Shadowbane

Both of Shana's clones ran down the steps. Upon reaching the city they both split off in different directions, with the rest of us descending toward the city next. For the most part it's eerily silent, but I can hear a sound echoing from very far away. I don't know what the sound is though... It kind of sounds like something is cracking?

"Some of the entryways on these homes are huge..." Albel said as he stared at one of the nearby buildings.

A few of the doors are at least ten feet tall, while on average the others look to be about seven feet tall? I'm not an architect or a builder so I can't tell what these homes are made of. They look like a mix of stone, brick, and mud, but that's a complete guess.

I activated my aura and slipped into the first home on the left that had the biggest entrance here.

The inside is rather simple if you exclude the fact that everything in here is much bigger than I'm used to, and it is using an aesthetic I've never seen before. Jeez, these plates could hold half of an entire pig...

I was about to leave when I saw something on the wall that piqued my interest. Whoa... They made a family portrait by carving into the interior of the home.

The 'picture' is surprisingly high in quality, which allows me to see its owners in great detail. They have long elongated heads, and while their heads are shaped like human skulls from the nose up, everything below that is half the size in width. Their large eyes are slanted at an angle near their nose, which from what I can tell, is just a small hole on their face.

I'm not sure whether to be relieved or worried that the aesthetics of their clothes looks like something a noble from a desert town would wear. At the very least this tells me that it wasn't just a bunch of barbaric cultists living down here. The tallest figure is wearing a fancy robe with bits of armor here and there, with his fancy pauldrons being the largest portion of armor on him. It's honestly amazing seeing this... Now I know why Aresa was so enthralled as she listened to me explain the machines and our human origins.

I leave the home and see my allies milling about at the first fork in the road, either unsure of where to go next, or waiting for Shana's clones to return. I jump onto a home on their left and immediately I can see one of Shana's clones in the distance hiding behind a barrel. In front of her is a small plaza and it doesn't take me long to see why she's hiding. I didn't see it at first, but the tree in the middle of the plaza is moving...

While it's firmly planted into the center of the plaza, and it even has benches made of mud around it, it's clearly no longer a tree designed for people to relax next to. It's continually bending in different directions and scratching at the ground with its branches. After about a minute of watching it, Shana eventually gives up and comes back this way.

"There's a tree over there that I swear is moving. It looks dead, but it's moving around as if it's sentient." The clone said as it reached the party.

Albel shrugged, "I could just burn it. It is a tree after all."

"This side is clear, but I haven't checked the homes yet." The other clone said as it arrived.

Markus motioned toward the stairs going down in front of the group, "Check this path as well. We're here to hopefully put a stop to... I don't even fucking know. The fog? Regardless, I doubt it's up here in the residential district."

Lindon covered his ears, "I can't take that damned noise anymore... Is it ever going to stop?"

Yeah, that cracking sound is definitely getting to me as well.

One clone ran down the steps while the other one jumped on top of a nearby building. Everyone was waiting in silence for her to return when I suddenly saw something walk out of a home on a street to my left. A Crotia...? No, it kind of has the same shape as one, but this one is covered in pustules... The damned things body is rotting everywhere.

I jumped down from the building and ran up to the others. "There's a Crotia-like creature in that alley over there. It just came out of a home wielding a large spiked club." I whispered after removing my aura.

Markus moved to the left side of the group as his sword shone a bright white. Before we even saw the creature, we heard one of Shana's lightning daggers stick into something behind us. I looked back and saw another one of the Crotia-creatures on its knees with two knives sticking out of its upper thighs. It fell forward after that and began pulling itself toward us. Keith moved to finish the creature when two more appeared down the street, which increased to four, then ten. Before we knew it there were over a hundred coming at us.

"Back up the stairs!" Markus yelled.

Everyone but Shana's clone ran back the way we came. Once we were looking down at the city again, Markus and Keith stood in front of our group as Albel lobbed fireballs down at the creatures. A couple landed and killed quite a few of them, but more than half of his fireballs disappeared mid-air. Something on the wall to our right was grabbing them with its tongue. I looked that way and saw a reptilian creature with a devil-like face and horns looking back at me as it swallowed the fireball.

Its tongue shot out of its mouth again, except this time it was coming for one of us. Keith tried to cut it before it hit Lindon, but its tongue wrapped around Keith's sword and ripped it out of his hands. It then whipped it somewhere into the city below.

"Alright, the noise from this may end our first foray into this place, but we clearly need some ranged firepower for this fucker. Don't hesitate to use that gun of yours, girl." Greyson said, holding up a pistol he just created with his ability.

