The 90th floor - a floor with some nasty, yet familiar monsters - was up on our list to conquer next. The monsters being, of course, the 'Devil snakes' - sadistic beasts that loved to torment their prey before finishing them. The difference between the 50th floor and the 90th floor being that on the 50th floor there was only one of these bastards and the 90th floor housed a whole metric ton. Lucky us...
Our enemy this time wasn't tough or powerful, but it had one advantage making it formidable enough to guard the 90th floor and that was its innate ability to use black magic.
Black magic is one of eight basic types of magic in this world - water, fire, wind, earth, ice, light, shadow and black magic. While these eight forms are the basics, there are far more magic types in this world that are derived directly from these eight like gravity and metal derived from earth, lightning derived from wind, hellfire derived from fire, holy magic derived from light magic and so on.
The black magic is unique because its dominion isn't elemental like the others. Black magic is tied directly to the mind itself allowing black magic users to use telepathy, mind control, create nightmares, disorient enemies, make your teammates lose all sense of fear, make the bravest of your foes piss their pants out of fear and so on. Oh, and that is just the basic black magic I am talking about. Its advanced forms allow one to even raise the dead. Yeah, it's a troublesome ability, especially on someone that relishes in torturing their victims.
Fighting one of those things is hard enough, but now we will have to face a whole floor filled with them. It's a good thing that we obtained that skill on one of the previous floors. Let's hope it works.
As we entered the floor and were looking for prey, we didn't notice that one of the snakes was hiding behind us in a small crevice. As we noticed it, it was already too late, because the snake, slithering without a sound, came behind me, wrapped itself around me in an instant, and looked into my eyes. I tried to get out of its grasp, but the more I struggled, the more tightly it coiled around me.
Before Alex had a chance to take action in freeing me the snake's golden eyes directed right at mine started glowing and in a matter of seconds I stopped struggling. The 'Devil snake' smiled, released me from its grasp and I turned to Alex.
"Kill him" Was the command given to me by the monster.
I obeyed, charging at Alex with full force and aiming 'pierce' straight at his solar plexus. Alex panicked, but was fast enough to use 'stone skin' in the last second reducing the otherwise fatal damage. He reduced the damage, but the pain still forced him to his knees.
"I-Isaac... What is the m-meaning of all this?" He managed to stammer. When I didn't respond, he became frantic. "Don't ignore me, Answer!"
"He he he he he, he doesn't hear you. No, that is not right, he isn't listening to you. He only listens to my voice now." The 'Devil snake' said with a terrifyingly vicious grin. "He is nothing more than my puppet, my slave, my plaything now and until his death." The grin looked really unnatural on a reptilian like it, sending shivers through Alex's back.
"What did you do!?" Alex looked both scared and furious.
"It's simple really, it was simple hypnosis, nothing more nothing less. Now then, I wish to see the two of you fight to the death. After all, what could be more fun than seeing two comrades in arms forced to kill one another?"
"You, you are sick! There is no way that I would kill him, especially for your amusement no less. I would rather die!" He looked furious.
"Suit yourself, but your little friend here has a different opinion, isn't that right, my puppet?" The 'Devil snake' turned to me saying all that and gave me a little shove forward with its tail. "kill him slowly for me."
I started approaching Alex, took out my trusty dagger and charged. This time Alex had the time to erect 'air barrier' in front and my slashes had no effect. "Isaac, listen to me, you have to fight this, don't let that monster control you!" His pleading was in vain, I didn't stop until I finally broke the barrier with a 'pierce'.
Alex fell onto his back, I pinned him. I used my dagger to slowly cut a deep wound onto his left forearm, extracting a loud scream out of him. When I went for another, trying to draw a nice X onto his arm, he used 'stone skin' to block my attempt. I hacked and slashed at his skin while Alex pleaded and even cried for me to stop, bringing great joy to the 'Devil snake'.
Finally he had enough. He kicked me straight in the gut, infusing his legs with mana, sending me flying off of him and breaking a few ribs. He slowly stood up, staggered a bit, looked at the monster menacingly and said. "If I kill you, the spell will break right?"
"Ha ha ha hah, Yes, it will, but in order to kill me you will have to get thru him first" Pointing at me. "Now then, puppet, protect me with your life." I Staggered in between the snake and Alex, positioning myself near the monster.
"It seems that I have no choice..." Alex said, lowering his eyes. "I am sorry, but I have to kill you." He released a 'fireball' straight at me. I looked back behind me at the snake, smiled and dodged it, giving the 'fireball' a clear path straight at the snake.
It hit, surprising and gravely wounding the 'Devil snake' "What is the meaning of this, puppet?! Why did you do that?!"
I answered "You surprised? I bet you are. It's quite simple really. We have gained a useful skill on one of the floors above. It's called 'mental fortitude'. It allows us to prevent or at the very least reduce the effectiveness of mental attacks. Cool huh?"
"Then... You weren't affected by my spell? Then why did you attack your companion?"
This is where Alex chimed in "He was affected alright, so it took him some time to break the spell. Why do you think I talked so much? I was simply buying time for him to recover from it. This was our plan from the very start."
"And your arm, was getting that deep cut also part of your plan?"
Alex looked at the snake, smiled and asked pointing at his arm "What cut?" His arm had already healed itself.
"You, you bastards, I should have killed you the first time I got the chance!"
"Yeah, if it wasn't for your need to play around with your food, we wouldn't have stood a chance. Your critical flaw is your arrogance and overestimation of your power. You would do well to remember that in your next life, now good bye." Alex began approaching the 'Devil snake' with a sword in hand.
"No, wait, don't kill me, I can help you to clear this floor, I'll do anything!"
Alex smiled his innocent smile and said "No thank you." That was the end for the 'Devil snake'.
Our grasp and understanding of 'mental fortitude' simply skyrocketed after eating the flesh of the 'Devil snake'. Not only that, but Alex gained a rudimentary understanding and ability to use black magic which would be a very powerful supportive skill for us in the future.
After the first fight with the 'Devil snake', the rest weren't as threatening. Mainly due to our 'mental fortitude' blocking most of their psychic attacks. But that is not to say that they didn't try to pull something similar. For example it seems that you can stack the same effect on a single target. We found that out the hard way when we, being overconfident, charged a group of more than ten of them. Fortunately the effect that they chose to inflict on us was just 'fear', so we, scared shitless of them, ran for as long as we left the floor and kept on running until our legs gave out. Note to self: do not charge a group of enemies without plan, especially if that group are all 'S' class monsters.
After this failure that Alex called 'learning experience' we started approaching these monsters far more carefully, not going after groups of more than three did the trick.
The hunting was very successful, we practiced our 'mental fortitude' and 'black magic' skills until we felt comfortable and confident in them. Alex even gave the 'Devil snakes' a taste of their own medicine by using black magic on them just to mess with them, that was a fun and satisfying sight.
We, for some reason, even started an acting competition between ourselves on who could make our pray, that thought it was hunting us, believing that it broke more. To me it was purely horse play, but Alex reasoned that acting skills are essential in life. And let me tell you, his acting skills are so over the top that it is hilarious to see. It's a real wonder that those monsters never suspected a thing and just thought that his reaction was caused by his despair.
After having all the fun on this floor we could, we decided to move forward. And so the journey of these, maybe, heroes continues.