Meanwhile, the expedition team were still trying to make their way through Factorian Deep. The death toll has started to increase at a rapid pace. At Molloy Drop down to the start of Factorian Deep about 150 people had died, about that many died already in Factorian and they had made little progress, while they tried to move fast with everybody so cautious mixed with the internal schemes it’s not easy for the large group to go very fast. The wall of flesh took every advantage of this picking off people left and right with nutrients its the only concern.
Jasper still had his concentration focused on the fleshy wall of death, he had witnessed it claim many more lives only increasing his tension and it didn’t help that another string-like entrail had tried to snatch him once more, felt like he was being targeted but most likely merely his diluted paranoia.
The spikes were to claiming lives launching out of the walls and impaling the newborn corpses, completely deforming the bodies into tangled messes of unrecognizable flesh, bone, and fluids. Even a couple of Dukes had been impaled, killing them, with slightly more struggle. Dukes carried all of their supplies and were very powerful tanks, so they were very important. And with such a limited number of them, now under 100, each time one died it marked a great loss. Jasper tapped Aton's shoulder to ask him a question.
“Hey, Boss, why don’t Welsh or anyone strong enough to do something use their skills to block off the attacks? You could argue the people are not important enough to save, but even ignoring the deaths of the Dukes, I don't get it.” Aton looked back at him.
“It's simple, we’re conserving our strengths.” He included himself in the strong that Jasper had been talking about, “It may seem like we will have plenty of strength to spare, most of us haven't even done anything the whole trip and we deal with the Ash pressure the best out of everyone, but reality can be deceiving. Even the Abyss alone would wear us down eventually but in truth, we are holding onto our strengths for the internal battles. Expeditions always have some internal conflict, but this time, it will be much worse.” Aton wanted to say more about why this expedition would be worse than normal but ended up holding back.
Jasper could tell he held back something he wanted to say, but decided not to pry. In truth, Jasper has started to grow a little weary of Aton, and he didn’t want Aton to know that. For now, it was only a little doubt in the back of his mind, but he didn’t want to take unnecessary risks. Jasper didn’t know what to think, death surrounded him from all sides, felt like he was getting boxed in, and if he touched any of the box's sides it would mean his death.
“Yo Jasper how’s it goin. Your lookin stressed.” Joshens suddenly said, snapping Jasper out of his thoughts. “Your worrying too much my friend. It won’t help, just think of all the treasures we will find soon, and the glorious titles we will hold once we return alive. Even in death, we will be recorded in history as members of the greatest Abyss expedition of all time!” He shouted, throwing his hands up in a Y shape. This helped Jasper calm down a little, normally he was calm and collected but the Abyss had started to get to him, he wasn’t unique in that many people of the expedition were starting to go a bit crazy from the pressure and watching hundreds of people disappear and die without being able to do anything.
They traveled a while longer, the walls aching for food, slowly starting to close inward. Closing in the death box Jasper had already been struggling with. One of the most dangerous traits of the wall of flesh it could move and morph, slowly shaping itself into whatever it desired, and it desired food, once it got a taste it couldn’t control itself, as it never got enough to satisfy itself. Sacs of puss started to bubble out of the walls, Jasper knew they were another function of the wall. It could create thin bubbles made of the same fleshy material, but stretched so thin it could be seen through, with the acid inside becoming visible a terrible orange color, making the whole thing resemble a twisted deformed gray egg. These sacs would pop whenever someone got near spewing out the orange acid from within onto the target. The acid would rapidly kill the target, then one of the strings would grab the target and pull them into the wall. Things got even more dangerous.
Suddenly Jasper nearly swam into Aton in front of him, the group stopped once again. Stop now of all times why! He didn’t even notice but he could see Aton holding up his hand, Welsh must’ve called for another stop, but they were wide in the open, the fleshy spikes and entrail strings would have a perfect opportunity to bombard them. Yet even after a second that did not happen. Joshens again spoke to him.
“A domain skill, one of Welsh's people can use. It separates us from reality and puts us in a subspace where we can regain our strength. It’s convenient but we can’t rely on it too much, it takes up a lot of Ash with this many people, even with all the support classes giving him aid we maybe have five minutes and that's also with an incredible powerful artifact.” He said somewhat gloating about his great knowledge.
“Interesting, why don’t we travel alongside the skill to make easy progress?” He asked half expecting to know already.
“It would be great if that were the case huh, well the skill is static, we can move around inside the domain but once it ends we will be sent back to exactly where we started once the skill had first been activated.” Joshens explained, which had been what Jasper thought, domain skills were a somewhat common skill, and to make a domain that could move along with a group this large might as well be impossible. To make a domain that could capture this many people was already terrifyingly powerful. It did feel nice to have a break though he could relax for a moment, Aton looked very tense though, and he wondered why.
