Author's Note

Content warning,: this chapter contains gore, threats of rape, and torture and genital mutilation, don't read the parts with spoilers if you don't wanna see any of that, apologizes for the really messed up stuff but it's part of the story, it would not be the same if I omitted it.

Chapter 22 Victory or Death

The next 'day' about 7 hours later Onyx's POV

Today... Was the day, I awoke quickly, feeling anxious and worried, my unconscious mind knew that I had to be up and ready, I shook the others awake too, this was it, time to fight to the death, and hopefully come out as the winners.

'Mom, Kari... You two are the best creatures I could have met, whatever happens today, I just want you two to know I am forever thankful for your support and help, we will win today! And then we will celebrate! We will make an epic and fancy party for the three of us, and anyone we want to invite, there will be cake, delicious food, there will be drinks, live music! Even maybe games and dances! Now let's go win this you two! Let's head to the castle and see what is controlling all of those griffons.'

'Well said young Onyx, I don't know what a party is, but I can agree I want to celebrate our victory together, with a feast! We will overcome anything!'

'Yeees! My sweet son, I think a party will be in order once we win here, I'll bring some of my friends from the guard, we can invite your friends from school and Gold and her family! Im gonna help you set everything up, so don't worry about it, I'll use my savings.'

'Thank you momma, and thank you... Can I call you auntie Kari? That would make me very happy... You would make a good aunt, since you already make a wonderful mother.' I got in front of the large manticore and started to lick her snout like she licks my head sometimes, maybe this meant I like you in manticores? She giggled happy at my antics.

'Hehehe do you really think so? T-thank you... And yes I can be your aunt! I would be proud to be called that by you, young Onyx, you've helped me stay alive during all of this fights, you truly do care like no one ever cared about me, same as you lady Sylf and I truly want you, your mom and myself to come out alive from this.' She said gesturing around to the dungeon, I couldn't help but smile, I had an aunt now, and a little cousin! This was just more motivation to do my best in the coming battle.

'I really thank you auntie, mom, now come along, time to head to this castle, we have delayed enough, mainly because I keep talking...' I shook my head and stared walking towards the door, deactivating the glyph trap from last night, it was just no use having a trap there anymore.

Remembering what happened last night I pulled one of the heavy crossbows from my inventory, grabbed the heavy bolt and carefully loaded it, thankfully it has a pullet system built in to load it faster during battle, which I took advantage of, once a bolt was loaded, I stored it back in my inventory, ready to pull out and use in an instant, the inventory was one, if not the strongest of weapons we had.

We left the house, closing the door behind us, and we slowly approached the castle, looking out for any danger on the way there, but this time there was no squads of armored griffons, no air opponents either shooting down on us, still we stayed fully alert and ready, my shield spells ready to cast, just in case any opponent tried to ambush us, but as we approached, there were none, the problem was that the castle gates were closed tight, and they were large and probably would not budge even if we blasted them, the wood was too thick and heavy, but I had the right spell for the occasion!

We walked the remaining dozen meters to the castle gates, and I casted the 'Knock' on the locking mechanism, the spell instantly made a loud noise that at the same time unlocked the door.

Probably everyone in the castle heard that... Welp, we were not trying to use the stealthy approach anyways. I approached the door and pushed them open, but they were heavy so me and the others had to keep pushing them so they would open all the way, then we went in and closed them behind us.

Inside the castle there were barracks, what appeared to be a kitchen or something judging by the sign over the door, and there was a training yard.

There were no enemies here that I could see or sense, no much in terms of loot either, not that we had room for that anyways, our inventory was more or less full, not even coins would fit, so we just moved on, but I was feeling a bit paranoid, despite what evey enemy in this dungeon suggested, I felt there was something magical at play here, so I casted detect magic, and doing so made me see I was completely right, there were more than a dozen magical traps around the different entrances and rooms here, only place with no traps were the main doors, maybe to give those entering the castle a false sense of security?

'Stop, don't move a single step!' I announced with seriousness in my voice and everyone complied right away.

'Why, what's going on?' Auntie Kari asked, Sylf looked concerned.

'There are several magical traps around here, on almost every door, and there are several on the way up, we can't be sure what any of them can do to us, so it's best not to find out and dispel them... They could even be set to activate by our presence specifically!' I explained, Mom nodded because she had also studied magic

'I think I get it, we will not move unless you tell us it's okay to move then, little Onyx.'

'Thank you, let me get to work disarming them, this could take a while.'

I slowly approached the glyphs, they thankfully didn't trigger, so I used dispel magic, disabling the traps on the door heading up the stairs, there was one more but they were easy to disable as I could see them thanks to detect magic, in total I had used 60mp and had 164 mp left.

I thought it was a good idea to dispel the remaining glyphs, so we climbed up the stairs all the way, reaching a corridor that opened into a larger room, I could see no more glyphs on this floor, but I detected 2 different magical presences, I could guess this weren't glyphs.

