They caught their prey with retractable tongues that shot forward from their throats and stuck to their victims with a noxious saliva that burned anything it touched. The saliva produced a drugging effect that entered the bloodstream through the acid burns and disoriented the victims.
Most disgusting of all was their eyes. Like a snail, they were on long stalks that extended from the goraths’ mucous bodies. Unlike snails, however, they had exceedingly sharp vision. Their eye stalks could rotate rapidly around, making it difficult to keep out of their sight. And there were dozens—each gorath had at least thirty eyes.
Currently, every single eye on every single gorath was fixed on him.
Nearly two hundred eyes, he calculated in some distant part of his mind.
The creature closest gave a horrific shriek, so loud his eardrums distorted. It wiggled its slimy, scaled body and charged, stabbing blade-like legs forward with its rapid approach.
The tentacle eyes were a gorath’s one weakness. When severed, they grew back quickly, but without their sight, they were useless hunters, for they possessed no other senses. Mist sank into a crouch, flared his wings, and flexed his claws out as long as they would go.
At the last second, when the monster was nearly upon him, he launched into the air, immensely glad his broken wing was healed enough for flight. The beast’s tongue shot out, missing him by inches, so close that several drops of saliva hit him. The sizzling of his skin reached his ears over the monsters’ shrieks and the audience’s screams, but he tuned it all out, intent upon his task.
As he flew past the gorath’s gaping maw, he swiped one hand out with his claws extended, severing a dozen eye stalks in the process. The eyes tumbled to the ground, oozing a grayish slime that was quickly trampled by the next charging gorath.
Flitting through the air, dodging shooting tongues and slurping mouths, he felt like a tiny fly, a mere annoyance to these behemoths. Nothing but a quick snack when they finally caught him.
But if he was a fly, he was a clever one who knew how to fight.
The only way to kill a gorath was by damaging its heart. Oddly fitting after what he had just endured. Unfortunately, there was only one way to get to the heart: from within.
Their outer armor was basically impenetrable. It could withstand all but the most potent hellfire, and Mist couldn’t call on hellfire at will anyway. That meant he had to getinsidethe creature to kill it.
That meant he had to let it eat him without chewing him up first.
Swooping as high above the monsters as he could without hitting the grate over the Pit, he studied the writhing mass and picked his first target.
His eyes landed on the biggest. Mist was at his strongest now—after defeating one, he would be weakened. It would be best to take that one out first and save the smaller ones for last.
A wave of despair washed over him as he contemplated the monumental task ahead of him. But fighting was his only option, so he pushed it down, studied his target, and waited for his chance.
And then took it.
The biggest monster stretched its mouth wide, rows of teeth flattening against its dripping gums as its long tongue reached toward him. Mist took a breath, tucked his wings against his sides, and dove straight down its throat.
At the last second, he squeezed his eyes shut and braced for impact.
A slimy esophagus closed around him, and instantly, acidic saliva began to burn through his flesh. Down he slid as the throat muscles flexed.
The pain of his skin melting nearly stole his consciousness, but he fought through it and focused. Gathering strength, he maneuvered his hands so his claws were out.
And then he started shredding.
He stabbed and slashed the creature from the inside out, fighting through layers of leathery tissue toward the heart. At some point, a part of his mind switched off and dissociated from reality. He felt nothing. The numbness was likely a side-effect of the drugging saliva, but it was to his advantage in this case. If he’d had the awareness to contemplate what he was doing, he might have passed out from sheer revulsion.
And then he actually succeeded. His claws cut into the pulsing organ, and the creature exploded.
He didn’t have to claw back out of the body because when a gorath died, it ruptured like it had swallowed dynamite. Gray blood and gore showered the arena and all its spectators, but that was by far the least gross thing he’d experienced in the last several minutes, and he felt nothing but crushing relief as his feet landed solidly on the ground.
His legs immediately crumpled beneath him.
A hush fell over the crowd. No one moved; no one even breathed.
Any other time he would have enjoyed his success, but currently, he was too focused on regrowing his skin. He hadn’t lost any critical appendages or facial features, but he was extraordinarily bloody. And weak. His head was spinning, his vision dancing with spots.
And he still had another five goraths to go.
“Attack him while he’s down, you useless wretches!” Paimon screamed into the silence, breaking the spell.
