PREVIOUSLY
But, before Elm could even look back, she met resistance against the back of her leg. Looking behind her, she could see part of the thing's long body was blocking their exit. It slid from one wall into the next, parting the bones, as its body coiled around the chamber like a giant serpent.
Those yellow eyes appeared in front of them and the upper half of its body, its torso, rose before them in the chamber outside the tunnel. The iridescent carapace looked like it was fashioned from the armor of thousands of beetles. The scale-like segments fluttered like wings, revealing a pale and long and withered humanoid form within. It wore the carapace like a suit of armor.
Its face pushed into the lichen light as it revealed its visage. To Elm's surprise, despite its glowing yellow eyes and needle-sharp teeth, it had the head and face of an old human woman. Strings of unwashed gray hair hung in front of its face. The skin was wrinkled, but it was also translucent, which created the odd effect of seeing glowing eyes and teeth hanging in the air. Was this another perversion of the human form, meant to frighten her and make a mockery of her kind? Or was this someone who was once human who had transformed into a monster?
"Oh, what's the problem, little hero?" Ameth said. "Do you find yourself a little stuck in this place>"
As it cackled like a crone, it's many legs skittered around the room before it shrieked, causing every torch lighting up the place to die out one by one, casting them all in darkness.
"To The Dreaded Place We Go."
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Elm felt the hand grab her by her tunic and pull her forward. She drove the dagger forward, but Ameth caught her arm, blocking her. Something latched onto her wrist and twisted, forcing her to drop the dagger. Then she was airborne and hanging upside down. There was a rush of momentum and she sensed she was in the chamber.
Those yellow eyes appeared in front of her again, glowing bright enough to show Elm that one of the many millipede-like appendages was locked around one of her ankles, holding her upside down from the ceiling. Suddenly, the eyes narrowed and darted to the ground.
Elm tried to break free from the grasp, but found that she couldn't. In her head, the Sword demanded to be released but Elm controlled herself.
As humiliating as this was, Elm didn't need to hurry herself too much yet, for if Ameth wanted to kill her, it would do so a multitude of time ago. For now, it was just playing with her, which was perfect since it was giving Elm all the time for her to think of the reason why Ameth wanted her to call her Holy Sword so much.
"Oh dearie me, it seems I've caught myself a little hero in my nails," Ameth cackled in the dark, it's yellow, big eyes dwarfing Elm's small, human form. "Hold on. Let me help you get out!"
Ameth's torso suddenly twisted, before throwing Elm straight towards the wall at the speed of sound. It moved so fast, all Elm could really do was to brace for impact before she felt pain flaring on her back, ribs, and lungs where she knew that she had definitely broken multiple bones on impact.
"Kuk. ." She fell to her knees, blood pouring out of every single one of her orifices. She had received multiple life-threatening injuries but she felt her healing factor kick in.
She stood up, and adopted a fighting stance, trying to find where the Dreaded One was. It was no use, since this was it's domain, a darkness that locked away her light, no, that wasn't quite right. No darkness could lock away her light, even the one by the Demon God. This darkness, all it could do was hide away her light which was far less worrying than the former problem, but the time it would take for her to find it would be long enough for her to meet her maker.
That was how one of her incarnations had literally died fighting this insectoid bastard.
"Where am I?"
A hard tendril licked at her legs. "Am I here?" Elm kicked backwards, only for something to attach itself to her leg.
"Too bad." The tendril attempted to throw her to the other side of the world, but Elm wasn't so foolish as to fall for the same trick twice. She sacrificed her leg, twisting it so that she could deliver a roundhouse downward kick on the tentacle, splitting it apart.
"Ooh, feisty!" Then, it shot even more tendrils of darkness towards Elm. "Dance for me more!"
It would hurt a lot for Elm to dodge all of the tendrils with a broken leg, but by her calculations, it would take her around ten more seconds before her leg was healed. So, Elm focused all of her senses onto the incoming missile-like tendrils, as she kicked into another gear. She jumped high into the air, masterfully rolling past the first two tendrils that came at her, running on them towards their owner, before sliding past a tendril that was especially spiky and aiming for her head.
Five more seconds. It really hurt her speed and body to be running around so much with a rapidly healing leg, but she had to do this, otherwise, she would actually be dancing according to Ameth's wishes.
"Not bad," Ameth's voice crackled like chalk on a board. "Please, dance even more! Entertain me!"
This time, Ameth's tentacles came in pairs, and at an even faster speed than last time. Two more seconds and Elm's leg would be healed. Instead of simply dodging the tentacles, she moved her hands at the speed of sound so that they were like razor-sharp blades instead of hands, cutting apart any and all tentacles that were coming at her.
"More! More!"
Elm skipped along the long tentacle, and soon enough, she was face to face with the huge centipede-chimera lord. It had changed it's face to that of an old woman, which was extremely creepy since the old woman had bat-like ears, and a circular mouth full of spinning sharp blades for teeth.
Her blood boiled. She felt a pop in her body, and knew that her leg was completely healed now. With both of her legs, she charged up all of the energy inside her body, before kicking off the tentacle, zooming straight towards Ameth like a rocket, nay, faster than a rocket.
Multiple tentacles, this time, empowered by Ameth's darkness came at her. Since she hadn't been empowered by her Light, all she could do was follow the vertical motion her jump had coursed her for, as she tried her best to move past the many dark tentacles coming at her.
But, even for her, it was too much. Small cuts started to appear on her face, arms, and thighs as she was beginning to be overwhelmed by the tentacles.
Then, from her blindspot, Elm felt something grab at her.
"Got you!" Ameth squealed with the voice of an old woman, and the enthusiasm of a child. It disgusted Elm even more, the blood inside her boiling to extinguish this disgusting amalgamation of a creature.
"Quite the slippery one, aren't you?" Ameth tutted at her. The Celestial Hero really looked nothing like her name now, with all the blood pouring out of her skin. "But, what will you do now? I've caught you in my grasp, and like all the other incarnations before you, you're quite literally stuck between me and a hard place."
"Powers sealed, your connection to the light gone, is there really anything you can offer me so I won't, oh I don't know, peel your skin from your body?"
A hand formed from one of it's tentacles, and it snapped it's one too many fingers. "Ah, why don't we review what I've said before, and take out your sword?"
The grip on Elm got even tighter.
"I'm not asking."
Elm felt like she would pop soon, as her Holy Sword was now demanding that it be let out.