'Time to go back down and wait, I need to rest to recover my mana again, I would prefer to start the fight with my full energy, let's go back and sit down for a few minutes okay?'

'Sure son, let's go back downstairs, now I know where it's safe and where it's not thanks to you.'

We walked down the stairs silently and sat down against the wall, sitting on the ground and relaxing, in about 15 minutes my magic was back to it's full capacity.

The reason why it was preferred to not use all your magic was because mana would recover faster, the least mana you used, so for example using half your mana and resting for half an hour or so, would recover you fully, but using all your mana and resting could take many hours, maybe a full night, and you suffered risk of getting magical exhaustion, which was more or less like hangover from drinking too much alcohol, but could be worse if you used more mana than you had, and could deal serious damage to your brain.

'Time to go back, this time for real, we will fight to the end, be ready to fight two magic users at least, mom, make sure you use your counterspell or dispel magic if you have to, you can do both at the same time right?' She nodded confidently.

'I can, since it's a defensive spell, what I can't do is cast attacking spells while I fight with my sword.' Perfect, then mom will have to deal with the spells while also fighting enemies with melee, in case there is a melee attacker, maybe an armored one I will have to do my helmet trick too, what else? Auntie you will unleash your rage, attack the one without armor, either one that mom is not attacking, I will deal with the armored one, I will destroy them with my magic, any questions?'

'What should we do if either of us is defeated? What's our plan then?' Sylf said with concern, I had to give it some thought, they couldn't exactly drink potions, they had no dexterity for that, or magic hooves like ponies did, this would certainly be a problem... Fuck, what could we do?

'I... Would have to somehow make time to go and feed you a potion, since you can't even open them, and swallowing the entire thing or breaking it with your teeth wouldn't work, you would just take damage from the glass shards going inside your stomach and probably would be more damage than the potion would heal, not to mention cause internal bleeding! So... Try your best to not... Get injured, we don't have a way to deal with a wounded teammate, other than maybe killing one of the enemies or two and leveling up, that's the only thing we have been doing since we started this...'

I lowered my head, this was honestly depressing to think about, I didn't know any healing magic, it just wasn't common knowledge or at least there was no mention of it even in medical books, sure there were scanning spells most medical machinery was magical instead of electric, and there was ways to close lacerations with magic, to hold the wound closed until it was sutured, but there was no healing spells, they weren't a thing. There was no simple magical trick that did that.

Equestrian medicine was very advanced, but it used pretty much purely alchemy and natural medicines rather than magic, you had potions that would help heal faster but they weren't the same type of potions we had gotten from the dungeons.

'We will try out best to not get seriously injured, and if we do, we will continue to fight to the end Onyx, that's what we will do, we will win, we will hit with devastating force and speed, they won't have a chance to hit us! Trust me.' Kari said confidently, I felt a bit better from her words.

'I will hit them with the sword you enchanted son, I will aim at the head and not hold back, you will see, victory is assured!' Sylf nuzzled me and licked my face, making me giggle a big, I stood up and hugged her head.

'Thanks you two, now let's go take those nasties out of commission!'

After that we headed to the stairs, climbing up, we had a fight to win, and this time we weren't coming back until we won!

We were again in the same corridor as last time, slowly walking towards the large throne room at the end of the hallway, there, in the throne we could see a pony sitting on it, covered in dark red and black robes, a pony mare was standing to his right, her eyes looked dead, completely devoid of any emotion, her color faded to a dull pinky almost gray, she was an unicorn, perhaps this was the Duchess mentioned in the diary?

To the left of the mysterious pony there was a griffon, wearing full plate armor, even more decorated than the officer we offed before on that patrol, he also had a spear that looked rather dangerous, with a plume at the end, I had not much experience fighting with spears. Fuck, not good! I decided to use inspect on them.

LvL 30 Undead Imperial Army commander

300 HP

Imperial Army Commander who's name is lost to time, this individual was a great warrior in life, but fell in a trap by an evil necromancer who using mind control, tried to incite a war and caused a massacre, the fate of this individual is unknown.

Perks:

Combat Maneuvers: can use it's long reaching spear to trip, feint, push or parry an opponent's attacks.

Deadly counterattack: when struck at a certain range, it can parry and counterattack dealing a devastating stabbing attack.

Self preservation: it will do it's best to remain an able fighter, it will not attack mindlessly unless ordered to.

Flying charge: thanks to it's unusual flight strength, it can do charges while flying a few meters above the ground, but it can't fly freely or dodge very well when doing this charges, however they are very powerful so beware.

Weakness and resistances: weak to radiant damage, resistant to cold damage, resistant to slash damage, resistant to bludgeoning damage, resistant to piercing damage, resistant to fire damage, resistant to acid damage, resistant to thunder damage, immune to necrotic damage, immune to toxic damage.

Condition immunities: immune to being charmed, immune to being confused, immune to being slept, immune to fear effects.

