CHAPTER 308 – LAUNCHING A RESCUE

The island hopper, the monster that was heading toward them was both scarier and somehow not as threatening as a swooping eagle at the same time. It was a ridiculous thought, but an eagle in his mind represented a more fearsome threat. Maybe it was the still life photos that did it, the ones that made a diving eagle look so fast and terrible. The creature failed to cause alarm for some reason. There was something about it that meant it didn’t cause the usual resonance with the animal part of him that most predators did. It was like a large non predatory bird from earth. It possessed a similar sized torso to an eagle, but the legs ended in padded feet that were far less concerning than extended talons like he had seen in those pictures.

Tom was not fooled.

This monster was deadly. Its attributes were significantly above any animal on earth. There was no comparison. Against anything from earth, it would be like a fox in a henhouse. The outcomes weren’t even worth wondering about.

Luckily, he was not really someone from earth, he was far more than that.

Time slowed as alarms started going off and his abilities gathered more information. It was a physical attack and, excluding an offensive strike there was no real way to stop it. The monster would adjust too quickly to any evasion attempts. Even teleport wasn’t going to buy him time.. He waited patiently. Then in what felt like only a moment despite the slowed time it came into range.

Time froze as he tested his new trait. There was total silence, no heartbeat, no slight fluttering movements, only absolute stillness. He started to activate his various spells. Lightning Ball, Remote Earth Manipulation, Remote Healing, a Chaos Bolt that he sent flying at a small island forty metres away, Lightning Barrier behind them, and then Spark.

All the spells formed ready to be released the moment time resumed. It was the hidden benefit of his new trait. All those spells should have taken a couple of seconds to chain. Instead, it was instant and if he got a domain, and the flexibility that went with one, the effect of what he could achieve in that suspended moment in time would be even more pronounced.

Zap.

Boom.

The lightning ball looped over to one mini island the chaos bolt on a flat trajectory to another. Its colour was anaemic as it failed to become stronger, which was good because he wasn’t really trying to blow up the island.

Then he focused on the Spark attack. He had only invested ten mana into it and it bloomed into existence just a centimetre away from the centre of its torso. The electricity crackled and spread in moments until it covered almost all of its underside.

Its brown underside flashed silver and vibrated like a defibrillator had struck it. Time started to speed up as the effects of the lightning began to take hold. Tom leapt to the side as the monster completely unable to control it self crash landed. It bounced and hit the side of the door leading to the safe room with a thud.

“Kill it with physical attacks,” Everlyn said simply. They, excluding Everlyn and himself, crowded around it. Thor swinging his hammer, Michael his axe and everyone else with their spears.

Michael’s and Thor’s heavy hits seemed to do the most damage with the spears mostly bouncing off. Rahmat’s weapon sparkled blue, and he pushed the point right through the monster. It’s excessive shivering created by the electricity started to slow.

“Make way.” Tom yelled.

They all stopped their wild striking and spread out to let him through. He walked up and casually kicked the foot, which was closest to him.

Zap.

Once more, the electricity expanded with surprising alacrity to cover most of it. He watched the energy spread to learn as much as he could. Everlyn had joked about the creatures being incredibly vulnerable to lightning and she hadn’t been joking. They were more conductive than the ground and none of the electricity leaked away. It was no wonder his initial zap had been so debilitating. The only way for the monsters to deal with the lightning was to absorb it.

It started spasming again, and the others returned to thump away at it once more. Four zaps later it died.

“I got awarded the kill!” Harry exclaimed immediately.

Everlyn snorted derisively. “That was pathetic. There was no strategy and adaptation by any of you.”

“I don’t know about that Everlyn. I was making progress,” Michael said with a laugh. “He had carved out a hand sized gash in it with his axe. “And that was without using any skills.”

“No strategic adaptations,” she repeated. “Now let me tell you their weaknesses. Spears need to target these points.” Her finger traced down one of the ridges that jutted. “I know to us it looks like armour or bone protruding into the skin, but it’s not. They’re actually the weak point.”

“Why’s that?” Keikain demanded.

