“Go for it.”

Auranta raises her palm. An orb of flame forms above. She then aims her hand towards a distant gravitational anomaly.

The ball accelerates towards the anomaly, exploding upon impact. The moment contact is made, the ball of gravity converges towards the center before rapidly expanding, sending debris flying away from it at high speeds. None reach the group for they are a distance away, but several slabs of stone are now embedded into nearby buildings.

“Yea, probably best to stay away from those. Lets try the fissures next” Quasi says.

Auranta does the same to both the electric and flame fissures rising up off the ground. A single fireball nears it, and the fissure goes up, exploding with lightning and fire. Then quickly going dormant again.

She retracts her hand. “It seems these anomalies react violently to mana and then go dormant for some time.”

“Try the others.”

She does and nearly every anomaly reacts the same way- though the larger ones require a stronger spell.

For the next several hours, the group makes a path towards where the anomaly concentration is strongest. They activate anomaly after anomaly, passing each one during dormancy.

“I find this test unchallenging.”

Quasi turns to glare at the Phytonid. “I hope you realize you’ve just cursed us all.”

“I sense no curse spell.” Auranta adds.

“I'm being metaphorical! Nepenthes just tempted fate and fate is going to shove danger down our throats.”

“I accept the challenge.” Nepenthes exclaims.

“No- you - ughhh. Lets just keep going. Keep your eyes out for anything odd.”

Auranta raises an arm to point. “Like those mushrooms?”

Quasi follows her finger to the sight of mushrooms. Literal giant mushrooms that seem to start where the greenery disappears.

“Um… maybe?”

The group approaches the odd mushrooms. Most are small, but there are larger ones pointing near anomalies.

Before Quasi says anything, Nepenthes rips a mushroom from a wall and immediately consumes it.

Quasi pouts. “You have no fear. What if it is poisonous?”

“It is,” Nepenthes answers, “but with this radiation.” She pauses for a moment. “Curious, it is attempting to parasitize my body.”

“Shouldn’t you spit it out?”

“Attempting, but not succeeding. I am thwarting its attempts while suppressing and analysing its genetic structure. Please give me a moment.”

Both Quasi and Auranta watch as Nepenthes just stands there with a blank look. After several minutes she blinks. “These mushrooms have high neural-like activity and a rapid ability to repair cellular structure. They also possess an organelle capable of absorbing radiation and producing an energy rich product to fuel growth.”

She grabs several more mushrooms and starts consuming them.

“Should you be doing that?”

“These organelles can be implanted into my own cellular structure to produce energy from the environment. This will reduce the physiological cost of constant cellular repair from radiation.”

Quasi rolls his eyes. When he glances at Auranta, the woman isn’t even paying attention. Instead, her head is swiveled deeper in.

Following her sight, Quasi finds something humanoid. It has two arms, legs, and even what should be a head. The oddest thing is that the humanoid is smothered in mushrooms. The mushroom monster takes an odd step towards them.

The cat sighs. “I’m calling it now. We’re dealing with a sentient mushroom boss at the tower.”

From nearby buildings, several more mushroom infected humanoids strut out slowly. All seem to instinctively walk around anomalous areas towards them.

“Matriarch, shall I engage?” Nepenthes unsheathes her scythes and takes a ready stance.

“Not yet. Let's see how they react first. Auranta, mind hitting them with one of your fireballs?”

The [Air Mage] raises her hand diagonally. As she does, the wind pickles up around her hand, honing to a visual edge. She then slashes her hand as one would a sword. The blade of wind rips forwards, slicing pavement, mushrooms, and finally one of the mushroom monsters in half.

As the mushroom splits in two, you can see the visual outline of flesh and mushroom intermingled together. At the same time, all other mushrooms stop moving.

“Should I cast another Wind Cutter?” Auranta asks.

Before Quasi can even deign to answer, every monster's mouth opens to reveal hundreds of bonelike teeth followed by an ear-piercing scream. Then all hell breaks loose as they full-sprint towards them.

“Take them out and try to not get bit.” Quasi orders. He transforms into a Fenrimorph and rushes to engage.

__________________________________________________________

Punching forward, I feel the impact of shattering stone followed by the ripping of flesh.

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That felt like punching a statue.

Two more punches and another two dead, I’m left with the same sensation of stone and flesh.

Like statues with meat inside.

Another six die by my fists before I’m met with a disturbing realization.

These are Gemma! Zombie Gemma!

Another dozen corpses only enhances that idea. The smaller humanoid monsters, who are most likely younger, have thinner stony exoskeletons than those that are larger and most likely older.

“Matriarch! They outnumber us!”

I glance at Nepenthes to find her dealing with significantly more than me. Like a reaper, she cuts and slices several with each swing of her scythe-like claws- but the numbers keep increasing.

Glancing at Auranta, I find her somehow atop a nearby roof and slinging spells at those attempting to get to her. Funnily enough, they can't climb. Instead, they seem to naturally create a growing pile of bodies.

How did she even get up there? Actually, that doesn’t matter. That’s a great idea.

I roar to get Nepenthes attention. Then I take a moment to point at Auranta.

Understanding my plan, we fight our way to Auranta until we reach the base of the building. Nepenthes walks up the wall like a spider while I jump once to the roof.