STR 25 DEX 20 CON 28 INT 10 WIS 12 CHA 24

I think I had an idea how to take him down, now to check the others

LvL 20 Undead Unicorn Duchess

150 HP
150 MP

Former Duchess of this village, now concubine of the necromancer controlling her, this mare is trained in magical arts but it's no war mage, her only use seems to have been to serve as a concubine to the unicorn sitting on the throne, yet there is something disturbing about her.

Perks:

Unicorn Telekinesis: unicorns have innate ability to use telekinesis, but it's not very strong unless trained extensively, and even then, most unicorns can't go past a certain natural limit or they risk magical exhaustion.

Administrative excellence: this pony has extensive skills in running a village, and she has been trained since foalhood as a noble, learning the intricacies of politics.

Weaknesses and resistances: weak to radiant damage, weak to fire damage, weak to physical damage to the horn, resistant to cold damage, immune to necrotic damage, immune to poison damage.

Condition immunities: immune to being charmed, immune to being confused, immune to being slept, immune to fear effects.

STR 10 DEX 14 CON 12 INT 20 WIS 12 CHA 25

This mare was.. uuhh... What?! I couldn't process this now, I needed to focus, what about the mysterious pony in the robes?

LvL 30 Unicorn Necromancer
250 HP
250 MP

This unicorn is a big mystery, and the cause of all the terrible things that happened to this village, the massacre included, he is highly dangerous and uses forbidden magic, along with mind magic, causing their targets to become enthralled or even to command them to do things they normally wouldn't.

Perks:

Unicorn Telekinesis: this unicorn has a highly trained telekinesis, enough to heavy creatures and hold them in the air while using other spells.

Twinned spells: expert at casting two spells at the same time to extremely deadly effect

Mind Control: has access to mind control spells, but can't control more than one strong opponent at a time, requieres full concentration.

Necromancer: this pont's special talent can turn any dead creature into an undead minion, weaker creatures become simple zombies and stronger creatures retain more of their power and become true undead under the necromancer's control, yet their consciousness remains, trapped in their unwilling undead bodies.

Weaknesses and resistances: weakness to physical damage to the horn, no resistances.

STR 15 DEX 18 CON 20 INT 32 WIS 22 CHA 28

No... No no no! Not mind magic! Mom... Kari, they weren't gonna be able to resist it! This is very bad, why did this guy had to be our opponent?! I would have preferred to fight the spiders again...

I hope mom uses counterspell efficiently, or we are all ultra screwed! This guy was fucking evil beyond anything I've ever seen, I could tell, I had to try to find out more.

I stepped forward into the room, the damn unicorn was smiling at us.

"Welcome, dear guests, Allow me to present myself, I'm called Post Mortem. How have your stay at my village been so far? Did you have fun hunting down my soldiers?" He said with a seemingly cheerful but threatening tone.

"I just want to know why you did this? All of this?! Why have them all killed? Why incite a war?!" I asked, I didn't feel like playing along with his stupid fake friendly tone, this guy had almost killed me yesterday and now would probably succeed, I wanted to at least know why he did all this.

"Oh dear... you're the brains in this little group, little hatchling? How cute, how fascinating! I can't wait to study you and explore you from snout to tail... Thoroughly!" I shivered at this, my face going pale, he clearly wanted to do freaky and horrible things to me, even knowing I was a hatchling, yep, definitively worse than the spiders.

"But to answer your question, it's quite obvious, is it not? War is opportunity! And with a war I can get all of the corpses I need to raise an army larger than both nations combined, this war would have opened many doors for me, I would have been able to capture both living and dead subjects to experiment on, along with toys for personal pleasure~ What else would a powerful necromancer like myself want from war? There is also the beautiful sight of armies, killing each other, fields of bodies, rivers of blood flowing, all potential new subjects!" He explained while gesturing around with his hooves, his coat was fully black, his mane was two toned dark blue and white color.

"That's... Logical I suppose, but still, it's wrong, honestly if this was reality and we could just leave without fighting I wouldn't fight you, at least not with my odds, but we have to slay you to be able to leave, and... Yeah, also I don't want me or my companions to become part of your experiments, and you tried to kill me before!" I tried to keep my voice from trembling and to sound as serious and sure of myself as I could, but I really came off as a scared child, and that was exactly what I was right now, I did not want this fight, but what else could I do? I wouldn't be able to escape and we would run out of water and die if we didn't go back to reality.

The unicorn laughed like I had told him a very funny joke, I growled and glared at him.

'Be ready mom, remember don't let him cast any spells! I'm just trying to get him to talk more and let his guard down, when I attack I want you to rush in and attack him too, I'll attack the commander first.' I received their quick acknowledgment.

