Zeke threw out his arms in an effort to arrest his fall. It was only marginally successful, so he also decreased his weight as much as possible. That helped, too – at least from his biased perspective – though as he fell, he knew he was in some degree of danger. Unfortunately, he could see nothing. Nor could he hear anything over the rushing wind. It was as if there was nothing but a great and endless void through which he would eternally fall.

Then, after some indeterminate amount of time, he saw a green light in the distance. At first, it was only a pinprick of illumination, but over the next few minutes, it slowly resolved itself into a vast landscape of alien flora. There were no trees. No bushes, either. Instead, mushrooms as large as redwoods stretched from one horizon to another.

Zeke couldn’t see what was beneath that fungal canopy, but he suspected that itw as dangerous. So, he guided his fall – like a skydiver – toward the center of one of those enormous mushrooms. And as he drew closer, he realized that each one was even larger than he’d first expected. It was a trick of distance, and an effective one at that. By the time he thudded into the surface of one of the mushroom caps, Zeke had discovered that each mushroom was bigger than the largest skyscraper back on Earth, with enormous caps that spread out for hundreds of yards in each direction.

As he picked himself up, he inspected his own condition. Such a fall, even having reached terminal velocity, was far from enough to harm him. However, the sudden stop had been uncomfortable. So, he used [Cambion’s Awakening] to heal himself.

That’s when he fell to his knees, coughing blood.

“What’s wrong?” asked Talia, whose fall had been much more graceful. She had landed on her feet, rolling to dissipate momentum, and she looked entirely unharmed.

Zeke didn’t answer. Instead, he focused on his own body. The minor discomfort from the fall, he ignored, and it didn’t take him long to pinpoint the problem. He’d been poisoned on enough occasions that he knew precisely what it felt like when his organs started to shut down.

So, that prompted two reactions.

The first was to pulse his Will, letting it suffuse his body in an effort to destroy whatever had ailment had infected him. He knew from experience just how effective that could be, so he trusted that even the slighted trickle of his Path of Arcane Destruction would take care of that issue. Next, he flared [Cambion’s Awakening], using what little demonic mana in the air to fuel it. There wasn’t much, so he followed that up by enacting his domains.

Even then, with the explosive regeneration from the corruption fueled [Cambion’s Awakening], the sickness was slow to retreat. For a moment, Zeke was back in the Mortal Realm and fighting an assassin’s poison, though that only lasted a few seconds before his powerful abilities pushed it away.

He coughed again, and this time, more than just blood came up. There were balls of mucus-covered seeds as well.

“Spores, more likely. And look closer. Your organs were not shutting down.”

Zeke had long developed a supernatural awareness of his own body. He wasn’t sure if that was due to his level, his path, or something else he didn’t understand, but he could feel his injuries well enough to diagnose them with a frightening degree of accuracy. So, when he looked inward, he could tell right away what the problem was.

“Tumors.”

Indeed, the malignant growths attached to his organs and bones were recognizable enough, especially given Zeke’s familiarity with cancer. After all, his own brother had fought that deadly disease for years. So, Zeke knew precisely what he was looking at.

Thankfully, with his combination of Will and his healing skill, the cancerous growths had shrunk down to nothing. And even as he watched, they disappeared completely. However, there were others trying to take hold throughout his body. With every passing second, they would grow worse, provided he let down his guard for even a second.

“This place is called the Pillar of Life,” Eveline remarked. “And what is cancer if not unchecked growth. We should have expected this.”

Zeke pushed himself to his feet. “Are you okay?” he asked allowed, focusing on Talia.

“I am fine. Are you?”

Zeke then explained what had been happening, then asked, “Why aren’t you affected?”

She shrugged. “Perhaps it does not affect undead. We are not creatures of life, after all. I suspect that if any of the others in Darukar were to enter this place, they would be killed by the heavy influx of vitality.”

“But not you.”

“I am special,” she admitted. “From the very beginning, vitality has failed to affect me. I believe it is because of the circumstances of my…resurrection. I am neither alive nor undead, but rather, somewhere in between.”

“Interesting,” Eveline remarked, appearing. “You may be unique.”

