Path of the Slayer B2 14. Chasm Stealth Run

We had four months to make it to Level 101 and reach the Grand Generational Passing.

I was currently Level 50 in Path of the Slayer.

Merlin was Level 44 in Path of the Owl and Level 47 in Path of the Dragon.

Thumper’s Path of the Perfect Rogue was Level 52. With what came next, he was going to grow the fastest.

I stood at the edge of the Dungeon Base entrance, my gauntlet-clad left hand and half ripper right claws balling and flexing. Floating near my left pauldron, the head-sized Dungeon Core lost its pearly luster and gleamed dully, as if afraid of leaving its sanctuary of power.

I didn’t blame it. A few feet ahead of me and the concealed cave entrance were abhorrent monsters and their crushing Rank 4 Suppression.

Thumper appeared to my right and gestured with a quiet thumb pointed behind him. He was ready to go.

I grabbed the Dungeon Core with my left and ignored the flickering panic pulsating from its warm interior, like fluttering heartbeats of a frightened animal. We came to a stop where a series of dark-lit runes on the stone floor encircled a seven-foot-wide area.

Merlin was already standing in it. Thumper crossed over the perimeter of the runes, and I followed, getting close. With a silent flicker of his Path Energy, Thumper activated the concealment spell.

Immediately, Merlin used his Path Magic: Spell Echo and Spell Folding.

Taking Thumper’s concealment spell, the dwelf wizard formed multiple copies, folded them into a more intense version of the original spell, and redistributed the final version on us.

Nothing seemed amiss other than the ethereal sense of not being a part of normal reality and magic. It was like I was a ghost.

Thumper followed up with his own Path Magic: Wolf Shade.

The epic summoning appeared smaller than the last time while still taller and longer than the three of us. Its cool and shadowy bulk wrapped around us, its tail sweeping behind my legs, its snout silently sniffing above Thumper’s head, the wolf’s tongue lolling out.

Thumper’s Path Energy dropped from 150% to 101%. But it wouldn’t stay that way as Merlin placed his hand on the Dungeon Core. He used his Path Magic, Energy Tap, and quickly transferred a current of energy from the Core to himself and finally Thumper.

They both stood ready and undaunted, ignoring whatever lingering discomfort came with unnatural energy transfusions. The power armors were working as attended.

The Dungeon Core endured the drain, though the tunnel ceiling lights above were flickering darkly.

Thumper gave a thumbs up.

Merlin cut off his Energy Tap.

And I relinquished my Temporary Title.

[You’ve relinquished your Title as Ancient Emerald Temple Dungeon Master. You have the option to take the de-powered core with you or return it to the Dungeon for a boon. Please decide in the next three minutes.]

With my Dungeon Master Title ending, I sensed through the dwindling connection all of my golems going still. The waterfall in the relaxing cavern stopped pouring. All the lights and Aether-currents dimmed with low power.

The Dungeon Core in my grasp shrank from head-sized to the size of a marble. There was a tug from the shrunken Core toward the Dungeon. Instead of letting go, I put it away in my storage ring.

Thumper grabbed Merlin and hopped onto the back of the Wolf Shade. I double-checked that my intent kept Hellion’s cursed magic sealed up before clambering up on the shady creature’s flank.

Tendrils of darkness sprouted from the Wolf Shade’s body and wrapped around all three of us, securing our bodies. Just when the first chasm monster noticed the Dungeon entrance being there, the Wolf Shade was already outside and running through the shadows.

No more Dungeon Base.

No more protection.

We were out fully in the elements, and the horrors of the chasm drowned us like being at the bottom of the ocean. Nothing but alien life and crushing pressure existed here.

There was no wall nearby.

The Dungeon Base entrance had been set in a large, rocky mound in the middle of the chasm wilderness. There was murky darkness, giant fungal towers, titanic skeletons, and squirming creatures in all directions for miles and miles.

We couldn’t see the sky.

We couldn’t even see the walls.

The only light sources came from strange fungi extensions that looked like dangling spinal columns. They hung from the edges of giant mushroom caps as tall as small mountains.

There were multiple skeletal piles underneath the glowing spinal extensions, their soft green light marking the death grounds of anything that took a nibble. Other than that, pure pools of darkness and reaching shadows were plentiful, putting Thumper and his Wolf Shade at their peak.

