Marcus woke up with a headache. He groaned and looked around. The other adventurers seemed to have passed out. Wait. Where was Tasha? Where was Tamara?

  “So you are awake”, said a familiar voice.

  Marcus turned to see Tasha supporting a disoriented Tamara. Both of them were standing looking towards a darkness that had spread at the horizon. No, not darkness.

  “Manalith”, Marcus cursed her name.

  “Manalith”, agreed Tasha.

  “What do we do about her?”

  “We?”

  “Will you not help?”

  Tasha looked sadly at Marcus and then at Manalith. She shook her head softly, “It’s not that I don’t want to help; it’s just that I cannot help.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Tamara. She detached herself from Tasha and stood up straight. She seemed to have recovered.

  Tasha sighed as she said, “There are certain… Game Masters’ rules that I cannot break. This is one of them. I cannot interfere with the systems of Una.”

  “But Manalith is gorking not of Una”, Tamara said, her voice raising with each syllable, “Can you not gorking help in this case?”

  “She is already integrated into the system of Una. I am sorry. I cannot help you.”

  “Stuff your gorking sorry you bitch. I will take care of this. As I always have.”

  “Wait Tamara”, said Marcus, “We do need a plan other than headlessly charging into this sky engulfing monstrosity.”

  Tamara stopped and turned at Marcus. She gestured at the other adventurers who were still knocked out and said, “What grand plan do you have, Marcus Blank?”

  Marcus looked down to his utility belt. He wondered if it was functional again.

  “You can use your utility belt again Marcus”, said Tasha as if reading his thoughts, “We are back on Una. It will work again now.”

  “Oh thank you!”, said Marcus.

  Marcus looked at his notes on a book Demonology that he had already submitted for his book quest. It had details of the demon lords. Marcus searched for Manalith and found her. He read what he had written about her.

  Not much known about this demon lord. Can only be defeated with natural magic.

  Marcus frowned at that. What the fuck does that mean. He opened his copy of the book and looked at the section on Manalith. It was only a paragraph and it simply ascertained what he had read.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Tamara looking at Marcus’ frowning face.

  Marcus explained what he had read about Manalith.

  “What the gork does that mean?”

  However, Marcus was looking at Tasha. It seemed that she realized what Marcus was talking about.

  Marcus said to Tasha, “You know.”

  “Ok”, said Tasha, “I can help explain. Some species have natural magic. Even though they are integrated into the system of Una, they had their own magic before they integrated into the system. So, the system integrates their natural magic as a part of their abilities or spells. Your teammate Kyrie is the perfect example of it. The system integrated her water magic which was natural magic after all.”

  “So, in order to defeat Manalith, we need a group of people who had natural magic before they were integrated into the system of Una?” asked Marcus.

  “Yes, but that does not mean that they came from outside of Una. They could even have been born here”, said Tasha.

  Marcus looked at Tamara, “You know of such people.”

  “If I am understanding this correctly, then all nymphs can be considered as casters of natural magic”, said Tamara slowly.

  “So, we gather a bunch of nymphs and attack that”, said Marcus pointing at Manalith.

  “Yes but where would we attack?”

  “It seems that we have to find a way up there.”

  “Where?”

  “On fucking Manalith.”

  “Gorking of course!”

  “We are fucked aren’t we?”

  “Oh, we are definitely gorked.”

  “But you do have a plan and isn’t that wonderful?” said Tasha.

  Both Marcus and Tamara glared at her.

  Marcus looked at the other adventurers. They were still passed out.

  Marcus pointed at them as he spoke, “Why are they still out?”

  Tasha replied, “Everyone takes different times to reintegrate or integrate into Una’s system. The two of you were quite fast. I am impressed.”

  “Don’t care about your gorking impression”, muttered Tamara, “Need to gorking get up there. But how to get all the natural magic users? Hmm.”

  Marcus said, “I can message Kyrie now. Maybe she can help.”

