Chương 232: The bad kind

"Here they come!" Little Crow called from where he was floating up above the small battlefield, sending waves of glowing needles down into clusters of blue-tinted drones fighting their reddish ones. His comment, while well-intended, turned out to be quite superfluous as none of them could miss the pair of gold-ranked auras which burst out from a tunnel on the opposite side of the more open crater.

One of them looked much like the last one they had encountered while out in the tunnels, a lumbering construct with a slab-like shield arm and huge pincer. The other one was decidedly different though; an odd floating thing of metal cables bursting from a central node. Still, it moved with speed much like the first one. And its origin quickly became clear as each of the six arms started crackling with unstable magic which it started firing towards its enemies below in huge, roiling spheres.

Kite, who had been busy fighting alongside Fantina while keeping an eye on his companions spread out along the line, saw a chance to intervene on a greater scale and so quickly stepped up into the air on a trail of shimmering steps of force.

"Keep the plan in mind and remember to use the space when needed!" he called from his vantage even as his mantle burst into vibrant life, its arms conjuring Matra's descendants as projected, dispelling attacks started intercepting the incoming projectiles where he could.

"Fantina and I remain the bastion. Move with care though so you don't get isolated and outnumbered!"

"And those? Who'll handle them? I'd bet a lot that new thing used to be one of the ranged drones," Dragonfly called as she burst out from a nearby group of enemy drones, leaving the foes injured and burning with flames of both warm orange and cold blue.

"River, how many of the clergy are here?" Kite called in response to Dragonfly's question. The group already had an idea of how to direct their attention, but not only was there a second gold-ranked construct, but a markedly different one as well, and that could bear some consideration.

It took a few seconds, during which Kite managed to disperse four of the incoming projectiles as the air was filled with rippling discharges when they collapsed in upon themselves, but the acolyte of Pain soon appeared nearby as she came to a halt atop a length of conjured chain.

"I can sense the remaining five of Discord's people that were present the last time," she said in her usual flat voice as she stood seemingly without care for the magical projectiles wizzing through the air around them.

"No additions, so we can assume that the Builder's people cower behind the lines much like I overheard. Want me to go after them?"

"Not yet. Let us wait until we have a bit more of a momentum," Kite eventually managed to reply. In the distance, the gold-ranked construct with the shield arm had started charging towards the battle lines with three of the enemy silvers in tow while two others - the armored elves - lagged behind along the slower ranged one.

"But that will be a problem." Much like Kite had suspected, both elves started making more potent ranged attacks of their own as huge stone projectiles and conjured hammers of magical force joined the barrage of their construct; ranged attacks of a scale previously unavailable to them in the tighter confines of the Labyrinth.

"Will! Laevyeth! Little Crow! Go for the ranged one. River, please join them! Braid should be nearby so call upon him for aid should you need it, but the longer he can work on trapping their avenues of retreat, the better!" Kite's call was met with a united affirmative response, and as his assigned companions started moving in that direction he turned his attention to the others.

"Soul, are you up for a rematch against the construct?"

"Keep them off me and I will find the tempering I need."

"Dragonfly, Glint, Fantina and I will focus on the essence-users. You know them already, but do not underestimate them and-" Kite got no further than that before the charging construct crackled with power and sped up. One mighty discharge from its shield plowed through the ranks of drones on both sides with Soul and Dragonfly leaping out of the way just in time before the former blinked in behind its head and delivered a kick charged with transcendent light that rocked even the construct's lumbering path.

At the same time, a black sickle came out of a nearby shadow on the ground, swinging towards Kite just as Dragonfly - once again already charged up from the group striking at the drones before this actual battle began - dove upon the elf priestess and the man with the blades.

Kite once again thanked Fortune for his widened field of perception as he managed to deftly sidestep the descending strike as the draconian with the black scale shot up into the air while surrounded by liquid darkness but was even so met with a burning sting as a shadowy claw appeared out of said darkness to make its own surprise strike that seemed to melt through Kite's armor while spreading the chill of necrotic damage through his flesh.

