Chapter 82: Chapter 77: Release

I struggled uselessly against my silk bonds, doing my best to roll out of the way of a particularly industrious beetle that seemed utterly determined to land on my face. Could I roll all the way back to the crevice? Beetles could still get in, but it would at least give me some shelter. I could just use my fire breath to self destruct, but that would waste time given that I'd used up half the trigger respawn activation period already.

Did I have any way of freeing myself? I couldn't use my fire breath; queeny had got too far up my neck for me to be able to point it in the correct direction. My hands were glued to my sides by sticky threads, and couldn't be moved. I couldn't even reach my crotch, however much I wanted to right now. However much I needed to. Why couldn't my zombie twin be here to take advantage of my predicament?

It was so incredibly frustrating, and I was loving it.

What was wrong with me?!

By the time trigger respawn kicked in and freed me, I needed to visit the zombie queen again just for some measure of release. At least she was a more willing partner than the spider queen. Definitely number one on the queen ranking.

"My brain is messed up," I admitted, the pair of us still lying on a silk mat I'd woven.

"Yeah? So?"

"You don't think it's a problem? I literally just scared away a big scary monster because being prepared to be eaten made me horny."

"That sounds like the exact opposite of a problem."

"That might have been true if I'd scared her off before she'd cocooned me."

"Look. Far be it from me to play psychologist, but you've been kidnapped from your bed, kidnapped again from the world you were first kidnapped to, killed repeatedly, had various monsters do some very unpleasant things to you, discovered some extremely disturbing facts about the nature of this world, and taken it upon yourself to single-handedly fight an army of demons. It would be stranger if you didn't seek some sort of release."

"That's kinda the problem, though. Sometimes I feel that with each death, the person that respawned was a little less Katie and a little more... other."

"Honestly, I don't think that's true. Remember, we weren't exactly innocent back on Earth, either."

"Just because I liked reading comics with this sort of stuff in doesn't mean I ever expected it to happen to me!"

"No, but we wanted it to. We used to love those dreams. Surely you remember the state they left us in when we woke up. So no, I don't think you're less Katie. If anything, you're more Katie. Katie without restrictions."

"Katie without common sense, more like," I muttered.

"Yes, that too. Now go along and save all the worlds, you horny little mutant. And remember, this world was quite literally made for you."

I blinked as I considered the implications of that. Were the bondage habits of all the monsters in this world my fault?

"Yeah, thinking too much about this is just going to drive me mad. Madder. It's time to go dismember demons again."

I made my way back to the abyss, but saying that I was worried about my mental health would be an understatement. This was no longer at the level of worrying about fitting in back on Earth.

I'd killed thousands of people unnecessarily. That sort of thing effects people. Not knowing for sure just how real they were didn't make things better. Nor did any attempt to justify my actions to myself; I knew my actions at the time made perfect sense, but I could repeat that back to myself like a mantra until I was blue in the face without it making any difference.

I didn't want to dismember demons. That was just a displacement activity. I wanted to lock myself away somewhere no-one could see me and cry. But I was supposed to be a hero. People were depending on me. I couldn't let myself have a breakdown. I needed to keep pushing.

I spent the next couple of days in the arena, working my way through the list, finding demons to train my resistance and combat skills. A two-headed hell-hound provided a few more levels of fire immunity, and bathing in the lava lake finished it off, letting me use the flame version of my breath attack completely without self-harm.

Yes, I went swimming in the lake of lava. After its previous experience, the hydra now left me alone. It burnt the first time, but with maxed out immunity it was rather enjoyable, as long as I kept my head above the surface. I'd already established that I'd gone crazy, so why not? Besides, it was no worse than licking up liquid blight to train disease resistance, or what I went through with the spider queen to train those resistances. If anything, it was normal behaviour for me now. That ship had sailed when I first carried a bag of spider acid back to the murder tree's room, intending to train my pain resistance.

A few more fights against the floating ice demon capped out cold nullification, but I hadn't racked up enough achievements for an evolution. That was annoying, because level thirty nullification was nowhere near enough to defend against that demon's storms of ice. That one was on my list for finding other ways to train.

