CHAPTER 291 – COLLAPSING TUNNELS.
There was nothing remarkable about the spot they had chosen to wait while Everlyn scouted. The only notable feature was the fact the section of the tunnel they were in was mostly horizontal. Then, seeing the opportunity it had only taken twenty seconds of shaping magic from both Tom and Keikain to smooth out the floor. As a result, they could all stand comfortably, at least in the small area they had improved. The pleasant stretch of real estate did not last very far. Ten metres one way the tunnel branched in three directions. One going almost vertical up and the other two downwards at almost a forty-five degree angle, which was steep enough to provide an impression of falling when you travelled down them.
The other direction was even worse because dozens of tunnels collided and created a hub that was almost a cavern, with large holes in the floor, ceiling, and walls. The architecture of the place was confounding to their sensibilities. It was a honeycomb of tunnels that seemed to have been created in a vacuum. Unlike most cave systems, there were no consistent flat floors to be found. The tunnels ran at random angles, which meant they were all either ascending or descending. That aside, they had picked their waiting spot for a reason. The location gave them numerous avenues of escape if it was needed.
Over half an hour had passed and all of them felt impatient. They understood the need for a favourable first battle but the experience clock ticked and while they stood there they were not earning any of it.
“I’m coming in,” Everlyn reported quietly. “Hold your fire.” A minute later, she emerged from the direction of the major hub. Her face was grim. “At a minimum, anything I do will draw five hundred of them. It’s not ideal, but I think we’ll be okay.”
“No, no,” Toni waved her hands. “That’s too many.”
“I’m with her,” Keikain agreed. “These things are higher ranked than us. That many is biting off more than we can chew.”
Tom wasn’t sure what to think. They were punching a long way up their weight division and five hundred was a lot. Monsters would continuously surround him and them until they could kill them off. Potentially the chosen could carry them through such a fight… but… being forced to do that on the third layer. Even that thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. He met Keikain’s and Toni’s eyes. “It’s not like we have any other options.”
“And that’s the truth,” Rahmat said quietly. “What choice do we have?”
“Plus, I’m with Everlyn on this,” Tom continued. “Above ground would be different. But here, with tight tunnels, fighting retreats… I think that makes it possible for us to beat a shit load of enemies.”
“Down here is the monster’s natural habitat,” Keikain countered. “I know you’re thinking of lining them up for a meteorite or collapsing a ceiling on them. That might or might not work, but what I can guarantee is that they’ll move faster and more fluidly than we can. This is their home, not ours.”
“I hadn’t considered the meteorite, but the second absolutely. And we don’t have to defeat them just give ourselves a path to retreat. Pick our spot… Fight and get a feel and then run and collapse the tunnel behind us to get away.”
“You’ve seen how the tunnels loop.” Keikain reminded him. “I doubt we’ll be able to lose them.”
“Buy time then. Especially if we set up our defensive point carefully. Is their a spot we can use?””
“There is,” Everlyn answered his question. “A couple.”
The earth mage rounded on her. “Was that your plan? Set things up to run?”
She shrugged. “As Tom said we don’t have a choice. We can’t not take risks. The treasure rooms help but… They’re not enough on their own. We need levels and attributes, which means fighting. So yes, my plan is to fight them in a location where if pressed we can withdraw and get away.”
“They’re right,” Michael said. “We need to do this.”
“I know!” Keikain punched the wall and earth manipulation flexed at the same time. It meant that he put his fists through the rock without hurting himself. “I know that. But five hundred! Five hundred monsters faster and stronger than us. In the tutorial, I would have run.”
“In a tutorial, I wouldn’t have got into this situation because an oracle question would have warned me.” Tom said confidently. “And I’m sure you also asked similar things before committing to a trial so I’m not alone with that sentiment. But, here’s the thing, we’re not in the tutorial. This is it. Existentia, real life. There is no point wishing for stuff. That’s childish and doesn’t work. Instead, we need to deal with reality even if its unpalatable. We have a job to do and surviving this trial means taking risks right here and now.”
“It’s easy being high and mighty. Isn’t it Tom?” He threw another punch and left another hole. “I know we don’t have a choice, so you don’t need to be patronising.” He rounded on Tom. “Did you actually ask the question we designed before entering here, or did you trick Everlyn? Are we here under false pretences?”
“I asked it.” He answered flatly.
“He did,” Everlyn confirmed. “And the answer was yes.”