I was hesitating, but he's right. We could enhance ourselves and charge it head-on, but eh, we might as well just pull out all the stops and kill as many monsters as we can. After all, I could sense it when those Crotia-things died, their souls were all disappearing.

I pulled the gun off of my waist and aimed it at the devil. I trained with this in my soul realm, but I didn't have all that much time, and for some reason I'm much worse with handguns than I am rifles.

Greyson and I began to shoot one round after another at the devil. The creature screeched in response as Greyson's rounds pierced it while mine were leaving large bruised indents behind. As expected, normal guns need to drain their mana before they are effective.

The devil tried to flee but one shout from Ishar stopped it in its tracks. Soon after that, my bullets began to pierce it as well, suggesting it was defenseless, which could clearly be seen by Greyson's rounds that were now blowing large chunks out of it.

Soon after that, the devil lifelessly fell from the wall toward the city below.

"Looks like our time here is coming to a close," Ishar said.

The spiders on the ceiling were all moving quickly in this direction, and the city itself had appeared to do a one-eighty from earlier. While it looked dead before, it was very much alive right now.

"Kill as many as you can! Preferably the ones coming at us from deeper below!" Markus yelled as he continued to cut through one Crotia-creature after another. Lindon's barrier on him was sizzling as a large amount of green smoke billowed off of him. It wasn't long before I saw Keith fall back and hit the ground. He's struggling to breathe... The fucking things are not only spewing acidic blood, but now they're poisonous too.

I was suddenly knocked onto my side as both Albel and Lindon literally exploded. Before Arkaios activated the reset I quickly scanned the enemies below us to see what had killed them, and that's when I saw them. They were ten feet tall in heavy black robes. I couldn't tell at this distance whether their exposed bodies were made of hardened sinew or that was merely armor, but I could see their hands swirling around as an ethereal sphere formed between them. I aimed my gun at one and shot my last round at it, which led to the creature whipping backward and to the right as the bullet slammed into its shoulder, but when it turned back around it was completely fine. The next thing I knew we were back in the temple.

Albel and Lindon were flipping around on the ground, scratching at themselves as if there were bugs all over them.

After they had finally calmed down, Lindon stood up and yelled, "WHY IS IT ALWAYS US?! THIS DOESN'T GET ANY EASIER DAMNIT!!"

"Did you guys see who killed them?"

Ishar nodded, "Yes. I couldn't contribute much so I made sure to keep an eye on the battle in the hope that I may learn something useful. I'd say the biggest problem was the fact that most of them came from deeper in the city. Only one of the casters came from the first level."

Markus walked out of the side room and sighed, "So in other words, we're going to have to fight most of those casters. We're going to need to get the jump on them first then. Or we could just sprint down the stairs and see where that gets us... I think we'll try that for our next attempt."

"Just to make sure. Your barriers weren't already drained when they blasted you, correct?" Keith asked as he looked at his two allies who had just died.

"Yes, and my barrier is far stronger than Albel's, so if I couldn't block that spell, then he definitely couldn't," Lindon replied.

"It was strange that we could see inside of that cave despite the fact that I couldn't see a single light source down there." Greyson said.

"Right... It was still pretty dark, but it should have been pitch black."

"I hate that I can't help at all... You're all too far away and underground, so I'd need to be there with you. Are you sure I can't come with, Uncle Markus?" Nisha asked.

Markus shook his head, "Your abilities would be extremely helpful, but we can't carry you around everywhere. Leaving you in one of those homes is also unacceptable. Somehow those fuckers sniffed us out, so there's a good chance they'd find you too, which means we'd either have to carry you or leave someone to guard you."

"Hmm... She has almost no mana aura, and that has to be how they found us. I could make one of my makeshift hiding places for her."

"And if they can see her mana connections the same way you can?" Markus asked.

I shrugged, "Just figured I'd offer. I think it's worth trying. If Arkaios has to reset early because the creatures are coming for her, then we'll know not to bring her. But if they don't come for her, she'll be invaluable."

Markus looked at Keith, "Thoughts?"

"Bring her with. I was struggling to assist you against the..." Keith looked at Ishar, "Crotia?"

"I thought they looked like Crotia too."

Ishar rubbed his chin, "So it wasn't just me... I thought I was losing my fucking mind after the pain I've already endured here."

A ninja walked in through the entrance, "Um, our Lord found another hole in the ground a few miles away from the digsite. We think monsters are coming out from there, and that there may be more of them."

