The chamber in the lower most strata of Serpent Heart was a kilometre across. All light in the dungeon originated from the large, fleshy structure at the centre of the donut shaped chamber. It connected the roof and floor in a pillar of smoothly narrowing and then broadening flesh. At the core was a knot that expanded and then collapsed, forcing light and viscera through the walls of the entire dungeon.

The party looked upon it from a distance. They had been culling more of the Bloody Serpents in the area, exhausting pools of crimson that had been filled from gushing gaps in the grotesquely soft and squirming floor. The dungeon was at its most dangerous. No parties had cleared it in generations.

The entire room rippled with each beat of the dungeon’s heart. What was a valley in one moment became a crushing crevice over the course of a few seconds. Nothing around was individually surprising. It was the fact that everything moved that made it so dangerous. Attention was pulled in every direction. Like a swarm of ants made it near impossible to pay attention to any singular ant, so too did it become difficult to stay focused on any single pit.

They focused on what was directly in front of them. To stare off into the distance was strictly too distracting. Fight by fight, they got closer to the centre, until what was distant was right before them.

“I am uncertain about our task,” Apexus thought out loud. They had reached the edge of a circle. A twenty metre radius around the heart was almost smooth. Muscle fibres formed a bouncy floor that was lowered visibly from the rest of the fleshy environment. “Are we supposed to destroy the heart?”

“Probably,” Reysha responded and looked around. “Ain’t seeing anything else that’s big and bossy.”

“So, do we just take it on?” Korith asked. “Or do we keep slapping the enemies around?”

“They do make for better eating now that they’re all fleshy,” Reysha stated.

“Personally, I’d prefer to vacate this dungeon at our earliest opportunity,” Aclysia cast her vote. “The light is getting on my nerves.”

“Same here… and I want to eat something else…”

“Can’t fault ya for that… so we’re two for leaving, one against. Deciding vote, big guy?”

“I don’t have a preference one way or another,” Apexus stated.

“Decision through inaction, ey?” Reysha rolled her shoulders. “Well, I got my fill at least. If ya wanna go ahead.” She gestured with her axe at the pulsing muscle.

Apexus leapt down and the rest of the party followed. The ground sank where his heavy form impacted. What caved downwards inevitably had to bounce back. Reysha laughed loudly when she and Korith were catapulted forwards by the surprising elasticity. The tiger girl landed on all fours five metres further – the shortstack made it more than half the way to the heart. Boosted by her Martial Art, she landed readily, then leapt immediately again. Her hammer struck the heart.

It collapsed in on itself. All muscles tensed. A powerful surge of light rushed outwards through the entire dungeon, replacing the twilight with an almost painfully bright red. Then it ebbed away again, leaving darkness and a faint glow at the core of the heart.

The original source of the light was powerful, but layers of muscle and veins turned it into a diminished ember. All branching pathways and fibres were visible. A helix of bone coiled around the core of the heart. Segments of bladed, dense material, coiling onwards for several metres. From its upper half, a pair of double-jointed branches extended, ending in three extended claws.

A spine. A pair of arms. A creature, whose dimensions became more apparent now that it shifted within its confinement. It was not a heart – not just. It was a cocoon. A chrysalis, whose surface rapidly hardened like shedding scales.

Before Korith could land, a hand broke through the crystallized muscle. It gripped her small form with three curling claws. In a gush of ichor and the sound of shattering glass, the boss monster tore the opening further.

Korith was slammed down on the ground. A head emerged, elongated and covered in sharp scales. Two eyes, yellow like pus, sat in the black-red face of the serpentine creature. It coiled out of its shell, showing where the two arms were joined with a bulbous, almost humanoid segment of its otherwise long form. Its scales reflected the intense light at the heart of its cocoon. The last of its seven metre long form slipped out of the confinement. Its length belied its true bulk. The creature was sleek, its arms thin, its spine a ride that was visible under the scales that covered it.

As the last of the viscera ran off its scales, the light within its cocoon drained into the environment. What had been steady pulses was replaced with a constant level of ambient, red light. The flesh smacking of shifting walls came to an end. It was eerily quiet. There was only the trampling of feet on the ground.

Apexus leapt with wings and feet. The Bloodwyrm, the boss of the Serpent’s Heart, twisted dexterously out of the way. Its neck curved and coiled. The maw opened wide, revealing teeth as sickly yellow as its eyes, dripping with bacterial rot. It ignored both the throwing knife and the Bolt that damaged its surface and caught Apexus’ left wing in its teeth.