“Exactly, but, Keikain, I know you’re angry. I am too. I don’t know why you ended up with your cursed bloodline or why it’s important to go the bloody route. But it is what it is. That question you had me ask, that book of legal speak. I asked it. The answer was yes. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Look at the rewards we’re going to get if we survive. Just the passive experience accumulation is off the charts. A hundred levels and our desired traits, that third class slot and then there’s the reward we’ll actually get in the end. Huge benefits and under that question…” He shook his head.
“We’ll suffer a proportional amount of risk,” Keikain finished bitterly.
“Exactly,” Tom agreed. “For the amount of rewards we’re getting it’s unlikely all of us will survive. Hell, there is a good chance none of us will.”
“And we can’t back out now.” Everlyn said. “The situation might suck, but we’re committed until the end. Which means we need to get kills in this zone. We can’t afford to avoid battles. You all know this.”
“I do,” Toni agreed instantly.
“We all do,” Keikain snapped. “It’s just this is a mess.”
“One we need to resolve,” Everlyn agreed. “I’ve found a good place for us to set up. We can prepare choke points and when the swarm comes stage, a running battle where we collapse the roof on them as we retreat.”
“Well, let’s move then.” Michael said. “No point waiting around.”
They repositioned to a section of the tunnels close to the edge of the zone where the number of tunnels was fewer. The first step was to shape the battlefield. At the scout’s direction, Tom collapsed three passages. There was now only one leading from the area she was going to aggro the monsters. If they had to, they could collapse it and escape. They moved further upstream and knocked out a few more tunnels to create a second chokepoint and then a third and a fourth.
Tom’s ability to instantly find the weak structural points and tweak them turned what should have taken days for most people and hours for even an earth mage of Keikain’s calibre into minutes of work.
“That should do it,” Everlyn said firmly. “Are we all agreed.”
“No, there’s five hundred of them,” Toni responded with a laugh. “At least I can use air magic against these.”
Everyone was ready, and Everlyn departed to disturb their targeted swarm. A single arrow and they knew all of them would chase her right back to the ambush. She was confident she had the speed and evasive abilities to stay ahead of them.
They waited.
“Incoming,” Everlyn reported. While she was slightly out of breath, she sounded unpanicked. She sprinted over and spun to a stop behind them. “We’ve got a small amount of time, maybe a minute, maybe a bit less. They’re Zlotorcs, thankfully all of them are of the lesser variety.”
Thirty seconds later they appeared. She must have been dropping a sense trail or something because that was the only explanation on why they didn’t lose them.
The Zlotorcs were large dog sized creatures. They were true to the drawings on the tiles, but the artist’s rendition didn’t quite do them justice. They were frankly weird and appeared almost robotic in nature with sharper angles than a biological being should possess. Their torsos were almost square and with the exception of their heads they were symmetrical in three dimensions. They had no perceivable top or bottom, no feet to point at the ground. Instead, on each of the square sides were a pair of insect style buzzing wings along with two legs. Only the side with the head was different. That square still had the legs in the normal spot. It had just been replaced with a mouth for eating things.
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There were no visible eyes, ears, noses, just the singular eating point that was on a neck that could lash out like a snake.
Despite possessing a host of wings, the creatures did not have the ability to fly. Instead, the wings that faced upwards or to the side were used to extend their jumps and, when required give them moveability in mid air. Their location was controlled by their legs, which let them jump from spot to spot in the tunnel. They would bounce from the floor to the ceiling and then leap off that to maintain their forward momentum. It was difficult to estimate, but it seemed they could effortlessly leap up to four metres straight up, which meant in these tunnels they had full access to everything.
They came in a tide down the corridor. One second there was nothing and then the next there was a wall of them frothing down the passage. They filled the space, jumping at all angles, tangling with each other and using their companions as stepping stones. The snarl of bodies slowed them down, but they were collectively still moving at just under the pace of a fast sprint.
The world stilled for him as they got closer. He could see the claws on their legs and there were so many of them. Four claws per leg, twelve legs per cube and hundreds of cubes. Heads coiled ready to lash out and the monsters at the front reacted to his presence. They noticed him and the jumble of disorganised movement streamlined. The creatures shifted and leapt to target him rather than to press forward.
Twenty metres.
They sprang around each other in a coordinated fashioned. Something had happened. It felt like there was no longer any chance of them colliding into each other in midair. They spread out in order to attack him from multiple directions.