“Inaccurate instincts from Earth. They look like the toughest point. Functionally, they’re a combination of nose, eyes and ears. The parts between the ridges are the armoured spots.” She pointed at the point Michael had been carving through. He had been slowly chipping away at a black substance that was embedded under the skin and its clear strength was shown by his lack of progress. . “For piercing damage, you have to target them. Now, Thor, your target is…”

Tom half listened as he considered what Crystalised Moment had done. He would discuss with the rest of the team about the type of spells which could make the most of the new capability. Small, effective force modifiers to disrupt the battlefield at low mana cost would be the way to go. He smiled at that thought. It was never going to be that easy. Odds were he would end up with multiple niche spells that would depend on his careful application to get them working.

For the two hours they stayed outside the door to the safe room, while Everlyn guided a single island hopper into their ambush. It would be zapped, and they would practice hitting the weaker bits. Halfway through, she increased it to two at a time and the difficulty didn’t change. Eventually, the local population dried up, so they started exploring.

Compared to the previous zone this one was easier for them. Two days was all it had taken them to complete two-thirds of their kill quota. The largest group that assaulted them was fifteen and with the chosen as back-up they were easily taken out.

“To easy.” Keikain declared.

“If it’s so easy then why are we going so slowly”.” Thor snapped at him. “We need to get into the next zone to help Vidja group, like yesterday.”

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The earth mage snorted. “If they had waited in the system room like we told them to.”

“But they didn’t.”

“Because they’re arrogant idiots.”

“Enough,” Everlyn interrupted. “You know we probably would have done the same. No one who made it this far is the type to cower and wait to be saved.”

“Still, it’s unfortunate they exposed themselves.” Keikain pointed out.

“It is.” She agreed.

“And they made a tactical mistake using up all their experience like they did.” The earth mage pressed.

“And we’re going to learn from that.” Michael agreed. “We won’t be in the same bind they were. We will have the experience to buy spells or skills to let us remove the venom, but in all likelihood it won’t be required because I expect to be able to fix them.”

“It goes back to them being idiots.” Keikain repeated. “Fancy pushing on when one of them had got stung and they couldn’t heal them.”

“Enough.” Everlyn snapped again her frustration visible. “We’ll be in the same zone as them and we can make our way to save them.”

“But no rushing…” Keikain said. “No being careless to reach them earlier.”

“But that’s,” Toni began to object and then stopped. She understood how the world worked.

“If one of them dies before we reach them, that’s not on us,” the earth mage repeated. “They made their choice and we’ll try to save them, but we can’t take risks.”

“I agree,” Tom said firmly. “Everyone here agrees. These enemies are getting too powerful to take lightly.”

They reached the safe room with a couple of hours to go on the third day and he checked the quest when it was his turn.

Congratulation for completing your quest.

Your contribution is 11%

Experience awarded 560,000.

“I got five hundred and sixty,” he told them straight away.

“This level was more lucrative than expected.” Michael agreed. “I think the cap amount will still be in place and this time we might even reach it. Let’s go.” He gestured at the brightly coloured portal. “Let’s save Vidja and get more experience while we’re doing it.”

Everlyn did not move. “Don’t take this lightly. We’ve got detailed information on the zone. It’s basically a gather quest or at least we need to activate eleven sites to release all zone doors.”

“We know,” Michael interrupted. “We’ve been through this. We’ve all read the notes.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“Yes, we’ll be in a different area and not against the blink things that wiped out Vidja’s team.” The healer grinned. “Was that it?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “It’s important to be prepared.”

Together, they went through the portal and emerged into a tunnel that sloped upward.

“Give us a break.” Harry grumbled.

“It’s only twenty minutes of walking.” Keikain pointed out.

“An unnecessary twenty minutes. They could have just put the portal in the safe room.”

Michael ignored the banter and set off. “You guys coming? And honestly, who knows why it was designed this way. But on the bright side, it’ll give Everlyn another chance to explain what we need to do.”

“It’s not like that,” she protested. “This zone has destroyed Vidja’s group. It’s harder than the last one.”

“We’re stronger than them,” Michael countered. “Even without the chosen we’re better than they were… mainly thanks to Mus and that challenge trial. We don’t want to be arrogant about it, but we’ll beat this simply enough.”

“I’m not worried about something in the fourth layer.” Tom told them. “It’s what’s going to happen in the fifth and sixth that plagues my nightmares.”

“I wouldn’t stress about that. Phil made it so it can’t be so hard.”

“There is that.” Tom conceded.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Because he’s probably better than us. Who knows what traits, titles and abilities he has. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky, but I doubt I was the best human to reach Existentia. At least I hope not.”

“You think he’s better.” The healer stated quietly.

