Chương 32: Worn Down

Time until next Elemental Storm: 3 Days and 13 Hours The others were in better shape, but not by much. Jeffrey had half a dozen purple wounds over his chest and arms, and Emma was helping him rout two automatons. Penny's Crag Serpent and Mia's drones were holding off two more, and the last automaton had been destroyed, but not without effort. Bradley lay at the start of the arena, holding a bleeding arm with a large hole in it. Ethan went to him first, kneeling down and assessing the damage.

"B-bullet got me. S-sorry," he said, shaking. Ethan found the bullet in his life sense, and frowned.

"Sorry about this, Brad. But I need to get it out of there," he told the man as he dug into the hole and brought the bullet out. Bradley grabbed Ethan's shoulder and pushed his fingers in as he shouted out screams of pain. Ethan threw the bullet to his side, amazed by the heft of the round. He then applied a layer of life force while he patted the man on the back.

"It wasn't in too deep, don't worry," Ethan lied as he pressed more life force into the wound, closing off the bleeding vein underneath. Once he was finished, Bradley fell unconscious. Ethan clicked his tongue in annoyance, but let the man down onto the ground. Bradley might've gotten the treatment he needed, but that left the rest of the party still in peril. He grabbed his sledgehammer, and returned to the fight. He went to assist Penny and the Crag Serpent first.

The heat from the Serpent's flames had turned the automaton's skin red and shiny. Ethan didn't need to use Os-sledge to pierce through their backs, just a simple coating of death essence. He planted two good hits on their cores, and the fuel fell out in chunks. [+200 Credits] After that, the party teamed up against the remaining two automatons. Jeffrey held their arms in place with his magnetism, and Penny softened up their frames with her flames.

Ethan and Emma rushed into one of the automatons and smashed the core together. [+100 Credits] As soon as the first automaton went down, something strange happened. The second one went limp and lifeless, and the steam from its core stopped coming out of the vents. No notification appeared that the monster had been defeated, but it seemed to have been defeated. Even the arena acknowledged it, extending the bridge leading to their cell. Do we only need to beat most of them? Ethan wondered.

If so, that would make the coming fights easier, if by a small margin. Everyone let out a sigh of relief once the automatons went down. Even if they were covered in wounds, they'd made it through the first round. Ethan was already getting to work, silently letting life force through their bodies to heal them. As long as they were wired and ready for a fight, they wouldn't notice their muscles knitting together or their bones slowly sliding back into place.

"What's next?!" Jeffrey shouted into the skies. As if to answer his question, a new notification appeared. [Dungeon Quest: Dragonmount (Earth Shrine) Survive the gauntlet. (1/5 Waves Cleared)]"Your next challenge will come in exactly three hours. Take this time to recover," an automaton spoke out from hidden speakers. The others only gave a moment of hesitation before starting back towards the cell.

"Can you help me lift Bradley? I don't want to hurt him," Penny asked Ethan, and he nodded. They both carried the man over their shoulders through the tunnel. Bradley moaned the entire way back, before they finally lowered him against a wall and let him rest.

"He's in horrible shape," Penny said, a pained expression on her face.

"I'll take care of it, you just rest," Ethan told her. He patched up Bradley as much as he could, but that arm of his was doing him more harm than help.

"Think I should lose the extra weight?" Bradley said with a strained smile.

"Wha— No, I'm just l-looking," Ethan said.

"No need to be light on me, Ethan. I can tell, it's not healing anytime soon, is it?" Bradley let go of the smile, and backed his head against the wall.

"Maybe we can find a potion on the store tha—that can help," Ethan offered. Bradley shook his head.

"Not in this realm, we can't. And besides, it'd be a waste of credits. I'll just have the blasted thing sawed off once we return," Bradley answered.

"Least I'll finally learn the sound of one hand clappin', haha…" He closed his eyes and rested, and Ethan left him alone. The rest of the party had gotten as much healing as they needed to survive the next match, if by a short margin. I'm cutting it close though… Ethan thought as he pulled up his status page. [Estimated Time to Live: 14 Days and 15 Hours] All the attacks he'd sent to break the door, the fighting in the arena and the healing afterwards, had exhausted Ethan's Time to Live by a large margin.

He'd gotten so used to having a surplus over the past few days that he didn't even stop to consider what would happen if he was ever forced to ration it. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Great going, Ethan, killing yourself before the monsters do, he huffed, before sitting down to rest himself. He closed his eyes for what felt like a second, and when he opened them again, the wall was sliding back up.

"Get up, you," Jeffrey ordered him. Ethan shot a glare back in his direction, but forced himself onto his legs. There were four more waves to go through.

Small bronze orbs rolled into Ethan's path before extending their limbs and trying to climb him. He smashed his hammer into them, crushing each automaton easily. [+10 Credits] Boost. Ethan jumped away from the tiny monsters and raised his hammer again. Away from him, Jeffrey and Penny were dealing with the bigger automatons. Ethan was left distracting the little ones by himself, and he'd only managed to cull the hoard a little.

He smashed his hammer down again, but a couple of the Bronze Battalion grabbed onto the shaft. Ethan sent death essence into the staff, eroding the automatons' arms and shaking them off. He coated his leg in death essence and kicked away another few automatons, but they tucked in their arms and started rolling back as soon as they landed. The orbs started to stack themselves on top of each other to reach him. Before they could, Ethan smashed the automatons in the middle, breaking the whole structure apart.

The small monsters must have realized they were losing, as they tried to run away. But separating out only made them easier targets. Ethan swung his hammer into the receding lines of automatons, crushing them into pieces and thinning their ranks. The rest of the tiny orbs were no trouble, so Ethan rushed over to the bigger monsters and helped Jeffrey take them down. They felled one tall automaton with a spear in its hand, and as soon as it went down, the others stilled.

