If it made a sound, no one except Valeria would know. For the sight of the impact simply did not allow them to focus on anything else.
Her blade t the ice, slicing through the surface layers like butter while simultaneously shattering several feet of ice, sending cracks throughout. Large chunks of dark ice fell, revealing deeper layers beneath. She left a giant gaping hole in the face.
There was silence for a few monts.
Plap.
The first sound to resound was the sound of Zara falling to the ground, with quivering legs. "I... I love you, Captain."
Jin looked envious, and also a bit resigned. He averted his gaze and sighed. "Eclipse Knight..." He bit his lip in mild frustration. "No wonder..."
Yet as impressive as the damage was, Lumi could see it was superficial. She’d barely penetrated a few feet, and the ice further inside looked denser and more resistant.
"Impressive!" Susie exclaid with stars in her eyes. She took a look at her scientific asurents, and explained. "You removed approximately nine cubic feet of material. But look, the deeper ice shows exponentially greater resistance. At the theoretical rate of hardening, we’d need a whole day just to get thirty feet in."
She observed the ice, making a ntal estimate. "And this looks to be about two hundred feet or so thick in every direction."
"It’s rather evenly distributed. It’s a circular pillar." Elara observed, then stepped closer. "There’s sothing in the middle of the rubble. So sort of item?
"It survived my slash?" Valeria questioned, interested. "Let’s see it."
Elara picked it up. It was so sort of rounded, curved and blunt tal. "What is this?" She held up the tal which looked strangely like a question mark.
"I dunno." Jin shrugged. "Put it over your head, and it represents your mind at all tis."
"???" Elara looked at Jin confused. "What?"
Jin gestured to her. "My point is proven."
"Pfft." While the others were still processing the words, Zara let out a snort at the joke. "Elara’s always clueless."
Elara: ?
...
"Let try sothing." Lumi said, raising his wand. "Light and dark counter each other. All interaction between them results in annihilation. Therefore, let try my light magic."
He raised his wand. "Light Shower!" The condensed spray of light struck the damaged section of ice. On contact, it began to sizzle. The light penetrated deep, leaving a tear of damage that went far deeper than any Rank One spell from a level 30 mage had a right to.
"Fascinating!" Susie exclaid. "Therefore, this is the result of Dark Magic! The darkness inherent to this phenonon weakens at a rapid speed upon contact. That should make cutting the ice away easier. I didn’t know light and dark had such an effect on each other!"
"Makes sense." Marcus replied thoughtfully. "Those are very rare elents to wield or encounter. I admit, not even I knew."
Lumi studied the holes his spell had created. They went deep, but not nearly deep enough. At this rate, it would take days of constant casting to penetrate even a third of the way to whatever lay at the glacier’s heart.
That was a waste of ti. It was looking like he would have to call in stronger reinforcents to assist.
"We should head back to the ship." he suggested. "This will take ti. Too much ti, I’m going to call reinforcents to make this happen in a reasonable ti."
"Reinforcents?" Valeria lightly repeated before nodding. "Alright."
They made their way back up to the surface, back to a clear open patch of snow. The Silver Wind was a couple minutes away from them.
"Lumi." Valeria asked. "Though you proved your loyalty, which is why we’re with you, how will you convince Grand Tactician Azir to give you even stronger Knights just to mine an ice block? What’s in there, anyways?"
Lumi considered the question. "Grand Tactician Azir is a cautious man. He will-
Valeria barely had ti to attempt an intercept before Marcus’s left arm went flying off.
A sword slash of pure darkness had sliced through the space where they’d been standing. It moved even faster than any modern sniper rifle could shoot a bullet. Without thinking, through sheer instinct, Valeria managed to partially intercept it with her sword, but the force of the impact sent her flying backward.
The deflected attack continued its path, and Marcus’s eyes didn’t even have ti to turn into pinpricks, much less to cast teleport and dodge. The dark blade caught his left arm just below the elbow, directly cutting it off.
"AHH!" Marcus scread loudly as he collapsed. He grasped his stump with his remaining arm in sheer disbelief.
A figure of pitch black darkness had suddenly appeared mid-air. They held a dark greatsword, lined with various runes glowing orange. Their armor was a dark gray, accented with bright, glowing orange lines. Around the neck was a dark cape, and their entire figure radiated with void black aura.
They stared down at the group, their eyes glowing a bright blinding orange.
"WHAT!?" Lumi trembled as he looked upwards.
That was a... a...
[??? - Level ???]
His blood ran cold.
WHY WAS ONE OF THOSE HERE!?
For the first ti since having been reborn, Lumi felt fear. Not anxiety, not a bit of trepidation, but a true, soul-biting fear.
The pitch-black figure hung in the air, its form absorbing light itself. Where its face should have been, there was only a void and the bright light of its eyes.
An Elite Guard. One of the Dark One’s Elite Guards.
No, Lumi’s mind raced, terror flooding through him.
No! No, no! This can’t be happening.
He knew exactly what this thing was. An Elite Guard under the Dark One. These weren’t re servants or cultists. These were beings high up on the power structure!
The hierarchy flashed through his mind.
At the top sat the Dark One himself, a being so powerful that even sealed away, his influence could reach across dinsions to corrupt an entire world.
Below him were the Commanders, entities of such vast power that any one of them could level entire kingdoms and had the qualifications to plot against gods.
One of these commanders was Guard Captain Volo, who trained and maintained a squadron of Elite Guards, beings that existed solely to carry out the Dark One’s most critical missions.
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