Ray thought he’d have to keep flying higher through the strange, portal-like opening in the chamber wall. But that wasn’t the case. As soon as he was through, he suddenly had ground at his feet and was staring into the darkness of a strange tunnel.
Upon closer inspection with Primordial Gauge, Mana filled every square inch of the tunnel. The walls, ceiling, and floor all glowed a shimmering blue as the tunnel continued onwards. Just more proof that Ray had most likely discovered the correct path forward. The one that would lead him to the treasure.
The question remained on who else had discovered it. There had to be at least a few. He had seen several teams get into the dungeon, so chances were he’d meet them soon.
He could still feel a mental connection to his Imitator construct on the other side. At a quick mental command, it followed him into the tunnel. Though, as Ray moved on, he bid the mimic wait. It might serve as a nice, little surprise down the line.
Ray: Marcus. MARCUS. Can you please confirm you’re alive?
Seeing the fake corpse at that chamber renewed Ray’s dread about what had happened to Marcus. Asshole needed to confirm he was okay.
He could have gone on if he had learned that Marcus was dead, thanks to the System no longer allowing him to send any messages. But the option wasn’t blocked. Marcus was alive. Just not responding, for whatever reason.
Gritty: He might be unconscious.
Ray: I figured. Was just making sure because I saw his dead body not long ago. Don’t worry, was just a fake.
He explained his encounter with the Ryous, Karkatrix, and how he had found a way forward that looked promising.
In return, Gritty explained how she had come across a duo as well. A couple of Sylvans who appeared to be participating in the Immortalizer Tournament too. If there were more in that party, she couldn’t say for sure yet. She wasn’t following them close enough to overhear what they said. Ah, well. So long as she remained safe.
Speaking of safe, Ray himself arrived at the next dungeon chamber in about another minute. Where he was pretty sure he was no longer safe.
A pitched battle was already occurring at Ray’s location. He stayed back, only observing. A trio of Sylvans were fighting against a singular human dressed in ragged robes. At first glance, it would appear the human was outnumbered and outmatched, but as the battle progressed, Ray could only stare as the tables turned.
She had a weird power that Ray couldn’t decipher properly. A forcefield of multicoloured light surrounded her, and any attacks from the Sylvans simply disappeared as soon as they hit the shield.
And then she began flinging orbs of the same kind at her opponents. The Sylvans dodged it at first. But then, one of them that tried to block one of the orbs with a shielding skill. Ray gawked, wishing he had some kind of slow-motion camera because he really would have liked to see what occurred again in greater detail.
The orb the woman fired ate through the Sylvan’s shield, then ate through the Sylvan himself. His scream echoed piercingly in the dungeon chamber.
As the other Sylvans cursed the woman, Ray stared at the effects of that strange orb ability. It had sheared straight through its targets, leaving unnaturally perfect, circular holes through whatever it had passed, before popping with a burst when it hit the far dungeon wall.
The way the chromatic sphere had moved made Ray take in a sharp breath. It had passed through physical matter like they didn’t exist, at least until it had hit the wall.
Ray couldn’t tell what exact kind of attack that was supposed to be, but he knew he couldn’t let it touch him.
The other two Sylvans didn’t fare much better. Their companion had died, which had sent them into a vengeful frenzy to attack the woman directly. All she had done was recreate her spherical shield. When the second Sylvan had swung in her sword, it had simply disappeared, taking a chunk of her forearm with it.
Her scream didn’t last long. The woman blasted the Sylvan with another orb straight to the face. The Sylvan dropped dead.
Good thing Ray had so much experience seeing weird shit happen to bodies under the effects of his chaos. Otherwise, his stomach would probably have rebelled at how it looked like someone had taken a perfectly clean ice-cream scoop out of the Sylvan’s head.
“Yeah, that’s right,” the woman said as the last Sylvan quickly departed the area through a different tunnel. “Run while you can, you coward.”
Ray frowned at the other entrance. So there weren’t just magic portals like the one he had used that led to this chamber, Unless, of course, that tunnel had another of those strange Mana pools at their start too. Who knew.
“Now.” The woman turned to Ray. Ah. Primordial Gauge hadn’t warned him he had been sensed. “You want a piece of me, or you want to run?”