That was the sign they'd won the wave, and the bridge extending out to greet them only confirmed that fact. Ethan picked up Mia and Bradley, pushing life force into their fresh wounds at the same time. The automatons knew they were the weakest links, and had gone for them first. He did what he could for them while Jeffrey, Emma and Penny walked ahead of him. They were back in the cell again, but as soon as they'd entered, it seemed like they were heading back out.

The walls started to slide, and Ethan wondered if he could ignore the call. It seemed his party were thinking the same thing. Bradley groaned and Jeffrey punched the wall in anger, but both rose to meet the coming challenge. If they were going to match it, Ethan had no choice but to help, even if he was running out of life force.

"Just three more, yeah? Then we'll be home-free," Bradley said. If he meant to raise their spirits, no one felt it.

"Let's get this over with quick," Jeffrey replied. His eyes were bloodshot, with deep bags underneath. Ethan could feel how tired he was, but no amount of life force would help the fatigue in his mind. They made it out into the arena once again, and once again, automatons dropped from the domed platform to fight them. Only the dome didn't recede this time. There was also a crackling static in the air. Sometimes sparks would fly out randomly, and very rarely, they'd hear a loud crash outside.

It took only a single time for them to recognize it, however. It was the crashing noise of thunder boring into the ground. The only other thing of note was the automaton in the middle, which flew a standard on its back. The heat from the lava below blew the flag every which way, but it held the same sign upon it; an icon of a rock in a field. Ethan and his party had already summoned their Skills, so they joined the fight against the automatons readily.

Bullets flew through the air and metal bit into rocks to chop the party in half. Jeffrey picked up one of the Iron Sentries and flung it against the rest of its crew like a wrecking ball, before finally dropping it into the river below. The rest of the legion of monsters didn't make it any easier for him. The Steel Guillotine's and their gun arms would fire randomly once Jeffrey picked them up, making them extremely dangerous to handle. Emma came in close and engaged in a duel with another Iron Sentry.

Ethan raised a wall of bone to protect her, while he fought another Steel Guillotine. Os-sledge. He smashed the bone-coated hammer into the monster's back, letting the fuel drop out of its back. Penny's Crag Serpent was taking a number of bullet wounds in its body acting as a shield, letting Mia and Jeffrey get in closer to the standard-bearing automaton. Emma finished her opponent off too, leaving only two more Steel Guillotine's and the standard-bearer alive.

Ethan and Emma nodded to each other, and started off towards the last opponents together. But at the halfway point, something barred their way. Two new automatons appeared from the domed platform, ready to fight them. Ethan looked up and cursed. The dome closed up again, but the platform still didn't recede into the ceiling.

"Jeffrey! They're getting reinforcements!" Ethan shouted. Jeffrey looked back at him bewildered for a moment, before taking his attention back to the standard-bearer. Right, if that thing is leading them, maybe killing it will stop the reinforcements? Ethan readied himself for a fight and so did Emma. He spun around the Steel Guillotine's gun, and Emma took her opponent's attention to the opposite side. She shielded herself behind the large automaton's body, while Ethan directed his enemy's fire into it.

The gunfire tore Emma's opponent to shreds, and she rushed in to chop off the gun arm afterwards. Ethan and Emma then finished off the gunner, before looking upwards. Again, the dome was opening up, but Ethan didn't wait for what would come out. Boost. His legs filled with life force and he dashed across the arena to the standard-bearer. Jeffrey and Penny were already doing work to take it down, but Ethan arrived just in time to land the finishing blow. He pulled his hammer back and covered it in death essence.

The hammer swung quicker than eyes could see, and cratered a hole straight through the standard-bearer. As soon as the monster's death registered, the rest of the automatons went still once again. Ethan saw fresh new wounds covering his allies and cringed. Burns and cuts and more internal bleeding. He'd have to heal them again.

"So, it's not the number of monsters we take out, but which one's special, huh?" Penny said aloud. She had her own share of wounds, but looked preoccupied with how the arena worked.

"Doesn't matter. Grab the wounded, let's get out," Jeffrey ordered in an emotionless tone. No one cared to argue. Ethan thought he'd find Bradley injured again, but the man was only slightly hurt from the fight.

"I can carry myself," he said, walking along the tunnels with one hand against the wall. Ethan didn't say anything against him. He was tired too, much too tired. And he wanted nothing more than to be done with fighting. But the quest said there were two more waves, and he was sure they wouldn't be getting any easier. Once he reached the cell again, he sighed into his hands. He did as much healing as he could bear to do and checked his Time to Live one more time.

[Estimated Time to Live: 7 Days and 6 Hours] Down to a little over a week. A horrible thought creeped into Ethan's head at that moment. Would the party make it out of the shrine alive? They were being stretched, mind, soul and body, to their wits end. Had they just been unlucky to pick a shrine that was near impossible? And if so, what was the sign they needed to quit? Because the arena was still proceeding, and they were making it through each wave alive. I… I need to stop thinking. I just need to keep going.

Telling the others would just cause an argument, and Ethan was in no mood for one. He tried to drift off to sleep and catch whatever rest he could, but it proved difficult. Ethan looked around, and it was the same for everyone else in the cell. They were too on edge. At least, until Penny started to sing a lullaby. Ethan had never heard it before, but her melodic voice worked to soothe his mind regardless. The others closed their eyes one by one, drifting off to sleep under Penny's voice. Just this shrine.

Just make it through this shrine, he told himself as he closed his eyes. And again, only a moment passed before he was forced to open them again.