Belladonna whipped her head around as the lava rippled from movements that were not her own. She narrowed her eyes, scanning the area all around her as she searched for what caused it, but even with her mana vision she couldn’t see anything.

Swimming in the lava, although she was part of it, was difficult. It wasn’t easy like water, or at least what she had experienced from swimming in water in other games. It was chunky, fighting against her.

It was like swimming through a thick, warm sludge. It was for those same reasons that the ripples of movements of something incredibly large, could be reduced to something that she could barely feel.

Fangs made of volcanic stone lunged out from the murky depths, clamping around Belladonna’s leg. She was immediately dragged down, as the serpent the fangs were attached to easily carved through the lava with ten times the ease that Belladonna could swim with.

She let out a muffled grunt through gritted teeth, as it dragged her deeper and deeper down into the depths by her leg. Its fang tugged at her limb, threatening to pull it off as her concentration was heavily disturbed.

It took everything she had just to keep her form long enough for her to lean forwards, and punch the serpent in the head. Over and over her fist slammed into its head, trying to find the release button, which as it turns out was placed right behind its eye.

The Serpent let out a hiss of pain, releasing its grip on Belladonna’s leg and turning its head away from her. Belladonna managed to swim just a few feet, before the rest of the serpents body followed after its head, and a whip of its tail sent her flying through the lava.

Belladonna plummeted into the depths until, WHAM! her back slammed into the bed of the lava lake, forcing the air from her lungs and making her gasp in pain, inhaling a lungful of lava in the meantime.

She floated for a few seconds, waiting for the feeling of drowning or burning from the inside, but that feeling did not come, which was definitely nice to know now. At least she could breathe down here, now it was just the nearly invisible monsters to deal with.

Righting herself in the ’water’ Belladonna grabbed the ground she had just slammed against and dragged herself down, until she was crouched on all fours against the solid earth, and desperately searched the lava around her for any signs of another attack.

Even though her body had literally been hitting against the snakes when she was dragged along with it, she could still barely see it through the thick lava. Her mana vision hardly registered such a massive life-form which, from the ones she had fought on the surface, was well over twenty metres long.

The only thing that gave any indication of its position, was the ripples of the lava, and a small mote of light the size of a peach. That was its entire signature, even that had a distance on it. Yet even still, looking all around - as she had learned to remember to check the Z axis too - Belladonna could still see half a dozen of those peach light motes swirling around her, stalking her. Hunting her.

One of the motes shifted, its movements switching from smooth and passive, to quick and erratic as it suddenly drew closer. Belladonna dug her fingers into the ground beneath her, watching the mote and keeping her senses alert for any other subtle lava waves.

When the head of the lunging serpent finally lunged from the gloom, its mouth already open wide enough to swallow her whole, she pushed off the ground with all of her strength and launched herself to the side.

Shooting through the magmatic sludge, Belladonna just barely avoided the snapping jaws of the serpent, and had to twist her body, lashing out a kick at another who tried to jump at the opportunity.

Her foot collided with its jaw, snapping its mouth shut and shattering its teeth, whilst she was launched away again.

Twisting her body, Belladonna hit the ground on all fours and wasted no time on charging forwards once again, dragging herself and bounding across the lake bed, as lava snakes constantly lunged out of the murk at her.

All the while, she was counting down the seconds and keeping track of her prize.

76 seconds.

She leapt over another lunging snake, letting it get a mouthful of dirt, but sending herself once more into the open ’air’ of the lava.

68 seconds.

A snake barely brushed her shoulder with its fang, leaving a large gash in it, as she just managed to dodge at the last minute. Grabbing its craggy body, Belladonna let the serpent drag her along like she was a pilot fish as it cut through the lava, before launching herself like a torpedo the moment it started to deviate from a helpful path.

59 seconds.

In the middle of her torpedo flight path, a serpent emerged from the murk. A small burst of fire from her feet sacrificed a few seconds worth of mana, but gave her just enough of a speed boost to just pass by the lunge.

It didn’t however give her enough to get past the one that had been hidden behind its friend, their peach motes overlapping and hiding the second from her view. The second was so close, that no amount of speed boost would help her, and she couldn’t swim well enough to dodge. There was only one thing for it.

Curling up, Belladonna activated the rune in her forearm, manifesting a shield of pure mana just as the serpents mouth clamped down. The shield creaked and groaned, cracks forming across its glowing surface as it struggled not just with the force but the lava around it eating at its structure. Every second she had it activated, it ate away at three seconds worth of remaining mana.

Belladonna could literally feel the seconds draining like the sand-glass had been shattered open.

Taking one last look at her goal, Belladonna grit her teeth and shifted her body before she finally let the shield disappear. The snakes mouth immediately clamped closed, crushing the bones in her arm to dust and cracking the lava body she was made up of at the moment, but the rest of her was still hanging outside of its mouth.

Planting her feet against it, Belladonna thrust her feet forward and launched herself away from the snake, tearing her arm off in the process.

She flew through the lava, twisting her body one last time, and dug her hand into the ground to pull herself to a halt, right next to the simple wooden chest that sat perfectly at the bottom of the lake of lava with not so much as a scorch mark on its body.

25 seconds. Which meant no time to waste.

Hooking her remaining arm over the chest, Belladonna lifted it from the ground and immediately poured what was left of her mana into her feet, pushing her flame runes to their maximum effect and she pushed off of the ground with all of her strength.

The seconds burned away as Belladonna shot through the water, barrelling towards the surface with serpents snapping at her heels, lunging into her path and chasing her with hunger in their feral eyes until finally, she broke the surface.