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Fights against more of the giant, naked demons maxed out all of my combat skills and physical damage resistances, but nothing evolved. A quick check in with dupliKatie proved that I was now considerably more skilled than her, and she could no longer beat me in a fair fight.

Of course, that didn't mean I won, because she didn't fight fair. As usual, she took advantage of the fact that I could respawn and she couldn't, as well as the fact she controlled any army of zombies, all of which leaked a black fluid that was fatal to me even with level forty disease immunity. It was a reminder that skill wasn't everything.

I found a demonic slime to train my corrosion resistance, something appraisal called a daemonium globus. Launching arrows into it was fascinating. They didn't stop or even slow down on impact, but neither did they come out the other side. They disintegrated and dissolved en route. For obvious reasons, I didn't try shoving my melee weapons into one of them, given that appraisal also said that they could dissolve even mythril. They could certainly dissolve me, getting my corrosion immunity up to level forty very quickly. Even if I 'won', using my flame breath to vaporise the things, they turned into a cloud of smoke that dissolved my lungs, taking me out too. They certainly made the dissolving powers of the ambush slimes look tame by comparison.

There were, oddly, no poisonous demons I could find other than the daemonium semideus. Or at least, none with poison strong enough to level my immunity. I wasn't sure why, but given the array of non-humanoid forms, I expected that at least one would have potent venom. I did manage to find a small demon that seemed like an upgrade of the imps, that came into the arena armed, and had a one third chance of coming equipped with poisoned arrowheads, but they weren't sufficiently powerful to push my immunity any further. It was a pity I hadn't goaded the spider queen into biting me a few more times.

The alchemist did stock potions of poison, and they weren't very expensive, so I decided to give one of them a try. That achieved nothing, so I gave ten of them a try. Apparently, even relatively weak poisons could be dangerous in high enough doses, and I scraped a couple more levels. Then again, wasn't it possible to poison yourself by drinking too much water? Would my poison immunity skill help against that, too?

I got the final poison immunity level by going up against another daemonium semideus, to see if my higher combat levels would help at all. They didn't.

I couldn't find anything to level pain immunity, which was good in a way, because it meant nothing around here could seriously hurt me. Even the spider queen's kiss of pain hadn't managed it. Perhaps I could find a soul mage to perform some carefully controlled soul mutilation, but in all, I was happy to leave it where it was.

Curse nullification was the biggest winner, going through an evolution and making it all the way to level forty. These demons really liked their curses.

Evolution conditions met: Curse nullification ranks up to curse immunity
Not all magical attacks aim to deliver raw damage. Sleep, weakness or paralysis are common effects. Having quickly recovered from the sleep and paralysis magics of a powerful mage, the petrification of a daemonium medusa, the song of a daemonium siren and the ministrations of a daemonium sexus, you have earned this upgrade from nullification to immunity. This skill will allow you to throw off all but the strongest of curses, will alert you when you are the target of a curse and inform you of its intended effects.

I couldn't resist losing a few more battles with a daemonium sexus, even after maxing the skill. My zombie twin had mentioned blighting some succubi, but they had, alas, all been lost when the black dragon cleansed the floor. These must have been the type of demon she meant. They were humanoid, standing tall, but not inhumanly so, at a touch under two metres, and were very definitely female, with voluminous breasts and precious little in the way of clothing. They had cute little horns and a long and thin flexible tail, which split open at the tip to reveal a moist, textured surface, which could clamp itself to my body with remarkable strength, draining what appraisal called my life-force. True to the succubi reputation, being drained by one instantly became my new favourite way to die. Even dupliKatie wasn't as pleasurable.

Yes, I was embracing my insanity. Who cared when it felt that good?

I couldn't find anything to train my other resistance skills, though, and there were also other skills that surely existed but that I'd never obtained. Lightning resistance? Air resistance? I could have trained suffocation tolerance if I'd wanted, but I wasn't entirely convinced that was a good idea. Still, I'd harvested a good crop of skills, and it was about time I took a break from grinding to complete another task.