"Little creature, you truly are amusing, you agree with my logic, and you realize that you have no chance to win, but you still want to kill me... I suppose you truly must have no choice, maybe if I win, I won't torture you too hard, but your exotic companions on the other hand, I'll enjoy them thoroughly, but you as well! I have gotten tired of this slut here, she's completely ruined from so much use by now." He laughed and made the mare turn around, showing her abused body to us, I cringed at the sight, had I been older maybe I would have blushed, but i had no libido at all yet, my body was too young, which I was glad for at this moment, I didn't want to give this bastard the satisfaction of making me embarrassed.

"Ugh, gross! I did not need to see that!" I said and quickly looked away, I suppose this is what he did to those that he got his hooves on, this was going from terrible to horrible...

"It's not like there's much else to do here if you were in my place you may have done the same, you may be too young to understand but a stallion can get lonely... since I got here I had not much else to do." Those words gave me pause, what did he mean by that? I couldn't let that distract me, he was trying to confuse me!

"You know, I was the reason she got sick back in the real world, I planned all of this from the start, I had one of her guard's poison her slowly, make it seem like she got sick, sabotage healing potions too, and then have that same guard tell her there was a pony who could cure her, and that was how I managed to get inside the castle." Good, he was now in full reminiscing mode, talking about his master plan and all that, which to be fair he did succeed at, meaning he was fully distracted.

"From there I simply used my contacts to inform Griffonia of the village that was in their territory, and that they wanted to parlay, they send a detachment to hold the village after they had negotiated the ponies surrender, the-" while he spoke, his eyes closed as he seemed to be reminiscing on his achievement, I had been approaching slowly, standing in front of the griffon commander, it did not care, since it had no orders to attack, it was pretty much a statue.

'Now, attack him!' While they ran in, I quickly took the loaded ballista out of my inventory, pointed it right at the base of the skull of the armored commander, at this almost point blank range I had to chance to miss.

The bolt flew straight and with a bang, the steel armor breaking, the bolt pierced the helmet, went right through the beak, and shot past the tongue, and reached the cerebellum behind, completely obliterating it, it all felt like it happened in slow motion.

The armor piercing bolt was poking out of the back of the armored neck as the commander fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, my ballista went back into the inventory

The necromancer glared at me with malicious hate, his horn lighting up, I gave him a shrug, preparing a spell myself.

Deadly critical hit! Undead Imperial Army commander has been slain! Your party earns 8000 EXP!
Onyx has leveled up to 26! 3847/11441 Sylf has leveled up to 27! 1783/13730 Kari 8483/11441

Mom reacted in time, like she said she would, she saw the spell forming on the unicorn's horn, pointed right at me, but the spell that was being charged at me was much stronger than what her counterspell could stop, my spell was an upcasted 'Cone of Cold' at level 6, aimed right at the necromancer, my angle meant that none of my companions would be on the line of fire.

My maw glowed with light blue arcane ice, but his spell released first, mine was a few milliseconds too late.

"Die!" Time seemed to go into slow motion, the unicorn screamed in fury two thin green rays of magic shot towards me. -70mp 180/250
Before I could fully cast my spell one beam connected with my nose, the other hit me right on the chest. But my spell was already coming out of my maw, I couldn't stop it. -60 164/226

Critical damage! Onyx has taken 100 damage! 112/212
Critical damage! Onyx has taken 90 damage! 22/212
Blinded! Profuse Bleeding! -10 HP per minute
Chest crippled, natural armor removed, any attack in open chest cavity would cause deadly damage!
Post Mortem has taken 52 damage! 198/250

Undead Unicorn Duchess takes 26 damage! 124/150

The pain was instantaneous and equally horrendous! I couldn't see, I suspected I was lacking eyes, or they were so damaged they stopped working.

I could barely hear as I was underwater, I couldn't feel my snout, it was gone, I felt as if half of my face was missing, but thanks to my dragon blindsight I could still feel what was going on around me, Post Mortem was just slowed down, he was barely hurt.

My chest was melted, I couldn't exactly tell what state it was in, it felt very odd, I could feel the warmth from the outside world, inside my naturally cold body, it did not feel very good, the pain was agonizing, but I still could use my arms, I grabbed a healing potion off my inventory, then opened it and drank it, regaining +60 HP 82/212 part of my chest had regrown, but only enough to connect the belly to the chest and cover the main organs, there were... gaps still so I drank the last potion as well +60 HP 142/213

Thankfully, unlike his only ally that did not attack, or even move, my companions rushed him while I did this, which distracted him, not letting him see me heal.

He used telekinesis to hold Sylf and Kari back for a second, then cast another terrible twinspell at us -60MP 120/250

This time centered on them, but it also hit me twice thankfully it hit my tail and legs mostly, causing horrible burns from the tip of the tail to my lower belly, including my private areas, all my limbs twitched uncontrollably as the electricity fried my body... Twice.

I couldn't even see it, I just knew, if I had not healed then, I would have become a fried dead lizard.

The partially healed flesh regrown on my chest from the potion saved my hearth and lungs and all the other important stuff from exploding like water balloons inside my ribcage.