"That leaves the question of why they didn't just dig a path out long ago. Why wait until the Demons found them?"

"The Demon who ran this place would correct the direction we were digging sometimes. He would often say we were 'Going off course'." Greyson said.

"Strange as hell that was. It's almost like he knew exactly where to find that door." Ishar followed up.

Something in the city was probably guiding him... But why? The only idea I can come up with is that they needed someone from the outside to open the door.

"Alright, let's head out, but we'll go down the steps much faster this time after securing Nisha inside one of those homes," Markus said before he stood up and left the temple.

After he left I watched Ishar and Greyson equip their armor to make sure they could do it alone. Once they were ready we all followed after Markus.

"See anything?" Nisha asked.

The rest of us were scanning the double doors, seeing if we could figure out why it was so important that the Demons opened them.

Markus shrugged, "I'm honestly not sure. There's a bunch of symbols carved into the door, and I sense something from them, but I think whatever energy was embedded into this door is long gone."

"I'm picking up on something as well, but it's too vague to get a real sense of what it is." Greyson took his hands off the door, then continued, "You're right, this is a waste of time. We're not going to figure anything out by examining this door."

Markus looked at me, "You said you're going to take her into the first home on the left, right? We're going to move fast from here on out, so pick her up and get ready."

I walked over and picked Nisha up. I placed one arm around her waist, and the other under her knees. She wrapped her arms around my neck as Markus ran through the door. The rest of us quickly followed behind him, running through the door and down the steps. Most of us weren't making much noise, but Markus's boots were making half the noise our guns from earlier did. I understand wanting to move faster, but we're going to need to do something about his boots next time. We're going to end up in the same position as last time if he makes that much noise.

Once we reached the home I was in before, I dashed through the entrance and up the stairs. On the second level I found a bed in one of the rooms and quickly hid her under it, placing her near the corner of the wall.

"Thank you, Rei..." Nisha whispered.

...?

It's not that she thanked me, but the way she did it. There was a tone that felt completely out of place in this situation...

"No problem..." I said, placing the mesh over her and camouflaging it to match its surroundings.

Once she was secured I turned invisible and ran out of the home. That was fast... I already lost sight of them but I know they're down the stairs because I can hear Markus' armor clinking loudly in that direction. And annoyingly I'm already seeing a few Crotian-creatures heading for the staircase.

I ran past the Crotians and down the steps, catching sight of the team just as they were engaging one of the casters that killed Albel and Lindon last time. It must have taken them by surprise because the initial plan was to prevent them from casting, but I could already see one of its ethereal spheres coming at them. However, it wasn't coming directly at him, instead it was curving back and forth, making Lindon panic as he tried to figure out who he was supposed to save.

As the sphere reached the team, it curved one last time toward Greyson, and while he attempted to dodge it, it ended up being a pointless maneuver, the sphere followed after him and slammed right into Lindon's barrier. The barrier shattered, and while the sphere had disappeared, the problem was that it must have had a secondary effect upon expiring, because Greyson was subsequently launched into a nearby home. I barely caught sight of him moving, all I saw was the newly created hole in a nearby home and a large amount of noise echoing out from inside of it.

Ishar shouted at the caster but the caster simply deflected it with a wave of his hand. Seeing that his shout did nothing, Ishar ran into the home nearby to help Greyson as Markus and Keith sprinted at the caster. The caster raised its hands, palms up, creating an ethereal sphere around itself. Keith destroyed it in one blow, but he was also blown away just like Greyson was, except Keith was able to stab his enhanced sword into the ground, just barely preventing himself from smashing into the home behind him.

The caster attempted to float backward to get away from Markus, but Markus must have over-enhanced himself because he was on top of him immediately. One slash of his sword was all it took, the caster's head went flying as his body crumpled to the ground. Markus didn't stop moving though, he pivoted toward the stairs while yelling back at us, "Hurry!! We can't waste any more time here!"

And he was right, I had yet to fully descend the stairs so I could still see all the different streets to my left and right, up until the point that the fog obscured them that is. Currently, I could see at least a hundred Crotian-creatures, two casters, and two thirteen-foot-tall monsters we hadn't encountered yet. Those last two were crawling up from a large hole in the ground about five streets to our left.

"ꌅꑀꀷꌈꏳꑀꀷ ꋖꊿ ꁲꈜꁝꑀꈜ" A caster twenty feet to my left said as I passed by it. I glanced at him and saw a small green flame in the palm of his hand. What the hell language was that? I felt an extreme amount of pressure hitting my eardrums, but I couldn't make out any of the words.