With Glint busy helping Dragonfly hold off the two essence-users and leaving Fantina free to support, this left Kite and his opponent in a kind of world of their own above the battlefield even as part of Kite's meditative mind still tried to keep a bit of track of his companions.

"So, little unifier, it was time for you and I to properly dance a bit on our lonesome," the draconian said, smiling wickedly.

"Once I realized who you were, I realized that you've caused us some trouble here and there these last few years. Naughty, naughty." Knowing not to fall for such a distraction, Kite had begun his counterattack even while the man spoke.

His staff appeared in his hands to block another strike from the man's shadow which had reached out from a patch of darkness right beneath, the creature or magical conjuration quickly retracting before the dispelling energies even as the arms of Kite's mantle let him project another pair of attacks towards the slippery man.

"Naughty indeed," the man quipped even as he slipped away into the patch of darkness and emerged from another which melted up from the ground below at his command.

"I can sense you trying to stop me, little unifier, but such tricks cannot hope to pin the shadows." By now Kite had already surmised that the man had some kind of power or similar effect which let him shrug off the dimensional shackles that Spirit Singularity tried to press upon him.

Still, his dark sickle wasn't as resistant to Kite's tricks, and as it came in from the side a third time Kite had one of the arms of his mantle flick it to the side with Pattern-Shattering Counter which had the conjured weapon crack and disintegrate." Very naughty," the draconian 'tssked' as he dodged out of the way of one of Kite's projected attacks.

And as he noticed that Kite also sent some intervening attacks and barriers down to aid his companions in the other clashes that revolved around the nearby gold-ranked construct, the agent of Discord even seemed a bit offended.

"Hey, eyes on me, little unifier. Let's make it nice and cozy for us." Umbral One! Bring forth your roiling haze!" Points of inky blackness appeared in the air all around Kite and his foe, spreading like ink on water into a sense-blocking cloud of darkness. Kite was soon enveloped completely, unable to make out almost anything in the murk.

"Now-," the draconian's voice echoed around him as Kite could faintly hear the rustling of chains.

"- why don't we-"" Dissolve the patterns of power!" Light was brought back into Kite's world as an expanding sphere of dispelling force shattered the haze of the draconian's spell. And as it washed over the man himself, now off to Kite's side and making a dash to nip at his flanks like some would-be predator, it also caused his flight power to similarly wink out.

Dark stalker turned into flightless lizard into a brief fall, and even though a silver wasn't even remotely hurt by such a fall of a few meters, the man's pride seemed to take a grievous blow as he impacted the gravel below. And on this, Kite allowed himself to capitalize, however out of characters his next words felt.

"If you want my full attention, priest, then you have to actually be competent enough to earn it," he said dismissively, while making a show of sending another projected attack elsewhere. The draconian reappeared at Kite's side with a hiss of rage, foregoing conjuring a new weapon to instead strike out with tail and claw in a furious assault.

"We could have had you killed back after your meddling in Bastion, brat, so don't you act all high and mighty with me!" he shrieked, and Kite had to give it to the man; the assault did force him to dedicate more of his attention to the fight in the air above the mass of drones.

"And once I get back I will make sure that the mistake of not doing so earlier is corrected. Everyone you've ever loved, your little guild, every ally of yours… Gone. Scraps scattered into the wind."

"Seeing that one of my allies is a diamond-ranked being, I would actually be rather impressed should you manage it. But I suppose if I would dare presume Mistress Gleam to be an ally as well, that makes two of them." Even in his fury, Kite's words apparently elicited at least a little bit of surprise in the draconian, and that was enough for a staff crackling with dispelling energies to fully crash into him with only an arm raised in defense to ward it off.

And thanks to the man's furious assault, Spiritual Reprisal had stacked up quite well. The power remained an unsung hero of Kite's path, and it was with some satisfaction that he now sent the mental command to use all of the accumulated stacks into a single attack. What would have been a solid blow, damaging but not staggering, now sent the draconian shooting off the side and tumbling through the air before he managed to steady himself.