Sylf has taken 42 damage! 178/225
Onyx has taken 42 damage! 100/212
Kari has taken 42 damage! 163/210
Sylf has taken 47 damage! 131/225
Onyx has taken 47 damage! 53/212
Kari has taken 47 damage! 116/210

After that he turned to Kari, and used a spell that turned her into a statue, pushing her over and causing the wing on one side to shatter as it was thin and delicate, along with the stinger that was bent to that same side. I could see all of this happening with my blindsight.

Kari is petrified and vulnerable to breaking! Warning!
Kari has taken 63 damage! 53/210
Left wing crippled! Tail crippled, Stinger perks nullified, unable to glide!

Sylf was held in his powerful telekinetic aura. I wanted to cry out in horror, but if I gave signals of life now, I was dead for real, I had no choice than to use another strategy, brute force would not win this fight, he knew much more potent spells, I was an amateur compared to him, and if I messed up now, he would kill us and probably rape us forever in this cursed dungeon, I mentally shook my head, steeling my resolve, it wouldn't do to start crying during the battle and getting killed because of my stupid childish mind.

"Such a pathetic pair you two make, unable to fight a single pony! Without the little whelp you are not even able to put up the least of resistance to me, and soon, you will learn to become an obedient bitch, you will be tamed, I can tell you want that, your stony cat friend will join us later when she goes back to normal, now that the stupid hatchling is slain, no one will interrupt us! I may even revive him later, a young one like him must be delightful to break in~" I struggled to stay quiet and still at hearing those words.

He thought by now I was dead for sure as I was slumped on my back in a convincing death pose after being electrocuted, I played the part, having my body still but I was in in full adrenaline mode, preparing a new attack I learned

Even with part of my face missing, I could still use my breath weapon, time to test 'Paralysis Breath'!

I lifted my head, aiming it forward, a cone reaching 4 meters in front me, shot forward, covering the area in a white gas that quickly dissipated, it hit the unicorns in front of me, paralyzing both temporarily, I knew because I felt the magic charging stop, and the unicorn let out a scream of fury before being fully paralyzed.

Post Mortem is paralyzed! He cannot move!

Undead Unicorn Duchess is paralyzed! She cannot move!

'Mom! please, attack the horn with your warhammer, hit it with all your strength! Now! I don't know how long he's going to stay paralyzed!' I yelled over the telepathic link, even my mental voice was weak now, but I yelled as loudly as I could.

Mom complied as soon as she was free from his telekinetic aura, her hammer coming out of the inventory in less than a second and with a mighty swing, hit Post Mortem right on the horn before paralysis wore off.

Critical damage! Post Mortem has taken 150 damage! 100/250
Crippled horn! Ability to cast magic completely disabled! Brain bleeding! -20 HP per minute

Bright multicolor light emanated from the broken horn, and sparks formed where it once was, magic going haywire.

POV shift Sylf

My precious Onyx was laying on the floor weakly after using that attack, his face was... well, he looked like a skull attached to a body, and missing half of his snout, his lower jaw was almost fully gone, no scales or flesh, nothing but a few pieces of muscle connecting to the bones and, his eyes were gone, empty sockets only a bit of flesh on the very back, the ears were gone, the back of his skull had only skin and flesh, but the scales had absorbed most of the spell's power, only his neck remained mostly fully intact.

His chest... I'll need a therapist after this... Oh goodness! His chest was just... There was no scales anymore, no skin, the muscles were carved up by deep gouges from where the electrical attack had cut paths through, ribcage and organs inside were still there thankfully.
I could see his beating heart, his lungs expanding and contracting, the ribcage moving with each breath, it was like one of those anatomical modems in the academy, just different than a pony, for once, everything was bluish purple, and he had two hearts, one on each side, he also had a third smaller lung, the rest lower than that, thankfully still had flesh and scale covering it, a small relief, I was in awe at how he could be alive, but I suppose the organs were more or less intact still.

It was... extremely upsetting and traumatizing, my blood was boiling with rage at this, I wanted to kill this unicorn slowly, torture him for days, but... my son was dying, there was no time for that, I would make him regret his actions.

My heart was about to beat off my chest with anger.
Kari returned back to normal, missing a wing and half her tail, she let out a loud roar of agony as soon as she was free, stumbling to her paws, blood leaked out of the severed wing and tail, but not enough to be considered severe, thankfully.

Post Mortem had a look of fury in his eyes, but it faltered when the horn exploded, I could see part of the brain, as the horn broke off with a good chunk of the skull, skin and flesh, blood was starting to pool on top of the visible brain, and leak out of the hole.

Onyx has taken -10 hp from blood loss! 43/212
Post Mortem has taken -20hp from blood loss! 80/250

The unicorn stumbled, looking cross eyed at his horn, legs trembling, as blood leaked out of his eyes, ears and muzzle, the damage of losing a horn was always lethal for a unicorn, there were very few ways to survive, and they usually only happened when the horn was partially broken, and not completely, like in this case.

