Book 3: Chapter 54: Patch 9.0: The Catacombs' Secret

“Fenny, stop flirting with new girls when your girlfriend is over here jealous,” Oleander calls out to Fenrir.

“I’m – I’m not flirting, and Cass Cass wouldn’t be jealous of this,” Fenrir says, looking back at the group.

Cassiel totally looks jealous.

“Y-yeah. I’m not… jealous or anything like that,” Cassiel says.

Oh, she’s totally jealous.

Fenrir is going to have to remember this.

“Anyways, so you got lost down here, tried sneaking around until you got discovered, and have been lighting things on fire ever since?” Fenrir asks Azalabulia.

“I – I am only down here because of the dark energy challenging me to a duel!” Azalabulia tries to explain while still “wagging” her hips.

“You can stop that, you know.”

“Stop what?”

He points at her hips.

Azalabulia coughs and straightens up. “I do not know what you are talking about, foolish mortal.”

“Sure you don’t. Anyways, seems like there’s a pretty big room up ahead. Maybe a boss?” Fenrir guesses.

The rest of the group walks up to them and looks ahead at the room.

“I – I see! The natural attraction between the dark flames within me has been drawing me toward this final opponent!” Azalabulia says.

“Looks like it might be a boss room. Want to keep going? Everything in here has honestly been pretty easy. The only issue has been their numbers. So, I’m thinking that the boss might not be that difficult,” Oleander theorizes.

“Yeah. We’re all together now, so even if the boss is way harder than everything else we have fought so far, we should be fine,” Cassiel says.

“I’m down for watching another awesome fight if you all want to go fight something,” Rao says.

“Might as well. We’re already here,” Fenrir says.

“H-hey! Do – do not ignore me, you – you—” Azalabulia says with a pout before getting interrupted.

“Want to join us? You cleared half the way here anyways, so it’d only be fair to invite you along,” Fenrir offers her.

Azalabulia looks away with a blush and pout. “As – as long as it’s not like a bug,” she says.

“Don’t worry.  If it’s a bug then we’ll leave you in there alone.”

She looks at Fenrir with teary eyes and puffed cheeks.

Fenrir walks toward the room with the rest of his group following behind. Cassiel makes a “hmph” sound as she walks past Azalabulia, not even looking in her direction.

“H-hey! Wait for me!” Azalabulia cries out.

While Rao may not be interested in Azalabulia because of her personality, he’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t into her body. He finds his eyes going over to her whenever she’s not looking his way just to check her out. Her body is definitely one of a woman’s despite her somewhat childish personality – in fact, he would never think to associate her personality with somebody whom looks like her. Wide hips, thick thighs, a large chest, an hourglass figure, taller than everybody but him and Fenrir, and more mature looking than them both… yet she acts like a delusional kid playing with sticks in their backyard and calling them swords.

He loses interest again as soon as she opens her mouth.

“Come out and face me! Let us determine whose… whose… whose darkness is greater and worthy of becoming the overlord of this star!” Azalabulia shouts.

“Yeah, what she said,” Oleander says.

The room they are in is large and round like most traditional boss chambers. A large slab has dropped from the wall behind them to block off their only escape, and it looks as if they are in some sort of mausoleum as hundreds of coffins lie within the decrepit walls.

A hole near the room’s ceiling serves as the boss’s entrance.

Dozens of fat, slimy tentacles pull the monster forward out from the hole, dropping down into the center of the room in front of everybody.

They are the same tentacles that Cassiel originally left because of, and the ones that the rescue group was fighting through earlier. Only, now they all get to see what the tentacles are actually connected to.

All of the tentacles are attached to a fleshy, purple and red mass with slitted eyes all over its body. The top of its body features a maw lined with several rows of thorn-like teeth ready to tear apart anything that comes close to them, and it has new tentacles to show off as well. The ones that Cassiel and the others saw were just purple and slimy with rounded tips, but these new ones they are seeing have tips covered in spikes, some that are sharp and curved like blades, and there’s one with pores surrounding it that is spewing gas wherever it swings.

“I, Azalabulia, the Dark Sorceress of Twisted Flames, the Breaker of Reality, and the One Who will Set the Worl—”

“What is it with tentacles today?” Oleander asks.

