Lucifer's horribly deformed body stood on top of Olen's corpse breathing heavily, lightning crisscrossed scars covered his form, slowly disintegrating his body, but each time a limb turned to ash it revealed the sickly green glow beneath and several more mutated limbs swiftly took their place.
Much of the rage that consumed Lucifer's mind had dissipated and a vague awareness sprouted from his previously clouded mind, enemies escaped saw too much, was the most coherent thought. The sound of broken trees and ravaged foliage erupted and a new hunt began.
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Selenia slowly regained her senses and the first thing she noticed was the soft glow of spirits floating around her, each time they passed through her she felt a little more clearheaded. She began thanking the spirits for their help when she suddenly remembered the earlier battle.
She dashed forwards hoping it wasn't too late while she sheathed her blade, only to realize more than half the sheath was destroyed.
Selenia arrived upon the collapsed form of Ahri and dropped the sword to the side, completely forgetting about the broken sheath.
Ahri was bleeding from her head where she impacted the shield or the ground Selenia didn't know, one of her daggers was lodged in her side and Selenia couldn't tell how that happened with her fuzzy memory of earlier events either.
Forgetting about useless details she urged the spirits around her to help her friend.
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Jeremy sprinted through the underbrush unconcerned with the small nicks and scratches his reckless movement awarded him. Shadows danced across his vision as small pockets of light gave him barely enough light to avoid running into a rock or tree.
Earlier he quite enjoyed the broad layout of this dungeon because it afforded him and his party more space, but now he was cursing the long road to safety and counting the seconds between trees falling behind him.
Whatever was hunting him was fast, he could tell that much by the frequency of thumping footsteps and its growing volume, every so often the dungeon would explode with sound an enormous tree was rendered into splinters behind him. The first few times only served to frighten him even more, however, this also told him that his pursuer was large, too large to fit through the same gaps he did, so he changed his course to go through small gaps whenever possible.
His overdrawn senses caught the sound of rustling above him in the trees, he glanced across and caught sight of Serra, the group's archer jumping between branches. She must be in a hurry if he managed to hear her so clearly when he was making such a ruckus.
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Serra had been going through the canopy, her fear causing a rare occasion where her animal instincts take over, now her large rounded ears swiveled back and forth trying to pin down her predator's location, not that it was hard because even Jeremy could clearly hear it coming for them.
However, what he didn't notice was Serra had spit off into another direction away from the exit, her evasion experience telling her to avoid taking the obvious route, but the thing chasing her would only be misled for a dozen seconds or so before it "caught her sent" again.
So now she was forced to regroup with her noisy companion and hope he proved an adequate distraction.
The idea that she could get on the ground and simply outrun her enemy with her superior agility was something her frantic mind seemingly missed, or her animal instinct refused to allow the thought of touching the ground while a predator was about.
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She noticed Jeremy look up at her location as she was jumping to a new branch and didn't have time to call out.
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Jeremy returned his gaze in front of himself after spotting his ally, he jumped through a brush like any other and something in the back of his mind said, "this shouldn't be wet".
Branches snapped around him as he slowed his forward momentum and he grunted as he came to an abrupt stop.
He tried to move and finally realized he had run directly into a giant spider web, his eyes darted to the canopy and couldn't find his ally, Jeremy didn't have time to curse his disloyal when the web started vibrating, the strings binding him plucked to a chilling rhythm.
He looked upward as far as his bound head allowed him and saw furred spindly limbs expertly dancing across the sticky web in front of large round eyes. He thought that he hated spiders before, but seeing the grotesque anatomy of one in frightening closeness didn't help his arachnophobia.
As his horror crept forward he was able to see his terrified expression mirrored in its large eyes, he desperately moved his limbs and found that his left arm could move.
He reached around his waist pocket and took out a small violet potion, after gritting his teeth he broke the glass cap off the potion and dropped the potion.
Once the volatile liquid mixed with the air and jolted on the ground it burst into flames. Fire covered the area and the spider retreated into the darkness while the webs lost their adhesiveness. He was free from his binds after a short struggle and he started running towards the exit.
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Serra cursed Jeremy for his uselessness, not only did he get stuck in an obvious trap, but he didn't even attract the monster chasing her, she could still hear its footsteps, except now it was close enough for her to make out the wet slop of every step and the dozens of impacts between each step.
The monsters strange gait caught her curiosity enough to warrant a glance behind her, although she wished she didn't. Whatever it previously was it wasn't anymore, instead of four limbs there were dozens, most just flailed around uselessly, but other fleshy protrusions moved it forward ina vile form of locomotion.
At that moment any sense of calmness that would have allowed her to think clearly was once again viciously removed.
She continued dashing from branch to branch in a hopeless attempt at escape as dispair slowly tightened its grip on her heart.
A slightly misjudged jump caused her to use more force than necessary to readjust her next one and a slippery branch led to another poor jump, she grabbed at a branch to regain her balance, but it snapped from the unexpected weight and momentum.
Branches snapped as she tumbled towards the ground, her desperate grasps always falling short of a branch or handhold.
Serra hit the ground with a heavy thump as the air was driven from her lungs and she coughed up no existant air.
Suddenly the monsters form came flying at her from the corner of her vision, she rolled to the side and leaped across the gap into the darkness. However, her reprieve was short-lived, Lucifer burst through the tree she moved behind sending shrapnel through her body and the surroundings.
Lucifer trudged towards the still form of the little archer and could feel vital energy coursing through its small body, he wasn't fooled by her act and slammed one of his appendages onto her head shattering it instantly.
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Jeremy jumped slightly when a broken roar exploded into his ears, he could tell that it was quite far away and guessed its target. He gave a silent thanks to the bitch that left him to die by an eight-legged nightmare, then continued running.
He was already on the first floor and passed by several miner groups here for the high purity ore crystals growing on this floor. Several groups asked him what happened when they saw his state, after the broken roar some groups even started fleeing with him when they saw his state and gear. If an adventurer with such gear was running like that then what could a simple miner do to whatever he was running from?
Soon Jeremy was running with a large group of people, he couldn't tell how many or even gather the thought of mind to care, but the idea there was more flesh between him and the monster afforded him a slight amount of comfort, the smarter well-equipped adventure groups doubly so.
When the group arrived at the relatively tighter tunnel he viciously pushed several miners away to get in front, once the light at the end of the tunnel met his eyes he started laughing maniacally, but he was exhausted and out of breath so to the others it sounded like a drowning dog.
Once he was outside with the safety of the barriers that the mages set up outside the dungeon entrance he crumbled into a crying mess of limbs.
The guards at the entrance looked at him and shrugged to each other, scenes of men running outside the dungeon as shells of their former selves were rather common so the guards had nothing to say about that, but the massive group that came after him was another matter.
Very quickly the city guard had set up a perimeter around the entrance and they began screening everything and everyone coming out for information.