Teluve took a moment to change out of his ruined clothes, Bimy had turned away, just a few feet from Teluve.

Teluve quickly changed, now wearing a second set of clothes, adorned in dark purple, and gold, his clothes were made of a silk-like material, and is very ornate, depicting golden leaves, lilies, lotus flowers, and vines woven throughout its design, all with small crystal opal gems embroidered in place of the flowers anthers. He wore a high collared jacket with an ornate, and elegant design, the collar, and cuffs a solid midnight purple, the upright collar extending over his neck, the right over left folded closure, and tapered sleeves adorned with golden floral designs, the closure held together with golden buttons as Teluve passed them through gold knotted loops, gold piping decorating the seams, and edges of his jacket, having a natural luster, complementing it's exceptionally smooth, and soft texture. His pants were straight cut, and tapered, with the gold floral motif covering its surface, Teluve tying off a golden drawstring at the waistband, gold thread adorning the seams, and edges. Over all this, Teluve put on a sleeveless robe, with an open faced design, revealing a portion of the face of his jacket underneath, it's surface covered in the floral design with a large golden valley lily prominently displayed over his left breast, the robe tapering closed as it reached his waistband, its length falling just over the middle of his shins, its short collar framed his jacket's high collar. Teluve secured his robe with an intricate gold laced midnight purple fabric belt that he wrapped around at his waist. Teluve also donned his metal bracers over his wrists, and jacket sleeves, and replaced his mangled boots, his new boots coming up to just below his calves, made of the same midnight purple colored material as his clothing, the laces a golden color, securely tied, with golden studs, and buckles that added an appealing accent to their overall design, both embroidered with the same floral theme.

"I'm finished Bimy." Teluve called out before he turned his attention to the pool, "Bimy look." Teluve pointed at the pool.

"The water, it's gone?" Bimy looked at the pool, seeing that all the water had disappeared, "Hm, look there Lulu." Bimy pointed to the center of the pool, at what seemed to be a tunnel.

"A tunnel where'd that come from, lets take a look." Teluve led the way down the now empty pool.

Searching the area Teluve noticed that the tunnel was located where the quartz pearl had once stood, "That pearl wasn't just the core of the array, it also sealed off a tunnel, that's strange."

Teluve looked down the vertical shaft, narrowing his eyes, it descending deep down into pitch blackness, "I can't see the bottom, this shaft goes beyond my sight." Teluve thought a moment, then lifted his hand, and placed it to the ground near the edge of the shaft, mobilizing his manna into the earth. Soon after the sound of rumbling resounded as a series of earthen blocks jutted out from the shaft walls forming a makeshift stairway.

"Eee." Kedu chattered from Teluve's back.

Teluve smiled, and pat the side of Kedu's head, "You can do the next set buddy."

"Eee Eee." Kedu chattered happily.

"Nice work Lulu, that's an easier solution than what I had in mind." Bimy stored away a large bundle of rope that she had pulled from her storage crystal.

"It's nothing. We haven't expended too much of our manna since we've been down here, so a minor expenditure like this is negligible." Teluve said as he took a step down, turning to Bimy, he extended his hand, "Shall we."

"He he." Bimy smirked at Teluve's gesture, taking his hand, "We shall."

Bimy, Teluve, and their bonds made their way down the stone steps, every 25 to 26 feet Kedu, and Teluve alternated as they cast their spiritual arts of earth, manipulating the surrounding stone, and extending the stairs further down. After descending about 160 feet of the earthen steps they all reached the bottom.

*Splash!*, *Splash!* Bimy, and Teluve's feet stepped down onto the puddled floor of another tunnel, "How big is the network of tunnels in this place?" Bimy grew annoyed at the seemingly never ending cave network.

Teluve examined the new area, "This place is a bit frustrating, but we've no choice but to keep moving." Teluve turned, and grabbed Bimy's hand, gently squeezing her hand in a reassuring gesture, "Don't worry Bimy, we'll find them, and leave this place."