“They are endless. My mana will run out quickly at this rate.” Auranta warns.

Glancing at the horde, I can't help but notice that they do indeed seem endless and are all rushing towards our location.

Fuck. They’re not that strong, but we can’t take out an entire city of them. We need to push forward.

Growling at the two, I point towards where the concentration of shrooms is ever greater.

“You want to go deeper?” Auranta asks.

I nod.

She glances at the growing zombie horde for a moment before deciding something. “I can take the rear.”

With a roll of my eyes and a growl, I start leading the two from building to building. The growing horde follows below, but we are left unmolested. After my ninth building, I glance behind me to make sure those two are keeping up. Nepenthes is right behind me with only Auranta lagging slightly behind her. Nepenthes can get a great deal of horizontal air with her jump, but Auranta seems to glide from building to building. When she does, it seems like the back of her cloak flutters.

Once they catch up, I continue leading the team closer and close to highly anomalous concentration. As we do, the number and size of the mushrooms increases exponentially. With some of the ones near the flaming tornado anomalies growing to the size of houses.

Regardless, we continue deeper and deeper, avoiding more and more anomalies on the way until we finally find the tower.

Shit

The tower, more specifically the very top of the tower is jutting out of the ground. Which means that the entrance to the tower is somewhere underground.

Fuck!

I look around my surroundings to see if I can find anything else, but all I see are buildings, anomalies, and the ground swarming with mushroom zombies.

I need a better vantage.

Bending my legs, I jump as high as I can, ascending several dozen meters into the sky. It is when I reach the peak that I notice a massive circular molten fissure with a flaming tornado in the center.

That’s probably the entrance.

With my mind set and next location selected, I’m finally reminded that gravity exists and that I’ve never actually tried to jump as high as possible.

I really should think this through more.

Realizing that I’m probably not going to walk away unscathed if I crash through a building, I take the unfortunate risk of transforming into a bird lacking any radiation resistance.

When I do, I’m met with a blinding number of sights and colors. Every anomaly is a potent condensation of mana, as is every zombie mushroom. It is also here that I see a massive concentration of energy directly underground where the tower's entrance is supposed to be.

And there's the boss.

Flying down, I transform into a cat.

“There's a massive fissure,” I raise a paw, “down that way where the flaming tornado is. I’m betting there's an entrance down there to get to the tower. We will probably need to deal with the anomaly though.”

I walk to the edge of the building and look down at the converging horde. “By the way, Auranta, would you say these things used to be Gemma?”

Auranta kneels next to me and her head tilts down. She does not look at the horde, but more so the environment.

“I can't tell from their forms, but the building architecture is similar to ones created by Gemma.”

“But different, right?” I ask.

“Yes. It looks old, dated, and lacking in any runic inscriptions. Do you know something?”

I move away from the edge. The horde is nearing a density that will soon reach the roof.

“My planet was tested to find champions for the god games. I believe this city is the result of a failed test.”

I walk to Nepenthes and hop up atop her. “Come on, let's head to the fissure.”

___________________________________________

It takes hours for the three to reach the chasm on account of the numerous anomalies and the multitude of destroyed buildings making a direct route impossible. But, eventually the group arrives atop a building leaning over the circular chasm with a flaming tornado pulsing in the center.

Leaning over the edge, Quasi stares down into the chasm with a grimace.

“That’s a pretty long drop.” He says after a moment. “Though I can see a massive sewage hole pointing directly towards the underground tower. I’m willing to bet that’s where we need to enter.”

The tornado pulses brightly this moment, heating the metal pipe till it is glowing bright red.

“Well, once we deal with the anomaly.” Quasi turns to Auranta, “You’re up. Disrupt the fire and we’ll make our way down.”

She nods and steps forward. She raises her staff and points it forward. Air starts to whistle and condense above the staff's tip, forming into a pulsating orb of compressed air. Once formed, she takes aim, and the orb accelerates. It enters the tornado and explodes. For a moment, it looks like the tornado is about to go out as it condenses smaller and smaller.

Then it expands.

“Shit! Take cover.” he orders and transforms into a Fenrimorph. At the same time, Auranta reacts by waving her staff and creating a barrier of wind between herself and the tornado.

Then the tornado explodes in flame, sending a wave of fire all around it to the exact dimensions of the fissure.

And just as fast as it hits, the wave disappears, leaving everything singed, including all of Quasi’s furr. Quickly putting out the fire on his body, he turns to his allies. Nepenthes bark-skin looks singed but undamaged and Auranta is completely unharmed on account of her barrier.

Before he can release a sigh of relief, the building they are standing on starts to shake and tilt towards the chasm. Whatever little bit was keeping the building from falling in is now giving way.

Growling a warning, Quasi rushes to get off the building. Both Nepenthes and Auranta follow suit. The first to get off the crumbling building Nepenthes. The Phytonid lands upon a swarm of mushroom zombies that she quickly begins dealing with. Not a moment later and quasi lands next to her and quickly joins the fray.

As he punches through Zombie chests, he takes a moment to glance behind him. What he finds is that the building is crumbling down into the chasm.

Then he grins when he looks up a little.

Auranta hovers above the chasm with four chitinous wings protruding out of her back.