Chapter 207: Chapter 192 – Inside the Belly of the Beast

"I have killed many large beasts, yes… often from the inside. Those experiences however tend to be less than pleasant… and I generally don't like to recall or retell them." - Aideen deVreys, The Silver Maiden, circa 607 FP.

Within the darkness, Aideen clung to a piece of floating plank from the boat as the rush of the water carried her deeper into the beast's belly. Despite being inside a creature, it was as if she was within a gigantic cavern instead.

 

She was tossed around to and fro, at times slamming her body against other pieces of the boat - which was reduced to pieces when the beast's jaw caught its tail end - or against the fleshy walls of the beast's throat.

 

Those fleshy walls were so hard it felt as if she was dashed on a boulder instead, and she felt her flesh bruise and bones crack when it happened. Damages she fixed in mere moments, but would have probably been enough to incapacitate someone without healing capabilities.

 

The water was like rapids, wild and uncontrollable, and Aideen had no choice but to allow herself to get carried along with it. After what felt like an eternity but in reality might have only been a few minutes, she thought she heard sounds similar to what a waterfall made.

 

Then she found herself in freefall, as the water flowed down into a larger chamber, which was only half-filled even with the amount the beast must have swallowed. She noticed how a pungent smell filled the air around her as she plunged into the water below.

 

Aideen re-emerged from the waters a few moments later, and she swam closer to the walls, before she brought out her weapon. With their blades out, she used her staves almost like a pair of climbing pickaxes, and climbed until she encountered a fold in the flesh large enough to allow her to sit on it.

 

There she paused for a moment, and pulled out a small lantern out of her storage. The lantern was an enchanted one, and needed no fire as the crystal embedded within shone with light once she injected some mana into it.

 

Her suspicions proved correct. Her clothes were pretty much reduced to rags, and she had to use some magic to heal her skin. The murky water that pooled below was quite acidic, though not so acidic it would instantly dissolve something.

 

Just as she thought that, something liquid dripped down onto her chest, and it immediately ate through her clothes and began to corrode her flesh beneath. Aideen had to pulse her magic until the acid finally ran out and only then regenerate her missing flesh, which were part of her shoulder and nearly half of her left breast.

 

Aideen noticed - and heard - that more such acidic droplets were falling from above, and quickly made up her mind to get out from the place, which was likely the beast's stomach.

 

She quickly stood up and dug a small hole in the stomach wall near her using her weapons, the flesh a good bit tougher than she had expected, almost like rocks. Her progress was slow, and while she worked, several more drops of stomach acid fell on her back.

 

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She ignored the sizzling pain and only healed to keep the wounds from affecting her digging. Finally she managed to create a gap around half the size of her head after ten minutes, and around as deep.

 

Aideen brought out a couple vials of the improved brew made by the goblins. She looked into the gap and noticed that the wound had started to produce acid - probably a defensive reaction - which suited her needs fine.

 

Carefully, she placed the vials into the gap she made. She satisfactorily nodded as she noticed how the acid began to eat into the vials - the glass had been specially treated to keep it inert against the brew, which made it susceptible to things like acids instead - and stuffed a large chunk of stomach flesh back into the gap as a cover, then anchored it between the points of her weapon.

 

Less than a minute later, the explosion caught her off guard and threw her off her perch back into the acidic water. Undeterred, she climbed her way back up, and found that her perch was nearly nonexistent when she reached it.

 

The beast's flesh within a five meter radius was roughly gouged out by the explosion, which also carved deeper into the beast. A mixture of its blood and stomach acid had pooled at the lower part of the wound, and Aideen thought she could see a way through in the far end.

 

She stepped into the pooled blood and acid without even flinching, even as the strong acid began corroding her bare feet. Her magic healed her flesh faster than the acid could corrode it, and she walked towards the end, where she found that the explosion had punched a head-sized hole through the stomach lining.

 

Aideen quickly went to work as she enlarged the hole with her weapons. It took her nearly an hour to carve a hole large enough for her to pass through, healing her back and legs from the continuous corrosion of the acids all the while.

 

By the time Aideen crawled out of the hole she made, she was naked - her clothes had long been dissolved by the acids - and quite miserable, as she tried to clear her airways from the unpleasant sour and pungent stench.

 

The beast's abdominal cavity - or at least she assumed it to be that - was just as dark, and the air there smelled stale with an unpleasant stench to them. Aideen ignored it, and slowly climbed the outer wall of the beast's stomach, until she reached its upper side where she could stand somewhat stably.

 

Lighting her lantern, she saw what looked like piles of intestines further behind, and some large organs which seemed to wriggle further ahead of her. Large blood vessels the size of smaller caves lined those organs, and gave her an idea.

 

Aideen had just started to take a step towards those organs when she heard what sounded like a shrill screech, followed by skittering noises that seemed to originate from the other side of the massive organ.

 

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