The large group descended into the deep never-ending depths without pause, in this upper level they had no time to waste, they needed to conserve their strength for what lies lower. This Deep of the Abyss would be the only area they could move this rapidly so Welsh took every advantage of it. While they were traveling fast, for the size of their group, progress still only trudged on at around 100 feet per minute. As they traveled the sea began to become more and more black until it had become almost completely pitch black.
Fortunately for the most part they were traveling through open waters, which increased their safety and speed, but even then they had roadblocks. This Deep of the Abyss had sea beasts from the ocean that had wandered in previously, considering the size of Molloy Drop they couldn’t be too big but the size wasn’t the only determining factor in strength.
Getting attacked by such creatures wasn’t unpredicted in fact it was expected. On the group's right flank they could hear the large moan of a deep water sea beast, the squads protecting that side got ready for a confrontation, and a few seconds later a wereshark appears out of the darkness and clasps onto a squad member who had been preparing for combat. Weresharks; were a pretty dangerous sea creature that could blend in with their environment, which combined with the already black sea it could easily hide. The person in its teeth, already dead as it moves back into the darkness.
While somewhat tragic other than the people who cared for the now lump of food for the shark nobody even batted an eye and kept moving. They didn’t have the time to help nor care about someone who had already died, and the wereshark probably wouldn’t attack again. It must have only been desperate for food considering it charged into a large group like this, but it already got the food it sought. Some didn’t like this though, it felt wrong to let people get picked off and not even try to help them. Jasper, one such person.
“Boss, why don’t we help them?” Though he asked this question he already knew the answer but couldn’t help but be frustrated again.
“If we tried to stop for every person who died on this trip we would either all die, or not get very far before we had to turn around. I get it, even now it boils my blood but there isn’t anything we can do.” Though Aton told him this he couldn’t shake the feeling, that wasn’t the first person who died, their group's size meant that people were dying left and right oftentimes without people from the other side of the group even realizing it, and since Aton’s group neared the front the back of the group almost became an afterthought. What pissed off Jasper even more though, would have to be how people with authority could break the lines.
Krey and Orson for example had moved up to the front with them, but that's not it, all of the major faction leader squads moved up the Law squads and the Restoration squad. Of course, breaking rank to get to a safer spot already irked him, but they were also taking strength away from the middle ranks, making it harder for them to survive. Some of the squads back there were their own people. Aton had explained to him that the leader squads weren’t the only members they brought, they had many sub-squads with leaders that weren't important enough to make it into the special guest group so they got shoved to the back. Basically, the people in the back were being used as meat shields for the people in the front, and it disgusted Jasper.
“Jasper calm down, okay? Once we get past this Deep it will get a lot tougher and the most energy you burn here the more likely you're going to die.” Aton advised him once more, Joshens also popped in.
“Hey I want to punch the crap out of them too, and to be honest if I got a good chance I would, so why not hold your strength for when you get a chance then we can pummel them together ay?” Joshens said with a smile, which calmed Jasper down slightly, if he thinks of it like that he could manage. While Joshens only said that to calm him down he took it to heart he only had to wait for a chance to get back at them rather than only take it and let them off forever.
The sea started to change color to a more light color actually much lighter than even Bathysphere’s water, they had made it past Ash lake, the Abyss released so much Ash, it looked like Ash particles in the water, and while many would dissolve into the water or get trapped further below, a lot would float and gather to the water and get trapped at the place they passed through. It caused the water there to turn black creating a weird phenomenon where it's almost as if there is a black lake at the top of the Abyss in the water.
Weirdly, while disturbing inside the lake might be the safest place in this Deep as most beasts tend to avoid it, though that doesn’t mean there are no attacks hence the earlier shark attack. After breaching the lake the water became so light that Jasper could see the bottom of the Deep, this light and buildings in the Abyss, what have they not been telling me? Jasper had been right, Aton and the others avoided giving him all the information on the Abyss, the real question was why?
Jasper could see Welsh holding up his hand signaling a halt, the squad leaders all started to do the same to get the message to everybody. Welsh had hand signals he could give out that all the squad leaders were supposed to replicate after he gave it to quickly send a command to everyone in the expedition. However, the original plan had been to keep moving regardless of loss until they reached the second Deep so why had Welsh gone against the plan and stopped everyone in their tracks?
“Look ahead,” he said, a monstrosity waded a far distance below them in between two large ruined tower-like structures, monitoring a large opening underneath it, the entrance into the second Deep, Factorian Deep. Monstrosities were different from sea beasts, for multiple reasons, starting from their origin Monstrosities came from the Abyss, well technically that's not entirely true.
Monstrosities were born from Ash and could occur anywhere with extraordinary amounts of Ash and since the Abyss had extreme amounts of Ash, monstrosities would often form and would often be much stronger. Most monstrosities lacked any intelligence only attacking whatever was in their sight, but the ones in the Abyss showed intelligent patterns making them much more dangerous. The one in front of them radiated an intense amount of pressure and watched them with very intelligent eyes, by now a monstrosity would probably have rushed them by now even a slightly smarter one would’ve been overcome by instincts to attack. That's why Welsh stopped them, a strange monstrosity blocked the exact spot they intended to go.