The monster ripped its head around, beginning a deadly thrash. After only a single swipe, it felt the weight it moved diminish to next to nothing. Apexus landed hard on all fours. The skin on his back, where the wing should have been anchored to his spine and shoulder blades, was raised and pinched together. Gradually the surface flattened, while he raised a light grey fist and slammed it against the boss’ nearby claw.

The help was all Korith needed to push the limb off her and roll out from underneath. Blood poured from a deep cut across her cheek and her bones ached. Both pains were swiftly suppressed by pulsing adrenaline. She leapt, a swipe of the Bloodwyrm’s tail passing by under her.

Apexus was not as prepared. One half of his body was several kilos lighter than it was supposed to be. The tail struck him square in the midsection. Abs coated in defensive magic reflected light grey in the dim red light, slime underneath distributed the force evenly. Force that would have ruptured liver and kidney only distantly disturbed a set of loosely placed organs swimming in gelatinous insides.

The two metre tall hulk of a man was pushed back, but he did not topple nor was he catapulted into the air. His own tail served as the last bit of stabilization he needed, pushing against the floor. The boss let out a long growl, followed by a hiss after he dropped Apexus’ dismembered wing in front of him. Where the teeth had punctured it, the feathers were curled and dull.

Curling sideways, the boss feigned a bite. Apexus and Korith both retreated, only realizing that this was exactly what the Bloodwyrm wanted after it had backed away. Now with both of them in its field of view, it kept a distance, constantly moving the upper third of its body. The rest was coiled, primed for an explosive motion.

“We’ve got a fucking problem!” Reysha shouted from behind.

Apexus’ ear turned. No look was required to hear the sound of two Bloody Serpents making it down to the boss arena. He shook his head. ‘Open boss arena, should have cleared out the area,’ he reprimanded himself, too used to boss rooms that sealed off once the fight began. “I’ll take this.” Korith hesitated. “Go!”

The kobold jumped, the voice of the humanoid chimera atypically loud. Concern weighed heavily on his thoughts and the shortstack jumping away barely helped. To turn his gaze away from the boss was to open himself up to an attack. To fall was to have everyone else killed. They could handle two Bloody Serpents. They couldn’t handle two serpents and the boss.

Apexus took a deep breath, then let go of all the air in his body. He shut down that unnecessary habit. Drowned out his worry. Let go of his wish to look over his shoulder. All that remained was the instinct to protect. The membrane pinched off the last few attached muscles and the second wing dropped. He bent his knees and found his centre.

The Bloodwyrm rushed forwards. It seemed like a bite at first, then the boss rapidly curved and swiped sideways with its claws instead. Apexus greeted the attack with two hands. A cushion of energy emanated invisibly from his palms. Like a stream of flowing water, he guided the attack above his head.

What should have connected became a complete overswing. The Bloodwyrm halted his momentum, opening himself to a vertical kick to the jaw. Scales cracked as a sole as hard as iron slammed into it. Shards dropped off, revealing bright red flesh underneath.

The boss went into a rampage of motions. Apexus barely had his foot down before he had to jump back. Claw swipe after claw swipe was either dodged or redirected. Each time, part of the energy rippled up Apexus’ arm. Liquid muscles strained under the stress, bones ached, but it was all nothing compared to the single attack of the Deathhound.

Apexus’ thoughts were like the distant view of the forest. Serene, yet filled to the brim with the struggle to survive. Nature’s beauty was built on the corpses of prey and the successes of the survivors. He was no prey.

The Bloodywyrm rushed straight at him. He sidestepped the jaws of the beast, then gently nudged the trajectory of the claws upwards. In the ensuing opening, he lowered his stance. His hands drew back in esoteric circles. The Ki that had bubbled out as Flow Manipulation was rerouted, entirely flowing from his magical cortex through the pathways of his circuitry. Meridians that were on the shortest path were avoided. Others took their place in the formula. The magic was shaped and changed. What started as the neutral tingling of pure energy soon felt like calm water rushing through him, pooling under the membrane of his palms.

Pressed together at the wrist, he touched the serpent with both hands simultaneously. It was light, there was barely any contact with the abrasive scales. While the impact from the strike itself was nothing, the Ripples were everything. As the magic surged forwards, so did the two smashers sitting next to the base of his thumbs. There was a boom and two cllicks.

The serpent let out a choked squeal. Its body curved unnaturally, physical and magical force distorting and cracking scales, flesh, and bone. Opposite to the place of impact, the scales burst off the skin like the shell of a cooked egg.

Apexus lingered just a second too long.

The boss regained control over its body swiftly. Curving back, the tail slammed against Apexus’ knee. He toppled forwards, landed inelegantly on all fours. He managed to dissuade a bite with a whirling punch, but the boss only circled around and tried from the other side.

