The three of them drew closer and closer together as the noctilith forced them back. Once they were back to back, Pan Tian surrounded them with a dome of her brilliant white qi. Notcilith scrambled and scrabbled over it, biting at the resplendent barrier. But Pan Tian held it firm as Jie burned through the noctilith as fast as possible.
The air filled with the scent of ozone and burning chitin as Jie pushed her lightning step and chain finger of light attacks to the limit. The number of noctilith streaming into the building slowed to a trickle and then began to flow the other way. Perhaps because some of the noctilith had eventually realized that Jie and her friends weren't going to be an easy meal.
Others began feasting on their fallen. Jie ignored them, choosing instead to focus on the highest-priority threats. That seemed to cause a shift in behavior among the swarm as more of them gave up the attack and began feasting on their dead instead.
With the overwhelming number no longer assaulting Jie's friends, Pan Tian dropped her barrier and they immediately began attacking the surviving noctilith around them until they all either fled or died.
With the noctilith's numbers so thoroughly thinned out, it didn't take long to finish off or chase away those that remained.
***
"This one thinks they'll soon be back," Ithilix said as she cleaned yellow blood off her spear, "this much sustenance will not be allowed to go to waste. It would be wise for us to move away from here soon."
Jie's friends all had nasty cuts that were turning black and oozed a white pus-like substance. Jie withdrew some healing pills from her storage ring and handed them out.
They had their own of course, but after Pan Tian had given her so many, Jie thought it was only fair to do the same for the others.
They accepted the pills gratefully and sighed with instant relief as the healing medicine pushed the white muck out of them together with the poisonous qi and their wounds began to close.
Xue shook blood and guts off his fur and stretched with a display of absolute satisfaction that only cats seemed capable of.
"Phew," Pan Tian said, "that wasn't so bad."
The ground shuddered and they all looked at her.
"Oh, come on," Pan Tian said, "don't tell me you're still on about that superstitious nonsense."
Something roared in the distance. A deep, deafening, dangerous roar that vibrated the stone.
They kept staring at Pan Tian.
"Just a coincidence," Pan Tian said, "I'm sure it has nothing to do with us. But... I suppose we should go check. Just to be safe."
They stepped outside the building as a behemoth lumbered into view behind the now-flying pyramid. The purple glow lit the undead monster's many ribs. Each of which looked as long and thick as a train back on Earth and crawling with noctilith. The enormous, scythe-like claws on the ends of its skeletal fingers reached below its comparatively squat knees and Jie thought she saw hints of a long tail. But the rest of the creature was lost in darkness.
"See? It's just attracted to the light of the pyramid," Pan Tian said.
The behemoth stretched out one long arm, gripped the side of the flying pyramid, crushing countless noctilith under its grip, and swept the pyramid aside. The pyramid spun away and crashed into a massive obelisk. The obelisk shattered, sending a huge mass of stone crashing to the floor in a cloud of dust as the pyramid slowed and righted itself once more. The behemoth roared and stepped toward Jie and her friends, crushing a rectangular building underfoot like a brittle toy.
"Oh... well... perhaps not," Pan Tian said.
"This one thinks you should stop talking. Also, it would be wise to run now," Ithilix said.
They sprinted away, using their movement skills with everything they had, and trying to use buildings to block the monster's line of sight as the ground shook with each of the behemoth's steps. It was slow and moved as though pushing through water, but each of its steps covered an incredible distance and it was gaining on them.
"If we die, I just want to say there's no way that this is my fault," Pan Tian said.
"If we die, I want my tombstone inscribed to say that this is entirely your fault," Jie said.
"This one shares Jie's wish," Ithilix said.
"That is most unfair! Go right here, maybe we can lose it through there," Pan Tian said as she pointed at a large archway that led into a series of covered streets, like tunnels.
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They ran inside and immediately headed down a passageway to the left as the ground trembled, the behemoth's enormous steps getting closer with each passing moment. They were doing their best to veil their auras, but Jie wasn't sure it would do much good against something so much stronger than they were. Even with Pan Tian's elixir of hidden prey helping them to hide from the behemoth's senses.
They kept running and using their movement skills as they raced through winding, covered streets while the behemoth drew closer... and closer. Every step it took shook the city like an earthquake as dust fell from the ceiling above them.
Unlike them, the behemoth wasn't veiling its aura in the slightest. It felt so much stronger than Jie that it was hard to even be sure of its rank. But she thought it was at perhaps the sixth star of the Spiritualist rank. Its aura weighed heavily on Jie as it drew closer, making her feel like she was being pushed into the ground by a mighty boot. One look at the pale faces and gritted teeth around her told her that her friends were suffering even more than she was.
