Chapter 171 – Beyond Tartarus
Zagreus is in trouble. ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck.’ The twelve Dao Strings of Sex keep his body together, but also bring his horniness to extreme levels. Battle instincts alone are the reason he has not pulled his raging hard on out and started wanking. Ironically, if Megaera stops attacking him, he does not think he can stop himself from doing just that!
‘Uuurrrgghhh, my balls feel like they’re about to explode. I wish sis.. No, she made the right choice. I was going to die otherwise. It’s impressive how she actually managed to catch Meg off guard and stun her momentarily with Ares’ power, even though she didn’t cause any damage.’
The battle carries on. Block. Parry. Dash during a magic attack to utilize the Divine Deflect and send the magic blasts back at her. Spam spear stabs. Titties? Dodge and retreat!
‘The way Megaera is smirking.. guh, she definitely has noticed my uncontrollable bulge. No wonder she has yet to retrieve her robes. All she has to do is summon them and they would wrap around her on their own! She is purposefully attacking me in only a tiny black thong!’
The perverted distractions of Megaera’s killer curves and firm, slightly jiggling breasts add up. Zagreus is on the losing end of each exchange. He transmits to Nuwa, ‘Hey sis.. any ideas?’
Nuwa quickly transmits back, ‘I have a plan! Come over here, let’s sync up!’
Considering they are on track for losing at this rate, Zagreus ignores his own reservations about allowing collateral damage to fall upon Nuwa. He dashes erratically over to her position and feels her swing her lithe, slutty body atop his shoulders.
Megaera shouts, “I do have orders not to hurt Nuwa, but I refuse to be held responsible for any damages to her if you’re going to use her as a shield, Zag!”
Nuwa replies calmly, “No need to hold back, Meg. We’re going to win!” The piggybacking princess stretches her bare feet down and rubs them on Zagreus’ bulge. One major benefit of her serpentine body is that she is extra stretchy inside and outside.
Zagreus’ eyes widen in anticipation even before she starts. The high sync rate lets him know the jist of her plan. She is going to use her feet to take care of him so he can focus on the fight! He places his trust in her and dashes forward to attack Megaera, who is in the midst of summoning a bunch of minions. She manages to bring five minions, but Nuwa gets to work on them while Zagreus is trading blows. She fires two Casts and a normal arrow on each, picking them off one by one.
Zagreus inadvertently blocks a whip blow in the wrong direction, causing it to slash Nuwa’s thigh and arm with a deep gash. The panic and guilt make way for relief as he senses a bloody aura erupt from his shoulders that immediately starts a healing process. He takes over most of the pain she is supposed to feel with relative ease. This level of pain is a walk in the park in relation to the pain Nuwa transferred onto him when she fought Ares.
‘Babe, are you trying to pop my head off my neck?!’ he transmits in distress. Admittedly, he moves a lot when fighting and she does have to clamp her thighs tightly around his head to steady herself, but her strength when utilizing that War energy is crazy!
She lets up and teasingly replies, ‘Hehehe. Sorry..’
Megaera flaps her wing and dashes away from the duo to pause the fight. She is down 10% of her health with no damage to Zagreus in their exchanges. She points and addresses Nuwa with slight jealousy, "How are you reproducing Lord Ares' energy signature so faithfully? What compatibility could you possibly have with War?"
Nuwa stops releasing the bloody aura and responds proudly, "I ate him."
Zagreus comments, "That's a little morbid, isn't it?"
"It's the truth!" Nuwa banters with a smug grin, "Did you see how I sucked him up like a blender?"
Nodding along, Zagreus recalls the way the divine projection of Ares had been stretched into thin strands as he got pulled into his sister’s vagina. "What’s a blender?"
Zagreus can feel Nuwa's feet return their attention to his boner now that she is no longer releasing the War energy. He can feel himself getting close. Nuwa chuckles and says, “It’s sort of like a whirlpool. I’ll tell you later.”
Megaera cannot make sense of what Nuwa is saying, "What do you mean? You had sex with him?"
Nuwa blushes and doesn't respond, so Zagreus covers for her with a smile. "Yep, we had a lovely threesome."
Speechless for a moment, Megaera eventually shakes her head and says sarcastically, “At this rate, I’m curious what you brats WOULDN’T dare to do.”
Her eyes narrow and she crouches slightly, in what Zagreus can tell is a more serious stance. The distracting side effect for Zagreus is that her thong is practically swallowed up by her pussy lips. She imperiously states, “I cannot allow either of you to pass. Your trouble-seeking ways will only invite disaster upon our House!”
Tearing his eyes away from her lower body, Zagreus internally whines, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me.. she hasn’t been taking our fights seriously for the past 10 years?!’
The pleasant stroking of Nuwa’s feet on his prick pick up. In response to his worries, she transmits, ‘Don’t worry! I can use my berserker mode to force her to dodge or disrupt some of her attacks.’