  Tamara nodded, “Alright. Do so. In the meantime we get up there and scout how things are. I mean, it cannot be as simple as getting on top of Manalith and bombard her with natural magic.”

  Marcus frowned, “You do have a point.”

  Tasha made a sound which Marcus could not recognize. He simply chose to ignore her. He summoned his wyrm and smiled as Lara materialized.

  “Yes, I missed you too”, said Marcus as Lara snuggled up to him.

  Tamara also summoned her flying mount. It left Marcus gaping.

  “That’s a fucking dragon”, gasped Marcus.

  “The fucking dragon can hear you”, replied the dragon that Tamara had summoned, “And you. I told you, do not summon me unless there is a worthy foe to fight.”

  In response, Tamara pointed at Manalith. The dragon craned his neck around Tamara and looked up. Then it grinned, exposing really large teeth. A rumble started in the dragon’s throat which evolved into laughter. The dragon spread his wings and gave out a loud roar.

  “Now that is a challenge”, rumbled the dragon.

  “Well, yes”, said Tamara, “But Dragor, I do need your help getting up there.”

  “Up where?” asked Dragor the dragon.

  “On top of Manalith.”

  Dragor looked at the darkness spread across the sky and hummed. Then he said, “Get on top then.”

  As Tamara scrambled over to climb up on Dragor, Marcus mounted Lara and flew up to Dragor’s head. The dragon was clearly about twenty feet tall and as long as fifty feet.

  Marcus flew near his head, a couple of feet away from Dragor and said, “Well, hello. I did not know there were dragons on Una.”

  Dragor laughed at that statement and addressed Lara, “You have chosen a unique partner, young one.”

  Then he addressed Marcus, “Yes, there are dragons on Una. That is all you get to know.”

  Marcus laughed, “And that is all I need.”

  Oh, he was going to research the shit out of dragons. As Tamara and Marcus flew towards Manalith, Marcus sent a text to Kyrie. It was time to take help from whosoever was near Kyrie. It was time to fight Manalith with natural magic.

  ***

  Kyrie lost count of how many Manalith spawn she had killed. The inky black rain kept on falling and Manalith spawn kept on generating from it. Kyrie had tried to stop the spawn from well, spawning, but had failed. It seemed that the Manalith spawn could only be killed when they had fully formed.

  As Kyrie made her way through the streets of the outer city towards the mountain, a loud wailing sound assaulted her ears. She dropped down on her knees and was immediately attacked by a Manalith spawn.

  She dodged the attack in time and another nymph attacked the spawn, drawing it back and finally killing it. Kyrie identified the nymph.

  “Rella, what are you doing here?” asked Kyrie, surprised.

  Rella grinned and said, “The non-adventurers cannot die currently. So, we are raining hell on these spawn.”

  “This will not stop till she dies”, said Kyrie pointing at Manalith.

  “The air nymphs have gone up to attack but it seems that Manalith’s skin is tough. They have not been able to do any damage to the demon lord.”

  “That is bad.”

  At that moment, Kyrie got a message. She hardly glanced at it. She wanted to focus on the fight. However, she froze when she saw who the message was from. It was Marcus. With her heart beating fast, she opened the message.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Marcus was back on Una and he had a plan to take down Manalith. Kyrie grinned. She had missed this.

  “Marcus has a plan”, said Kyrie.

  Rella looked at her confused, “Your team member?”

  Kyrie nodded, “Get me all the nymphs you can. All those who can fly like the air nymphs and those who have flying mounts. I am going to talk to the guild master to see if we can message all the adventurers.”

  “What is it?” Rella asked.

  “Manalith can be defeated with natural magic. We, nymphs, have natural magic. I want to know if other adventurers have them. Then we need to get on top of the demon lord. Marcus says that it would help us defeat Manalith.”

  “Who the gork is this guy?” Rella shook her head and started walking towards the mountain.

  Kyrie raced back towards the guild. She would need the help of Galvin. She needed to gather the adventurers with natural magic and flying mounts. They had a plan to defeat the demon lord. And Marcus Blank was back. All was going to be well.