Just as I was about to look away from the caster, the small green flame turned into a spear. It floated about ten feet into the air before it suddenly launched itself toward Lindon. It was by no means slow, but it normally wouldn't be considered fast enough for him to avoid it, however, he was already dodging attacks from multiple Crotian-creatures as he ran down the steps, so even if he saw it coming, and he did, there was only so much he could do.

Keith, surrounded by Nisha's aura, grabbed a nearby Crotia and threw it into the spear. The Crotian was immediately engulfed in a green flame, and no more than two seconds later it had been completely reduced to ashes.

As Markus reached the next level down, he sprinted for a tall marble building at the back of the square where one of Shana's clones was battling a couple of Crotians. I was about halfway down the steps when one of the thirteen-foot-tall monsters charged past me, killing multiple Crotians along the way. Now that I was able to get a good look at one of the tall monsters up close, I realized that I had seen them before. So that dead tree I saw on the upper levels wasn't the only one... And apparently they can uproot themselves.

The tree monster held its right 'hand' out toward the group, leading to several branches extending outwards at double the speed my friends were running. Keith moved to the back of the group and cut the mass of branches to pieces, but they quickly regrew and tried to wrap around Lindon again. Keith continued to cut them down, but they were regrowing faster than he could deal with them. Albel, who I thought would deal with the tree, was in the middle of dodging one of another caster's spheres. He had Lindon's barrier on him, so he'd survive if it hit him, but the sphere kept coming at him at an angle that would result in him getting blown back in my direction. If that happens he's done for...

Greyson began firing a rifle at the caster, but the other caster erected a sphere around his ally, mostly protecting him from Greyson's bullets. The impact was still knocking the caster backward, which was clearly making him struggle to control the sphere, but it still wasn't enough.

Seeing this, I jumped on top of the building to my right and continued jumping back the way I came until I reached the second caster. I was still invisible, but when I landed on the building the caster was currently occupying, its whole body shifted in my direction.

"D༙྇҉ ɑ༙྇҉ ʁ༙྇҉ ĸ༙྇҉ u༙྇҉ ԍ༙྇҉ ƨ༙྇҉ ƨ༙྇҉ ?༙྇҉ "

This time I could kind of understand what he was saying, but I had no time to analyze it. I ran toward the caster and removed my aura so I could enhance my body as much as possible. This gun isn't strong enough to take this caster down in one clip, I can feel it from his aura. I'll need to engage him directly.

I fired the gun at him, and sure enough, every bullet knocked him backward a little, but it wasn't anywhere near enough damage to get through his naturally enhanced body. At the very least the impacts were preventing him from casting, and I believe that's because he was still focused on shielding the other caster. However, once I was about two-thirds the way to him, he realized that he needed to focus entirely on me, so he dropped the barrier on the other caster and immediately created a sphere around himself.

As I was putting the gun back onto my waist I could hear the other caster's death throes as Greyson and Shana attacked him. I don't know what he said as he died, but it was loud... I could feel his words reverberating inside my head. I did my best to ignore the rattling in my head and punched the sphere as I reached my target, but it didn't react in the way I expected. Normally impacts would stagger people through any barriers they create, but this one held strong. The caster was completely unfazed by my attack. That was only a random punch I threw, but I feel like even an over enhanced punch wouldn't be enough, and I'd rather not throw two of those just to break a barrier. I have another idea though... But I don't know if it will work.

I think back to the metal ball ability I stole from one of Kellog's knights and summon it into my hand. The caster glared at the ball, clearly wary of it, but he can't cast anything while he keeps the barrier active. Instead, he attempts to flee to another home, but before he's able to move I hit him with the ball and it immediately sucks him into it. The ball itself starts to crack all over, telling me it won't even last five seconds if I don't pour a massive amount of mana into it. Mana I don't have, which is why I want to try something else.

I picked the ball up and threw it as high as I possibly could. I watched the ball float higher and higher as the spiders beyond it slowly descended from the ceiling using their webs. The ball eventually shattered, leading to the caster reappearing at least two hundred yards above me. There was no reaction from the caster as he fell, but about halfway down he removed his shield and swapped to a floating spell, greatly reducing his fall speed. He had no choice, but now I'm just going to kill him in another way.