"N-no NO NOOOOO!!! You disgusting creatures... you have destroyed my precious horn! curse you all! Ill kill you! Ill rape you and kill you, and then turn you into a zombie, and rape you again until I tire of you."

"You, you cursed hatchling, you're still alive! I'll rape you until my dick tears you in half!!!"

"But first I'll stomp you to death, you must be about to die as well, nasty lizard, so I'll make sure I take you down with me, if anything else, I cant let a foal defeat me!" I growled angrily, there was no way in tell I would let this pony even move a single inch, I simply grabbed him by the neck and flipped him around, making him land on his back.

"Oh you will have a small taste of your own medicine, mister Mortem. Kari, could you please come here and do me a quick favor? Hold him down would you? You will enjoy watching this..." Kari came over quick and simply sat down on the chest of the pony, who had his hooves weakly kicking at the muscular sides of the manticore, seems his strength was leaving him, not that even a regular unicorn could hurt a manticore much at that angle.

"I'm going to enjoy watching him suffer for what he did to me! But let's make this quick." I nodded, grabbing my longsword out of my inventory, then using Elemental weapon to make it set on fire, and I swing down on the stallions bits, cutting vertically along his sheath, slicing and cauterizing the wound at the same time, he started howling with pain.

"W-What are you d- AAHHHHHHHHH! NOOOO NOT THERE NO NOOOOO!

Critical damage! Post Mortem takes 40 damage! 40/250

"This is for hurting my son, and this" I stab the burning blade through both his balls, then slice them horizontally, his legs are kicking at the air desperately but I'm too far away to get kicked, he is helpless as Kari pins down his legs too with her paws. "That is for hurting Kari and I!"

Critical damage! Post Mortem takes 35 damage! 5/250

His screams start to turn into whimpers and soft cries of pain as his mangled genitals are fully destroyed by my blade, I decide to do one last punishment for his threats.

"P-Please please end me already, n-no more pain, I beg of you, s-stop." I smirked, he had definitively changed his tune, but what he did and said I couldn't forgive, my blade switched from fire to acid.

I aimed lower this time.

"And this, mister Mortem, is for threatening to rape my son, oh I wouldn't have done any of this if you had not hurt him so much and then threatened to rape him like you did, maybe in your next life, learn to not mess with underage creatures, not even in jest." I stabbed the acid coated longsword deep in his rear, he died screaming and shaking in pain, Kari let go of him and he curled up while dying, it was honestly quite a pathetic sight for someone who not long ago had us in a similar situation.

"Die, your power now belongs to my son, you are nothing." I whispered on his ear as he died, it twitched slightly so he probably heard me, then he went still, dead eyes open wide.

Post Mortem has been slain! Your part earns 10000 EXP
Onyx has leveled up and reached level 27! 2406/13730 Sylf 11783/13730 Kari has leveled up and reached level 27! 7042/13730

It was over, wasn't it? Finally... I sat down, exhausted, I had managed to kill the monster who almost killed us all, all thanks to my son, who was getting up and shaking the charred scales and blood off himself, he was back to normal! And so was Kari who both came running and hugged me tightly, I hugged them back and we shared a loving nuzzle.

POV shift Onyx

I had fallen unconscious after using my attack and asking mom to destroy his horn, I was not even aware we had won, that is until my strength returned to me fully, I felt fully energized and healthy, stronger too, nothing hurts anymore, I slowly got up, testing for pain, there was none, I was relieved, we were all alive! Everything was going to be okay now, despite what almost happened... I couldn't help but smile a little.

"Momma, auntie, we won right?! He's dead?" I asked, shaking myself free from the residue of my previous wounds, I could now see again, and smell again, the residue was dry, burned dragon scales that had been charred to ash, and lots and lots of my blood, a sight that I was already pretty familiar with, I sighed tiredly, it was not normal to be used to the sight of my own blood, I may need a therapist, but even then how would I explain to one what happened to me?

"Yes he is my darling son, I killed him for you, I made sure he suffered extra, because what he did to you, but don't worry, everything is good now and we are safe, right Kari?" I felt something was off, right away, I felt we were forgetting about something.

"Yes miss Sylf, but we are forgetting about something... The mare, she is still here, she is standing there looking at us, and even I find it a bit uncomfortable." I had to agree with her, why was she still alive if the necromancer was dead? Was she just independent now? Why did she not attack or do anything?

"I agree, that's very odd, what's going on here? And also... Shouldn't we have gotten a notification that we completed the dungeon? Wait... Let me loot Post Mortem, maybe he had something on him that would help!" I ran over and looked over the unicorn's dead body, his robe was still intact and was not even scratched or dirty for some reason, despite the fact his body was extremely battered, bloodied and... Oh my goodness! What happened to his junk?! I instinctively crossed my hind legs and cringed, despite me not having external balls, I felt that, mom must have been really really angry...