The two echoes of Kite's staff which hit him just after didn't seem to further improve his mood one bit, but it did put a wet blanket over the fires of his fury.

"You really are an annoying one, aren't you," he seethed, hesitating for a while before he was forced to dodge another series of projected attacks from Kite as he twirled through the air surrounded by his inky blackness.

"But if I can't hurt you directly…" Kite realized his opponent's intent too late, and had only managed halfway through a swing when the draconian vanished into his own conjured shadow, only to appear behind where Glint floated as she hampered the blade wielder while supporting Soul and Dragonfly with her protective karmic waters.

Through their bond, Kite shouted a warning but the familiar reacted too late and a freshly conjured chained sickle plunged into Glint's back before the dark draconian - now joined by his shadow whose chain had wound itself around her legs - heaved in a burst of shadowy might that caused all dark patches around them to flicker as if moved by a discharge of force only they could feel.

Glint was thrown away straight out into a clump of enemy drones, lost in the chaos of clashing bodies for a moment even as Kite began to sprint to his friend's aid.

"This would be wasted on you, but on her…" the black-scaled draconian purred before he leapt into the air while his conjured shadow slid up along his body before coalescing into a ball in his hand." Utter Darkness Disintegration!"

In the brief moment before Kite's intercepting attacks had the time to travel the distance needed, the agent of Discord gestured and sent a raging beam of roiling, flickering shadows down towards where Glint had last been seen, and from what Kite had the chance to gleam of the gathering magics, this spell was a potent one that was only made more so by sacrificing the conjured shadow."

Voi-" Kite had almost managed to utter the brief chant of his most potent defensive measure when Glint sent her reply - quick as a thought - through their bond. And he let the spell die on his lips as a moment later, a huge shimmering form burst up from the squad of enemy drones that had surrounded it.

As always, Glint's serpentine dragon form was an example of shimmering majesty if there had ever been one, but now her scales flickered in rippling, agitated waves as her head rose to meet the incoming beam of destruction. Then she opened her mouth. And the world shifted. In between Glint's fangs, a small, shimmering bead of reflective water appeared as a mote of perfection. Then the dark beam crashed into it and just… vanished.

Even as Kite had seen the process before, albeit not with such a potent spell, it still boggled his mind as the world around Glint seemed to freeze and shift in odd ways for a while. In one moment, the disintegrating spell was bearing down on her and in the other it was somehow just not; leaving only churning mana in its wake. And a growing mote in Glint's open mouth that was now shining incandescent with subverted power. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Wha-" was the only thing which the black-scaled draconian managed to utter before Glint released the stored power in a bright beam of her own that looked like a mix of mirror shards and shimmering stars. It crashed into the agent of Discord who was still hanging in the air, the reversal having taken only a moment, and completely blocked him from view.

Only Kite's aura senses let him feel the man's trajectory as he was launched out and away over the lip of the cliffs surrounding the craters and into the raging storm beyond.

"As if one as uncouth as him could measure up against a dragon of my splendor," Glint said haughtily, pointedly ignoring the angry black gash across her back which had been transferred between her forms.

"Breath of Karmic Retribution… I will have to admit that the name is fitting," Kite agreed. It was the final addition to Glint's power set after her consumption of the mysterious fruit inside Kite's astral space, and definitely the most potent; a retributive spell which needed a hostile one as a catalyst to work, subverting and strengthening its power in a karmic reversal before unleashing it upon whatever had dared sully the celestial carp's presence so.

The delay between uses was significant, as was usually the case with such potent magic, but neither Glint nor Kite had found any reason to complain.

"Less gawking, more fighting, my bond," Glint chided Kite as she rose above the fighting, water gathering around her in the air as she apparently prepared to take a more 'hands-on' approach to this fight now that she had the room to really flex her size.