“You’re from another Tower, I take it?” Ray asked.
“What, you’re from this one?” She tutted, a small grin tugging at her crooked mouth. “Curious to see what you’ve got now.”
“Sure. I can show you. Mind telling why you’re here first, though? You’re just standing here, fighting off people in this chamber, almost like you’re trying to prevent anyone from going in further. Let me guess, you’ve got a teammate trying to find a way through to the treasure farther in, don’t you?”
“You talk too much. Just come over and die already.”
Ray actually would have preferred to talk some more, but the multicoloured orbs shooting at him were a strong deterrent to conversation. No letting them hit him. At least they were slow. Ray had no trouble dodging to one side.
“If you’re disinclined to talk,” Ray said, summoning up a spectral Windbane head at the end of his arm. “Then we can just get this over with.”
The blast he fired off didn’t connect. That translucent shield of swirling colours popped up around the woman again, and it blocked the chaotic flames completely.
Even when Ray powered up the flames with more True Mana, even when the burning geyser grew larger to overtake his opponent completely. That strange shield wouldn’t let anything through. It was almost as though nothing existed within that shield that the woman wouldn’t allow.
Ray’s eyes widened. Was that it? Some kind of weird temporal ability that made everything within that shield revert back to some previous time? No fucking way.
More of the orbs came flying at Ray, but he dodged them easily. She had to have some sort of counter to more agile enemies, especially those who understood they couldn’t block her powers. What was it? Surely she couldn’t be content just allowing him to dodge?
Whatever it was, Ray couldn’t let her exercise it. So, he went on the offensive.
“Your stupid powers aren’t going to work,” the woman said with one-hundred-percent certainty. “You should run, just like those horned idiots.”
A part of Ray noted that she didn’t recognize the Sylvans as Sylvans, unless she was just insulting them. But it made sense. The Sylvans couldn’t be running all the Towers. Which made him distantly wonder what exactly went on in other Towers. But now really wasn’t the time.
This time, instead of just flinging those time-orbs at Ray, the woman created what looked like oversized sabres at the end of her arms. The blades were made of multicoloured light, just as the orbs had been.
Clearly, she was bent on attacking directly, since the orbs were doing jack shit. Not on Ray’s watch.
He inundated her with attacks of his own first. It was nice that he could cast multiple spells in quick succession.
A couple of Windbane constructs floated to being beside him, as well as the Viledrake tail at his back. The first flying maw shot a geyser of compressed chaotic fire at the woman. She burst through it with her chromatic shield around her. But that was merely a distraction.
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When the second maw fired, it didn’t shoot a simple chaos beam. Instead, with Mana Imbuing, he made it fire a compressed blast of Molten Mana.
While that didn’t get through that impenetrable defence either, Ray wasn’t aiming for his opponent in the first place. Instead, the glowing Molten Mana burned a hole in the ground.
Interestingly, the chunk of the floor that was within that multihued sphere remained unaffected. But the blast radius was large. The obsidian-like rock under the shield started melting and disintegrating. Without support, the woman and the piece of the floor she stood on fell.
Ray’s triumphant grin lasted merely a second. Like the last few chambers, this one had those rocky spars jutting across a depthless void to connect the tunnels on opposite walls. Ray’s thought process went that even if he couldn’t hit the woman directly, he could destroy everything around her instead.
Except, the void underneath didn’t turnout to be that deep. Just his luck. The woman yelled out in surprise as she fell for a few seconds, but then stopped. She had only descended about twenty feet.
Looked like the “depthless” bottom here wasn’t actually that deep, unlike the last chamber. Just his luck.
“That the best you got?” she asked.
Ray wanted to reply that she had seen far from what he was capable of—and was pretty sure there was a lot the woman could do that he had yet to see—but a demonstration was easier to handle. Plus the self-reminder that he wasn’t here to win fights against anybody. The real victory was securing the treasure.
So, as the woman rushed upwards, Ray bid his Imitator construct rush in from the tunnel. But instead of having Ray’s form, it was shaped like his previous opponent. Large, crocodilian, sporting that cocoon backpack.
The mimic’s sudden appearance shocked the woman to a standstill. She was frowning though. Her suspicion was pretty clear.