I think I'll need therapy, and soon, I shook my head and went back to looking for clues, he looked pretty much like a regular everyday unicorn, no real signs of undeadness, he was... I gently put a paw over his chest, yes, he was still warm, more or less alive, was this pony real? It... Made a lot of sense actually, no other creature borne of negative energy I had seen so far had been able to talk, let alone in such a colorful way, I looted him.

You have obtained two legendary items!

Spirit Gem of Post Mortem: the soul of the strongest necromancer to ever live.

You can interact and talk with the pony's consciousness inside using telepathy!

You can use this gem to gain all the spells and arcane knowledge known by the pony inside, but the soul will be free and you won't be able to interact with it.

Post Mortem's story: once a promising student of Starswirl the Bearded, he finished his studies at age 12, he left to explore the world on a quest for knowledge and discovery, all with the blessing of his former mentor, however during this quest for learning he came upon dark and forbidden knowledge, that is when he discovered his special talent for necromancy, and learned various mind control spells, he kept traveling the world for decades, and kept gaining knowledge and power, his goal was to ultimately find a way to become a king and amass an army of undead, then eventually research a way to become immortal.

After the rise and banishment of Nightmare Moon, and taking advantage of Equestria's instability he took his first village under his control, not expecting much opposition.

Princess Celestia herself came knocking after she found out what happened there from scout's reports.

A battle ensued and Post Mortem, finding he was at a disadvantage and not wanting to risk capture, used a risky interdimensional teleport spell, leaving him stranded on the dream realm, without knowing that nightmare moon had used a one way barrier spell to seal the realm, the spell he had used to reach the dimension had also modified his body to survive on ambient energy instead of food and water.

Robes of the Occult: legendary magical artifact believed lost to time this robes were given to Post Mortem by his former mentor, Starswir, before he departed on his journey of discovery.

They reduce the mana cost of spells by half, they increase the user's ability two multicast, allowing for two spells from a single point, for unicorns this means they can use two spells at the same time, even if they requiere concentration.

The robes automatically adjust to any body size and shape magically, as sometimes mages like to experiment with changing themselves into other species too.

This item provides no physical or magical protection, but can be worn over armor, and it's completely indestructible.

Finally, some good fucking loot! This was the most interesting and best loot I could hope for! All of this was worth it! Definitively... Okay maybe not the... Almost dying and risking becoming... You know what? Nevermind, let's not think about that stuff anymore, I'll leave that for the therapist.

Now as for the last one here, the undead mare, I honestly felt bad for her, even if she was not alive or even a real corpse, but she needed to go so we could leave!

"Mom, please kill the unicorn mare... She is the only one left on this dungeon and we will be free! We can come back later to loot it." I ask kindly to her, I didn't really want to get decapitating another one again, this pony looked much more alive then the zombies I killed before.

Mom nods, grabbing her sword from the inventory, the stands in front of the mare, who has not moved or blinked or even moved her eyes since Post Mortem died, then she swings her longsword, lopping off the head of the pony in one clean, smooth attack.

Deadly Critical! Undead Unicorn Duchess is slain!
Party has gained 100 EXP! Onyx 2506/13730 Sylf 11830/13730 Kari 7142/13730

But when the head came off, from inside the head came out a small pitch black centipede, it slid off, covered in slime, and once it hit the ground it took off running, but before it could escape I used magic missile, hitting it and making it explode into pieces that quickly turned into vapor, I quickly used 'inspect' on the vapor before it could banish.

LvL 1 Parasitical Nightmare
Aberration
0/1 HP

Small, rare parasite native to the dream realm that nests inside the brains of creatures and feeds of negative emotions, this one seems to have found its way to the brain or an undead, causing it to stagnate and not grow at all, it needs a living host.
Impossible to remove by mundane methods, other than open brain surgery, likely to cause death if attempted.

Can only be created inside the dream realm by high concentrations of negative energy from especially powerful sources, very magically powerful creatures, the more magic and negative emotions they posses, the most likely they are of producing a parasite inside their own brains, their life cycle hints that they may reproduce inside the brain of those afflicted and infect those who share dreams with the infected, which rarely, if ever happens.

It's theorized this creatures were created artificially in the past or that they may come from a different plate altogether, outside of the dream realm, and are just called into this dimension by their preferred food source, negative energy and negative emotions.

Parasitical possession: this creature, once it has absorbed enough energy, giants the ability to subtly control the mind of its host, causing it to become more prone to generate negative emotions for it to feed on, and cause negative emotions on those around as well.

Parasitical nightmare has been slain! Your party gains 5 EXP! Onyx 2511/13730 Sylf 11888/13730 Kari 7147/13730

I stood there unable to comprehend I just read for a few minutes, then it clicked.