  ***

  Marcus looked at the demon lord and thought to himself that all was not going to be well. They had reached the demon lord on their flying mounts, Marcus and Tamara, and had run into an unexpected problem. How do you get to the top of the demon lord? They decided to go around it but they still ran into the demon lord at their top. It took them flying for about half an hour till they reached the end of Manalith. Now they just had to get to the top.

  Manalith was tall. It took about ten minutes of flying to get to its top. Manalith’s top was well above the clouds and the air here was thinner. Marcus was immediately facing difficulty in breathing. It was not as if he could not breathe, but it was very uncomfortable.

  Marcus and Tamara landed on top of Manalith, at quite some distance from the edge of the demon lord. As the demon lord was flying and they had landed on what Marcus assumed to be the demon lord’s thighs, the footing was not stable.

  Dragor said, “I am going to go ahead and check out if there is a weak point. You do the same.”

  Dragor flew off. Tamara turned to Marcus and shrugged. Then she bent down, examining something about the demon lord which Marcus could not figure out.

  Tamara straightened and pointed, “We should check out that way. Dismiss your mount. Unless you want to fly.”

  Marcus said goodbye to Lara and started to follow Tamara. Marcus sent another message to Kyrie that he had made on top of Manalith. He sent instructions on how to get on top and what to expect and hoped that Kyrie brought help fast.

  Marcus and Tamara had walked for some time towards where Dragor had flown off to. Marcus checked his status to find out that he was max level now. However, it was temporary based on the description that he read.

  Description: The anomaly has now become a better adventurer. With a little effort people may forget he is an anomaly after all. Max level temporarily granted and stats adjusted accordingly till Manalith is defeated.

  Well, that was helpful. He wondered if Tamara had gotten extra levels or stats to deal with Manalith. Probably not. It would have been nice though. Then the adventurers would have had someone to go toe to toe with Manalith.

  “Can you call Dragor back?” asked Marcus.

  Tamara shook her head, “We have a contract. He is not a typical mount.”

  Marcus snorted, “I doubt any dragon would be. I mean, it’s a fucking dragon.”

  Tamara grinned, “He is indeed a gorking dragon. And a gorking majestic one at that.”

  Marcus nodded. He could not deny that.

  About five minutes later Dragor returned, landed in front of them and spoke, “I found the weakness. Come, get up on me. Both of you.”

  They did as told and soon Marcus was rushing through the air at a speed faster than Lara and he whooped. Tamara rolled her eyes at him. They reached their destination in a couple of minutes and Marcus’ joy of riding on a dragon evaporated immediately.

  There was a huge dark semi-sphere protruding out of Manalith. It was easily about a couple of hundred metres in diameter. And surrounding this hemisphere was a horde of humanoid black figures of varying sizes.

  Marcus examined them to find that they were spawn of Manalith and seemed to be guarding the semi-sphere. The dragon landed just outside the range of the spawns.

  “So, what do we do now?” asked Marcus.

  Tamara readied her sword and shield, her armor a beacon of light in the surrounding darkness.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” she grinned, “We CHARGE.”

  She shouted and ran towards the spawns of Manalith at full speed. Dragor gave out a roar as battle cry and shot in the air, towards the spawn. Marcus shook his head and took out his twinblade. He cast [Enchant Weapon: Holy] and charged towards the spawn but at a slower pace than Tamara.

  The two adventurers and the dragon crashed into the spawns bringing wanton destruction. Marcus found that the spawns, even though many, were not that tough. However, Manalith did produce spawns at a faster rate. And there were many of them.

  They were soon surrounded. Marcus looked up hoping that the dragon would swoop down and carry Tamara and him out of this pickle but he could see that Dragor had flown off to another side and was decimating the spawns there.

  Marcus and Tamara stood back to back as the spawns advanced upon them.

  “Can you call Dragor to bail us out?” asked Marcus.

  “Are you mad? He will never do that.”

  “Fucking perfect.”