“Did you let that guy escape, Karkatrix?” she asked.
“Wasn’t my fault, Eliza.” The mimic’s imitation of the Ryous’s voice was so good, Ray himself could have been fooled into thinking that it was the real deal. Even better that the mimic had affected the gear as well, including that Amulet of Blindness. So the woman, Eliza, couldn’t use any abilities to sus out whether the mimic was real or not. “He was too quick. And he’s real.”
“Yeah, I can see that part.” Eliza turned to Ray with a scowl. “Enough running around, now you’re going to die.”
“No mercy for your fellow human?” Ray asked, slowly allowing his wings to bring him closer to one of the rock bridges. “What if I surrendered and ran back the way I came?”
“You’re not fooling anybody, pal, you’re not the running type. You’re the tricking type. I hate people like you.”
“What? I didn’t even do anything.”
Eliza growled, then charged at Ray. At which point, the fake Karkatrix punched three of his arms into Eliza from behind, while also pulling out his three fake swords.
Just as she shouted out in outrage, Ray burst forward. His wings were spread and Soullife Cloak was boosting his speed a great deal. As Eliza couldn’t decide who to curse between Ray and her apparently traitorous friend, Ray rushed ahead with relative freedom.
At least he wasn’t going to be pursued any time soon. He had to make the most of the window of opportunity.
Ray rushed forward as fast as he was able. Primordial Gauge in his eyes made sure he was following the lines of Mana along the walls. There were no secret Mana pools indicating any hidden doorways he had to go through. Maybe he just had to go farther.
When he reached the end of the chamber, Ray didn’t have time to pick and decide. No doubt, Eliza would be done with the mimic, and then she’d come rushing after him.
So instead of waiting to decide, Ray picked a tunnel at random. For the rest, he constructed several Scouring Eyeballs and sent one flying through each tunnel he didn’t take. Since he could see Mana through the Scouring Eyeballs as well, his bases were now covered. He just had to find the next Mana pool or portal or whatever those things were.
Ray had only gone about halfway through the tunnel by his estimation before he had to stop. He had come face to face with Gritty.
Fake Gritty, to be exact. One quick look with Primordial Gauge confirmed that it was a Darksign. How or why a fake Gritty had appeared here of all places was beyond Ray, but he aimed his hand at the Darksign anyway.
Ray: Gritty, where are you?
Gritty: Why, you need me to come rescue you?
Ray: No. I’m just facing a fake version of you now, and it made me think you’re probably close by.
Gritty: I’m still following the other team. They look like they know what they’re doing so I’m tagging along. Wait. Ah shit, I think they spotted me. Ttyl.
True to her words, Gritty was no longer available to be messaged. Ray shot off a quick “Good luck!” but got no response in return. A part of him was minorly concerned about her abrupt departure. First Marcus, now Gritty too.
But the rest of him was suddenly on high alert as the fake Gritty began moving too. Moving straight towards him.
“Woah!” Ray said as he dodged to one side.
Fake Gritty had dashed in real quick. Her arm was extended, a spike of bone bursting out of her palm with a blister of blood that looked quite painful.
Ray frowned. Why was the Darksign attacking him all of a sudden? Had he just waited too long and now she had suddenly decided he needed to die?
Fake Gritty was already turning, preparing to launch herself at Ray again. Her eyes were blank, though the way her mouth stretched in a leering, bloody grin made her feel malignantly aware and intelligent.
Ray aimed his arm at her again, calling up a draconic head at the end with Primal Spiritcraft. The blast of chaotic flames fired off like a horizontal geyser.
It never hit. Fake Gritty had dodged way too easily, way too quickly.
Ray used both hands to attack but she was too agile. And when he manoeuvred her around so that she couldn’t evade, fake Gritty just used a strange blood ability to block Ray’s attack. The chaotic flames exploded as the fiery stream struck the floating crimson droplets, leaving his intended target perfectly safe.
“Oh, come on.” Ray sighed. “I don’t have time to play games with you right now, Gritty.”
It was at least a small blessing that the tunnel was more than wide enough for them to evade and move around without difficulty. Still. Ray had no intention of being stuck here until Eliza or Karkatrix arrived to complicate matters.