"You may be properly impressed later." Verses Sung Twice swore inwardly as she saw Sunless being blasted out of the battle in the corner of her eye, but she could only spare his disappearing form a glance before she was forced to shift out of the way of a flying greataxe which arced in from one of her blind spots.

"And he's the one calling himself our top elite. Curse his weakness," she thought even as she reached out and touched the animated weapon, her discordant powers flowing into the conjuration and causing it to flail erratically in the air rather than come at her again.

Together with Flutter, she struck back against the woman with the pink hair while the celestine was still tangling with the construct, and while their target managed to pivot into a spinning strike with great speed that warded off the toxic blades of Verses' companion, she herself managed to slip through and strike the burning woman a few times while delivering two of her touch spells.

And while they definitely took effect as bursts of discordant energies ravaged her target's body with increasing strength the more numerous the boons on her target, Verses recognized that the berserker type path of their foe would take a lot more to be brought down quickly as her incredible self-healing started undoing the damage at an alarming rate.

Sensing an opening, the woman then kept ignoring Verses as she pressed Flutter even harder, and the other agent of Discord was forced to teleport away the first time only to be pursued with a mighty leaping attack that forced their construct to intervene with a burst of speed. Verses had instructed it to protect them this time, after all, and for that she was grateful as it was the shield arm of the thing that took the leaping strike.

And even that was blown aside as flames in shades of orange and blue met in a detonation that caused cracks to spread along the offending limb. Verses shifted forward again, but managed to stop and twirl out of the way of a restraining globe of water as the adventurer leader's familiar rejoined the battle alongside him, and Verses' own work was undone by the cursed healer. What had been a decent chance at striking back and seizing an advantage was slipping out of their fingers again.

"You better not be dead, Sunless," she thought with vitriol as she gestured the change of plans to Flutter who was currently using his twin blades and nimble motions to ward off both the Pathbreaker and the pink-haired woman, albeit with questionable success. Part of Verses did actually relish the thought that the draconian had met his end in such an ignominious way, but that spiteful voice in her mind was quickly quashed by the grim reality of their situation.

When stuck inside an astral space with frustratingly competent adversaries, every asset - no matter how derisive - was needed. The opening to disengage fortunately came within moments, even though its source was the combat with the other gold-ranked construct.

Three of the adventurers had been clashing around the floating cable monstrosity, a battlefield which had become more and more chaotic as the thing had started firing its destructive projectiles at close range where the elf siblings fought the girl with the chain, the elf spearman and the celestine with the parasol.

Apparently the construct had decided that the situation called for more drastic and careless measures, as it suddenly sent two of its projectiles to collide right in front of it, creating an impressive discharge of fluctuating magics which burst out from it in a rippling sphere. The explosion was vast enough to almost reach the main battle lines from the crater's edge, and all of the nearby essence-users were sent flying by the unexpected development.

In the moment when the adventurers tried taking stock and assessing the situation, Verses acted, sending a hail of echoing bolts of magic towards her foes to cover her using Distorted steps to exit the melee around their shield-bearing construct and head towards the other battle, Flutter following suit as he too sped away on foot. The Pathbreaker, the axe-wielder and the healer followed, apparently trusting the celestine with the amethyst hair to handle herself.

But Verses' predictions proved true as her foes seemed content to only send some harrying attacks their way when it was obvious that they weren't heading for the injured adventurers who had been caught up in the explosion.

"Such solidarity," she thought sourly, the concept usually reviled by her deity. But as Discord taught, such things were for them to exploit to their own ends. Even if that end was currently to manage an orderly retreat before the adventurers could wear them down further through numbers alone as the constructs had been unable to pick up the slack left by their cultist creators.

Another few gestures towards the armored elf siblings had the pair breaking off any attempt at reengaging, instead shooting some parting shots toward where the Pathbreaker had positioned himself and his barriers to ward off incoming projectiles as the spearman was nursed back to health through the healer's ministrations.

