The nest Arcana went into was, in fact, not just an ordinary cave like the other Abyss Nest.
It was some kind of ruin on a hill. Multiple marked stones were messily scattered around a huge stone building with two large opened stone doors.
Despite the awful state the place was in, Emery could still tell at a glance this was a place of worship for the locals, a shrine where they worshipped the god they believed in.
Looking at the marks on the ground, it was clear that a large number of creatures rampaged here just recently, putting the place into such an unsightly state.
Without waiting any longer, Emery dashed into the stone gate that led deep underground and followed Arcana and the other elite acolytes' footprints.
Different from the other nest, the tunnels and chambers in this place were considerably wider and bigger.
The chamber he arrived at was filled with dozens of creatures roaming around. Even so, they were mostly crawlers and lurkers, nothing to waste his time on.
However, among them, Emery spotted several Abyss creature carcasses on the ground, showing which way among the several different tunnels Arcana's group went into.
After about half an hour of following the path Arcana's group had taken, Emery finally found signs of the group he was looking for.
Echoes of fighting and shouting came from a distance ahead of him. Just from the sounds of it, the situation appeared to be quite chaotic.
Emery approached the source of those sounds while using [Dark Void] to mask himself.
"Retreat! Damn it, Retreat!"
It was Arcana's voice, shouting in an extremely irritated tone.
The sounds of battle ended with Arcana's curses a few moments later.
"You're all so stupid! There are so many of you, yet you can't even defeat one monster!?"
Arcana continued to curse at the seven elite acolytes he came with.
"Huh! If I had known you would be so useless, I would have left you all and brought Rayne with me instead!"
Other than Arcana, Emery recognized two of the elite acolytes in the group; Lodos the maniac and Micha the crystal user, Rayne's elite acolytes and part of the group of seven elites he had a history with.
With his spirit reading, Emery realized that half of these acolytes were wounded and the rest were exhausted by the previous battle.
After briefly scanning the condition of the elites and the area of their battle, he could vaguely guess what happened. Hence, Emery began to approach them from the shadows.
"Who's there!?"
Arcana was the first to notice him and was immediately alarmed by the presence of the unknown intruder.
Emery came out from the dark shadow with almost no sound. The moment the other acolytes recognized his face, they all had surprised looks on their faces.
"The commander!"
A few of them were elated to see him, but most of them were so anxious they even seemed ready for a fight.
A normal response of those who were guilty.
"You… how… what do you want!?" Arcana vigilantly asked.
"Do you really need to ask?" Emery glared at Arcana and firmly announced, "I came for Rayne!"
The kid-looking acolyte was at a loss for words. At the same time, Emery noticed Arcana's expression subtly change and had a bad premonition.
'He's about to do something bad.'
Emery quickly interrupted him.
"Don't try to do anything funny! Not only will your skill not work on me, but you will also be heavily penalized for attacking your commander!" Emery reminded with a sharp gaze.
In truth, Emery wasn't sure he would be able to stop Arcana's enchantment this time. He might be able to under normal circumstances, but he currently only had one-third of his spirit pool. Hence, in order to avoid getting into such an unfavorable situation, he chose to bluff his way out so Arcana would give up without a fight.
While Arcana was lost in thought, Emery decided to look around and check the elite acolytes who were wounded.
Awkwardly, Lodos and Micah were among them. They were both struggling to heal themselves from the previous battle, and both of them were unable to look him in the eye.
Emery slowly approached the wounded elite acolytes and, to their surprise, cast [Rejuvenating Mushroom] to help heal their wounds. This, of course, included the two, Lodos and Micah.
They didn't expect that he would help them despite how they treated him before.
Lodos the maniac was surprisingly jittery when he expressed his gratitude. "T…han…k… you…"
"You're welcome," Emery simply responded as if nothing ever happened between them.
Emery's act of healing was a part of his way of checking whether these elite acolytes were being enchanted by Arcana just like Rayne. Surprisingly, he found that they weren't.
So Arcana must have threatened them with either his rank or his skill.
Feeling the elite members were one by one getting influenced by Emery, Arcana became much more anxious and made his decision.
"I will do as you say, but only if you help me kill that stage 5 monster!" Arcana said, pointing at the main chamber a distance away from them.
Emery saw there was only one creature left inside, a huge white cocoon-like worm at least 20 meters long.
The device in his hand quickly showed information about the creature.
[Chrysalis]
[Stage 5 Abyss creature]
[Battle Power - 320]
This stage 5 creature would give a whopping 50,000 points. No wonder Arcana was so greedy for it.
Emery looked at the cocoon thoroughly once again. For some reason, he felt the same familiar energy he previously felt.
"What do you say!?" Arcana asked in a somewhat challenging tone.
Emery had finished healing the wounded acolytes and was approaching the main chamber.
Arcana took Emery's act as agreeing to his request, hence he shouted to the other elite acolytes.
"All right, let's kill this thing!"
The seven elites acolyte stood up and began charging in close to the cocoon-like creature, ready to fight. However, Emery did not immediately join them. Instead, he carefully observed how they fought against it and he quickly realized why they couldn't win.
Unsurprisingly, Arcana only shouted from the back without actually helping them. It appeared the all-powerful [Eye of Mistra] divine skill had no effect on this creature, which was most likely why he needed these elites to help him.
Logos and Micha were both defense and utility specialists who couldn't help much on the offensive. There were three long-range attackers among them, but their attacks were only enough to create small wounds on the cocoon's outer layer skin.
One acolyte with a tier 5 blade was able to create a deeper cut on the monster's body, however, the injured part quickly grew back and returned to normal, as if it had never been injured in the first place.
This creature was definitely not easy to deal with.
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