"Oh fuck! That parasite was transmitted... From him to her, he must have the same, we have to cut off his head if we want to find the parasite and kill it, ugh... Mom? You already mangled his danglers, can you cut off his head for me please? I don't feel... Comfortable doing that to a pony, even when he was an evil bastard." Mom gave me a pointed look at my crude joke, but nodded slowly.

"Before we do that, step back and be ready to attack, I don't know what this higher level parasite will be able to do."

We all stood back, I lifted the body by the head and mom prepared her longsword, I equipped the Robe of the Occult, and Kari was ready to pounce.

Mom swing her sword and the body fell down in a heap, i looked away for a second as she did that, but I could still see everything from the corner of my eye. I truly hope the ponies have good psychological help... This was gruesome, blood flowed out of the body but since he was already dead, not much of it.

At least I had closed his eyes when I looted him.

Suddenly a squelching sound was heard, the head started twitching in my aura, and smile started to come out of the neck then a large black centipede slowly slid out, it was much larger than the first, it must have occupied half the skull, it looked at us, and screeched, then tried to cast a powerful spell, but I stopped it's spell with my counterspell -35 MP

'Mom, use ethereal blade and elemental flame blade at the same time, cut it in two! This thing is a pure magic caster, it has almost no health, quick!' Mom rushed forward, while I used a strong lightning bolt, but it actually used counterspell to stop me, it was clearly able to use stronger magic than me, since I did not know any tier of magic beyond 5, I had to use upscale lower tier spells that were weaker than just regular higher tier spells most of the time.

But my plan worked, the creature was not able to attack mom with spells as my counterspells stopped anything it used.

This thing, if let loose was a terror, it was weak sure, but it was small, sneaky, extremely magically potent and fast, it's only weakness was that without a host-

Sylf sliced it in two, black guts and blood spilling on the ground and quickly dissolving into vapor

It was just an insect.

Parasitic Nightmare has been slain! Your party earns 10000 EXP
Onyx 12511/13730 Sylf has leveled up to level 28! 8158/16476 Kari has leveled up to level 28! 3417/16476

I unequipped my magical robe, We had won, I could let my guard down at last.

Second Dungeon completed! You now have access to the Item Shop, where you can exchange your gold pieces for rare, out of this world items! You can access the Item Shop from your interface.

You have completed the dungeon with all your party members alive, bonus EXP rewarded!

Your secondary objectives inside the dungeon can be completed at a later time for increased rewards.

Your party has earned 25000 EXP! Congratulations!
Onyx has leveled times to level 29! 7305/19771
Sylf has leveled up to level 29! 16682/19771
Kari has leveled up to level 29! 11941/19771

Quickly after that, we were teleported back to reality, we didn't have time to loot or explore more, but that was fine by me! I excitedly jumped onto the floor of the Everfree, kissing the ground, even kissing the spiky plants, I didn't care if they left my snout a bit sore, I was feeling the most alive, I've ever been!

"Yes! Yes! We survived!! It's a beautiful day to fuckin live!" I started dancing around a bit, singing loudly while pretending I was walking down the street, mom and auntie were behind me, then both shared a look and a small laugh and followed me.

"Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk
I'm a woman's man, no time to talk
Music loud and women warm, I've been kicked around
Since I was born" I did a little spin and held up my mom's paw gently and gave it a small kiss, she busted up laughing at the silliness, but I kept singing, I could hear the music as if it was around us.

"And now it's alright, it's okay
And you may look the other way
We can try to understand
The effect that fighting has on me
Whether you're an auntie or whether you're a momma
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive" I pulled both of them close to me as we walked towards the farm, a bounce on my step, I did flips and swung my hips side to side, my tail was wagging involuntarily.

"Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive
Oh, when you walk" they clued in and joined the song, singing along with me, despite Kari's voice being lion noises, like bassy meows and weird roars, she signed along mentally too, which I appreciated, her (telepathic) voice was beautiful, and her lion noises were adorable, to be fair.

"Well now, I get low and I get high
And if I can't get either, I really try
I got claws and don't have shoes
But I keep dancing man, I just can't lose~" I let out a celebratory breath of frost into the air and a small roar, It doesn't sound very menacing, but I just don't care, mom joined with a howl and aunty made a lion's roar that made my lungs vibrate slightly, and put a wide smile on my face.
I keep singing while we swim across the river.

"You know it's alright, it's okay
I'll live to see another day
We can try to understand
The effect that fighting has on me" we finished crossing the river quite quickly, shaking ourselves a bit on the ground of the excess water, I jumped on my back and did rolled on the ground in circles for a minute, then jumped up and landed on my four legs, puffing my chest out and we kept walking and singing loudly, acting like we didn't have a care in the world.

"Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me
Somebody help me~
Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me, yeah
I'm stayin' aliiiiiive~" we kept going, repeating the last verses of the song, until we were at the other door, I smiled, singing that felt wonderful! I felt all my fears and worries melt away, whatever happened in that dungeon, it was over now, we were fine and it we could back to living happily in our beautiful home.