Bimy grabbed Teluve's hand with both of hers, and smiled, "Thanks Lulu."

They continued down this new path warry as they went, cautious of potentially more traps they'd have to deal with. However, as they continued to move down this winding tunnel they encountered no more arrays, the path seemingly devoid of anything except for more of the usual environmental features; stalactites, cave curtains, stalagmites, flowstone, columns, etc. This remained the constant until Bimy, and Teluve approached a threshold in the tunnel.

Bimy slowly stepped passed the threshold with Teluve, "Wow." Bimy completely in awe, as they all entered a massive cavern.

"What is this?" Teluve looked around the cavern, stunned.

Meeting their eyes is a truly massive room, it appeared to be over 5 kilometers long, the ceiling over 200 meters high, and the walls were around 150 meters wide from side to side. Everything made even more stunning as the entire room's covered in a variety of crystals, quartz pillars of varying sizes, and thicknesses were formed, running in every possible direction throughout the cavern, with feldspar, peridot, and chromite spotted along the blue garnet, and rough diamond encrusted walls of the space. Glowing crystals, interspersed, illuminated the space causing it to sparkle with whites, blues, and the occasional greens, and purples almost as if they entered a palace of ice. But, what's strange is that there were massive quartz columns uniformly shaped, and positioned in two rows going down the length of the room.

"This place is, it's incredible." Teluve looked around, "Blue garnet, and diamond found in the same place?" Teluve grew puzzled, examining the space, "These two crystals aren't commonly found together. Garnet is generally found in metamorphic rock deposits, while diamonds are found in kimberlite."

Bimy looked to Lulu with a serious look of concern, "Lulu this is …"

"It's as we thought Bimy, it's nearly impossible for the conditions needed to form these kinds of crystals to happen naturally." Teluve took a moment to think, "Someone very powerful had to have formed this place. Given the unnatural uniformity of the columns, the rooms massive size, and the entire room being covered in these different kinds of crystals. This place was created by someone, someone that can invoke a dominion, this is a Mancer's abode Bimy."

"How can that be! Lulu this is absurd, what's a Mancer even doing here?" Bimy couldn't quite believe the idea, despite the evidence. They were talking about a Mancer, a MANCER! Mancers held an extremely high status in every society, some were even held in higher regard than a nations own king, and that's all because of one thing. The ability to invoke a dominion, the pinnacle of spiritual arts. A dominion gave the user absolute authority over their spiritual path, making them a walking sovereign over the laws of creation, one could hold complete authority over the air, the earth, the waters, space, time, bending, manifesting, and manipulating them at their whim. This is what makes Mancers so highly regarded throughout the world, they're the living embodiments of a blessing, or a calamity. They could aid a country in developing its cities, its lands, or they could become walking natural disasters that'd pose a substantial threat to any unprepared city. It's even known in history that Mancers with substantial enough cultivation can be a major threat to entire provinces.

"I know how it sounds Bimy. But from what we've seen, and what's before our eyes, there's no doubt." Teluve pondered with a thoughtful gesture, "It was evident from the start. But something doesn't make sense, if this is a Mancer's abode why would it be constructed in such an odd way? The arrays may have been dangerous, but they weren't insurmountable, if those arrays were truly set by such a powerful Mancer, then there's no way we could've survived even one of them. And the array core, it was odd, I didn't even think about till now, it was perfectly constructed, I couldn't find any flaw, so how was there a manna leak? And why did it cover an entrance that leads here, could it be that-"

Bimy remained quite as Teluve thought aloud, Teluve noticing her silence looked over to her, and saw her wide eyed, "Bimy, what's wrong?" Teluve quickly moved to her side.

"Lu-Lulu what, is that?" Bimy pointed towards the end of the room with a slight tremble to her hand.

Teluve looked over. It's hard to make out what Bimy was referring to, but after Teluve focused, he noticed something, "What is that?"