In that regard, the construct resumed its work as it sent sphere after sphere towards the adventurers, and Verses was pleased that no other attempts to stop them were forthcoming as she joined her companions in entering one of the tunnels.

"Find Sunless, then retreat. Jin better have something more effective to offer us in the future, because-" Verses' words were cut off however, as she suddenly noticed the celestine with the parasol blinking into position in the air just outside the tunnel where they had entered, several long, glowing needles held between the fingers of each hand. She didn't have to instruct her companions who all immediately whirled and readied attacks and spells of their own.

Perhaps they could punish this overreach and- Verses didn't even have the time to put the thoughts into words before her mental processes were once again disrupted by a new turn of events. This time, even more ominous. Just as the first attacks started flying out towards the celestine with the onyx hair, magical diagrams suddenly lit up all around the tunnel walls.

The light traveled along the lines in an instant, showing that they weren't made from enchanted chalk or something similarly drawn, but from threads; intricately woven into perfection to form each little detail. The caught silvers only had the time to recognize the alarms in one another's aura before the magic in the threads activated.

Lightning shot out along the lines before it started leaping chaotically between several of the temporary formations while others turned razor sharp as they launched from the walls in dervishes of cutting madness. In an instant, the tunnel was turned into a deathtrap, and that was before the exploding needles started raining among them from outside as their detonations were easily funneled to their targets in the more cramped space.

Verses had part of her shoulder blown off, but silver-ranked constitution let her accept the injury with gritted teeth as she sent out a pulse of discordant magic that dissolved and disrupted the orderly ritual magic in her immediate vicinity. The others raised similar defenses, but not before suffering a lot of damage in the meantime.

One of the siblings - Sister - even lost her entire lower body by a particularly vicious caustic set of threads that managed to tangle her up before it simply burned through her; armor and all, but before Verses could do more to help her, assistance came from a somewhat unexpected direction as a black chain of inky darkness snaked out from further down the tunnel and pulled the elf away from the worst of it all." Stalker's domain!"

Sunless Fang looked the worst Verses had ever seen him, his body apparently still struggling to recover his dark scales on its entire front as he sent out his area boon which lent him and his allies increased speed and reactions. The increased clarity let Verses send out an echoing wave of her own to deflect another swarm of glowing needles, and after that a wall of stone rose to cover most of the tunnel even though it immediately started breaking apart beneath the onslaught from outside.

The problem was that Verses could feel the adventurers from outside closing in on the tunnel as well, apparently intending to give chase this time. And given the condition of Discord's agents at the moment, it was the right thing to do. Which in turn meant that Verses had to give something up to let them escape.

"Curse it! Curse it all!" she hissed, but even so she didn't hesitate as she brought out a rectangular metal plaque. It lit up with deep blue lines as she fed it the required mana, and Verses could only wince inwardly as one of her few artifacts saved for the most dire of circumstances - and one that had cost her an arm and a leg in funds and favors both - started dissolving.

"Move! This will cover our retreat! But by, Discord, don't let the field touch you!" Verses called, before she held it up behind her and started moving. The plaque was now alight with magic and seemed to dissolve into a chaotic, swirling smoke which was as beautiful as it was dangerous as it created a local dimensional dissonance in place which would tear most things apart in short order as the reality of their corporeal form would likewise swirl and disintegrate.

Verses knew that it was based on the power of Mistress Porcelain mask, and once more envied the gifts their deity had blessed the gold-ranker with.

"Still, it should cover our retreat well enough. And life-saving artifacts should not be conserved if they're needed," she thought bitterly as the not-quite-smoke spread out into nearby corridors while it ate into the walls, floor and just anything else. She even managed to grab her useless officiator orb - now only uselessly repeating random syllables every now and then - which she had ordered to stay just a short distance down the corridor.

Letting the dissolving artifact trail behind her in an outstretched hand, Verses and the others disappeared into the Labyrinth, injured and beaten. Again.

"Once, Jin, I might be convinced. But twice?" Verses thought as the artifact finally dissolved completely after a few hundred meters of travel.

