Splashing the statues with the red water proved to be more difficult than expected. Each of the stone Griffons was at least 20 meters from the ground, and climbing them was very complicated, not to mention the struggle to just reach them. The statues were smooth, and there was a lot of ice in the walls surrounding the nest. Hera had to create a staircase with her stone walls to reach one of them. At the same time, Helena used her shadow tentacles as climbing gear to reach the top of one of the other statues to pour out the red water that Blue gave everyone in the small vials. Alex took care of another statue by using her wind chaser spell to follow after her attacks. Bonnie was the one who took the longest. She was focusing on levitating a piece of rock to bring her up to the top of the statue. Doing so proved to be a bit more complicated than she expected. This wasn't the type of spell that she was used to, and to lift her up more than 20 meters off the ground, the researcher had to spend about 90% of her maximum mana to get there. She took a break halfway by using a little bit of mana from a mana stone and creating a rock ledge from the dungeon wall, much like what Hera was doing.
Lastly, there was Blue. The controller could move around here much more easily than everybody else. Thanks to Stormcloud, she could simply create a ramp made of clouds to go up, even making the clouds move like an escalator. During the past year, the controller had learned much more about her legacy, and the abilities and spells that she could use now were much more varied. It was a testament to what a legacy could do. It would develop and improve to match what the user wanted or needed. Blue always wanted a way to overcome her obstacles, and apparently, Stormcloud was a bit too literal in the interpretation of that desire.
Still, after 20 minutes or so, they managed to cover all the Griffons in the red water. When doing that, the sky surrounding the nest turned red as a massive storm started to form, and a notification appeared in front of everyone.
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You have unlocked the Hard Mode for the Sky Ruler Nest.
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"Is that it?" Hera asked through the communicator.
"I think so. Now we need to go out and come back in," Blue replied.
"And what can we expect? In the hard mode, I mean," Alex used one of her wind blades from the top of the statue and chased the spell as it hit the ground.
"According to what people told me, the layout of the dungeon is mostly the same. But we don't have that rock maze, and we need to fight against some storm elementals. Creatures made of clouds. It's supposed to be just a 'go kill everything and get out' dungeon, but I'm not sure if there's any hidden quests or something," Blue explained.
"Wait, it's that a dungeon about a legacy? Like what would happen if your legacy was around?" that was the first question that popped into Hera's mind.
"It does look that way. Even more of a reason why I wanted to come here," Blue replied while she came down from the Griffon statue in a cloud slide.
"Can you make me one of those ramps? I used too much mana to get here," Bonnie asked from the top of the statue in the far corner of the nest.
"Oh, please. Tell me you didn't waste all your mana getting up. The whole point is that we should be doing the hard mode right away, not waiting for someone to recover," Blue rolled her eyes.
"I didn't waste all of it. But I wouldn't mind if we took a few minutes to rest after this. I have some items that increase my mana recovery, so it's not like it's gonna take that long," Bonnie crossed her arms while she waited.
While that was going on, Hera was already on the floor. She smiled, thinking about how blue and Bonnie still kept bickering to this day. The two of them wouldn't be aggressive and genuinely miss each other's company, but they were not beyond those kinds of squabbles. Blue's worry ended up being unfounded. Bonnie's mana was mostly recharged by the time they came down from the statues and walked back to the entrance. The researcher had perfected her ability to focus on recovering her mana, and she could do so even when walking without a problem. However, while doing that she still wasn't able to carry on with a conversation like Helena.
Hera dismissed Beam before they left the dungeon, not to bring any attention to her, but that ended up being unnecessary. When they arrived on the other side, there was no one there. Either all the teams had already gone inside or they had returned to the city. Everyone took a moment to drink some water and check if there was anything else they had to do before walking back towards the dungeon once more. The moment they touched the cloud barrier, it shifted. Instead of being the regular gray cloud, it turned purple, with small specks of white light flashing through it that gave a cosmic feel to it. Another change was that there was a notification when they touched the barrier this time.
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Would you like to enter the Sky Ruler Nest dungeon or the Domain of the Storm dungeon?
[Sky Ruler Nest] [Domain of the Storm]
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"What?" Hera gasped, "Two dungeons?"
"It's rare, but some dungeons change names when they are in the hard mode. It's because they are so different that they can't be considered the same dungeon anymore," Helena explained.
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"Really? I never heard anything about that," Bonnie turned to the mage.
"Yep. Like I said, it's a rare occurrence. It doesn't mean much aside from that change. It's not like there are better rewards than normal or anything like that," Helena shrugged.