I'd finally saved up enough shards to buy a potion of experience.

I excitedly flew over to the alchemist and bought it up, chugging it down immediately. No notifications popped up, but a check of my status showed that both classes had gained a level. The third class still displayed as locked, alas. It was a pity the alchemist didn't have a potion of unlocking third classes.

Mapping was my last skill to enhance from my first class, so I did that first. The detail on my mental minimap increased, but it was still very much a minimap, centred on me and with no way to scroll around or look at other areas. Many more labels appeared on it, including all the shops. Most impressively, an array of blue dots appeared, all labelled with a name. Every demon in the abyss was marked. If I forgot someone's name and wasn't able to use appraisal for some reason, I now had another method to find out. Would this extend to hostile monsters? What if they were trying to hide?

Scanning through the lists of names in my area, one caught my eye. Hyriklaxxine, the captain of the guard, was hanging around on a rooftop nearby. So he was spawned after all, but why was he stuck on a rooftop? I'd need to visit to see if I could get permission to visit floor six. First, though, it was time to take another look through my monster tamer class skills.

Stronger poison: Greatly increase the potency of your body's poisons.
Hypnotic aroma: Your bodily fluids gain a slightly weakened version of the hypnotic abilities of the angelica vorax.
Exoskeleton: Develop a tough chitin exoskeleton to provide strong additional protection from both physical and magical attacks.
Luminance: Your body glows with a controllable light.
Festering wounds: Wounds you inflict with melee attacks become severely diseased with blight.
Extra limbs: Grow an additional four pairs of clawed limbs.
Mana metabolism: You can metabolise ambient mana, removing the need for physical food and water in high mana areas.
Crystal metabolism: You can efficiently metabolise mana infused crystal in addition to your species' regular food, and drain the mana from the crystals by touch.
Prehensile feet: You can grasp with your feet with finger-like dexterity.
Draconic might: You gain a massive increase to physical strength and a substantial increase to physical endurance.
Elemental affinity: You can cast basic, intermediate and advanced elemental spells.
Decay affinity: You can cast basic, intermediate and advanced decay spells.
Draconic scales (rainbow): Develop rainbow dragon scales to provide substantial additional protection from both physical and magical attacks, as well as very high resistance to the elements.
Draconic power: You gain a massive increase to mana reserves and regeneration, and a substantial boost to the power of all magic.
Void-touched: You have a whiff of the Void about you, and all who perceive you will not emerge unchanged.
Named: You possess a Name.
Devourer: You can consume biological material with a touch, whether or not it is still living.
Bark skin: Develop a tough layer of bark to provide very strong protection from magical attacks, and weaker protection from physical damage.

Hey, I'd been short-changed. The pair of black dragon skills didn't get an upgrade!

Where the heck did devourer come from? Is that from the murder tree? But it used a pool of nectar?

Although, now that I thought of it, it did always make sure to wrap its prey in its roots, even after they drowned. Maybe the nectar was never corrosive, and the damage was being done directly by the roots? Or perhaps there were elements of both. And since I'd never tried to attack it, I actually had no idea how tough its bark was. If it was worthy of a skill, it must be pretty protective.

Annoyingly, despite the huge list of skills, several of which sounded awesome, what I really wanted wasn't there. I still wanted draconic scales, but given the impact it would have on my resistance training, I was putting it off until I needed it. Draconic might was temping, as was the combo of elemental affinity and draconic power, especially with the upgrade the latter had just had to boost the power of spells. But all of those skills were missing one thing.

The daemonium semideus had shown me that all the strength in the world didn't matter if I couldn't hit my opponent or react to my opponents' attacks against me. My perception wasn't up to the task of following its movements, nor were my reflexes sufficient to defend against it. It was possible I could deal with it if I raised my resistances, endurance and armour to the point I was impervious to its attacks and found some way to make powerful area of effect attacks of my own, but it seemed unlikely I would ever get that far. I needed improved perception and dexterity, and the mental processing speed to make use of them.

What sort of monster would I need to befriend to get something like that?

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