I had turned invisible after throwing the ball into the air, so I could see him looking back and forth trying to find me, but even if he did know where I was, it wouldn't have mattered. With my body still enhanced, I jumped up high enough to be above him, and just when I hit my apex I removed my aura. After that I brought my heel down onto his head, crushing his sinewy skull before he even had a chance to look up. Purple blood spewed all over my right leg, but much to my surprise, it wasn't acidic. The caster shot downwards at an extreme speed, smashing through the homes roof and splattering on the ground below.

After I landed next to him I did a quick check of his body to make sure he was dead. Yeah, he's done for. And I see that I was right about the caster's bodies, they're made entirely of hardened sinew... This is so fucking gross.

Suddenly I could feel eyes on me. I quickly reapplied my aura and dove into a corner, but the intensity of the glare did not dissipate. I'm inside one of the few homes that has a door, I'm invisible, and there's nothing else in here except this dead caster! How the hell could anything be looking at me... Eremnon? No, he loses vision of us every time we walk through the doors to this place, so it has to be something else.

Over time I became unsure of whether there was vision on me or not. And for the first time in a long time, I felt very afraid of everything around me. That's when I realized that something was eroding my core's defenses, allowing the aura of this place to finally affect me. This is what the others have been feeling inside of this city? I'm impressed at how well they are handling it...

I jumped through the roof and checked to make sure my allies were okay. All I could see was the two tree monsters attempting to reach their branches through the entrances into the marble building down below. They must have made it, which means it's my turn next.

As I was jumping from home to home, one ethereal spider after another landed on the nearby roofs, and one even landed no more than a few feet from me. After that they all spread out, with only a few of them heading for the marble building. Where are the others going...? Also, I caught a glimpse of one of Shana's clones far off to the left as it jumped from one home to another. It wasn't long before I lost her in the fog though. She must be using her other clone to scout as much as she possibly can before the reset, which is a really good idea.

Upon reaching my destination, the roof of a home built on the outside ring of the plaza, I waited and watched the spiders. Most of the spiders disappeared into random buildings or homes, but there was one that crawled down into something behind the marble building. Well, I can't get into the marble building with those tree fuckers covering the entire entrance, so I might as well see if that leads to the same place my friends went.

I jumped into the plaza and ran through it, weaving through the Crotians as I went. But just before I passed by the marble building, I saw a caster on my left, so I decided to use this opportunity to test something before descending. I slowly walked toward him, and when I was about thirty feet away from him, his head whipped in my direction. At first, he seemed confused, but he eventually entered a combat stance as his head bobbed a little to the left and right. He's wary and afraid of something in front of him, but he's not entirely certain of where it is. So that settles it. These fuckers can sense me through my veil...

I backed up so the caster couldn't sense me anymore and continued moving toward the spider's last location. It's also good to know that the spiders can't phase through the ground here. If they could, there really would be no way to handle this place without killing every single one of them.

The first thing I saw upon reaching my destination was a hole, but it was nowhere near as big as I had been expecting it to be. So the vile things can squeeze into openings that it shouldn't be able to fit into... Just like a real spider.

I made my armor sticky and began jumping from one side to the other, descending at a slower pace than I liked, but I didn't want to risk jumping into the spider. Even in here I can still see where I'm going, but it's still quite dark.

I kept going like that for several minutes until I saw the exit. There was more light in the room below me so I could see what was below me, but the problem was what I saw. ... Where the hell is this? The walkway is maybe a thousand yards below me, and that's not an exaggeration. I assume the spider is crawling around on the ceiling, so I'll do the same for now until I can figure out where to go from here.

Once I reached the exit, I crawled around it until I reached the ceiling. It was a massive cavern with a singular building in the middle sitting on the only pillar in the area. I could see the exit that the spider was moving toward, which is where my allies probably were, but my mind was completely focused on something else in the cavern.

Arms... Six of them, reaching up from the dark abyss below. Each one of them was at least three miles long, and they were as wide as several of Aresa's chateaus lined up next to each other. Their hands were grabbing onto different parts of the wall and ceiling.

And the hands were the creepiest part... They each had a different number of fingers. Some were reptilian, others human, and some were another type of furry mammal... There were dozens of different types of fingers, including some from a species I couldn't recognize at all.

And that's when I finally realized where that cracking sound was coming from. It was extremely loud as it echoed back and forth throughout the room. The arms were covered in some type of hard gray coating that had strange symbols lit up over all of it. However, the parts where the symbols weren't shining, were crumbling. I watched as several symbols dimmed moments after the area surrounding them began to crack.

With the little information I had access to, I was still able to understand a few simple facts. Something was sealed down here, and that very same something, was now breaking free.