We still ended up with a large Rank 4 monster on our tail. The centipede was as wide as the Emerald King Dungeon Boss and many, many times longer. It hadn’t even been two minutes yet.

I kept looking back as its many thick legs scuttled rapidly after us, its crushing Suppression pressing down on our backs and weighing on our minds.

Great Skills activated: Gaining Lifter Focus and Rogue Nomad Stoicism.

Path Energy: 196%.

I shrugged off the Suppression and noted how the centipede wasn’t rushing for the kill just yet.

Its long antennae kept sweeping wide from side to side. It would sometimes swing its head and take a bite at the air or random inedible boulders such as large skeletal rib cages the size of buildings.

It didn’t know where we were, but it could still follow us.

I tapped on the back of the Wolf Shade with my half ripper fist and traced a few symbols. Thumper could feel that. He would know what to do once he got the signal.

I looked back at the trailing centipede. There were more centipedes following the first. No good. They were building up into a Rank 4 horde.

With a flick of my hand, I summoned my Rare Rank 4 Cursed Emerald Frag Bomb. It was about the size of a melon and encased in enchanted metal that was non-cursed. Inside, multiple layers separated the cursed components from the emerald energy until it was time to go boom.

With a spark of my power, I primed the explosive and tossed it right into the mouth of the Rank 4 centipede. I patted the Wolf Shade’s flank again, and Thumper took us all on a dive through the shadows with his Path Magic: Shadow Step.

If the chasm was the bottom of a grand ocean, going on a ride with Thumper through the shadows felt like sliding into a thin dimensional field that was very close to the regular one. Almost like going in and out of a shadowy Realm that folks like Thumper would call home.

Then it was over, and we were back at the bottom of the Chasm, but thousands of feet away from the roaring explosion of my C.E.F Bomb.

I looked back and saw the blazing torrents of green and red energy shooting in all directions. The chilling scream of the hurt Rank 4 monster paired up with the light show. No kill, but at least it was off our backs.

My contentment was short-lived, unfortunately.

The chasm gave birth to more crawling horrors.

A mud crab that was a hundred feet tall exploded out of the ground to our right. Large clods of dirt rained down around us, the Wolf Shade lunging around to avoid being struck from above.

The crab’s mighty pincers snipped with explosive power and Vitality. Then, with another snip, it dropped a towering mushroom toward us, the green-glowing spinal columns swaying all over.

I held on tight as the Wolf Shade moved even faster, its pounding feet as silent as a grave. The rushing wind made no sound around us. Our concealment and Thumper’s Silence Presence made us partially incapable of creating wind resistance, leaving the air undisturbed as we slid through.

Even with the shifting shadows from under the falling green fungal spines, the Wolf Shade danced out of the light. He pranced on slivers of shadows, getting us out of the poisonous net before we were completely caught.

The giant crab’s hard and spiny legs reached beyond us with floor-shaking thumps. But it wasn’t focused on us. It was heading toward the explosion.

We slipped out from under it. Then we veered directly to the right, me and Merlin jerking in the other direction while clinging tight to the Wolf Shade’s back or the shadow tendrils that belted us down. 

I watched the fungal foot of a massive creature slam down in the other direction that Thumper and his Wolf Shade took us away from. Looking up, I saw immense stumpy fingers sway overhead as what looked like a hundred-foot-tall mushroom man stomped past us toward the source of the noise.

As the mushroom giant walked, little yellow particles rained down from under its hundred-foot wide mushroom cap.

Merlin thrust his hand up and cast a spell – magic shield. I clenched my jaw as the glinting particles collided with the shield and hissed on contact like acid on flesh.

The shield sparked and crackled as more of the particles struck us, raising my nerves. Thumper kept driving his Wolf Shade away from the mushroom giant until we left the cloud of dangerous fungal particles behind.

Merlin dropped the shield, returning to stealth.

But it was too late.

My sixth sense flared with warning. I turned in time to see a rapidly approaching object the size of a bull. I wasn’t as fast compared to Thumper, who used Shadow Step once again, dodging the sudden attack.

We emerged from behind the shadows behind a green-lit fungal tower, the Wolf Shade taking a few steps, before the speedy object from before appeared once again. This time, Merlin answered with Spell Echo and Spell Folding on a magic shield cast.