  Marcus was sure if they did not get out of this, they were going to die. And he was not sure where they would spawn. Probably at the last resurrection stone. And Marcus was sure that it was on Urtor for Tamara and it was in the palace of the Game Masters for Marcus. Travelling back to Karzasham from there would be a bit of a bother for both of them.

  Marcus was tiring now and was getting hit by the spawns. He downed a health potion and felt Tamara do the same. They were running out of time. Where was Kyrie? Was she bringing an army? Marcus hoped she would hurry up.

  At that time a gust of wind appeared between Marcus, Tamara and the spawns and the spawns were thrown back. An air nymph appeared in front of Marcus.

  “You must be Marcus Blank. Kyrie told me about you. You are very handsome in person. I have come to help. I brought my kin too. Wait a minute.”

  And the air nymph zoomed away attacking the nearby spawns. Marcus saw other air nymphs attacking the spawns too. Marcus heaved a sigh of relief. Aid had arrived and Marcus was thankful for that.

  Marcus and Tamara took a breather when they felt a shadow overhead. They looked up to see a wyrm descending. Marcus grinned as he recognized the wyrm. Kyrie had arrived.

  ***

  Orik was standing on the prow of the airship which gained altitude as it made its way towards Manalith. He was on the airship with his brothers and some twenty other adventurers. Theirs was not the only airship. There were nine other airships and adventurers with mounts that were flying towards Manalith.

  Kyrie had contacted him with Marcus’ message and they had organized this quickly. Kyrie had gone to assemble the nymphs, especially the air nymphs as they would be the most useful during this battle.

  Orik looked as inky black drops still fell from Manalith converting into spawns of Manalith. However, the airship had defensive measures which protected itself from the majority of the drops. Some still passed through. However, they spawned weak spawns of Manalith which were easily dispatched by the adventurers.

  Orik wondered how long it would take for the airships to get on top of Manalith when they reached the cloud cover. Suddenly, everything shifted and a gust of wind pushed the airships away from each other. The darkness over them shifted and Orik could sense the sunlight.

  Orik wondered what had happened when he heard a growl in front of him, in front of the ship. Orik looked at the darkness in front of him. Everything was silent. A feeling of dread washed over him.

  Suddenly the darkness shifted and Orik was now looking at a large oval face. The eyes were black like void with dark greyish sclera. There was no nose and a large mouth curved downwards with no lips. The face was huge, huger than the airship that Orik was on and he was sure that the face was staring at the airships.

  Orik looked around. The other airships seemed to have cleared away from where they were and were still continuing their journey upwards. For some infernal reason, Orik’s airship had gotten the full attention of Manalith.

  Manalith opened her mouth, her sharp greyish teeth glinting in the darkness and let out a loud road pushing the airship a bit back. Orik could hear the captain of their airship giving orders to go up fast but Orik knew it was too late.

  The large mouth lunged forwards at a speed Orik could not discern and the airship was swallowed by darkness.

  ***

  Orik woke up with a start. He was still in darkness. Wait, he could see a light to his left. He started walking towards it and tripped on someone. Orik felt the person and recognized him. It was Orin.

  Orik slapped Orin awake who mumbled, “What!” upon waking up.

  “Come on, Orin”, said Orik, grabbing his brother’s hand and getting him up, “There is a light. We need to get there.”

  “Ahoy there”, came a voice in the direction from the light source. It was a dwarf and considering the height, Orik could see that the light was at a distance.

  “Who is there?” asked Orik.

  “Orik!”came a familiar voice, “It’s Oril.”

  Orik and Orin started to make their way towards the light. The ground was slippery and wet and made a squelching sound as they walked. It seemed that they were inside Manalith. Maybe her stomach.

  They finally reached the light to find that there was fire burning on a platform made from the airship’s deck.

  “What happened?” asked Orik.

  “We were swallowed”, came a reply from another dwarf. It was Orim, “Then we woke up on a destroyed air ship. The other adventurers are okay. The captain and the crew are okay too. They are here. The adventurers who could cast light spells are scouting. Only the two of you were missing. And now here we are.”

