I ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED A DUNGEON

Felix struck left, rolling on the floor as two tentacles slashed through where he had been. He looked up and saw Sabrina flying past above, with two more tentacles following after her.

It must be here somewhere.

He took out two cards from his pocket and fed them to Numen until they lit up blue and flew out of his hand. Felix kept his body low and advanced slowly through the darkness, the light of his cards illuminating the way a little bit in front of him.

There.

He saw the legs of the monster, standing still. He grabbed the cards that were floating above and threw them directly at the legs of the monster. It tried to catch them with a tentacle.

Does this bastard think? Nevermind.

One tentacle knocked one card away, but the other one changed course in midair and went straight through the legs of the monster, making him kneel down.

Now.

The creature was already trying to heal himself, while at the same time trying to stand up. That’s when Felix heard somebody’s footsteps approaching him from the right.

The creature stood on its full height, and Dune arrived in front of it. She clutched her hand into a fist and punched it into its stomach. The flesh bulged horrifically, and her knuckles came out at the other end of its back.

Felix straightened up. "Use everything!"

Dune retracted her hand and struck it again, just as forcefully, causing the flesh to tense up again. A massive wave of raw Numen blew up in front of them.

Dune fell back for almost a meter. The creature’s entire body convulsed and fell further away for several meters, tumbling on the floor. Sabrina, who was still floating in the air, was caught up by the explosion and fell sideways along with it. Felix dropped and fell back up again, shaking his head.

"What the hell is going on?"

His eyes went to Dune first. She had already regained her footing and was approaching the creature, which was trying to heal itself. His eyes went down to her hand, glowing brighter by the second, the cracks in her skin becoming larger with every step she took.

"No," he whispered. "How is she able to do second impact?"

Felix slowly approached from the left, his eyes falling upon Sabrina who was trailing Dune, looking as shocked as he did.

No, this wasn’t a second impact, not even close. It’s uncontrolled Numen power, all wasted. If I only had the Numen reserves and the body to handle the impact, I’d be killing the dragons in one hit.

He breathed out. "Still, better than nothing."

The right hand of Dune twitched on its own accord, the impact having nearly shattered every bone inside it, but there was still some Numen coursing through her body. Felix had told her that her core was fixed, and now she could see the Numen flowing within her core, just like blood. Dune would definitely be able to deliver another hit.

"There!" shouted Sabrina as she pointed towards her right side. The creature had already gotten back up on its feet, its injuries healed, its body restored to full condition.

Its eyes moved in the direction of Sabrina, and then down to Dune’s approaching figure. Its tentacles writhed, and its body turned around as it began to move.

"What’s going on here?" Felix suddenly stopped walking in his tracks as he saw the creature running around the wall. "Can it really do that?"

Joshua had been staring at the skeletons on the ground. He squatted next to the smallest skeleton and said, "It is me. Big sister, this one’s mine."

"Yeah. I can tell." Her eyes shifted from each skeleton on the floor, recognizing Sabrina’s as the biggest and herself as the middle skeleton. She turned away swiftly, feeling afraid but could not describe the emotion. "Come on, Joshua."

"We’re really dead, aren’t we, Big Sister? We’re never going to be ourselves again. We’re never going to be alive ever again."

"I know that. And I don’t even want to come back to life. I just want all of this to stop."

"Then why does big brother Felix say that he’s going to help us? Didn’t he mean he’ll make us come back to life?"

"I don’t know what he meant by that." Helen held on to his arm and looked behind them. "Let’s go, we—"

She stopped in her tracks. The creature, tentacles thrashing wildly around it, was sprinting straight for them.

"Joshua, stand up." She lifted him up and shouted, "Run!"

"Big Sister—"

"Go!" She pushed him sideways, and two tentacles reached out for her. She stepped back, and one of the tentacles aimed for him instead.

"Don’t!" Helen shouted.

The tentacles tightened around them and hissed where they made contact with their skin.

Joshua screamed. "It burns. It burns!"

Helen held her scream inside and felt herself dissolve around the edges to rise as vapor. The tentacles were lifting them off the ground even as they tried to fight. The creature was moving again. It was walking and lifting them up along with it.

They flickered, fading away, growing more translucent with each passing moment.

"It hurts. It hurts, Big Sister."

Helen saw her brother struggle within the grasp. What are they doing? Where’s Felix, did he say he’d protect us? Where’s that moron Dune? Where’s Sabrina, couldn’t she see that her kids were in danger?

She struggled and thrashed within the grasp. "Let me go, let go of us you monster!"

She got no response and Joshua kept screaming.

What should I be doing? What should I be—

"Sabrina!" Her scream ripped from her throat. "Help! Help us, protect Joshua—" Her vision started to blur around the edges. "Mother—..."

Swoop.

Two cards were thrown from the darkness and sliced through the tentacles. The kids fell to the ground. Sabrina quickly reached them and hugged them with both of her arms. "It’s alright now."

"Mom, Mother!" Joshua squeezed tightly into her, and snot ran down his nose while Helen was losing consciousness by their sides.

Sabrina picked them up and started to fly away, but before taking even two steps, a tentacle grabbed her throat. She struggled to breathe but moved forward nonetheless. A scorching pain spread on her skin. Two other tentacles grabbed her feet and pulled her down. She dropped to her knees with steam rolling off her legs.

"Sabrina, you... You..." Helen muttered looking up at her.

"Don’t worry, dear," Sabrina smiled and freed them both. "Go, go now."

Joshua snotted and held onto her tighter, not letting go until Sabrina took his hand in her own and put it into Helen’s. "Your sister will protect you."

"But Mother, what about you?"

"Mother is with two very good people right now." Another tentacle grabbed her arm. Sabrina started to flicker around the edges.

"Let’s go." Helen dragged Joshua with her, pausing only a second before the words could escape. "Sabrina will... Mother always finds a way."