A massive blue structure marked the end of the room. Teluve couldn't really make out its shape, he barely took notice of it as it nearly blended in with the surrounding crystals, and was mostly obfuscated by the quartz pillars that, blocking his line of sight. The only reason he spotted it is that it radiated with a bright light every so often, other than its size, color, and light Teluve couldn't make out any further details.

Teluve was baffled, "Now that just confirms it."

"What is it?" Bimy turned to Teluve, "Do you think that might be a way out of here Lulu?"

"It's possible, but it'd be quite grand to just be an exit." Teluve came to a realization that made him a bit excited, "Bimy, this place may be a Mancer's legacy."

"A, legacy." The weight of those words hung heavily on Bimy, she knew just how valuable, and life changing a legacy can be, as her father had been one of a few to have benefitted from the fruits of a legacy in recent memory.

Legacies were incredibly rare, but weren't unknown, legacies are often the collection of treasures left over from a civilization of a previous age, or by powerful individuals. The contents of each legacy often ranging wildly, as it all depended on the founders reasons for establishing it, some were established for the preservation of knowledge, others to the protect secrets never intending to be uncovered, there were even those left by individual seeking a means of redemption to make amends for their failures. But, given that this place was the work of a Mancer, and an extremely powerful one at that, the legacy left here would have to be one of immense value, whatever its contents may be.

"It may be Lulu." Bimy turned to Teluve, then pointed towards the blue structure, "That's our only landmark, so lets get moving."

Bimy, Teluve, and their bonds collected themselves, and began their approach towards the mysterious structure.

As they were drawing further into the cavern, Teluve suddenly heard a noise, *Shh-shh." a slight shifting of movement. Teluve stopped Bimy, as he moved to be in-between her, and the source of the sound, "Who's there!? Show yourself!" Teluve shouted in the direction of the noise.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

A brief silence hung over the air, "Ke ke, ha ha ha ha!" Before the sound of laughter could be heard as a 7 foot tall son of mahtaan walked out from behind a massive quartz crystal. He had an imposing visage, he's a trapezoid body type, a hulk of bulging muscle with a rounded belly, his skin a pale reddish gray, a mess of medium length black coily hair fell across his face. He has short pointed ears mostly obscured by his hair, dilated red eyes, somewhat bloodshot, with thick eyebrows, a wide straight nose, a heavy lower lip, and a wide jaw with a defined jawline.

"Ha ha." The daemonized mahtan brandished a disgusting looking war axe, coated in dried blood, and rust, "My ambush failed, what a pity it didn't quite go as planned."

"Your that tainted. How'd you get here!?" Bimy questioned as she readied her stave, and shield.

Teluve stood just 5 feet ahead of Bimy eyeing the daemonized mahtaan, prepared for any sudden moves. Flavi, Kedu, and Lifmy all grew extremely agitated with the appearance of the daemonized mahtaan, "HISS!" Flavi hissing over Teluve's shoulder as she lie just in front of Bimy, Kedu bearing his fangs as he hung, and looked over Teluve's shoulder, and Lifmy's hairs all standing up, as he stood on Bimy's right shoulder.

"Hm, who are-." The tainted mahtaan narrowed his eyes at Bimy, and Teluve, then to the familiar beasts with them, "Ah I see, you disguised yourselves before, how interesting." The tainted mahtann looked at their expressions, "Ke ha, you all seem happy to see me. I've been here the whole time since that light enveloped me. Couldn't find a way out of this place, only exits are that cavern that led nowhere, and a big fucking tablet!" The tainted eyed them, "Oh, it looks like a few of you are missing, what luck! This will make things mu-"

Before the daemonized mahtaan could finish his sentence, or make a move, Teluve shot forward, appearing before him in a matter of seconds, launching a vicious strike with his dagger-like-nails at the tainted's chest, looking to pierce through his heart. However, Teluve's strike only bypassed the daemon's shirt, gliding across his skin, leaving a mark, but doing no serious damage.

Teluve frowned, and shouted to the others, "Avoid physical attacks, hit him with soul, or spiritual arts!"

