I could almost understand where he was coming from. Almost. A part of me wanted to scoff at it. Expose your weaknesses to the world and turn them to your strengths? It sounded easy, when he said it that way. Sounded simple. Things would not work out that simply in reality. Wunder and Arol were too trusting. Too forthright. Or was it, that as nightmares, they did not possess a sense of self-preservation as I did? They did not see the advantages of deception cunning? Had they not the common sense to hold a healthy suspicion about people?
I did not understand them. They were… confusing. I did not know how I would even begin to understand them. So, for now, I would not try. I kept my chin up, my gait steady, ensuring that my backup timeline was still safe that I could retreat to, and I aimed ahead – forward. The night sky of Alamir was still beautiful, and I had bigger concerns to worry about than understanding the psyche of nightmares.
Moving further into the fort, the sounds of cheering and chanting increased. Approaching, I got a glimpse of a large number of different creatures of varying shapes and sizes, all of them gathered around something, all of them cheering or chanting or making different series of noises in different tones, pitches, grunts and rallying cries. I could hear someone seemingly giving the byplay, the further I approached, the more I could hear the voice, inexplicably neither feminine nor masculine, speaking loudly.
“Aaaand look at that darlings! Onna almost wins easiiiily! My, my my my – I just love Onna’s determination. Isn’t she a darling? Oh – and there’s Hodag! Oh, oh, my my! Beautiful darling, beautiful! Hodag is still in this – Hodag is still here!”
The voice amplified itself with neither a microphone nor a speaker. Arol led, gesturing at me to follow her, and as I did, I sidestepped the large crowd, only able to get glimpses at the spectacle the associated group of monsters were watching. A large, thick World War I-esque trench dug deep into the earth, with enough space to easily be used as an Olympic swimming pool. Within the trench, I got glimpses of a young woman with pale blue skin and white frozen hair, ice dancing and spinning off her fingers, giant snowflakes shooting from her palms like shuriken soaring from the nimble fingers of assassins. The opponent, across from her, a pug-like creature the shape of a ball, tiny bat wings on its bag and a single eye shooting out concentrated blasts of energy, knocking away the ice and melting it simultaneously.
“The battle rages on my darlings! Hodag’s been trying his best, oh, look at that spin shot with his eye! Oh my my my, things might be a little too hot for Onna!”
Finding my expectations continuously shattered and my confusion continually growing, I followed Arol and Wunder, eventually noticing the odd looks and stares I started getting for my outfit and mask. Or perhaps it was because Arol and Wunder were still carrying the kobold corpses over their shoulders. I could not tell.
I was only confident about walking into the belly of the beast because of [Duality]. In my backup timeline, I was sitting patiently under a tree, never having bothered with activating Cuvar’s Monster Link, and thus, never having met Arol and Wunder. Despite the assurance that if I did die here, I’d be safe, I felt perturbed at the increasingly growing number of eyes that kept turning in my direction as I followed the duo.
“And darlings, we have a winner! Onna was pure beaaaauty! Hodag didn’t stand a chance against the beautiful Zyvar’s frostiest lieutenant! She’s a darliiing!”
We reached the source of the voice. Arol and Wunder dropped the dead kobolds flat in front of it, before bending to one knee.
“Leader Erzili, we’ve returned.”
“Celebrations! Erzili’s darliiings have returned! Oh, and it seems they’ve been rather naughty… we have ourselves, a guest!”
There were no words I could use to describe the creature in front of me. The closest would be to describe it as a shifting, amorphous slime. Yet, that was not correct. The shifting amorphous slime possessed long, equally morphing tendrils and tentacles expanding in different directions from it like a spider spitting web out of its legs in every direction. The slime, if it could even be called that, moved and reformed its color, changing from green and purple, to black and teal, to gold and orange. Semi-solid, semi-liquid, viscous, it was like a giant, oily amoeba.
Erzili
[Nightmare of Ten Thousand Forms]
[Elder One of Ecstasy]
[Commander of Fort Zyvar]
Elite Slithercreep
Level ?
“Welcome home, darlings.”
Chapter 7: Erzili
“Oh, my my my, there’s a guest, and Erzili is so terribly indecent. Give me a moment, darling.”
The slime morphed. Slowly, it took on the shape of a woman. A rich, voluptuous woman. Color began to fill in the blanks. Beautiful ebony skin that glowed underneath the sun’s ray with a sheen that would easily compare her to an African goddess. Her hair was the color of beach sand at sunset. Her eyes glowing like the moon’s reflection on a pond’s surface. Her lipstick was the color of blood. Her chest defied gravity with its size and a smooth, thin-waisted, thick-thighed body that many had no doubt died trying to achieve. A sensual, absolutely predatory grin shot towards me.
“Is this form to your taste darling?”
The desire to say yes would have been more prominent had I possessed a body capable of feeling sexual attraction. “No.”
“Oh?”
The gorgeous dark-skinned woman vanished, and was replaced with a man. Thick, with rippling muscles. Skin that shined as if freshly oiled, a freshly trimmed beard, a sharp, hungry gaze, and hanging from between his legs, a thick, bulging, erect cock