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The beast looked much too powerful to be at this Deep, while some monstrosities did make their way up, they were quite rare at this layer especially not something that looked like that. Pure Ash in color, with drops plopping off of it every time it moved. Its body, asymmetrical, with bits and pieces sticking out of it at different angles, a large slender body long enough to block the entire large oval-shaped passage into the second Deep, which Jasper estimated to have a diameter of around fifty feet. The monstrosity had red lines crawling along its body looking like veins, with spikes sporadically lining its body, along with eyes sporadically covering its face.
It looked toward Jasper and gnarled its large circular mouth with teeth rotating in its mouth like a spiral of death. It almost looked as if it had a friendly smile, about as friendly as a giant monster's smile could be anyway. Its pressure had been directed toward the group, after which more than a dozen figures could be seen to be sinking toward the monster, they were corpses that had died from the pressure it released alone. Welsh had been right to stop; they had to think of an effective way to kill this monster, charging at it recklessly would cause a great deal of unnecessary death.
“Don’t panic, steel yourselves, we expected to fight monsters like this, this stupid monster decided to attack us while we were still in our prime, he’s practically begging for us to kill him and take the spoils!” This immediately increased everyone's spirit, everyone always saw Welsh as a beacon so whenever he spoke the mood cheered up. “I have fought monsters identical to this, it's smart but it's waiting because we have every advantage, it's waiting for us to slip up. Tanks forward.” While nobody had a tag calling them a tank or something else, the people here were skilled enough to know about which bracket they fell into, people with defensive Ash skills, strong Ash defensive basics, strong defensive body, or some other defensive power stepped forward, Joshens stepped forward.
“Long-range forward behind them!.” Aton stepped forward, Jasper did not, he didn’t even meet the distance requirement, and he also would be a support, a way more valuable class in large groups than that of long-distance or tanks so they were preserved. “Remaining even squads right flank, odd squads left flank, support classes stick close to the rear!” Welsh planned to implement a very basic strategy against the monstrosity, one that would be very effective with this number of fighters, tanks to block a frontal assault, long-range behind them to deal constant damage, and close range to the left and right of the tanks, but slightly behind to surround the monster if it decided to attack the tanks. Along with supports behind both the tanks and long-range damage dealers, to preserve and depending on their abilities support the tank and long-range damage dealers.
While very simple Welsh didn’t apply no critical thinking, a plan like this wouldn't work if the beast had long-range capabilities as it would most likely outrange most of the expedition members, not to mention it would very easily be able to target the flanks. Or if it had some ability to reflect damage they would be in trouble if they carelessly launched attacks or perhaps hundreds of other potential abilities to defeat his plan, but from past experience, he knew this monster would have no such ability.
“Forward, slowly!” he yelled. The expedition team slowly swam downwards only until Welsh held up his hand to signal them to stop once more he didn’t plan to get too close, only enough to where most of his long-range damage dealers could begin their assault. The monster in front of them watched them with eyes resigned for death.
Jasper had moved to behind the tanks, he again wouldn’t be much help in this battle, his attack weren’t long enough to allow him to join the long-range attacks, and since he had a support skill they wouldn’t let him with the close range combatants, but his support skill served no real purpose in this fight. Honestly, he didn’t want to tell anyone but his support skill had become completely obsolete down here, unless he could train it to be more particular with his Ash readings, his skill became useless. While traveling down he tried to activate it to test it, but the Ash density down here made it impossible for him to distinguish anything. So once again he became a useless sitting duck.
He could see the long-range team firing their attacks now, Welsh had given them the go-ahead. Some were firing their Ash skills, some were throwing harpoons or other throwing weapons, and he guessed some were using other powers that he couldn't distinguish. The monster below charged once the attacks started, its long slender body sprung to life as it twisted and pulled itself against the resistance of the water, moving in unnatural ways at unnatural speeds. The tanks prepared themselves activating their skills or defense, some of the more rich ones even activated an artifact. Jasper had an artifact, Aton had given him the one from Maxwell, which might explain how well he had been doing in the Abyss for the first time, but he wasn’t too sure since he did well in Molloy Drop even before getting it.
The monster took the beating of nearly a thousand long-range attacks, but still survived as it made its way to the tank line. Crashing into them throwing many of the tanks flying backwards, as fast as some of the long-range attacks previously, killing many of them instantly. The tanks reformed their lines while the short-range attacks moved to surround the monster ripping into its Ash like flesh.
Without the previous momentum combined with the already injured state, the monster couldn’t break the tank line, so all it could do was thrash around trying its best to cling onto its life. Even the thrashing possessed a threat to the expedition team though, some got overconfident and died due to the spikes splotched on its body from it’s deliberate bodily lunges.
But eventually, it couldn’t take the beatings any longer and let out one last groan in pain as it started to sink down like the corpses it had to send down before it. While many cheered at the victory many despaired at the deaths of their friends and comrades a total of over sixty deaths taking down the large monster. And that had been at full strength and the use of artifacts. Welsh announced to get back into formation, they were going to keep going as planned. He didn’t intend to even harvest the body for the rare materials it would hold, it would take too much of their valuable time, but perhaps if it wasn’t eaten by the time they came back they could harvest it.
Jasper met back up with Aton, and Joshens they had both made it back alive neither injured. They got back into the front of the expedition team, along with the other top-number squads. And Welsh commanded the expedition team to continue moving downward, they had no time to waste. After a minor setback only a few more minutes until they reached the ruins and the entrance to the second Deep of the Abyss.