Pushing its flow, Apexus got the boss to back off for long enough to get to his feet. He looked for a way out. None was available. The serpent was circling around him. It crawled and slithered, always ready to strike at the Monk’s back, should he attempt to run where its sharp parts weren’t. Blood dripped from its infectious teeth. The strike had ruptured something inside.

That only made it angrier. It lunged suddenly at Apexus.

The constant use of Martial Arts did take its toll. Exhausted magical pathways revolted against continued usage of his Ki. The humanoid chimera needed to rest them. All he could do was try to dodge.

The jaw he escaped, but the claw caught him. Sharp talons dragged over his chest, leaving three deep trenches in the skin and muscles. Viscous slime oozed out, no membrane present to differentiate it from the outside. It was sealed easily enough, but the muscles were shredded and required time to reconnect properly. Force drained from his left arm, with no pectoral to pull it forwards properly.

Apexus delivered another kick to the body of the serpent, but without Ironskin all he truly accomplished was tearing his sole open. The Bloodwyrm hissed in an approximation of laughter, coiling ever tighter around him. Then it went in for the final bite.

With nowhere to go, Apexus offered his crippled arm to the monster. It took it willingly. Teeth sunk through the membrane. An immediate, disgustingly bitter taste filled Apexus’ being. The bacterial infections on the teeth filled his biomass. Sickly swirls of dark yellow spread through and underneath the skin. Up to the shoulder, his arm was in the maw of the serpent. Its open jaw was curled in a disgusting grin.

Apexus jammed a finger into the depression between collarbone and shoulder. Half of his body suddenly felt like he was rolling in a carpet of needles. Everything on his right, from his eyelid to his calves, went limp and numb. His left side was spared, except for the arm in the boss’ mouth. It was the recipient of all the energy.

The arm turned grey in its entirety. Superheated slime was transported at a rapid pace to the limb. A cascade of hot steam filled the boss’ mouth. For a brief moment, the usually so sluggish and methodical capacity of the slime to reshape itself became rapid. Spikes as hard as iron extended several centimetres from the arm and sunk into the soft tissue of the monster’s gullet.

Howling, it released his arm, seared puncture wounds filling its mouth with blood. Apexus relaxed the meridian. His senses snapped back to normal. The Ironskin dropped, the spikes lost all surface tension and hung as useless growths alongside the limb. Still, the hand could move again.

Angry, the monster went back in for an immediate bite. It aimed at his centre of mass and in that lay its mistake. The increased temperature made Apexus faster, fast enough to bring the damaged left hand up and manipulate the flow one more time. The chin of the monster was pressured downwards and it slammed into the floor. Its own anger left it dazed.

Apexus hit the exposed neck with his palm. The tiny amount of magical power he had left was barely enough to force the boss to the ground for another second. It was painful for the creature, no doubt. It was not lethal.

‘That’s the limit,’ the first words he had thought in a while bubbled up in his head. To defeat a boss of this level alone, he would have to suffer and sacrifice much more than he had given. The Heat Core in his chest began its work in earnest, providing more than a little surge of speed to a specific limb.

Then Apexus felt the trampling of feet.

By the time Reysha jumped into his field of view, the furnace inside him was bereft of additional fuel again. The redhead slammed the crimson axe into the exposed neck of the boss monster. Korith flew in a second later and delivered a perfectly aimed follow up. She hit the back of the bearded axe with her hammer, driving it deeper. It snapped through spine and nerves, sending a violent shiver through the body of the monster, before it went limp in its entirety.

“Fuck,” Reysha gasped, beholding her man. Watching him hold his own against the boss was impressive in more than one way. Sure, he had looked better before. All of the blue gashes and holes where his membrane had not yet regenerated into skin and muscles highlighted his inhuman nature. Without the wings, he seemed a bit incomplete. Still, the only really unattractive part was the remaining bacterial infection that his acidic system was quickly turning into the least appetizing meal he had ever had.

“Uhm, Reysha…?” an apologetic mumble got her attention.

“What?” she slowly turned her head, to find Korith holding her axe. The red crystal that made up the blade was cracked down the middle. “Fuck,” she cursed. The weapon chose that exact moment for the crack to run its course. The bottom half of the bearded blade broke off and fell on top of the boss’ head. “Fuck! I liked that one.”

“Constant replacement of equipment is a reality of adventuring life.” Aclysia stepped up, bringing with her the soft glow of her Ilumni spell. She didn’t even stop to check on the other two party members – she had healed them enough while they were dealing with the serpents. Her darling was in need of assistance.

“It’ll regenerate on its own,” Apexus said, while warm energy filled his arm.

“You will let me ensure it happens immediately,” the healer responded firmly.

And that was the last anyone could say about that.