Lava Whale 2

The shockwave dragged Liam deeper and deeper into the volcano. He was pushed back all the way to the same place he had first started running from.

Feeling the high temperature around him, Liam had only one thought: 'I can't go any deeper than this.'

The damaged fins on his feet started repairing themselves with rapid speed, giving him a small bit of mobility. The whale, unwilling to give Liam any rest, charged again, aiming to bring him further down. 

With his limited movement, Liam managed to dodge just in time. As the massive creature passed him, he turned and slashed its body with Neontote, leaving a long wound across its back.

Liam held back from slashing too deeply; the whale's immense momentum would have dragged him with it, into the deeper levels of the volcano. 

The creature let out a loud, low-pitched wail of pain as blood came from its wound before evaporating. Angered, it dove deeper into the volcanic depths, stopping only to manipulate the surrounding lava. Using the manipulated lava, it created a denser, hotter field of lava substance around itself.

Liam used this time to swim up as far as he could, even using Neontote's dragon form to propel himself with bursts of energy. But the whale wasn't about to let him escape. It charged upwards, suctioning lava down from infront of it. It was using the suction to make itself go smoother through the lava, increasing its speed.

Liam felt like he was swimming against the currents, as he started getting more affected by the creature suctioning the lava down the closer it came.

Feeling the intense heat around the whale get in range, Liam used the icy tendrils of Ikthallon behind him, forming a wall of ice. He then used the spell on himself, creating an ice crystal around him to protect him against the heat.

The ice wall shattered almost instantly, the whale easily slammed through it with ease because it was weakened a lot by the lava. Liam continued sending energy into the spell around him, strengthening the ice crystal around himself to keep him from getting melted in the heat coming from the beast.

The whale, now infuriated, opened its massive mouth and bit down on the ice crystal around Liam. With him trapped, it dove rapidly toward the deeper layers of the volcano, where the temperature climbed even higher.

'Damn it,' Liam thought as he felt the ice begin to weaken. 'This thing is smarter than it looks. It must be an high level creature, or atleast insanely close to being high-level.'

As it descended, the whale began gathering energy in its mouth, Increasing the intense heat around Liam even more. Despite pouring large amounts of energy into the Ikthallon spell, it wasn't enough—the ice crystal started melting rapidly as they went lower and lower inside the vulcano. 

The temperature around Liam had already soared past 3,500 degrees Celsius. 'Once the ice crystal melts, I will at most have half a minute to get away from these temperatures.'

With only 200 meters left before reaching the hell dimension tear, Liam's mind raced. 'I can't make a portal. I can't get to the surface in time. I can't survive going through the hell dimension tear...' He clenched his teeth. 'There's only one choice left.'

He locked his sights on a small dimensional tear slightly above him. 'I'll have to charge into the unknown dimensional tear. Atleast it has better odds than the hell dimension tear.'

The tear was 75 meters away and still rising. Liam clenched his teeth and broke out of the melting ice crystal, causing the whale to begin closing its massive jaws. Liam propelled himself out in the nick of time, as the creature's teeth snapped shut behind him.

Pouring all his remaining energy into Neontote, Liam unleashed a surge of 4,000-degree flames, propelling himself up like a rocket. That wasn't the end of it, the heat coming from the flames released by Neontote were still rising. He felt his energy draining at immense speed as he got closer to the tear.

'50 meters... 35... 20...' Liam counted the distance as he approached the dimensional tear. The whale, enraged, pursued him, closing the gap with alarming speed. The suction effect created by the creature wanted to drag Liam down, but it wasn't strong enough to stop him and Neontote.

With a final burst of energy, Liam shot through the tear and flew to the other side, his vision returning in an instant. For a brief moment, he looked at his surroundings. 'This might have been a mistake,' he thought grimly, looking at the strange blue kind of terrain with large cracks everywhere.

He turned to see the whale's massive head coming through the dimensional tear. The opening wasn't large enough to let the entire creature through, and it thrashed around furiously, its body stuck on the other side. Liam couldn't help but want to laugh. "That's what you get, you fucker."

But his happiness was short-lived. The whale began gathering energy in its mouth again, Liam went pale as he noticed what it was doing.

He quickly made a spell circle with his remaining energy for the dimensional heal spell, he send the threads from the spell flying to the dimensional tear. The tear started closing, as it closed, the dimensional tear started to slice into the whale's flesh. 

Liam started to smirk as the creatures blood ran down from the edges of the tear. The creature let out a super loud, low-pitched wail, while speeding up the channeling of its remaining strength into a sphere of condensed energy. The creature, which used to be orange, started turning a to a black color as it drained itself from its life energy and put it inside the sphere.

Liam's smirk disappeared as the miniature sun formed in the whale's mouth, instead a look of horror appeared. The miniature sun got larger and larger while its temperature increased. The dimensional heal spell was still sealing the rift, slowly cutting through the whale's head.

The beast wailed one last time, unleashing its condensed energy in a blast just as its head was severed by the closing tear. The energy orb shot towards Liam with horrifying speed, even while the creature's lifeless head fell to the ground, spraying blood everywhere.

Liam turned and ran, he ran as fast as he could, his life depended on every single second. The ball of energy didn't need to catch up to him—it hit the ground behind him and detonated, creating an explosion so powerful that the shockwave consumed everything in its radius.

 Liam was thrown forward by the shockwave as his Incursio armor began to melt by the heat that followed. He directed every bit of white energy into repairing the armor, but the damage was overwhelming. His back was already exposed to the heat, and he felt his skin beginning to melt away.

Just as all hope seemed lost, a small portal appeared ahead of him. It was unlike his own portals, it had a frame glowing with blue energy and barely large enough for a human his size to pass through.

Liam's eyes widened with hope. He pushed forward, ignoring the unbearable pain as his armor disintegrated further and his skin melted on more places. Each step felt like an eternity, his body screaming from the pain as he neared the portal.

With a final leap, he threw himself through the portal just as it closed behind him.