creature on the outside, but that wasn't necessary. I was basically safe from it inside of here. If I couldn't destroy it from the outside, I would destroy it from the inside.
The thing was a tier four creature and probably extremely durable. And yet it wasn't indestructible. Especially not from the inside. That was an opportunity I couldn't miss.
Before long, I had climbed out of its burning stomach acid again. My legs were still not entirely back yet, but they were healing. It wasn't fast by any means, but they were clearly reforming at a speed that was even barely visible to the naked eye. Soon I would be whole again. Not in every aspect, but at least from the perspective of my body.
I concentrated my malleable flame onto one point and brought it close to one of the fleshy walls. Hmm, nothing is happening. If the walls could contain even the extremely hot and corrosive liquid that the leviathan's stomach acid certainly was, my flames had no chance the way they were right now.
Not a problem, though. Inside of here, I had all the time and all the mana of the world. If my flame wasn't hot enough to burn away its flesh, I'd simply have to make it hotter.
With that, I began. I concentrated only on the flame nestled gently on the palm of my hand and slowly began to dial up its temperature. Ever so slightly, the hue of the flame began to shift. From a fiery orange to a warm yellow before almost turning white. With increasing temperature, it also took more mental effort to keep it from dispersing. Still, I knew I wasn't at my limit yet, so I kept pushing.
As the flame slowly began to take on a blue hue, I noticed a change in the fleshy walls. I wasn't doing much damage by any means, but I could clearly hurt it. Not seriously, at least not yet, but that was more than enough for now. Boosted by the newly gained confidence, I continued funneling more and more mana into the vicious light blue flame nestled in my hand.
Soon enough, the flame was a vivid blue. It had long since become hot enough to hurt me as I held it, but the slow vaporization of my hand could be disregarded when compared to the damage it started inflicting on the leviathan.
With a last push, I reached my current limit when it came to temperature. The flame was now almost white again but a lot brighter than the yellow-white from before. While violet was technically the upper limit of the visible spectrum of light, flames would never naturally really reach that color through heat alone. Even if an increase in temperature could make the flame emit enough blackbody radiation in the wavelength required for violet, our eyes are not very sensitive towards violet light. The rest of the emitted spectrum of light will be bright enough to overshadow the violet and turn it back to a perceived white.
I wasn't an expert at this, but I still picked some things up from my much-hated biology and physics lessons. I wasn't sure of this, but the fact that it behaved the way I expected it to was comforting to some extent.
No matter how heat resistant the leviathan was from the inside, it couldn't compete with the fire I now held in my hands. Well, 'held' was a strong word to use here. I was pretty resistant against heat myself, especially against my own, but that didn't keep my arm from visibly vaporizing anyways. No need to care about that though. Technically, [Photo-Thermic Synthesis] was already fighting back against the damage. In the end, it was a non-permanent sacrifice that I needed to make no matter what.
The leviathan wasn't as lucky, though. From what I could tell, it didn't seem to have a good passive healing or regeneration skill like I did. While it was inherently somewhat regenerative just from the fact that it was at tier four, that didn't help much against the active destruction that was happening inside of it.
At this point, I had already scorched free a sizable hole in the fleshy walls that held me captive. It was a slow and tedious process, but I was making permanent progress. I had to stop multiple times already just to rest my mind, which significantly slowed me down. Keeping up the incredibly hot fire was an incredibly exhausting affair, both mentally and for my mana reserves. [Photo-Thermic Synthesis] was constantly pumping mana through me, but it couldn't contend with the output I needed.
Even my own mana regeneration coupled with the converted mana from the skill could only keep fire going for at most a few minutes at a time. On top of that also came the immense mental strain that came with keeping up the flame's temperature so unnaturally high. It was still a very effective tactic, but I wasn't a god.
My passive skill made sure that I was back to full after just a few minutes of rest, so mana was more of a temporary speed bump every now and then rather than an actual problem. Still, my need for mental rest and sleep kept me from making progress more than I'd like to admit. For someone who now had almost infinite time available, that was barely a problem, though. Soon I would be free again. Well, as free as being deep underground allowed one to be.