Chương 103: Interlude 12

Supreme Warlady Elena Burnstock"We are secure for now," The Mathemancer said with an intense expression. We all removed breathing masks, including Blood Gore. The acid, glass shards, and poison gas were an intense combination to endure. We entered the 26 th layer ready for anything. Once we lost sight of the passage back up, this horrendous environmental effect assailed us. It made it difficult to see, sense, move about, and do anything.

The twist on the 26 th layer was an inhospitable environment, no wonder no one had returned. Blood Gore hacked up pieces of his lung and spat out the bloody flesh to the side.

"Those glass crystals are absolutely bullshit. No proper resistance to them."

"With the high Mana background, the glass crystals are null, which counters any skill gain by influencing your Mana. It also means I can't easily block them," The Librarian said.

"It makes it hard to nullify their movement as well. It will be impossible once we spread out, but I can handle us when we are grouped like this," The Mathemancer said.

"It's unlikely I'll adapt quickly, and this is just the first environment. I doubt the dungeon will be so kind as not to change things up. And null monsters are worse than Abnormals. I have seen one occasionally on the 23 rd layer, but we might get swarmed if the glass storm has null properties as well," Blood Gore said. He was a pig, but he wasn't an idiot.

"Protect me while I clear a path. I cannot be interrupted, or the consequences will be dire," I declared. Blood Gore cricked his neck.

"Wondered when you were going to step up. All right, I will block everything with my body."

"I will maintain the surrounding environment. The sphere will fluctuate as I cast other spells," The Mathemancer said.

"I will act as a final line of defense," The Librarian declared. It was time to make the dungeon hurt. To channel such a large amount of Mana, to blow away the environmental effects. To create a warding centered on Sarah. The power of a spellblade was in its versatility to handle any situation. Swinging my sword upwards, I quickly traced a path in the air, my Mana remaining behind as I sketched out aerial runes with pure Mana.

I had to draw hundreds of runes for what I wanted to occur, and the last time I had attempted this, the dungeon wasn't happy. This wouldn't work well on the surface where the Mana in the air was too low. I would struggle to maintain the runes. While I had never studied at the College, I had traded materials in my early years for runic books. I carved them into the flesh of the monsters I killed over the decades, with blood and determination as my writing instruments.

"Something is out there," Blood Gore said. No one contradicted him. His fighting instincts were the greatest among us. We might not like him, but we trusted him in combat. He was the party member on the front line, which put him at the most significant risk. Even I had to give credit to Blood Gore for that. He was still a pig in every other regard, though. A massive shimmering fist, with fingers as large as me, burst out of the swirling cloud of dark gases into our bubble of air.

Blood Gore pushed his mask back up and rushed into the cloud while The Librarian acted in defense to protect me." Tenfold Separation." That was one of his Tier 5 skills. The massive crystalline fist came to a stop a distance from me. The Mathemancer rushed forward around the spatial shield, and the bubble of air around us shifted, centering on him. I didn't panic and kept drawing runes. He leaped into the air, and the tip of his staff struck the crystalline fist." Vibrational Harmonics!"

There was a piercing ringing sound. It made my head hurt, so I unfocused my senses on my hearing. A loud crack severed the crystalline fist from the arm. It hit the barren wasteland of the 26 th layer with a crash. The Mathemancer leapt back as three-dimensional crystalline stars burst into existence mid-air, sending out sonic booms. They were razor sharp. The Mathemancer twirled through the air, dodging them as they appeared. Before unleashing the attack, there was only a slight change in Mana and Danger Sense.

After dodging ten of the appearing crystalline stars, they stopped, and the crystalline arm withdrew. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Frontal attack!" The Librarian roared out to alert Blood Gore. The very air shook, and I was glad I had dampened my hearing." Spatial Separation." A blue beam of Mana shot out from The Librarian into the swirling clouds and glass around us. The sphere of air around us quickly shrank as The Mathemancer reduced the range of his protection skill as space twisted around the Mana beam. Space twisted and bent. A shockwave pushed away the dark gas and glass." Spatial Stabilization!"

The Mathemancer used a skill to protect me from the blowback as I continued to work.

The only reason he would have such a skill was to counter The Librarian if they ever fought. Now it was being used to protect us. The Glass Golem was massive. For a moment, I glanced at Blood Gore attacking its head while being heavily wounded. Blood gushed out of his body from his countless wounds. The Librarian knew he was struggling against such a monster, which was why he provided support. The chest of the massive Glass Golem had caved inwards, and countless cracks were spreading outwards from it.

