Iris peeked her head around the corner of a slimy stone wall as water dripped from the cave system's ceiling. Zalroth, whose head Iris was still sitting on, peeked his head around the corner and looked into the pitch-black tunnel.
"Man it's dark in here, it's a good thing Sophia and Star can use light magic," Iris commented as Zalroth walked around the corner and towards the tunnel.
"Could you illuminate the area ahead of us, Star?" Zalroth requested. Star, sitting in the middle of Zalroth's tails, nodded her head before doubling the size of the ball of light mana in her hands. She quickly split the orb in half before tossing one of the halves down the tunnel. Zalroth with Charlotte, Ruby and Sophia(who had a light mana orb floating around her) close behind him, followed the floating mana orb down the tunnel as it illuminated the way. The group arrived at a crossroad with four separate tunnels.
"What a coincidence, there's exactly the same amount of tunnels as there are people who were walking," Sophia commented. Zalroth placed his hand on his chin as he thought about something.
"This could mean we're potentially too late," Zalroth stated.
"How come?" Charlotte asked. Zalroth explained that the coincidental tunnel amount could suggest that a magic dungeon is forming in the area, which could mean that the village attacker has almost fully transformed into a silhouette. Charlotte, Ruby and Sophia seemed concerned by Zalroth's explanation, while Star and Iris seemed lost.
"I know it's probably serious but what's a magic dungeon?" Iris asked.
"In simple terms, when a monster reaches a certain level of power they can try to create a domain, which people usually refer to as a magic dungeon, which will allow them to influence their environment to make it more well-suited for them. Right now it seems to be a magic dungeon instance at the moment but could change into a completed one given, although if the monster can't control their power the domain won't be very..." Zalroth explained before getting stuck on how to describe the domain when the monster can't control it.
"Unstable?" Iris stated.
"Unruly?" Star said. Zalroth chuckled at the two's attempt to finish his sentence.
"Unstable and unruly, yeah that's a good way to describe it, an unstable magic dungeon instance; so Ruby do you know which way leads to the Phantom suspect?". Ruby nodded her head before moving to the front of the group and inspecting all the tunnels.
"Ok so the guy's down the third tunnel but his mana seems to be concealed by something," Ruby explained. Zalroth sighed and scratched the back of his head.
"Guess that means we'll have to go down the other tunnels anyway," Zalroth remarked; he quickly glanced down the three other tunnels before nodding his head.
"It seems only one of the paths has monsters down them, so we should go down that one and deal with them first," Zalroth instructed. The others nodded their heads and followed him down the tunnel.
The group strolled down the second tunnel with Ruby giving a loud yawn.
"If you're so bored why don't you ask Zalroth if he knows any interesting facts or stories," Charlotte remarked. Ruby thought Charlotte's offer was an excellent idea and sped up her walking speed with a giddy expression on her face, making Charlotte embarrassingly cover her eyes.
"Say Zalroth... I was wondering if you know any interesting facts about the city of Talkia since you knew it by name." Ruby asked as the group walked through the narrow tunnel. Zalroth placed his hand on his chin and tried to recall anything interesting about the city.
"Well, the city is primarily populated by zombies, oh, and the first time I ever visited the city it was more of a village, on a hill in the middle of a desert," Zalroth remarked.
"A desert?" Ruby asked.
"Yeah that's why the grass in the Dusty Plains is a greenish yellow it's because of all the earth mana in the soil.". Star found something that Zalroth said odd as she listened to him speak.
"But what could have caused the environment to change from a desert to a grassy plain?" Star inquired as she was fluffing Zalroth's tails.
"Heather probably knows given how much she reads on a daily basis." Ruby jokingly remarked.
"Well..., I think it was on my fourth major visit to the, at the time, town; it was attacked by a, and I mean, giant water monster, man if you could've seen the face of yo-" Zalroth managed to say before he suddenly swing-kicking a decaying ghoul in the head followed by him axe kicking it into the ground. Sophia quickly hurried over and crouched down next to the ghoul before she picked up its mining helmet.
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"A ghoul, what's a dead zombie doing here?" Charlotte remarked as Sophia mentioned inspected the helmet with magic.
"It seems they were killed and it was pretty recently," Sophia mentioned as she placed the helmet back on the ground.
"But if they died recently, how could they have turned into a ghoul so quickly?" Charlotte wondered aloud.
"Most likely it has to do with the Phanton suspect, perhaps the angorthite somehow awakened his innate unique azure ability, which could be some monstrification effects," Zalroth remarked.
"What makes you say that?" Iris asked in response.
"Well, the Death Reaper mentioned that after the guy was infected by the angorthite, the soul reapers around him started to act strangely," Zalroth explained.
"So all the incidents we've encountered so far are more interconnected than I originally thought," Charlotte mentioned.