Hera and the others tried to ask for more information about those differences, but there was nothing Helena could tell them. Basically, if a dungeon changed its name, it just meant that it would be completely different from what it was before. When inside a hard mode, you could see the continuation of events or some slight changes to the type of creatures and challenges you would find inside. On the other hand, if the name changed, everything went out of the window. Aside from the general location, there shouldn't be anything inside this new dungeon that would match the previous one. Helena also added that even if the dungeon's name had changed, this was indeed the hard mode. They shouldn't get ideas about triggering another hard mode inside this dungeon because that shouldn't be possible. The mage was the type to believe that anything could happen. That's why she was hesitant to dismiss completely the idea that a second hard mode exists. But she made it perfectly clear that no one in the history of all the races that live inside the MAZE had ever found a second-tier hard mode or something like that.
Everyone pressed the Domain of the Storm button when they were done with their questions. The entrance of the new dungeon was very similar to the previous one. They were inside a cave that led to the outside. But even from here, there are already changes that could be seen and heard. On each side of this tunnel, the rock was smooth and soft to the touch, almost like the place was made out of rubber. From the entrance, they could see a purple light with small flashes of white illuminating the area. As they started walking towards the exit, a loud rumbling echoed to the tunnel causing the group to stop and cover their ears. Hera and Alex glanced at each other and instantly activated their [Hide] while signaling to the rest of the party to wait behind them. The assassin already had the [Stealth] skill, and thanks to it, even the people who were staring directly at her couldn't see where she was. Without making a sound, the two walked over to the exit and took one look at the place where they believed to be the nest proper.
This area couldn't be called a nest anymore. It could hardly be called a mountaintop. Everywhere they looked, all they could see would purple clouds. The ground was made of soft, bouncy Cumulonimbus, while white Cirrus framed what once were the edges of the mountain. Looking up to the sky, Hera could see patches of Altocumulus in a much brighter purple than the one on the floor. Glancing towards the direction where the sky ruler was before, she saw a palace made of clouds, almost like how Olympus was depicted in some mythological paintings or books. However, that was all there was to it. Aside from this vast expanse of clouds and the palace, there was nothing. No monster, no creature, no movement, nothing. It was peaceful in a way, not to mention beautiful. This place seemed like a paradise, a purple paradise, but still.
Seeing that everything was fine, Hera called over the rest of the group, "Blue, what was the quest again?"
"I don't know. Some people offered to tell me, but I refused. Things here should be level 10 at most, so it's not like there was anything that could be a threat to us. I did ask if there was anything that we should be on the lookout for, and they just said to not get caught. It seems like the elementals do the same thing the Griffons did. You know, grabbing you, flying up, and then letting you fall to the ground thing," Blue explained as everyone left the cave and started walking towards the palace, which was the only place that seemed to be an objective of sorts.
As they moved, a notification appeared in front of them.
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Dungeon Quest
Elemental Assault
You have trespassed in the home of the Storm Elementals. They will defend their home with all their strength.
Survive.
Rewards
45 000 gold
Storm Material Box
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Time remaining: 2:00:00
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"Please tell me that's two hours and not two days," Bonnie gasped.
"Of course it is. If it was two days, I would have told you guys," Blue rolled her eyes.
"Does that mean that we're gonna have to fight for two hours non stop?" Hera looked around, trying to figure out a place where she could create a bunker so they could rest if they needed. Just after the notification appeared, she summoned all her blades and was starting to attach Yarnball's string on her fingers and on the weapons. She then quickly told all of her court to stay within 10 meters of her, so everyone would have enough space to fight without getting in the way of each other.
"Yeah, but also no. The first group that came here spent two hours, and the storm just passed by at the end. But Naka came here later and figured out that we could do something to finish the quest earlier. Again I didn't want to get too many details, but it seems that if we kill enough of the monsters, their boss will show up, and if we kill the boss, that's the end of the storm," Blue explained.
"Can I assume those would be the monsters?" Helena pointed towards the center of this arena. Emerging from the clouds, several figures appeared. Some were humanoid in a way. They had two arms and a head, but their legs were nonexistent. Instead, their waist turned into a cloud that was almost like a hovercraft for the monsters. Others had long worm-like bodies, almost like a tiny sideways hurricane with a large mouth and no eyes. In the back, by the palace, two more unique elementals appear. They seem to detach from the wall cloud itself, lumbering forward with oversized arms that they were using to walk and a mouth in the middle of their body. It walked on all fours, with two smaller legs on the back, and roared with the sound of thunder as lightning flashed inside its throat.
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Storm Elemental - Level 7 (Storm affinity)
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Eel Storm Elemental - Level 8 (Storm affinity)
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Storm Elemental Guardian - Level 9 (Storm affinity)
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"I want the big one!" Blue yelled as she dashed towards the battalion of 50 plus monsters that had just appeared.