They got closer. The leader was only fifteen metres away.
That was only two jumps.
The front ranks leapt again, somehow missing all the others also flying through the air. It was like they had a communal mind or alien air traffic controllers helping them. Tom hadn’t understood what five hundred Zlotorcs would look like, but from where he stood they seemed endless.
The nearest was only five metres away and the main mass ten.
With a simple thought, three quarters of the corridor collapsed.
The monsters knew something was wrong instantly. Tom saw their reaction and the perfect coordination between them all failed. The ones on the roof suffered first as the rocks they had intended to spring off suddenly became loose. There was dust, a rumble, Tom could feel vibrations through his feet and the ceiling’s failure had only just started.
The Zlotorcs panicked and tried desperately to escape the devastation zone. Some leapt backwards others made a desperate attempt to reach him. He saw them return to kicking off each other. There were two off to the side. They both had time to escape, but the one in the lead tried to kick off its slower brethren, and the one being kicked did not appreciate being sacrificed. It fought back, tangling them together, and they both fell to the ground.
Tonnes of solid rock plunged down.
Tom saw one of the monsters struck mid-air. It must have been midway through a leap to the roof. It and a rock collided and its outer shell failed as its entire body splattered against the stone. The monsters wanted to survive. Some retreated and didn’t enter the area where the fall was happening. A few successfully moved to the safe zone on the side of the corridor and others used their companions as shields to absorb the force of the rockfall.
It was pandemonium.
The monsters were screeching
The leading chunk of stone hit the floor, and the ground under his feet jumped. Dust was rising, and he knew it would soon choke everyone in the corridor. He wasn’t sure how many he had killed with the rockfall, but it was significant given the density they had been travelling in.
Crack.
An arrow shot past him to destroy the leading monster which had been about to reach him.
The rest of the roof landed and created a wave of force. He struggled to remain upright as the world shook. Zlotorcs slipped as they attempted to jump and lost their footing. The cloud of dust now fully blocked his sight, and it sounded like the tunnel had been sealed but Tom knew better.
The left side would remain un-collapsed. How they had to approach via the narrower corridor would slow them, but they would come. He repositioned from the centre of the cave to intercept ones from the side he knew was still open.
A shape burst out of the mess. A head that was all mouth and teeth lunging at him. His spear impaled at before his conscious mind even registered the threat. Black dodge hadn’t triggered, but it was just the first. Two more surged out surprising him because of the limited visibility.
The dust expanded and covered him.
He coughed as it got into his lungs.
Time slowed. His various magical senses worked together to start warning him of threats.
The dust thinned as Toni did something.
Multiple chaos bolts shot past him to disappear into the thick clouds of dust. His foot kicked hard on one of the zlotorcs. While it appeared square and metallic, its flesh was anything but and it gave way and his strike tore off a leg.
They were flimsy… which meant.
A claw ran down his thigh, hurting him. Another would have left a bleeding gash above his eye if the area hadn’t already been Living Rock.
They were fast.
Tom leapt forward to engage even as multiple chaos bolts, none of the enhanced variety, shot past him to fill the suddenly narrow corridor. More monsters were all around him. Time was at its maximum point of dilation.
Lightning Enrage sent sparks crashing out from him. There were so many surrounding him that they were getting in each other’s way. A pair swept to attack him and harness meteorites deflected both with body blows. They flopped away hurt but not defeated.
He tripped over an unexpected ridge on the floor.
Energy crackled through the space his head had held a moment before. His dodge skill started screaming and then domain registered more of the magic attacks coming. He teleported to evade them.
The ridge of rock that he was perched on gave way. He stabilised as more attacks shot past him.
“Lightning Enrage.” Everlyn shouted via party chat.
Tom activated it instinctively at her request, and it crackled out. He realised to his surprise that a secondary wave was already upon them. That was a fact for later, the narrow corridor did not slow them much. Toni’s targeted air magic and Keikain’s stone had destroyed dozens of the creatures surrounding him.
“Tom, retreat and collapse,” Everlyn ordered.
He did what she wanted, turning his dodging into an excuse to fall backwards. He needed to back track twenty metres and then he could do another partial collapse. One of his harnessed meteorites deflected a monster into one of those infrequent magical attacks. It got peeled in half as the energy shot through it.
Tom kept fighting. He targeted joints where his spear could tear the limbs away without issue. Alarms went off, and he teleported to avoid another wave of magic attacks.