  “And now here we are”, said Orik, “What’s the plan?”

  “To get out of here.”

  “Thank you smart ass. But how?”

  No one said anything. Orik said after some time, “Let the scouts come back then. Who went?”

  “Nord Filibuster, Elios Clawhammer and Dorin Echo”, said Orim, “It has been an hour though. They should be back by now.”

  They waited. Another fire was set up. Even though there were two fires burning, Orik could not see more than a few feet around him. The blackness was suffocating. And every sound made echoed and amplified in the darkness, giving it a haunting perspective.

  It took another half an hour before the scouts returned. Everyone gathered around to hear what they had to say.

  Nord said, “There is no way back from where we came. We seem to be in this creature’s stomach and the way upwards is not possible unless we can fly.”

  Elios said, “I scouted North of our location and hit a dead end. It seemed to be ending at the membrane like walls of this creature. It was secreting a substance, black, which I could not identify. It did not look safe. However, it was being generated at quite the slow pace. Which means we will be safe till we are overwhelmed by it.”

  “I walked till the Western side and saw a way going downwards. Maybe further into the digestive system of the demon lord. I don’t know. I did not check. I came back.”

  Everyone looked towards Dorin who said, “I took the Eastern side and it was again the same membrane Elios found. However, I did find a passage. Going straight and it was lined with black crystals which seemed to absorb light. However, they did illuminate a way. I did not check it. I admit, I was afraid.”

  Everyone looked at Orik now. He had a decision to make regarding what they had to do now. Orik considered what each of the scouts had said. He turned to his brothers.

  “The black crystal path?” Orik inquired.

  “The black crystal path”, came the reply from all his brothers at once.

  Orik turned towards the other adventurers who nodded. They had understood what the Ori brothers meant.

  “What about the air ship captain and crew?” asked one of the adventurers.

  Orik said, “Two of us stay with them for protection. The remaining eighteen of us will make our way forward. Any volunteers?”

  “I will stay”, said Dorin immediately. Orik nodded and also assigned one of the dwarven warriors to stay back too.

  The rest took directions from Dorin and started to make their way towards the black crystal passageway. It took them about half an hour to reach there. It was Nord who spied it on the Eastern side.

  Orik looked at the black crystals lining both sides of the passageway. He gestured to Nord to shine a light on them. It seemed that the black crystals indeed absorbed all the light. However, they were clearly shining in a way that they all could see the way forward.

  The lights were extinguished and the eighteen adventurers started making their way through the passage with Orik and Orin in the lead. The passage was large enough that four of them could easily walk side by side. However, they walked in groups of two.

  They walked slowly and cautiously, looking around them as they made their way forward. They were ensuring that there were no traps.

  After a couple of hours it seemed that the passage was expanding. It ended after five more minutes of walking. The passage opened into a huge blackness. A greyish light was glowing on the roof of the huge blackness they had reached from the passage.

  Orik looked up. There was a large semi-sphere hanging on the roof. It looked like the bottom part of a large sphere. Greyish swirls of light seemed to be twirling in it.

  “Is this the weakpoint?” asked Orin with awe in his voice.

  “It seems so”, said Orik.

  At that moment, there was a loud roar and everything vibrated. The adventurers stumbled forwards wondering what had happened. Before they could get their footing, the blackness disappeared a little. The adventurers' vision cleared and they could see well in the darkness.

  And Manalith spawn descended upon them. As Orik readied his crossbow, the other adventurers readied their weapons too.

  “Well”, said Orin, “It seems that we are in the right place.”

  “Just a few Manalith spawn to take care of”, said Orim.

  “And then we take care of that semi-sphere”, said Oril.

  “Gork yeah”, said Orik.

  The adventurers let out a war cry and attacked the spawn. The roars continued as they charged. The ground vibrated more violently than ever but that did not stop the adventurer's charge. They were going to take down Manaltith.

  “By any gorking means necessary”, said Orik and shot at the oncoming spawn.