I kept tracing runes, but didn't allow myself to get frustrated. I needed precision, and making a mistake would be disastrous. Blood Gore let out a feral cry of rage as he ripped apart the golem's head before the gases swirled back over the gap." Tenfold Separation!" Another massive crystalline fist impacted the quickly formed barrier behind us. Another Glass Golem had arrived." Vibrational Aura!" The Mathemancer used an aura skill, which I felt sweeping over me.

Thankfully, he had enough control to avoid disrupting my carefully formed runes. I was about halfway done, but I wouldn't rush. Each rune needed to be perfectly precise. The fight continued around me, but the runes were getting more complex as I needed to bring everything together. The orientation, amount of Mana, and focus were the key. A blast of air hit me from some shockwave, and a couple of waves of Mana almost disrupted my progress, but I kept going.

The dungeon really wasn't happy with what I was about to do. It was finally done. For a single moment, thousands of runes glowed bright white in the air." One Blink." I drew back my sword as everything was moving incredibly slowly around me. I then thrust my sword forward into the middle of the runic array. I screamed in pain and triumph as the amount of Mana threatened to rip me apart. The influx of ambient Mana nearly caused Sarah to explode. I excluded my teammates from the effect, but it was a struggle."

Aura of Absolute Suppression!" By absorbing nearby Mana, the new tier 6 skill suppressed all effects. The skill pushed environmental effects backward. The three glass golems staggered backwards, having surrounded us. Shuddering, the other four paused in their advance behind them. The runes in the air encircled my blade. I wouldn't be able to hold this skill for long." Slice!" I used the skill seven times in two seconds.

I then spun about as the Glass Golems began collapsing to the ground and slammed my sword into the ground of the 26 th layer. The dungeon absorbed the excess Mana. The entire ground shook. I smiled as it felt like the dungeon was screaming. I was breathing heavily after all that. Blood Gore walked over, a complete mess, but still alive. Everyone looked at me with a bit of shock. I withdrew my sword from the ground.

"What was that?" The Mathemancer asked.

"Just some excess Mana being fed back into the dungeon, disrupting its control."

"You targeted the dungeon itself!?" The Librarian took a step back from me in shock.

"HAHAHAHA, people call me crazy. But you, Elena, are a true adventurer. Striking the dungeon itself, I always thought too small. I guess that is the difference between us," Blood Gore declared. The ground shook again.

"We should hurry and collect the cores. The dungeon may react," The Mathemancer said. We quickly split up and harvested the eight indigo monster cores, each taking two.

"All Champions. That is the twist and not the environmental effects. Just that all monsters are champions with massive aura effects, most likely," The Librarian stated the conclusion we were all quickly coming to.

"Fun. No weak fights," Blood Gore declared.

"Can you keep up the environmental suppression?" The Mathemancer asked me.

"Yes. I have etched the runes into my sword now. I am not doing anything, but if we run across other monsters with auras, I can directly counter them."

"I got Aura Resistance, so this final descent is already a success," Blood Gore said with a smile.

"A new, unknown skill! How impressive," The Librarian said.

"The experience isn't bad. If the monsters don't kill us, we might get another century of life at this rate," The Mathemancer joked.

"That way is the passage to the next layer. If they are all Champions, then this is going to be fun," Blood Gore declared.

"Until we face a Champion Abnormal. Nothing like that has ever been recorded, but it is likely no one has survived such a thing," The Librarian declared. Blood Gore licked his lips and then spat out some flesh and blood. While it might not seem like he had done much, he had drawn the attention of the Glass Golems from our support casters and bought me enough time to finish the fight in one move. It was a shame that my new skill could not overcome Tier 6 that way in the future.

Only at its initial casting, when it was in flux, could it overwhelm everything nearby.

"Let's move," I said, and we set off again. We had survived the first fight of our final descent. A fight many others would have failed because of being swarmed by champion-level monsters with environmental auras. Even the supreme legend Bastian would not have been able to bake his way out of such a fight. The dungeon shook again. I smiled at the large amount of Mana that I had returned to the dungeon as the aftereffects of initializing my tier 6 skill.

I had a couple of different ideas for such a skill, but Aura of Absolute Suppression turned out to be quite good as an outcome. When the ball of Mana I had left behind broke apart, the dungeon would suffer. The pinprick was small compared to its size, but even the mightiest beings took feeling pain seriously. And if it could feel pain, it would be possible to kill it. That gave me the confidence to keep pushing forward no matter what. I would end the dungeon with my own two hands, no matter what.