It’s alive?!
At Pestle’s warning, Sofia wanted to run back over the edge to reunite with the others, but before she could, she felt mana stir beneath her feet.
A faint tingle brushed her senses, [Heat death] reacting to incoming magic. With no hesitation, Sofia activated it, her mana instantly tanking by half.
A hundred million?!!!
The cube’s magic was interrupted, and the gigantic thing shook underfoot.
It took a backlash!
I can only cancel one more, no ti to waste!
Pestle, co here!
Sofia crouched down on the ground and started slicing away at it with her dagger at full speed. The dagger could cut even asterite, whatever that blue tal was, it was no different from dirt against the dagger’s edge. The cube shook as she carved a hole into it.
Pestle arrived so fast she almost crashed into Sofia, “Prett and Croowi is attack, Senia doing ritual!” she told Sofia who was still hacking at the tal under her feet, carving a small hole.
“Got it! The cube sounded hollow when I crashed into it. As soon as I’m through, get inside and kill it!”
“I kill!” Pestle echoed, getting down to kick away the tal chunks Sofia carved out.
Another surge of mana ca from below, but [Heat Death] did not react at all, aning it wasn’t a damaging spell. Instead, it was the sa surge of gravity that had pulled the group down monts before, violently flattening them all down against the cold tal.
Shit, can’t… move…
Clutching the dagger, Sofia mustered her strength but couldn’t even begin to lift her face away from the cold blue tal.
“Ritual almost charged… Dragon, now!” Sofia heard Sonia say on the other side.
Suddenly the gravity weakened slightly.
Perfect!
Forcing herself back on her knees, muscles bulging under her armor, Sofia pressed her dagger against the steel, the gravity making it even easier to pierce through. With choppy movents, she carved out a small triangle, about as thick as the length of the dagger’s blade, which imdiately fell down into the cube.
“Your turn!” she told Pestle.
The fairy did not need to be told twice, without hesitation, she jumped into the hole, which closed back up after her, the steel regrowing at an exceedingly fast pace under Sofia’s eyes.
The entire cube shook, making eerie howling noises like a vibrating sheet of tal.
Another mana surge ca. [Heat Death] reacted, and Sofia cancelled the cube’s spell right away, causing it to suffer another backlash.
Then another mana surge began right after.
Shit! I’m completely out!
But it was cancelled again, and the cube suffered a third backlash. There was an explosion inside of the cube’s entrails that echoed through the cavern, and suddenly the gravity magic holding them down got even stronger.
Completely flattened against the blue steel, Sofia and the others could not do a thing as the cube shook, and fell, with continuous explosions going off inside.
The cube fell thousands of ters in the dark abyss, eventually crashing down into freezing water so cold Sofia felt like she was turning to ice even with her immunity.
Whether it was the water or sothing else, at that instant the gravity magic lost its hold on her, so she hurriedly swam up to the surface. Sonia erged right after, followed by Pareth on Crowie’s back.
Stolen story; please report.
“Where’s Bookie?!”
Sofia considered diving back down, but Bookie’s book form appeared on her waist right on cue. He had unsummoned himself and returned to her. With a sigh of relief, Sofia warped the lower half of her armor into a small raft for everyone to stand on, as Sonia tried to fly but was too cold to even open her wings.
“Thank you…” Sonia said, shaking, as Sofia ward the group up with the hottest angel bolt she could afford with the little mana she had at the mont.
“A bath of underworld water isn’t very fun,” Sofia mumbled, herself frozen to the bones. Even Crowie was shivering on the raft, head almost touching the bolt, and only Pareth seed to be doing great, looking bigger and stronger than ever as he peacefully floated in the magical freezing water.
“Freezing my damn wings off–” Sonia cursed, her feathers having turned to brittle ice shards from the short bath. “Is Pestle alive?” she asked after a sneeze.
“Her page is still spent so yes. Probably having the ti of her life eating the cube from the inside right about now.”