“Nothing is unique,” Talia said. “There are others like me. Perhaps not in his realm, but in the next.”

She said it with enough conviction that Zeke wanted to believe her. However, he knew that she was being a little naïve. Perhaps uniqueness was a myth, but that didn’t mean there were others like Talia walking their realm or the next. It was more likely that, even if someone like her had existed in the past, they were already dead and gone.

But Zeke didn’t say that.

Instead, he said, “We should get a move on. Every second I stand here, there’s a chance that the spores or the cancer will overcome my abilities.”

With that, they gathered their wits and set off across the enormous mushroom. It took about an hour to reach the edge of the cap, but there was only a tiny gap between it and the next.

“Down?” Zeke asked. Then, he gestured across the canopy, adding, “This doesn’t really look like a labyrinth, does it? I’m guessing it’s on the ground.”

“Perhaps. But what else is down there?” asked Talia.

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Zeke didn’t know the answer to that question. When he peered through the small gap between mushrooms, he could see only darkness. For all he knew, there was an endless expanse of nothingness beneath them. Logic dictated that there was a ground far below, but sometimes magic and logic were completely incompatible. After everything Zeke had seen, he would take nothing for granted. Even the existence of a ground.

Those thoughts did nothing to provide an answer, though. So, without enough information to make an informed choice, he and Talia agreed that traveling atop the canopy was their best option.

However, the issues with that decision presented themselves only a few hours later when Zeke heard a distinct chirping sound. Then, another. And another after that. Soon enough, it sounded like they were surrounded by high-pitched chainsaws.

That’s when he saw the source of the noise.

“This isn’t good,” he muttered to himself. He’d already adopted his titanic form – the extra endurance helped with the spores as well as the cancerous growths inside of him – so as he faced off against a horde of insects, he only had to summon Voromir to ready himself for battle. But as they drew closer, he took an involuntary step back. “Nope. Just nope.”

They looked a little like crickets, which explained the chirping sounds. However, these creatures differed from mundane crickets in a few different ways. The most obvious was size. Instead of being an inch long, these monsters were the size of elephants, and when they drew close enough for Zeke to inspect them, he saw that their levels were on par with their monstrous size.

Crickeloch – level 74

The others Zeke managed to inspect ranged from level seventy-three all the way up to level seventy-nine. And there were thousands of them. Some sailed through the air, propelled by large legs. Others crept forward like cockroaches, skittering across the fungal canopy with deceptive speed.

The other differences between the monsters and the smaller versions with which Zeke was already familiar were, at first glance, cosmetic. Chitinous spikes where there should be none, oversized mandibles, and scorpion-like tails gave them a chimeric appearance that Zeke found incredibly unsettling.

“I hate bugs,” he muttered. Even going back to the spider-like drachnids he’d fought shortly after climbing out of the troll caves, he had nurtured a strong dislike for all things creepy, crawly, and chitinous.

By that point, the crickelochs had closed in on Zeke and Talia, so he focused on Voromir’s ability and swung. That resulted in the manifestation of a huge, blood red copy of the weapon, which arced out with inevitable force. When it hit, though, Zeke was both surprised and disappointed to see that the effect was limited. A few were knocked aside, but most that had found themselves in its path had leaped over it before continuing their charge.

Then, another set of chirping echoed from behind. Zeke wheeled around to see more crickelochs closing in from the other direction. All in all, there were tens of thousands of the monsters, the horde stretching as far as Zeke could see. And he knew that, despite his power, the odds of making it through the ensuing battle would be slim.

Even worse for Talia.

She was fast. But everyone made mistakes. Eventually, she’d take hits. And those would add up to where she could no longer go on. It was inevitable, given the sheer number and power of the oncoming monsters.

“We should retreat!” he shouted.

“Where?!”

“The gap! We can take our chances with whatever’s down below,” Zeke answered. That decision was based on two things. First, he didn’t see as how they had much of a chance. Certainly, he could make a valiant effort, and he could kill hundreds – perhaps even thousands of the monsters – before they took him out. But he would eventually fall. It was inevitable.

