The wind intensified while the mercenary’s violet aura grew. He no longer tried to hide his connection to the abyss, each beat of his mutations making the earth shake with more force.
Ignatius concentrated all his power, his phoenix’s golden flames reaching a blinding intensity as he prepared for his most powerful attack. The heat was so intense that the surrounding trees began to wither, their leaves curling and blackening.
He had to stop him no matter what.
Yino had found a way to navigate the 500 meters of the abyss. The space where only abyssal creatures reigned. But if the mercenary had made the first map…
Then perhaps it could still be destroyed before others followed his path.
Ignatius released all his power in a wave of golden fire.
For a moment, the battlefield transformed into an inferno of light and heat while both forces fought for supremacy.
With a roar that made the trees tremble, the Director managed to pierce through the wind barrier… but when the flames dissipated, the mercenary had vanished.
In his place, a hole gaped in the earth. The tremor intensified while the echo of distant laughter resonated from the depths, a sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
“He’s gone,” Lin approached the hole’s edge. “Straight to the depths.”
Ignatius took a step toward the hole, but his legs trembled slightly. The prolonged use of so much power had taken its toll, golden feathers falling from his partially manifested form.
“No,” Lin put a hand on his shoulder. “Going down now would be suicide. You have no earth specialty and you’re exhausted.”
“But if he escapes…” the Director clenched his fists, his golden flames flickering weakly like dying embers.
“Director,” Yang approached, carrying the unconscious supervisor. The areas affected by the venom had expanded, covering much of his side with an otherworldly gleam. “We need help here.”
Ignatius quickly evaluated the situation. His flames could neutralize the venom.
“Maintain the perimeter watched,” he ordered while kneeling beside the supervisor. His hands glowed with a softer, more controlled fire that danced across the infected areas.
Lin and Yang organized the remaining guards. The stone behemoth positioned itself near the hole while the earth beasts reinforced the defensive positions, creating overlapping fields of protection.
The Director’s golden fire worked methodically, burning away the venom and healing the underlying tissue. Drops of sweat ran down his forehead, he had little energy left after his massive attacks.
A roar emerged from the depths, the sound unlike anything they’d heard around the normal academy depths.
“They’re coming!” shouted one of the guards, his earth beast trembling at the alien sound.
The first beast emerged from the hole like a twisted shadow. Its body, a mass of chitin and tissue, barely had time to touch the ground before the Director’s flames consumed it, the creature’s death scream echoing unnaturally.
He had finished healing the supervisor just in time.
But the creature wasn’t alone.
More beasts began to emerge, each more grotesque than the last. Yang’s behemoth crushed several with its massive fists while Lin used her crane-enhanced speed to intercept and drive back those trying to flank their position.
A new roar, this time from another direction, this one deeper and more resonant.
“Sir!” one of the guards pointed east. “They’re emerging from the ground making new entrances!”
Lin cursed while kicking away a beast that tried to surprise her from behind. The monsters were using the mining tunnels, emerging through multiple points in a coordinated attack pattern.
“The shelter,” her eyes widened with concern. “Ren and the other children…”
♢♢♢♢
The impacts started as subtle vibrations beneath their feet, like the prelude to an earthquake.
The mushrooms in Ren’s hair pulsed with alarm, detecting something moving under the shelter’s floor, something that made their usual patterns fluctuate erratically.
“What is that?” Klein whispered, his previous bravado forgotten in the face of the unknown.
The impacts intensified. Some students began to murmur with concern.
“Keep calm!” A Professor’s voice resonated through the chamber. “This shelter was designed to resist any emergency. The walls are made with several meters of reinforced solid rock.”
Another impact, stronger. Ren’s mushrooms pulsed with increasing intensity, their glow taking on an unusual pattern.
“Even if it were a worm invasion,” continued the professor while other teachers organized the older students into defensive formations, “the black earth layer in the construction makes it impossible for them to penetrate. It’s completely safe.”
Klein stepped forward, his eyes fixed on the floor, all thoughts of his earlier confrontation with Ren forgotten in the face of a greater threat.
“Professor,” he called with tense voice. “But look at the floor…”
Ren saw it at the same time. A crack, barely visible, beginning to form in the solid rock. The mushrooms in his hair pulsed, as if detecting something completely alien to their knowledge base.
“Impossible,” murmured the professor, approaching to inspect. “This rock is specifically treated to…”
Another crack appeared, connecting with the first one.
Ren’s mushrooms pulsed with more urgency. The mana pattern they detected wasn’t natural, wasn’t like anything they had encountered in the mines.
“Professor,” Ren stepped back. “Those aren’t worms.”
As if confirming his words, more cracks began to appear.
Klein retreated as well, his lion covering him protectively. Ren saw genuine fear in the noble’s eyes, all pretense of superiority forgotten.
“Everyone back!” The professor began manifesting his beast.
The tremors ceased abruptly. A heavy silence fell over the shelter while students held their breath, the only sound the subtle hum of manifested beasts.
“Is it… over?” Klein murmured, his golden lion still alert, its mane bristling with tension.
The crystalline cracks in the floor began to expand again.
“Maintain distance!”
Min and Taro came running, their faces pale with fear.
“Ren!” Taro stopped beside him, his beetle manifesting from nervousness. “Only you can know what’s…”
The floor exploded.
The first creature that emerged made Ren’s mushrooms pulse with total confusion. Its body was a vertical column of translucent purple tissue, with no distinguishable head, just a series of concentric rings that pulsed with their own light.
From its center emerged tentacles.
“By all the…” Min couldn’t finish the phrase.
Another creature emerged.
This one had a segmented exoskeleton that gleamed with violaceous tones, but the segments didn’t follow any recognizable pattern. They overlapped and intertwined as if in constant motion..
The mushrooms in Ren’s hair couldn’t process the information they were receiving. These beasts didn’t follow their known logic.
“There’s no information,” murmured Ren while his mushrooms tried to analyze the creatures. “It’s as if… as if they came from somewhere completely different.”