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That's when he noticed it, the amount of people in the domain had suddenly decreased drastically. To a completely untrained observer it may have been unnoticeable, but to anyone with some experience could tell a few hundred random people disappeared out of nowhere. Aton signaled for everyone to group up, Jasper, Joshens, the five mercenaries he hired, and their Duke all grouped together. Jasper readied his skill, his black probes pouring out of his fingers like a large water drop off somebody's finger, only it didn’t fall off, but it stayed connected as it slowly pulled off his finger getting longer and sharper ready to attack any potential enemies. The artifact in his pocket started to activate, to relieve some of the new Ash pressure on his body.
They scouted around to see who was missing, Welsh and his squad could no longer be seen, nor could Oscar with his men. The Van Dresels were also missing, among others less notable people perhaps hired squads other either group perhaps hired squads of Abyss members. But the Law faction remained, and the Restoration faction also remained, along with most of the Abyss leaders particularly Kell and Harper were still here.
While they were doing that, Welsh and his squad were alone in a separate subspace domain. His friend Glomar could be seen looking very strained, trying to maintain multiple domains at once, one extremely large, a few figures could be seen behind him activating their own skills to help him with Ash channeling along with the Ash pressure. And just as Joshens said an artifact attached to his neck, a necklace was slightly glowing in activation. The necklace didn’t help with his Ash channeling but instead buffed his Ash output, to an extreme degree, with some cost but not nearly as much as it would be naturally.
Oscar also hovered next to Welsh, a large two-handed spear in his hands, he had a large bulky build matching Maxwell, perhaps even exceeding it. He had dim gold scales that looked soft and smooth with no bumpiness or pits, his build resembled more of a fish than a Fishman, his head had the shape of a hammerhead shark, with dozens of sharp barbed teeth in his mouth. His body humped over like a dolphin but with no fin on the back, but he had a fluke, that shined slightly brighter gold, and the scales on it were sharp and tough. His arms blended surprisingly well on his more fish body with the same golden scales as soft and smooth, but slightly less slimy than the rest of his body allowing for the grip of weapons without slipping. Fifteen or so people were behind him along with around twenty behind Welsh. Krey and Orson were across from them, by themselves. Orson opened his mouth.
“So this is why you were so confident in letting us join the expedition, you could isolate us however you choosed.” He scoffed and pulled out a trident from a subspace of his own, one of Orson's skills was to store nonliving things in a small subspace and take them out whenever he chose. While hard to train it took very little Ash to maintain and it didn’t interfere with his other skills much if at all. Welsh responded to Orson.
“I don’t take joy in this, but enough talk time is of the utmost importance, don’t discredit yourselves too much you may still live.” Welsh spoke the truth, time would determine if Krey and Orson would survive this ordeal, it would be impossible for them to win against so many opponents, but the domain would only last so long and if they could survive until the domain got deactivated then they would be safe, as if Welsh attacked them in the open it would cause a commotion among the expedition perhaps even an open battle and that would cause a lot of problems as the Abyss would take every chance to rip them apart. That would also give Krey and Orson another win condition, kill or disable the man maintaining the domain, which would also mean they would need to protect said man giving them a slightly better chance at coming out of this alive.
Krey smiled, that must be what Welsh is thinking anyhow, while they didn’t know the man could create multiple domains and separate people by his will within them, they came prepared for many different situations. Being isolated by the enemy being one of those such situations, if they had really no preparations for this their outcome would have been basically sealed without some small miracle, but with preparation, they stood a good chance. Orson pulled out another thing from his subspace, an artifact, the Van Dresels spared no effort in this mission and equipped Krey and Orson with many artifacts and items that could help them. The Van Dresel faction considered this mission extremely important. Proven by the second artifact he pulled out and a third along with it, he handed one to Krey and kept the other two for himself.
Welsh watched them with caution and waved his hand. Oscar along with about half of their squad started to move toward Orson and Krey. Oscar's movements were extremely fast as his body could jolt him forward with incredible speeds, even with the distance in between them a less experienced fighter wouldn’t have had enough time to react, Krey and Orson were very experienced though so they dodged him without trouble. Though Krey and Orson immediately realized Oscar could defiantly be compared to either of them he would be a threat, and with his comrades weren’t too far behind him also quickly closing the distance, they were all elites in their own right.
Orson activated one of the artifacts, a golden compass, which shined a brilliant gold, the area in front of him distorted a portal opened Krey and Orson's comrades walked through. The artifact crumbled into Ash and dissolved into the sea. The artifact's ability was to open a portal to a predestinated place or person. They had marked one of their trustworthy subordinates in case they got separated for whatever reason. The ensuing battle should be much more fair now. Welsh frowned a bit knowing the almost assured victory had turned into a difficult battle, and if he lost it wouldn’t only result in the enemy getting away it would set the atmosphere in the future until he got a chance to strike again. If only Glomar had more Ash, but he already strained himself beyond what he should've, and maintaining the domain was all he could do now. They had to fight just like this. He didn’t think he would get involved in case they escaped from some miracle but he didn’t think he had that luxury now and fully prepared himself to join the upcoming fight.