He pushes down his instinctive fear of Megaera beating the shit out of him and gets as serious as he can. His only complaint is that Nuwa is stopping her movements whenever he gets close to cumming, but he trusts she has a reason for that. They are going to need every ounce of their teamwork to overcome Megaera. The battle starts again in earnest with Megaera at 90% health and Zagreus at 75%.
~ ~ ~
Nuwa plays the supporter well and follows through with picking off the reinforcements and occasionally using berserker mode to disrupt Megaera's flow. Soon, both of the two major combatants are down to 10% health. Chaos' attack speed Boon is the main reason Zagreus is doing so well.
Still, Nuwa is on her toes seeing her brother so close to death and doesn't want to risk a loss, so she plays a small trick. Her teasing feet, which stroke Zagreus enough to not distract him, but not enough to finish him off, finally bring him to a well-timed orgasm. Megaera is unable to capitalize on his momentary twitching because she had just retreated to throw some magic at him. He can still dash away from projectile magic while orgasming, but he would be vulnerable to melee.
Megaera dashes forward in rage at her missed opportunity and falls into Nuwa's trap. She pulls off the cum in his robes and pelts it onto the Fury's face! Megaera screams as the spicy cum gets in her eyes, "AHH.. NUWA!! You dirty bitch!"
Nuwa's rudimentary cumkinesis, hardly powerful enough to hurt a mouse, allows Zagreus to land a series of devastating blows on the blinded and enraged Megaera. The incessant blows finally reduce her health to near zero. She screams, “I’ll get you for this, Nuwa!”
One more lightning fast spear thrust from Zagreus and instead of another instance of his spear bouncing off Megaera's hard body like a block of metal, it pierces right through her chest. Having experienced this unsettling phenomenon with Alecto, he goes for her neck next, sending his spear all the way through until it clanks against the spine.
Nuwa mutters, "So that's how they die." She had seen Megaera's body take hundreds of spear thrusts and slashes without any perceivable damage other than the overhead health bar lowering, while Zagreus would die from approximately 20 of her attacks. Each attack remains written on his body as terrible wounds. One critical attack could take off a limb. She couldn't imagine how despair-inducing it had been for Zagreus.
Megaera's body falls limp to the ground and is quickly swallowed up by the River Styx for revival, just like Zagreus' had been every time he died. Lowering herself from her brother's shoulders, Nuwa hugs his trembling body tightly. She can sense the roiling emotions within him. His first time beating Megaera in 10 years!
Nuwa transmits to him, 'Does it hurt? Why are you sad, love? This is what you wanted. This is a necessary step upwards.'
'..I'm not sure. I feel so many things and I've been here so long. I think part of it is that I'm scared to face a similarly frustrating roadblock up ahead. Never mind that! You shouldn’t have fought dirty. You saw how mad she was!'
Nuwa casually responds with a snicker, ‘She’ll get over it. Hah.. I bet she secretly enjoyed it.’
The boss chamber releases a thrum and a floating drop of blood appears in the center. It exudes a tyrannical presence that disturbs both Zagreus’ spear, Varatha, and Nuwa’s bow, Coronacht.
“Is that..?” asks Nuwa as she shivers with trepidation and backs up.
“Yeah..” replies Zagreus excitedly, “A tiny drop of Titan’s blood. So much power even after being dead for 10,000 years! This is our reward for clearing Tartarus.”
Nuwa looks at it with awe, “Coronacht seems to want it?”
“Hypnos told me that Titan’s blood is the only thing that can improve our weapons.” explains Zagreus, “We have to feed it to them.”
Holding her free palm out, Nuwa says, “Go ahead. You’ve earned this one for sure.”
Zagreus mumbles as he approaches the droplet, “Wish I took the sword on this trip. Oh well.” He sticks his spear out and a strong suction force pulls it in between the bident’s spearhead. The spear starts to tremble. Suddenly, a mass of fire materializes out of nowhere, ejecting from Varatha in all directions. “What the-?!” Zagreus and Nuwa are pushed back by the sulfuric flames which disperse into ash after hitting the dungeon floor and walls.
Varatha floats vertically in the center of the room along with some sparks of flame. It is shinier than before and exudes an ancient aura. Nuwa and Zagreus are curious why they hadn’t been harmed by the flames.
Zagreus approaches the upgraded spear and chuckles with realization. “Aha.. This spear was originally Father’s. The Chthonic flames must recognize his blood in us.”
He plucks it out of the air and twirls it experimentally. Watching curiously from the side, Nuwa doesn’t notice anything different. She asks, “Are you sure you should be swinging that when you’re that hurt?”
He says, “I’m fine.” He is not fine. His wounds are horrific. No doubt they will not make it far with Zagreus in that condition. His flesh is torn to the bones from whiplash and his skin is burnt from magic. His casual attitude at being near death is in stark contrast to Nuwa’s worry.
Zagreus narrows his eyes and guesses, “Varatha doesn’t look any different, but intuition tells me that all of my attacks are way stronger.”