But more than that, Zeke could recognize that this was one of those situations where the dungeon was trying to guide them in a specific direction. It was just like the cyclops back in the first dungeon he’d run. It wasn’t meant to be fought. Instead, it had been intended as a means of funneling him to the next confrontation.

Sure, Zeke had still killed it. And he could probably do the same with the crickelochs. The issue was that doing so would require the use of [Wrath of Annihilation], which would probably kill him and Talia as well.

So, he resolved to take the dungeon’s not-so-subtle guidance and follow the prescribed path.

But to do so, he needed every ounce of power he could muster. With that in mind, he lowered his shoulder and charged the oncoming horde. His hammer took the first monster right between the mandibles, eliciting a shriek of pain as the crickeloch took the full brunt of Zeke’s immense strength. However, the results were not what he expected, as the monster only stumbled a bit to the side.

Clearly, it was even stronger than he’d expected.

The next monster crashed into him, and if he hadn’t increased his weight at the last second, he would have been sent tumbling across the fungal landscape. Even having augmented his weight a hundred fold, he was still knocked a few dozen feet to the side. But Zeke didn’t let that disorient him. Instead, he stomped on the ground, sending a line of destruction to tear across the mushroom cap and erupt into a fiery pillar of corruption that engulfed a handful of the overgrown insects.

Then, he used [Shifting Sands], which resulted in another surprise.

“No ground, no skill!” shouted Eveline. Her commentary was unhelpful, considering that the skill had failed to activate.

Zeke adjusted, throwing himself aside as another monster fell upon him. He followed that up with a spinning attack that rammed the head of his hammer into another of crickelochs’ legs. It shattered beneath the weight of his blow, but Zeke didn’t have time to admire the results. Instead, he was quickly buried beneath a mass of legs, chitin, and biting mandibles.

A barbed tail whipped out, jamming into his shoulder and administering some sort of venom. Zeke ignored it, already having flared [Cambion’s Awakening] to the best of his ability. At the same time, he activated [Colossal Army], and his golems joined the fight. The numbers were still so lopsided – a hundred to one, at least – that their help was like trying to put on a forest fire with a water hose.

Which was to say it was entirely ineffective.

The swarm of enormous insects piled atop him, and for the first time in quite a while, Zeke began to worry that he might lose a fight. Yet, he had plenty of options available. He just hesitated to use them until he was certain that Talia had gotten free.

He shouted as loudly as he could, telling her to leave the area, but he had no way of knowing if she had made it before, at last, he was forced to bring his most damaging abilities to bear.

First, he embraced his Will, braiding his attunements into his Worldbreaker technique. However, instead of just letting it loose, he used [Unleash Momentum]. His swing was obstructed by a hundred biting mandibles and slashing legs, but that didn’t matter. The force of the skill had already been gathered. He only had to let it free.

And he did.

More, riding right alongside it was Worldbreaker.

The results were both predictable and disappointing. Force and destruction ripped through the horde. The closest were ripped to shreds, and the ones further away were simply wounded. It was the first time Zeke had ever encountered anything that could stand up to his second-most-powerful skill, much less when it was laced with the Worldbreaker technique.

The problem was that insects were packed so densely that they effectively sacrificed themselves to shield the ones further back. He also suspected that there was some sort of ability at work, though he had seen no true evidence of such. Regardless, while he’d managed to kill a hundred or so of the crickelochs, there were plenty more to take their place.

However, that attack had opened a corridor through which Zeke could gain momentum. He raced forward, his enormous body a match for any single crickeloch, and he shouldered his enemies out of the way. He wasn’t trying to win the fight. Rather, he only wanted to escape.

And as his legs churned with machine-like rhythm, he did just that. The monsters attempted to stop him, and there were a few points where his progress slowed to a crawl. But Zeke used his enormous stats – as well as a trickle of his Will – to bull his way through.

Finally, hours later, he broke free.

But the job wasn’t done. His escape was still some distance away. So, he continued to run until, some interminable time later, he reached another gap between mushroom caps. Without hesitation – and with a horde of crickelochs on his tail – Zeke let [Titan] fall away and slid through the tiny gap.

Then, just as he had upon leaving the garden behind, he found himself falling through a black abyss.