We run in, and everything starts to rumble, nearly knocking us off our feet.

I feel like my entire body itches all once, like when Elijah gets his so-called 'level-up'.

But somehow, far more terrible than that. Painful itching, like all of me was burnt with terrible burns.

It hurts.

I can't help but drop to my knees.

"Nooooo!" Rishya squeals next to me, clutching her head. Blood runs from her eyes and she screams. Rish!

Seria also cries out, blood running from her nose suddenly.

She locks her jaw in a grimace, and somehow concentrates enough to cast something. I nearly black-out, but just in time, a web of zapping electricity comes into being around us.

The pain eases for me.

Bizarrely, Kiku, Kaede, and Kali are just looking at us with a mild sense of discomfort as we three writhe around.

I realise now that the darker skinned mercenary girl, Esraye, is also squealing in a similar fashion to us, her lover grasping her in concern as she fluctuates into a metal like statue and nearly crushes him.

So those with magic power, then?

I should be glad Onii-chan is asleep and I wasn't carrying him.

I roll prone, my spear clanging from my grasp.

Even more worryingly, though, as the pain goes away, it is replaced with a terrible fever I feel in the back of my mind.

Lustful fever. Raging hormones. Like when I was having him inside me towards the end.

It’s terrible. I want to have sex right this second, and it makes me squirm.

What an idiot!

I rebuke myself, and gradually pull myself under control, though I still sweat profusely.

Eventually, breathing heavy hot mist, I recall various martial mind exercises, and they help me focus.

But right now, I probably seem like a right creepy pervert, eyes swimming, breath hot.

That was terrible.

Suddenly, Rishya attacks me, and kisses me with her tongue.

What the hell!?

I throw her off. She calms down after that.

Right... doubtlessly she suffered like I did. I guess I'll forgive her this time. It's not like it was my first kiss or anything.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Seria has taken on a foetal posture, electricity zapping over her body and seemingly shocking her. She is... discharging?

Then she sighs and stands up. I also manage to sit up, just about. Rish is still feverish on the floor next to me, but her glassy gaze has gone, at least.

"What... what the hell was that?!" I exclaim.

"I... I have no idea..." Seria sighs.

I look around.

Esraye has pinned down her lover and us rubbing herself up against him bizarrely. He is passed out.

Fortinbras has raised an eyebrow watching this, his sword slack at his side. He clears his throat, shakes his head, sheathes his blade, and pointedly ignores them, coming over to us in a strange hurry.

"I... I'm guessing the magic did... something..." He squints, looking at the girls who are still breathing hard.

"You state the obvious, boy." Seria growls.

"I... I apologise." He dips his head, looking flummoxed. It is rather unusual for him, it seems, but he appears rattled. Weird.

Esraye lets go of the swirly-eyed and passed out Darion.

"Disappointing, love." She growls. Then she shakes her head. "No. Something wrong with me." She follows up, picking herself off him, and looking embarrassed as she puts her big chest away again, which had spilled out of her low-cut top whilst she was writhing and kissing.

Kaede suddenly giggles to herself behind a hand. Everyone looks at her. That's a weird thing as well.

I suppose everything about this situation is weird.

I pick up my spear and pull myself up. Gods, my legs are so weak!

"All of us with magic power, suffered from exceptional pain, and then lust." I explain to the others.

"Um... are you okay? W-why would the dungeon do that!?" Kiku exclaims.

"Not the dungeon... Kiku..." Rishya mutters.

"No, this monument... it is connected almost directly to the leylines. That is strange to begin with. The ether is basically seeping across. Something very wrong has happened on the other side." Seria adds, glaring.

"Is this perhaps how that Skull Beast was made here, then?" I query.

Seria gives me a sharp look, opens her mouth briefly, and then rubs her forehead.

"Yes... that is... plausible. Originally, I assumed it was natural. That does sometimes occur. The void energy was thick when we first came, if you recall. But..."

"But, natural formations, only once a century. Already happened... two years. We beat it." Esraye suggests.

"It was not created here. It was sent here. That is all that makes sense. It is what we were meant to investigate." Fortinbras nods.

"Cultivator, yes?" Kaede blinks.

Seria growls.

"Normally I would not believe it. Even if Leygating is a specialty of a Void Sage... something of that size... being forced through the narrowing leylines... he has something helping, for sure."

She jumps and clicks her fingers.

"These damn flowers!" She shouts.

Almost on cue, two more flowers suddenly bloom out of nowhere in a crack of the column. One flower here, which is especially giant and fat, suddenly collapses from its own weight and literally shatters into dust with a bang noise.

No... not completely dust.

Two small glowing crystal seeds roll from where it was.

Rish opens her bag suddenly as Seria looks at her, and gapes. She gulps, and pulls out a similar looking seed-crystal.

Seria sighs as walks over, plucks it from Rishya's grasp, and glares at it.

Even though I'm dumb, I think I understand vaguely. They probably once had a flower in there.

"So, these things are bad? What should we do?" I ask.

"I... I don't honestly know." She looks back and forth, tapping her head. "Right... The lessening power from the ether, the plausible death of spirits as mages use them, these... void flowers which appear to crystallise power and emit it in ways that send those with spirits somewhat mad. There is... some connection between all of this." She paces around in circles, her twin-tails whipping around from her anxious movement.

"Graahhh! My old study barely scratched the surface! It just highlights my... no... all of human sages’ ignorance on this matter. But I think... I think Cultivator knows. And that... that is surely bad." She looks at us all with haunted eyes, twirling her hair in a strangely scared and girlish gesture.

It's ominous, for sure. We all give various expressions of fear and confusion.

Suddenly, Elijah groans in Kali's grasp. She sets him down gently.

He's waking up!