He had retreated far enough
Boom! Crash.
Rock fell around him and the dust was swept back from where it came. The mass assaulting him reduced slightly, and he withdrew quickly. There was no need to use Lightning Enrage because his rock falls had generated Enmity and because he was physically between them and his companions, the zlotorcs alternative targets. The monsters all paused to try to kill him.
Tom forced himself to retreat.
Another collapse.
He was sure the numbers were lessoning. They reached the first checkpoint.
“Leave it open,” Everlyn ordered. “We’ve got this. If you need a breather, just ask.”
“Breather,” he yelled immediately.
“Coming right up. Retreat fast.”
A chaos bolt shot past him. As it travelled, it crackled with energy and the glow intensified as its potency increased. Despite the number of bodies around him, none collided with the missiles as it penetrated until it was almost eight metres from him.
The world went white.
A blast of force knocked him tumbling backwards. Heat seared him, but after flying through the air he landed on his feet. The monsters he was fighting were wailing more than usual. Everlyn was next to him and she pulled him away from the crush of bodies.
Another chaos bolt shot by him. This one a dull blue. It, too, flared as it evolved up levels. It was not as strong as the yellow one, but was still at least tier four or five in terms of power.
Crunch, crack.
Blue light shone through the two or three of the monsters that were between him and the impact. They were all rattled and moving slower than usual. Two landed against the walls and then died as stone spikes blew out and through them. Four in the air perished as invisible blades of air tore them apart.
With them being so disorientated, it was a massacre.
Then with her hand guiding him he was running away, abandoning the choke point and opening up space.
“That should buy us a minute or two.” Everlyn told him as she helped him run. He could feel healing energy flowing into him, fixing up the numerous bruises that covered him and soothing the scorched marks from that flash of heat.
Tom didn’t ask what had happened. He knew the answer… she had made the call and fate had been used to supplement the chaos bolts.
They ran and then came to a stop. While he felt battered when he glanced over at everyone else, they seemed unaffected. Thor was puffing slightly his hammer covered with gore. As for the rest, they looked like they had barely started the battle.
They were at their second back up point. He was positioned in front of them like a lone sentry set ahead as a sacrifice. A mana recharge ritual was at his feet just for his use. A slightly larger one was used by everyone else behind him. Everlyn’s head was tilted to the side with eyes shut. That might have suggested she was in her system room, but her cheeks still had the rosy glow. Tom knew it was her new remote scouting skill.
“They’re past the obstruction and reforming ranks. About two hundred left. Okay, they’re coming now… thirty seconds.
Tom waited and watched. This time he did nothing even as they crossed the five metre mark and leapt at him.
Harry’s rituals kicked in and slowed them down, focused them to a point. The vanguard was stymied and then a moment later the main force caught up.
“Wait,” Everlyn yelled at him.
He stayed his hand.
The rituals were starting to fray and just beyond them bars of stone grew to relieve the pressure.
“Now!” she yelled.
His mind was already infused into the roof and he triggered the spell. The rituals crackled with even more power as the monsters recognised their peril and attempted to push forward.
Then the rocks started raining down. The enemy popped as they were crushed by the falling boulders. They tried to avoid by going to the sides, but that didn’t work as the entire tunnel collapsed.
Dust rose.
A new higher passage was revealed, one that went over where the previous one had been. Its floor, a jumble of rocks. About two dozen of the monsters, came through over the debris. They all attacked Tom, but his luck was with him. His meteorites, as a result of defending him all battle were reduced to quarter power, but they were still spinning around him. Three of them collided with a different zlotorcs each and knocked them off course into others, creating a tangle.
There was a thrum as monsters that had hung back unleashed their magical attacks. Gore rained down upon him as the magic attack tore through the creatures that formed an inadvertent shield for him.
He had breathing room. Toni’s air blades shot past. Thor was there with his hammer, blasting one of the creatures out of the air and then striking another on a backswing. Every blow crushing an opponent. An arrow shot past and destroyed the head of another. Rahmat was there with his spear thrusts, doing significantly more damage than Tom’s managed.
Then Tom was no longer the front line of defence. The others swept past him and killed the remnants of the swarm that had attacked them.
Then it was over.
“Not bad,” Everlyn said finally. “I think we’ll be okay. This was a half a swarm. Next, let’s see if we can take on a full one.”