“Ahah… Can’t believe we dealt with that so easily.”
“I don’t know if I would call that easy,” Sofia rebutted, “But uh… It certainly makes wonder how you survived the solo expeditions until now.”
“Painfully slowly and carefully,” Sonia answered, extending her wings toward the bolt and looking around. The ambient darkness and two ters maximum spell range were still the sa.
“I can imagine. I don’t see anything, if you’re wondering, only the water and darkness. No land or ceiling in sight. Ah- Pestle is coming back up.”
The fairy burst out of the water creating a small geyser. “Mimic is kill!” she proudly announced, holding up a tallic orb bigger than herself, which was covered in tiny claw marks.
That was a mimic?
“Not is skelton but Pesle is bring treasure leg!” Landing heavily on the bone raft, Pestle held up the orb for everybody to see.
“Good work as usual, Pestle.”
“It’s that thing’s mana heart,” Sonia analyzed, “Damaged, big and heavy… We can’t bring it along, but I could make an interesting golem out of that if you give twenty minutes to work on it… After I’m done unfreezing…”
“I’m not sure we have that kind of free ti. Don’t you hear the noises? We’re clearly not alone here,” Sofia said, worriedly looking around, seeing only still water and darkness.
“I do, the insects from the tunnel probably all nest here… We don’t have much ti before night, I can work on the golem while you get us out, our direction should be this way,” Sonia said, pointing at a seemingly random direction.
“Hard to believe to kept track of that… Are you fine with the core being made into a golem Pestle?” Sofia asked as she started to steer the raft in the direction Sonia showed with her aura.
“Pesle is agree. Can still leg when golem is kill!” she answered with two thumbs up.
Sonia got to work with a silent nod, taking off her backpack and having to unfreeze it before she could open it to retrieve her tools. “All my food is ruined…” she mumbled, throwing frozen packages of dried at and other things above board. Even if no underworld water had made it into the backpack itself, the food itself had still frozen so violently there were ice shards protruding out of the packages.
“More space for loot,” Sofia said off-handedly, throwing side glances at Pareth who swam alongside the raft.
I don’t think we have to worry about underwater monsters for now, huh.
As often happened when Sofia was a bit too optimistic, her thoughts were proved wrong almost imdiately. A glowing trident appeared in Pareth’s hands and the waters were no longer so calm, now that he had to protect the raft from an unseen threat from below.
“Pesle go help,” the fairy proactively decided, jumping overboard.
Sofia was dying to help sohow, but she did not have so much mana to spare, so she focused on keeping the raft stable and moving forward on the shaky waters. Unable to stay still, she tried to at least summon so birds to scout out the surroundings and try to make sure they weren’t heading straight into so huge monster or the cavern walls.
The instant her birds left her sight, disappearing into the ambient darkness, they all died.
Not a good sign…
Pareth, Pestle, stay near the raft, don’t go too deep or too far, spreading out is dangerous.
Anxiously watching her mana slowly climb back up, Sofia switched from her bolt to the maximum light she could output with VPPV, fearing that the danger could co from the darkness itself.
The best thing to do if we get sward by giant mosquitoes… Probably a bunch of stars. I need more mana.
The waters soon cald down, Pareth and Pestle successfully killing or chasing off whatever had tried to attack the raft, but the mont of peace only lasted a few minutes, before another underwater monster approached.
Like that, the raft sailed over the underworld water slowly getting caught into a slight current. It took them slightly off course, but it was close enough that Sofia didn’t fight it, and the raft started to move by itself. Sofia took this opportunity to let her mana climb back up to full, only running tier 2 [Runeforged Overlord] for Pareth and Pestle.
The current should be taking us to an exit. Sonia looks almost done with her golem… But I’m a bit worried…
In the distance above, the insects started to stir more and more. Many would undoubtedly head to the tunnel above to feed on the crystals, but would they really leave the small raft alone?
Sofia readied her spells.
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