“Hey, tentacles need love, too,” Fenrir says.

Some of the tentacles seem to agree as they point at Cassiel and Azalabulia.

Cassiel draws her blade which causes the tentacles to back off. As for Azalabulia, her disgusted expression at the tentacles makes them limpen and pull back toward the main body of the boss.

“I was expecting a necromancer or something,” Oleander says.

A couple of tentacles reach over to the walls, pull the tombs out of them, and smash them onto the floor to open them. A bit of magic later and the corpses within come to life, twisted by the boss’s magic. One of their bodies splits apart from the head to the waist with tentacles coming out from the split halves, and the other body gets its arms replaced by tentacles.

“Guess we found the necromancer,” Oleander corrects himself.

“So, Aza, I don’t suppose you’re like a certain explosion loli and can take this thing out with one blast before being useless for the rest of the day?” Fenrir asks Azalabulia.

“A-Aza? My name is Azalabulia, the Dark Sorceress of Twisted Flames, the—”

“Just answer the question,” Cassiel says with a sigh, not even understanding Fenrir’s reference in the first place.

“I – no, I can not do that yet, but I aspire to be as powerful as her someday!” Azalabulia explains.

“At least you got the reference. I don’t think anybody else here would,” Fenrir says.

“Really? How could they not?!” She looks over the rest of the group and sees either confusion or facepalming. “But she’s the best character in all of—”

“Can we just kill this freak already?” Cassiel asks.

“I’m – I am not a freak!”

“I’m talking about the thing with tentacles.”

“A-ah…”

Regardless of whether the group is ready or not, the boss swings its tentacles down toward them which causes the group to jump out of the way!

“H-hey! I’m just here to watch!” Rao shouts at the boss.

The boss doesn’t care and swings another tentacle at him, this one with a bladed tip.

Shogun lunges at the tentacle, grabs it within his mouth, and then uses his wings to generate a boost of speed strong enough to counteract the tentacle’s inertia by flipping backward and slamming the tentacle into the ground! His fangs continue tearing into the fleshy tentacle after pinning it down to the ground, and with how close Shogun has his mouth to the tentacle’s tip, it is unable to swing itself around to try and attack him.

Another tentacle swings at him but gets blocked by Rock jumping at it and biting it mid-air. The boss, fearing its tentacle is going to get pinned again like with the one pinned by Shogun, immediately tries to pull its tentacle away from Rock.

But she refuses.

With Rock holding onto one end of the tentacle and pulling it backward while the boss tries pulling its tentacle back, the two essentially play tug of war with the tentacle.

“Aaaannndddd recording,” Oleander says.

“How’re you going to record while dodging attacks?” Fenrir asks him.

“Oh, my assistant said he could record the entire fight from a bunch of different angles while we fight.”

“Seriously? That’s awesome. What’s your assistant like anyways?” Fenrir asks while ducking under a tentacle lashing out at him.

“Big, hairy, and muscles. I call him ‘Daddy.’”

“I’m not surprised.”

Meanwhile, Azalabulia takes her wooden staff and chants a spell. “Cursed Flame of Bahamut, I, your wielder, Azalabulia, summon thee from the depths of my soul to blast mine enemy! Sear away its flesh and emblaze it with your corrupt flame until naught else but ashes are left!”

The two raised zombies charge at her as she chants.

Cassiel cuts them off and slices both of their bodies in half with a single swing of her blessed blade.

Enraged, the boss smashes seven more tombs onto the floor to bring more trash adds to the fight.

“I’ll hold them off. Finish your spell. You can’t do anything if you don’t say it all, right?” Cassiel asks, looking back at Azalabulia with a knowing smile.

Azalabulia originally thought that Cassiel didn’t like her because of how cold she seemed to her, but it is now that she realizes something.

The graceful way that Cassiel fights, the sort of flashy acrobatics she practices during combat, that glowing blade and overall paladin-esque appearance of her… Cassiel is a fellow compatriot of roleplaying.

Not wanting to be outdone, Azalabulia returns to chanting her spell. Only a few lines of overly-dramatic phrases later and the head of a dragon composed entirely out of red and black flames appears above her.