Fake Gritty came to a stop all of a sudden. It was like she was frozen in place, petrified halfway to her next motion. Ray stared at her.
Then had a very wild idea pop into his head.
Ray: Hey Gritty… are you by any chance completely stationary right now?
Gritty: Yeah. I’m trying to hide. Those assholes keep looking for me. If one of them gets close enough, I can get the jump on him.
Ray: You mind moving your left arm for a second.
Gritty: What?
Ray: Just do it please. Move it like a foot or something.
Immediately, fake Gritty once again moved. But only for—Ray gulped. Fake Gritty had moved only a foot before resuming her completely frozen stance.
Gritty: The hell are you up to, Wingman?
Ray: It’s actually what YOU’RE up to atm, technically.
Gritty: What?
Ray explained, in as few words as possible, his suspicions. Well, it was more a hypothesis that he had ample evidence for now.
The Darksigns only moved when the originals were moving. Fake Gritty had been stationary right up until the moment real Gritty had started moving. And when real Gritty had stopped moving once more, the fake one had followed suit. Ray was pretty sure he could actually kill the thing.
Gritty: But it didn’t attack you last time, did it?
Ray: I thought it was because I was too fast and they didn’t get the chance to attack me. But I suppose it’s just more proof because… well, wait, you guys were technically moving then too.
Gritty: Maybe it’s the kind of movement that matters. We were walking casually back then, not with any hostile intentions. But not now.
Not now at all. Gritty moved with the clear purpose of a killer, a predator on the hunt to take down her prey. Maybe that was it. That was the difference. Her frame of mind, the intent of any of her movement, were all focused on killing.
It was that intent that resonated with the fake Gritty here. A killing intent that had made her attack Ray.
Now that Ray had figured out what was going on, he wasted no time firing off another blast of chaotic flames at the Darksign. Except, fake Gritty dodged that, then tried counterattacking Ray himself, so he was forced to evade too.
Ray: Hey, Gritty! Stay still, damn it.
Gritty: A little busy trying to bloodily eviscerate three people at once here.
Ray cursed. This was getting too annoying. Alright, that was it.
He flung multiple spells at once, switching from one Talisman to the other. Multiple casts of Mottling Spiritguard brought up a rotating salvo of sparking chaotic orbs. Lifeblood Soulform gave rise to several draconic heads flying on their own near him. Ray even summoned up a horde of chaos bees.
“Take this!”
Ray sent it all crashing into his annoying opponent. The Windbane maws shot out lasering breaths of compressed chaos, the bees rushed in to sting fake Gritty to death as soon as she dodged, and the Spiritguard orbs flung outwards to cover the entirety of the tunnel.
In response, fake Gritty used her own combination of skills to counter. She didn’t bother dodging. Instead, hundreds of blood droplets poured out of her without any sign of any wounds They glowed with scarlet light, glowing lines jumping from one to other to form concentric, circular patterns.
Ray blinked. Was that another ritual just like the one the real Gritty had used to try and heal the Eternal Guardian?
The spherical rings of blood were only a part of fake Gritty’s defence. Right on her skin, bone spontaneously formed to create a solid armour that encased every inch of her, even her hair.
When Ray’s attacks met fake Gritty’s defence, the resulting detonation started making the entire tunnel crack apart. As much as he was tempted to stick around and see if his combination of attacks had finally ended that pain in the ass, Ray recognized that this was his best chance.
Experience be damned. His real goal was getting to the treasure before anyone else.
So, leaving fake Gritty in the dust and the collapsing tunnel—dead or alive, he just couldn’t tell, not when Primordial Gauge didn’t have a direct line of sight on her—Ray dived further into the tunnel.
He reached a dead end soon, but that was fine. One of the Scouring Eyeballs had found the real Mana portal that he was supposed to have used. Spectral Step took him to the tunnel that wasn’t collapsing on top of him. Wasting no time, Ray pushed through the Mana portal to emerge into another large chamber. The largest he had come across yet.
A chamber where a pitched battle between several teams of competitors was already raging.
A chamber at the end of which was a large glimmering Mana portal with multiple lights swimming on its surface. Ray stared at for a second. Oh, he knew where that would lead.
That, no doubt, was his path to the final chamber of the dungeon. Where the treasure lay.