The beefed-up barrier stopped the tip of what looked like an oozing tongue for a split second before it broke through. Thumper guided his Wolf Shade around in the nick of time and I threw out two of my bombs onto the tongue.

With air-whooshing speed, the elongated tongue returned to the overly large mouth of a frog monster that was seventy-five feet tall while sitting on all fours. Its bulbous eyes glowed with blue Aether as it tracked our concealed figures darting away.

It turned around like a large turret, its body bulging, preparing to shoot its tongue again.

My bombs went off before it did, tearing open its jaw in a red-green explosion of flesh and fury. The creature let out a rumbling croak of pain, and all of that sound and light drew more large horrors to crawl up from the earth and head for the source of interest.

By the time we were miles away from the frog monster, I saw other monsters that looked like giant ants crawl over the frog’s flesh and attack while it was weakened. Then the savage fighting faded into the background as more monsters appeared to test our chasm stealth run.

We couldn’t stop and fight.

We couldn’t go big.

We had to flee, doing no more than hitting and running to create space and slip away.

Most of the monsters couldn’t sense us. But whenever a monster noticed us passing, they attempted to catch us. And when one Rank 4 monster tried to get us, others followed suit, even if they had no idea what that one tracker was trailing.

The Suppression couldn’t bother me much because of my powers, and Merlin was Legendary. But the gathering Rank 4s had an effect on Thumper, making him slightly less effective, and that slight different could be detrimental.

I had to play with cursed fire for the sake of our rogue, our lifeline down here at the bottom of the chasm.

My bombs blasted the legs off of dashing lizards that were twenty-feet tall and could nearly outrun the Wolf Shade. I exploded the eyes of a buzzing dragonfly that somehow saw us and nearly snatched us off the floor.

Later on, we fell into a living flesh-pit of teeth and sticky slime. With the center drawing us down its throat, I dumped half a dozen bombs down the death chute.

Merlin cast his most powerful shield by using several Path Magics: Spellfolding, Spell Echo, and Spell Weave. The latter magic merged his ice spell with the shield spell.

I joined in by activating my Path Magic: Path Lightning and Path Magnetism. I also activated the electromagnetic force field in my power armor, my magic and elementalist mastery skill expanding it to reinforce Merlin’s ice shield.

The bombs went off and tore up the flesh-pit monster under us. The blast crashed against the electromagnetic ice barrier, shattering our fused powers while throwing us and the Wolf Shade out of the trap.

Still no kill for all of that effort, but at least we weren’t getting eaten. Instead, we crashed into a set of abandoned ruins being engulfed by stringy white fungus.

The Wolf Shade remained whole, if only a little harmed. Thumper gave us a thumbs up – he was good to go.

Still, to be on the safe side, Merlin pulled out one of the energy cores I’d crafted and used his Energy Tap magic. He drained power into himself and passed it into Thumper, topping the rogue off.

By watching their body language, I could tell it wasn’t preferable compared to meditation or Sabretooth’s energy transfusion. But we were back on the run anyway, with the Wolf Shade moving us silently through the darkened chasm horror-scape.

Half a week passed like this until something new appeared before us.

Two walls covered in poisonous fungus blocked us off to our right and to our left. The way above was shrouded in impenetrable darkness. There was no telling how high the fungus walls went.

There was one way forward between the fungal blockade. The wedge pulsated with a bloody glow on beat with a dying heart.

The further I looked, the more it reminded me of flesh being cut open. To go through was asking for trouble. To go around would take too much time. Going above wasn’t an option even if Merlin could summon his Epic Dragon Gunship.

We would lack sufficient concealment and become easy targets in the air.

We all exchanged glances, speaking without words, only subtle gestures with our hands and a few tilts of our heads. We’d gotten better at this out of necessity. It was to where even Hellion only spoke with impressions, staying in theme with our vow of silence.

With little choice, we all agreed to head forward.

The closer we drew, the more obvious the wedge ahead was far different from the wildness of the chasm bottom. The System confirmed that for us once we crossed a certain line.

[You’ve entered the Flesh Floor Death Arena: Rank 3 (Epic)!]

[You have four days to leave victorious!]

[Follow the rules or you’ll suffer dearly!]