"Now we're due for a reckoning."" Ward!" Kite managed to block another pair of projectiles from the gold-ranked construct, Will and Laevyeth now healthy and at his side as they all returned fire against the destructive metal monstrosity. Back at the battle lines, Soul and the other construct still drew a line of carnage through both sides, but the celestine kept a decent control over the situation so Kite let them focus their attention on the ranged one.

"Any signs of it dissipating?" he called out to Braid, who stood a bit removed from the rest as he seemed to analyze whatever it was that the agents of Discord had managed to spread in their wake and cover their retreat. Whatever it was, it seemed to have a whole section of the stone of the Labyrinth warping and dissolving, and Kite felt quite good about their decision not to brave it for a chance at securing a kill against another of their foes. Even though it smarted to have their trap only almost succeed.

"Well, no," the weaver replied, calm even though he was quite close to the violent efforts of bringing down the floating construct.

"None of my threads have been able to withstand it long enough for me to get a proper sense of it, but it seems to be lingering and probably will for some time. It's really quite fascinating. It looks like smoke, but wind doesn't affect it at all. Perhaps it is dimensional in nature and-" Kite let the man speculate on, only listening with half an ear as he renewed his own efforts in the final push to take down the gold-ranked foe.

"We need to find some other way to keep up the pressure, at least," he thought to himself as he disrupted another set of projectiles which threatened Fantina's position while appreciating the view of Dragonfly managing to lop off one of the six limbs of woven metal cables of their monstrous foe.

"Because one thing that Gauntlet has definitely impressed upon me is that desperate people with restricted magics will only find new, nasty surprises if given time."

"Stupid beetle guy and his stupid metal thingies~," Wander grumbled to herself where she was currently focusing her efforts on one of her more far-flung set of bodies exploring the labyrinth. The last clash with their enemies had already concluded a few hours ago in a somewhat dissatisfying victory, and even though their side had done well it seemed like all of their foes had escaped with their lives. Definitely not intact, but alive.

"Especially you, beetle guy. Getting the drop on me like that. For shame, I tell you. We were even the first time, and I was supposed to slowly but gradually outmaneuver you, showing the real superiority of flesh over metal. But nooooo. You just had to be smart, didn't you? We'll see how smart you feel once a few dozen of my bodies are chewing on your- Oh? Hellooooo… What have have we here~?" The rat and its companions halted their squeaking conversation among themselves as one of them had found something curious.

At one place in the otherwise uniformly bland cliff walls, there was a distinct patch. It looked white, but as Wander moved closer she could see that it wasn't white per se, but rather some kind of not-color that refused to be clearly defined. The patch was small, but it seemed to be growing ever-so slowly at a pace visible to the eye.

"Ask Braid about it~," she said to one of her bodies, who in turn got a far off look as Wander crept closer.

"Well, Braid says that he doesn't know but that we definitely shouldn't do anything with it until we better understand it~," the other rat body needlessly reported aloud as Wander was all of her bodies at once. But she had long found that the theatrics somehow helped her focus and remain 'her' even while spread out as she currently was. And as for Braid's warnings…

"Then you can tell him that he's a coward, and that no progress will be found unless you are willing to be bold! To be brave! To take a leap of faith! And that no one tells They Who Wander what she can't do~!" With that, one of the rat bodies boldly leapt at the odd patch at the wall with a mighty squeak of defiance and glorious discovery.

Which was soon followed by all of the other rats - wherever they might be at the moment - wincing at the same time as the body in question was turned into some kind of meat slurry which vanished as quickly as it had liquified.

"Okaayyy…" Wander eventually said, looking at where her body had once been while shuddering again at the memory of that particular rodent's final moments.

"Definitely don't do anything with the creepy white patch. Got it. But this does feel like trouble. And not the 'Oh no, you caught me in bed with your wife but perhaps you might be inclined to live a little through a spur-of-the-moment threesome'-kind of trouble. The bad kind~."