He affixes the spear to his back and looks towards the exit. Nuwa nods and follows his gaze. There is no longer a need for her brother to steal Authority to open doors. Stairs lead up to the next area of the Underworld.. Asphodel.
She nervously offers, “Let’s.. just check it out?”
He gives his thoughts, “Of course, but we shouldn’t get our hopes up. The next goal is to find a way to beat the Furies without taking so much damage. The spear upgrade should help, but at the same time, it locks me into using the spear if I want to make significant progress.”
“We can worry about that stuff later. Let’s gooo!” squeals Nuwa with growing excitement.
They walk hand in hand up several flights of stairs. The dungeon still surrounds them. Nuwa judges that they walked up the equivalent of 50 floors of an Earth-0 skyscraper before they arrive on a room-sized platform. What they see there amazes them. Giant gears, pistons, and machinery. A whole clockwork landscape just outside the small, bare landing they stand upon. Worker shades are sporadically scattered kilometers into the distance, inside and around the machinery, keeping things running.
The floor lights up ominously, only for Hades to say, “How did you-? Grrh!” After which it darkens again.
Zagreus smiles and says, "I don't think he expected you to have healing abilities."
"Mhm.. what is all this?" wonders Nuwa, pointing to the non-underworldly themed machinery.
"No clue. Let's ask." Zagreus taps the shoulder of a shade foreman who seems to be supervising the shades near the landing. He is a tall, green blob of a ghost with a yellow construction hat on his head. The other workers are hatless green blob ghosts. Currently, he is in conversation with a shade on another platform asking what Hades had messaged his landing for.
The foreman turns around angrily at the interruption, but ends up jumping twice his height in fear upon finally recognizing the presence of the Prince and Princess. "EEK- Milords!” He hurries forward and bows obsequiously, “S-so you’ve cleared Tartarus.. erm.. Congratulations?”
Nuwa notes that the shade’s praise falls flat. He had not expected Zagreus to beat Megaera. It irks Nuwa that public support among the shades leans toward their Ruler rather than their Prince. Zagreus ignores that and points out from the landing in a sweeping gesture, “Dude, what is all this?”
The foreman regains some of his proud bearing as he stands up and explains, “Oh-ho! You ask of our grand duty. This is the lower bridge. Between each of the four layers of the Underworld, there is a bridge layer where we workers construct marvelous devices to generate energy!”
He raises his stubby ghost arms and screams, “ENURGI..!!” All the nearby workers do the same thing and everyone who hears them follows along. A chorus of “ENURGI” hysteria echoes back to their ears from far into the distance.
Nuwa and Zagreus also reply in synchrony, “..O.. kay.” He turns away awkwardly, but Nuwa asks the shade, “Why’s this landing empty, but that one over there has something on it?”
There are several landings and cylindrical rocky structures, supposedly stairways just like the one they have passed through leading upwards in the distance. The foreman looks over and says, “Er.. well.. Lady Megaera paid us to build her a sofa there.”
Nuwa blandly states, “Huh. A sofa. Well, why’s it over there instead of here?”
He puffs up his chest and explains, “The bridge is always moving, so which landing you end up on varies, even if the way back to Tartarus always takes you to the same place. Lady Megaera was content to purchase a sofa on every other landing and fly as needed between them. Of course, this required her to purchase 30 sofas.”
Nuwa sourly thinks to herself, ‘If Meg can do it, so can we!’ Most of this jealousy is from the frustration of not being able to inflict any damage on Megaera even in her berserker mode. She pouts at Zagreus, the breadwinner of the duo, who holds plenty of gems that these shades use as currency.
Having been dealt a critical blow by his wifey, Zagreus gets to work. He’s still affected by her Dao Strings and therefore horny again already, so he’s willing to go against his better judgment to make her happy. He eagerly asks the foreman, “What can you build for us?”
The foreman fearfully stutters, “Er.. well.. Lord Hades.. W-wouldn’t..”
Zagreus’ immediate scowls, “My Father wouldn’t bother with a small fry like you. Me, on the other hand..” He pulls out his spear and smiles threateningly as the foreman starts to beg and kowtow.
“P-please P-prince! M-my deepest apologies, I cannot break my oath to..”
Nuwa offhandedly interjects, “My brother has more than 7000 gems.”
“..OBEY the royal family in all their requests!” The sheer ease and shamelessness with which the foreman does a complete 180 utterly baffles the siblings into silence.
He continues exuberantly, “We at Blob the Builder, LLC have everything you need! Chairs for 1 gem, sofas for 3, beds for 10, and bathtubs with built-in plumbing for 25. If you want to check out our luxury end products, we have a Well of Charon for 200 gems and a Fountain of Healing for 500 gems! All fair prices, I assure you~”
“Hold on!” Zagreus shouts, sensing a major opportunity of actual use to them, “Well of Charon? Fountain of Healing?!” He grabs the shade’s body by the collar, or rather, where the collar would be if its whole body wasn’t immaterial, and demands, “Tell me more.”