The journey for these demon crystals has been vile so far, utterly tortuous. It was partially Gustav's fault too, because regardless of how cautious they've been towards this quest, the couple of them still came down here unprepared!
He didn't expect to see demons here, which was a bit funny. They met three different creatures so far, without even progressing through the tunnel all that much; Which confirmed that they weren't dealing with some village's random superstitions.
Gustav made a deal with himself, to be three times more careful after this point as fear urged it so. He was knocked out for a few seconds, and didn't quite understand why.
"Could've sworn that... wait, am I even alive?" He questioned, and dwelled into a mist of paranoia.
Just moments ago, he was supposed to bash against another creature, who had a very human-like face. Sure it wasn't his decision to do so, because he was airborne to begin with but the odds were technically in his favor before.
He was a fully transformed, mammoth-man, who weighed over four times more than any normal human could weigh.
To be knocked down by such an opponent, without a sense of orientation regarding what happened, sounded absurd!
"I'm not dead," He later realized, as a few more of those long-armed monsters appeared.
They were almost invisible in these tunnel, thanks to their brown-coated features. What helped Gustav tell them apart, was the torch he had tossed before. It still shone, and gave a fraction of spatial details which exposed the enemies!
"Arila! Hold them off for a second!" He begged, and tried to stand up.
It wasn't necessary to ask her twice, she bounced into battle right away. Her tiny figure helped her jump above Gustav who was on the ground, blocking the way. She even managed to avoid the ceiling above!
The little lady was already transformed, and she grunted upon landing. "You'll play with me now, demons..."
She was a force to be reckoned with, even though the enemies didn't recognize her as a threat.
Arila used that presumption to her advantage as well, since agility was her best trait. With a single horrid strike, her shortsword slit the air so mercilessly that it sounded like a whistle rather than a threat!
"Hehe," She smirked.
One narrow 'whistle' was enough to split an enemy's head in half. There were five more of them which posed as opponents, so she swiftly cut another head off!
To avoid handling any greater resilience in the following seconds, she put her one-foot horn into use as well. With a single explosive, short run, she stabbed one of the enemies at a forty-five degree angle, and continued to drag that horn across flesh!
It was intense, and the enemy was flung against the tunnel's right wall, with a hole across the chest.
In the meantime, Gustav stood up and wanted to prevent what he recognized as a disaster. He sought out that human-like face, which presumably knocked him down earlier on.
"Shouldn't have thrown my torch, I need that shit." He said.
It was common logic, he needed light to see. It wasn't any better how Arila sunk deeper into battle by now, he got an anxiety spike because of it as he lagged behind.
She was vulnerable to attacks, and the toughest enemy was nowhere to be seen. Gustav expected a tragedy through every beating second, but that was when this battle twisted dramatically!
A different looking creature was knocked down on the dusty ground, right in front of him. Most of its body didn't look human, apart from its head.
As he frantically stood up, a heavy question dawned. "Could it be?"
The creature screeched and then rolled across the dirt, and in exchange, it revealed a face that Gustav knew well.
"You!" He grunted.
Those prior assumptions were true. This same anomaly which knocked him out before, was now restricted by those crawling demons who had a hold of its legs!
Gustav was a burp away from throwing up, as he saw a fat and deformed body below that human-like face. It was shaped like a circle, and had several fat warts that constantly puked out this blood-red fluid.
He didn't know if it was blood or not, but it wasn't ideal to explore the details. A more urgent matter was to put this creature out of its misery.
"My kids are chewing on your legs, huh? Fuck's sake, you're gonna make them sick and I can't let that happen!" He lightly harassed the enemy.
About three meters behind him, the good man saw his four-foot long sword. The prior ruckus had likely tossed it that far, but it wasn't a challenge to get to it.
The fine metal reflected a tiny fraction of the torch's light, which in return made it more than easy to find the sword.
Afterwards, at a clumsy pace Gustav man-handled the sword to swing downwards, but toppled down along with it!
"Oh shit," He grunted.
Before he even fell down, the enemy barked out a blood-red, triangular ray of light which successfully jerked the longsword, away from its own head.
The impact was forceful, but he still held on to the sword for dear life. In exchange, it flew backwards and slid an inch deep between his butt-cheeks!
"Not there... I lay eggs from there, damn it!" Gustav thought, and the sudden sharp pain made him stand up almost immediately.
He realized that it wasn't any major damage, as his four observed most of the slash, but it was still humiliating!
Just then, he noticed that Arila has been quicker than anyone else. Her comically shorter piece of metal, had been enough to decapitate the already bloody, screamy enemy.
"That's how it's done," She said, and stretched a tempting smile.
Her rhino-like physique was astonishing, and it explained where she got all that lean agility throughout the battle. It would never be enough to praise her, as she was a warrior through and through.
"I'd be dead without you," Gustav complimented, and held on to his butt-cheeks with one hand.
While he tried to stand up, he said. "But let's blast them fuckers down next time. I don't care if we get buried alive, it'll be worth it."
The demonic moles popped out of the ground afterwards. They handled half of the battle, in a non-confrontational manner below the ground. The fat and muscle they recently built up, explained such an efficient success rate; The demons looked like bulked up, baby bears!
Their contribution was priceless! It was easier to kill off opponents who had their legs severed, and that last, disgusting enemy's pair of pointy legs were stripped down to the bone.
Now, the team could progress deeper within the tunnel, but they were more cautious than ever.
Gustav was especially spooked, he still muttered some things over. "Why did it have a human face? This is so weird and now, I don't even know what a demon is supposed to be, damn it…"