"Hiss!" Flavi being quick to follow behind, slithered forward, attempting to coil around the tainted, and restrain him.

"Ha ha ah!" The tainted cackled, Flavi wrapped around the daemonized mahtaan squeezing down on him, but he managed to overpower her, throwing her off, readying his axe to strike.

Lifmy quickly moved to a space between Bimy, and Teluve, casting a spiritual art of life, his manna surged in a tangible aura of red mist around himself encompassing everyone within a 30 foot radius, Bimy, Flavi, Kedu, Lifmy, and Teluve all feeling a wave of warmth, followed by a buzzing sensation fill their bodies, invigorated as their stamina, and vitality were steadily being restored.

Seeing the phenomena the daemon grew enraged, "You little pest!", and dashed at Lifmy.

Flavi, and Teluve attempted to halt the son of mahtaan, both of them lashing out at the tainted. However, Flavi, and Teluve only grazed past his skin unable to harm him.

The tainted ran up to Lifmy as he swung his axe violently at the tiny leporine.

Reacting to what would have been a devastating blow Lifmy deftly cast a spiritual art of life, forming a red barrier composed of his vital essence, absorbing the kinetic energy from the blow Lifmy quickly metabolizing it, restoring his the vitality he just expended.

"YOU! I'll cut you into bits!" The daemonized mahtaan shouted.

Seeing this Kedu ran, and leaped onto the daemon grabbing hold of him.

The tainted felt the sudden invasion of a foreign manna, he tried to resist it, but failed, overwhelmed, Kedu's manna now rampaged in his spirit.

"AH!" The tainted glared at Kedu, "You dare curse me!" The daemonized mahtaan's ire now shifted over to Kedu.

Bimy, keeping her distance, unfurling her wings, stretching out into a 21 foot wingspan she flew into the air, channeling her manna through her stave, focusing it, then firing off a spiritual art of chaos at the daemonized mahtaan's side. The tainted sensing the dangerous flow behind him quickly side stepped, dodging the attack, the blast hitting a crystal, disintegrating a portion of it.

Going unnoticed with the tainted's focus split, Teluve rushed behind the daemon, grappling him into a chokehold.

"Ke ha! Kkhh!" The daemon struggled against Teluve, "Ke ha ah, Deliflur, I remember you, Haaah! And to think I once dreamed of a life working in the forges of your Spire."

"It's unfortunate, such a dream may have been." Teluve tightened his hold, "If only you'd let the Ancient of Days guide you, but instead you've corrupted yourself!"

"Ha ha ha, I simply embraced it! Ke ha-haaah! I've never been so free!" The tainted smiled with fervor.

"Free?" Teluve's anger boiled over, "How can you be free!? When you've made yourself a slave, you've only cursed yourself with death!"

Flavi right behind Teluve, cast a spiritual art of fire in the form of a blessing, a runic mark of fire appearing on Teluve's skin, it super heating Teluve's muscles, granting him a surge in strength.

"Haaah!" the daemon instantly felt the new found strength from Teluve, the hold around his neck tightening greatly.

Lifmy disengaged from the tainted running towards Bimy, manna surged out from Lifmy into Bimy, enveloping her.

A runic mark of life formed on Bimy's skin, invigorating her, as a great level of energy began to flow through her veins, "Thanks Lifmy." Bimy quickly thanked Lifmy as she began to reposition herself.

The daemonized mahtaan now surrounded by Flavi, and Kedu, as well as being restrained by Teluve, tried to break Teluve's hold. However, as he struggled with Teluve he got hit with an intense pain from his spirit, "GAHK!" the daemon yelped in pain as fresh blood flowed out of his nose, his eyes becoming completely bloodshot.

"Gah! This damn curse!" The daemon having failed to break free from Teluve turned his ire on the beast that cursed him, he slashed out his axe at Kedu, cutting through his flesh.