Zalroth's ears suddenly perked up as his pupils dilated into narrow slits. Ruby tried to ask him what was wrong but before she could he bolted down the tunnel while his body was fully encased in lightning magic. The others regained their bearings before racing after Zalroth. As Ruby raced after Zalroth she suddenly heard something that shocked her.
"What's wrong, Ruby?" Charlotte asked.
"I hear crying of the kid variety!" Ruby shouted before the faint sound of a girl crying came into earshot for the others.
The girls emerged into a large cavern right as crowds of ghouls were launched in every direction and collided into every inch of the cavern's surfaces by a strong wind blast. Charlotte quickly unsheathed her swords and sliced multiple ghouls in half with a single X-shaped slash as the ghouls tried to attack the trio. Sophia changed her bracelet into its bow form and Ruby surrounded her fists with dense red mana that formed into boxing gloves. They stormed through and defeated the seemingly endless sea of ghouls as the trio made their way towards the centre of the ghouls.
The trio managed to break through the ghouls and into a large clearing between the sea of ghouls where a now not lightning-covered, and with his pupils back to normal, Zalroth was comforting a crying dark green-skinned and long dark purple-haired child. The trio hurried over to Zalroth as the crying died down.
"Now can you tell me what's going on?" Zalroth asked as he reattached and patted the head of the young sniffling zombie girl. The kid rubbed the tears out off and opened her dark purple eyes.
"O-okay... so me and mommy were flying in by the lake when a scary man a-attacked us and kidnapped me; he then left me here before disappearing, luckily he didn't take the picnic basket my mommy prepare so I did have some food and water." the zombie girl explained while barely being able to hold the large picnic basket between her arms and legs.
"I see, well don't worry Kiki once we've dealt with the scary man we'll take you back to your mom, but first..." Zalroth stated before slowly standing up and raising his right hand as it was encased in dark green wind mana.
"Tempest Force..." Zalroth said as his body was encased by the dark green wind mana while smirking.
"...Raging Blast!" Zalroth yelled before a giant tidal wave of dark green wind erupted off his body that easily sent almost all of the ghouls flying while leaving everyone who wasn't a ghoul completely unaffected. The girls slice and destroyed any of the ghouls that came close to them as Zalroth's attack propelled the ghouls into the cavern's walls.
"Tempest Force: Reining Wind!" Zalroth shouted as multiple dark green magic wind short swords formed around him before hurtling out and impaling all the launched ghouls to the wall of the cavern.
"Im...pressive..." Charlotte slowly stated as she stabbed one of her swords into the head of a bodiless ghoul and glared at Zalroth; Kiki was also staring at Zalroth but her eyes were filled with astonishment.
"Woah, you guys are so strong; are you guys going to be participating in the Maxi...cannion Tournamato..., because I think you'd do pretty good," Kiki said as she became flustered at struggling to say the name of the tournament.
"The Maxicannion Tournament, huh; well you'll have to tell me more about it after we've dealt with the scary man," Zalroth remarked as he picked Kiki up and place her on top of his tails while she kept her arms wrapped around her picnic basket.
"Hey, Zalroth is this what you meant?" Iris shouted as she flew over to him while two floating stone arms carried a large purplish red square-shaped gem, around triple the size of a football, behind her.
"Yeah, that's a mana core alright," Zalroth remarked as Iris sat back on his head and the stone arms place the gem on the ground before crumbling away. The group gathered around the mana core and stared at it.
"So this is a mana core, I think I remember learning about it at the academy... something about them acting like power sources for magic dungeons," Charlotte remarked.
"Yeah I remember that too, but this one looks a little different from the reference images shown in the book," Ruby remarked as she took a closer look at the mana core, causing the others, except Zalroth, to look closer as well.
"Its odd colouration is due to the guy being infected by the angorthite and given the colour distribution his infection rate is about eighty to eighty-three percent, so there's a slim chance to save him," Zalroth remarked as he encased his hand in the white sun tattoo's mana particles and obliterated the mana core with one punch.
All the ghouls that had managed to survive the group's onslaught began to rapidly spasm before crumbling into dust. Ruby's ears perked up and she darted her head back down the tunnel the group came from.
"Hey, guys the Phantom suspect's mana signature just got clearer," Ruby remarked.
"It's just as I thought the guy's using the mana cores, created by his domain, to power magic shields to block the tunnel leading to him," Zalroth mentioned. Charlotte placed her hand on her chin as she wondered something.
"If they're just magic shields, couldn't we just break them?" Charlotte inquired.
"I mean that's what I'd usually do if I were by myself but it's too dangerous to do since all of you are here.". Zalroth noticed that the group seemed a little puzzled at his reply and he sighed.
"If we destroy the magic shields instead of the mana cores, they're connected to, it will cause a feedback loop and'll make the already unstable magic dungeon even more unstable, which could lead to a cave-in... or worse," Zalroth explained. The group nodded their heads and they all agreed it wasn't a good idea to destroy the magic shields before heading back down the tunnel they came from.