“The evidence confirms that he’s better. He got through these zones fast… If I was by myself, I would have struggled.”

“True.”

They walked in silence until they reached another safe room. Everlyn and Rahmat stalked over to stand at two of the tunnels exits and chosen filled the other three locations. The humans were scouting while the chosen with the superior senses were on guard.

Less than thirty seconds later Everlyn turned around. “As predicted, it’s burrowers.”

“Great,” Keikain said immediately.

“We’re going to do what we did with the island hoppers.”

The earth mage grinned. “Slow and steady should win. Oh, and Tom and I crushing them to death when they get close.”

They headed down the corridor with his Earth Sense spread out. The rock had a pitted and broken look and was nothing like the black obsidian type of rock that Selena’s notes had discussed. He touched the stone. It was spongy almost certainly affected by the burrowers going through it so often.

As he did so, he felt one coming from above. He held up a hand to stop everyone else and pointed. There were a couple of things they wanted to test. As it moved, Tom tracked its progress with his finger. It was going to come out on top of Thor who stepped backward to let Clare take the spot.

She stood under the spot it was going to emerge ready to put her shield up. It appeared like a spectral snake coming to eat your soul. It was easy enough to imagine it wailing with the screams of the damned, with its mouth was open, showing long teeth and a gap wide enough to consume a head in one bite. Yet while it was clearly tangible, there was something off about it.

The creature lunged toward Clare, and she reacted. There was a flare of magic as she protected herself, and Tom triggered the spell he had set up. His magic would freeze the rock around where it had surfaced try to hold it in place so they could kill it slowly and test its weaknesses like they had the island hoppers in the last zone.

The teeth closed over the bubble of magic protecting Clare. They scraped off the shield and then slid down the glowing energy to smack against the ground. They all stood there, blinking in disbelief. It was only the head that had hit the cave floor. A green inky substance was leaking out of its neck. Tom’s Earth Sense let him understand what was happening. The rest of its body had been trapped in the rock and his attempt to hold it had severed the section outside the stone…

“Decapitated.” Keikain observed. “What did you do Tom?”

“Just what we discussed. I tried to hold it in place.”

Michael had stepped forward to examine the head. “it’s not a clean cut. This looks like it’s midway between a clean sword cut and a giant twisting then popping it right off.”

“Where’s the rest of the body?” Clare asked, looking up. “Is it dead?”

“Very much so.” Keikain confirmed his hand still on the rock wall. He pointed at where it had emerged. “It’s stuck in the rock and its magic is deteriorating. Now it’s like it’s evaporating away. Each sand sized piece of flesh looses its phasing magic and attempts to phase back into our reality. Then it finds the space is occupied by solid stone and as a result it gets mangled by dimensional pressures and the mass spread over dozens of dimensions. Absolutely fascinating to watch. But definitely dead. Beyond its decapitation, its permanently lost two-thirds of its mass already and will dissipate entirely over the next couple of minutes.”

Tom didn’t correct the other man even though his explanation was not complete. Where there were air pockets, the monster’s flesh was getting left in the rock, invisible to them currently, but it was there.

“Tom, how much mana did it cost you to do this?” Everlyn asked immediately.

“Not a huge amount. I only hardened the stone at the surface, like a centimetre thick. I was trying to hold it and not…” He waved at the monster’s head the only bit visible, and then the roof where Keikain had confirmed the creature’s body was rotting away to nothingness. “And not this. This is totally unexpected, but then I guess the circumstances are weird. We’re talking about a monster partially phasing through rock with the power to instinctively shift stone to create air pockets for bits of it to phase back into. But it’s doing that with terrible affinity and no other earth magic or resistance. I deny its ability to shift and it dies. I think this is another zone where I have a hard counter.”

“Keikain?” She asked.

“I can do everything Tom can. I think for team balance it’s prudent that I do the bulk of the killing. I can both sense and kill them from further out than Tom. Plus, I need more experience than he does. He’ll probably hit the cap in this zone again..”

Everyone agreed with Keikain.

They reorganised their setup, with Tom at the back. While they had been planning on taking things carefully, there was no point. The monsters here were too weak against their skill set.

They rushed through the tunnels until the stone type changed.

It was shiny black.

Everlyn stopped and pointed at it. “Now we go quietly. They’re vulnerable to light.”

No one said anything. None of them specialised in that. This was not going to be a fight they could cheese through.