"Eee!" Kedu screeched in pain examining the fresh wound on his chest, blood now matting his fur. Kedu leaped from the tainted, dodging his second attack, and landing ahead of Bimy's position. Kedu then cast a spiritual art of earth on himself, the stones, and dirt beneath the crystal landscape exploded forth, coating Kedu in layers of earthen armor, jagged stones now covering his body as he bared his fangs at the daemonized mahtaan.

Bimy moved as she continued firing off a barrage of spiritual arts at the daemonized mahtaan, unable to move, he took the bombardment to his chest, the chaotic energy disintegrating his tunic, potions of his skin, and pieces of his flesh. The tainted grunted in horrible pain, as a terrible looking burn mark webbed across his chest.

"You WHOR-AH!" Before the daemon could get out his words, Teluve clamped down on him, crushing his neck, and throat.

Now getting frantic the daemon desperately fought to escape from Teluve, 'Damn it, what's with his strength. I've crossed a major realm in body cultivation, judging by the manna density in his physique he should only be in the 2nd, or 3rd revolution of bone, and muscle cleansing. So how is he overpowering me!?'

This scenario went against the daemonized mahtaan's knowledge, he had reached completion in bone, and muscle cleansing, crossing a major realm in body cultivation, but someone who hasn't even reached that level is here completely overpowering him, this is even after taking into account Teluve's boost in strength through Flavi's spiritual art.

'This is impossible. If things keep going like this, then.' The tainted thought to a certain vial in his bag.

Flavi flanked the daemonized mahtaan, breaking his train of thought, and bit down on him, manna exploding from her mouth, fire erupting from Flavi's maw, burning the tainted's flesh, "AH!" He choked out a scream before kicking Flavi off, bits of his flesh being torn away with her.

Lifmy quickly moved up to Kedu, touching him with his little paws, his spiritual art of life pulsing through him, a cooling sensation spreading across Kedu's chest, alleviating his pain, and healing the wound.

'This is bad, I underestimated them, and that damn salkin is healing them.' The daemonized mahtaan thought, then a recurrence of pain surged through his spirit, "Hfff Kaff!" he coughed up blood as it began to leak from his mouth, 'I need to get away! But, I can't get this bastard off me." The tainted stopped trying to escape from Teluve, opting to strike at him instead, he struck out with a wild swing just missing Teluve, but with his second attempt he struck Teluve's upper thigh, his axe sinking slightly into Teluve's flesh. Teluve grimaced in pain at the shallow cut, but maintained his hold on him. Seeing that Teluve still held on, the daemon began to flail wildly, panic beginning to flood his mind.

Kedu's wound completely healed thanks to Lifmy's aura, he then sprinted over to the tainted's blind spot, hitting his side with a palm strike, Kedu's manna flowing through his arm as a spiritual art of nature blasted into the daemon.

A similar feeling that the daemonized mahtaan felt from the curse hit him hard, he could feel his body withering as his blood began to flow from his eyes.

Bimy flew to the tainted's other side hitting him with a spiritual art of her own.

"RAWH!" The daemonized mahtaan roared as he felt another invasion of manna, mobilizing his own he managed to partially resist it, suffering only minor damage, the surface of his skin cracking, and tearing.

Teluve's fresh wound already showed signs of closing up thanks to his own passive regenerative ability, and Lifmy's aura. Teluve continued to tighten his hold on the tainted, feeling the will of the daemon starting to falter.

Flavi once again bit down on the daemon, her fangs erupting fire, causing major damage to the tainted's already severely burned skin, "GAH!" The daemon leaked out another pained cry.

Lifmy moved over to Teluve touching his leg, manna surging from him into Teluve, a cooling pulse ran through Teluve, fully restoring his thigh.

Fear now colored the daemonized mahtaan's face, once again being struck with intense pain from his spirit, 'D-Do I really have no choice!?' The daemon thought back to the vial, 'NO!' He screamed in his mind, 'They'll spare me if I surrender, right? Yeah, they must want to capture me. I-I'll just need to find an opportunity to escape, or k-kill them later.'