If it weren't for its incredibly slow speed, Jie was sure they'd all already be dead. Jie felt the behemoth looming somewhere above them and prayed that the combination of potion, veiling their auras, and being out of sight would be enough to keep them hidden from the monster. At least long enough to escape.
Then, massive claws ripped through the ceiling in an explosion of dust and falling stone. Great claws larger than the Jie and her friends combined swept toward them, following the length of the passageway they were in.
Jie and her friends dived down a side passage moments before the monster's claws tore through the passageway behind them in a cloud of dust and debris.
Jie kept her speed lower to match her friends as they ran, unwilling to leave them behind while she thought about how to get them out of this alive. She considered trying to draw the monster's attention as she had against the creature in the lake. But the behemoth was so much more powerful that she was afraid provoking it might cause it to use a martial skill that killed them all instantly. If she could even attract its attention. Her attacks had annoyed the Elementalist monster but this thing? Would it even notice her if she struck it?
Still, if they didn't find another way soon, she didn't know what else she could possibly do.
The behemoth roared. A deafening bellow that shook the world moments before it swept its claws toward them from behind this time. Jie and her friends took the only available path, another passageway leading to the right, moments before the claws destroyed the passageway they'd been in, leaving a ruined mess exposed to the cavern air behind them.
They ran as fast as they could, turning and moving through paths, trying to lose the behemoth but it was only a matter of time before it caught them.
Finally, they found themselves in a passageway that led only to an exit onto an exposed, ancient street with nowhere to hide.
Jie could almost feel the behemoth just waiting to catch them once they were finally out in the open. Jie spotted a thick metal grate built into one side of the road. It looked like it'd once been part of some massive drainage system and it gave Jie an idea.
"The sewer!" Jie yelled as she ran ahead of her friends with a boost of speed that took her to the sewer grate in an instant. The light from the lantern at her hip revealed a dark tunnel beneath the grate large enough to admit them. Jie gripped the rusted metal and heaved upward, reinforcing her muscles with qi as she did so.
She ripped the grate free with a groan of metal and the sound of crumbling stone as her friends rushed toward her with their movement skills.
"Get in!" Jie yelled even as the ground shook with the footstep of the enormous behemoth that towered overhead, the top of its body lost in darkness.
Jie's friends jumped straight down into the tunnel and Jie followed them moments before the behemoth's long claws raked the path they'd been on. They all ducked as the claws cut through the roof of the tunnel, passing mere inches above their heads.
The tunnel was too narrow for them to run side by side, and they were forced into a single file as the behemoth roared again. The sheer intensity of the sound shook the sewer and sent all manner of creatures scuttling in the darkness around them.
Things with too many eyes or none at all. Skittering crawling insects, slithering worms, things with slender tentacles covered in needle-like spines, and creatures that leaped away into the darkness with powerful legs.
Ordinarily, they would've made her skin crawl, but it was hard to care with the behemoth bearing down on them. The ceiling behind them exploded, massive claws punching through it with ease as Jie swallowed hard. Then, the behemoth gripped the stone ceiling and ripped it away as though peeling the lid off a lunchbox.
It tossed what had once been the ceiling aside and Jie heard it land with a thunderous crash somewhere in the city as they ran.
The tunnel they were in sloped downward slightly, but it was far too little to take them as far away from the behemoth as they needed to go. They came to a cylindrical chamber that led off in several other directions and with another grate much like the first that led into a pipe that went straight down. Though, something else had ripped this grate free long ago, and it rested against one of the walls.
Pan Tian jumped down the pipe, her claws scraping the dried-out walls of the pipe to slow her fall as the others followed suit with Ithilix simply running straight down.
A long claw pierced through the path directly in front of Jie, reaching down to hip height as more claws pierced through the stone around her, a grasping hand clutching around her.
Jie sidestepped the claw in front of her as it closed its grip around the space where she'd been. The behemoth pulled its skeletal hand free, leaving a massive hole behind her as she dived into the pipe without even trying to slow her descent.
The fall wasn't nearly long enough and she saw the floor rushing up to her from below, lit by Pan Tian's lantern. Jie plummeted downward. She used a lighting step platform to reduce her speed and soften her fall a moment before she landed heavily into the layer of muck covering the floor, splattering her friends with it.
"Sorry," Jie said but her friends hardly seemed to care as they all continued running.
The behemoth roared again and the world around them shuddered as it tore into the stone above them with its massive claws. But it seemed to be having a harder time digging its way through to them with so much more stone between them.