The tainted threw his weapon to the ground, "Enough! I surrender!" The daemonized mahtaan choked out these words through Teluve's hold.

"Surrender?" Teluve paused, "After all you've done." Teluve applied even greater strength to his hold.

"Guh!" The tainted grabbed at Teluve's arm.

"You think we're here to apprehend you, we know what you did to the people of Enus Village!" Teluve bellowed in anger.

"You massacred them. You, you even devoured them!" Bimy grew equally agitated, her eyes growing misty just thinking back to the scenes of the half-eaten corpses, "We're not here to capture you, we're here as avengers, for the blood you've spilled!"

"The spirits of the people of Enus have cried out for justice!" Teluve exclaimed, "And your guilt is clear, tainted!"

"AH!" The daemonized mahtaan cried out as Teluve secured his hold, 'SHIT! SHIT! DAMN IT! I thought they merely stumbled upon me in the frontier, how'd they found out about Enus already? D-Did someone survive?' The daemon panicked, quickly casting a spiritual art of earth on himself, similarly covering himself in layers of earthen armor like Kedu.

"Eee!" Kedu angerly chattered as he, and Bimy both hit the daemonized mahtaan with their spiritual arts, attacking his very essence, "GUHA!" The tainted screamed from the agony.

*RRRR-OWWW-RRRR!* The sound of a sudden, and deep resonant roar echoed throughout the space, catching the attention of all present, a massive feline, an ali'shun could be seen dashing at them. The beast large, his body over 10 feet long, with a tail that added over an additional 3 feet to the total length of the beast. The feline easily stood over 4 feet tall, with four powerful legs, rippling with lean muscle, a beautiful coat pattern of white with silver stripes covered the beast's form, a mane of white covering his muscular neck, framing his face. A short, and wide muzzle, with a black nose at the end, whiskers protruding from the sides of his face, a powerful jaw full of sharp teeth snarled, his pale green eyes fierce as he dashed straight at the daemonized mahtaan, raking his powerful paws across his waist, gouging massive chunks of stone from the tainted's earthen armor dealing no damage to him directly, but striking him with immense fear.

What surprised Bimy, and Teluve about this situation is that they recognized this beast, "Omani!" Bimy couldn't help but grow excited, she knew if Yinor's bond was here then that meant that Bele, and Yinor could be close by. Bimy quickly scanned the surroundings, and noticed two figures that were a bit far off, "Lulu, it's Bele, and Yinor, they're ok!" Bimy shouted in joy.

Teluve was elated, 'Thanks be to the Ancient of Days for watching over them.' Teluve offered his thanks for a moment, then refocused on the task at hand, "Don't lose focus yet Bimy! Lets finish this!" Teluve reminded Bimy.

Bimy eyes refocused, "Yes!"

Teluve had the daemonized mahtaan completely tied down, clamping his arms down even further as he could feel the neck bones starting to creak, and crack from the pressure.

"HISS!" Flavi hissed as she bit the tainted with another spiritual art of fire.

"AHHHH!" The pain that the daemon was in grew so intense that he started to lose consciousness, fading in, and out.

Lifmy noticed the far off pair of Bele, and Yinor, sensing something he began sprinting over to them.

The daemonized mahtaan seeing that his situation went from extremely bad to worse, reached into his bag pulling out a vial of black liquid, "You forced my hand! Ke ke ha ha, I'll, I'll devour you all, I'll be sure to savor your taste."

As the daemon drew the vial to his mouth ready to uncork it, his eyes went wide, another burst of pain hitting his spirit, the pain overwhelming him, 'No, No, I … I …' One last incomplete thought crossed the daemonized mahtaan's mind before he fell unconscious from Kedu's withering curse, his earthen armor crumbling as he fell limp in Teluve's grasp, the vial dropping, *Tink.*, *Tink.* to the ground.

"People of Enus, may your spirits be at peace." *CRACK!* Teluve whispered as he snapped the neck of the tainted, "Your blood has been avenged."