'This grotto was supposed to be abandoned, only the dwarfs came here to mine so what the hell is making this shaking'

When he visited the place before there was no sign of fighting and only mining, for something this huge to be here and leave no trace made no sense

The thing that was causing his mind stress soon revealed itself, or rather, themselves

"Rock elementals?"

"It's that thing again?"

Just like the giant made of rock Ellis once saw there were now three such creatures moving towards them, unlike that weird giant though these guys had proper arms and legs, they all however lacked any intricate features however like fingers or facial parts

"Anput, move the cages back, Ellis block any stones they hurl"

He ran at the rock elementals in order to slow their advance, elementals were known for their aggressive behaviour attacking anything that wasn't an elemental, the precious Dreneonates might be killed if left in their place

The big hunks of rock didn't bother trying to stop his advance and threw rocks at the cages instead, two crashed into the sand randomly while one Ellis smashed aside just before it hit the drunken beasts

Instead of throwing more rocks were one of the elementals was forced to deal with the approaching bug by trying to stomp it, the agile bug however slipped past its attack and started climbing up its leg and onto its torso, hacking at its body fruitlessly, this however annoyed it enough to distract it from further attacks

'I need to slow all of them down enough for everyone to evacuate'

Knowing he couldn't harm the elementals with his current strength and distracting just one wouldn't achieve anything he resorted to using his techniques

His small figure comparative to the giant rocks jumped off and used the knives rebounding off each other to walk threw the air while throwing whatever dagger he had at them to gain their attention

Since it was their nature to attack anything and he was being very aggressive they entertained him and turned to slam the puny figure out of the only to strike at empty air

'Alright this should be easy'

They were big but dumb, he clearly couldn't hurt them but they didn't ignore him and kept trying to kill him even though much easier targets lay ahead

"Huh?" SLAM!

A shadow was suddenly cast overhead and slapped him out of the sky sending him crashing into the wall before falling down into one of the many tunnels

"Master!!"

Ellis didn't waste any time rushing to his aid until Anput's call for help came

To the front of the hound were two more rock elementals, they along the club wielding one that hit her master were coming out the wall as if their bodies were phasing through the earth, forcing them to a corner with the three coming from the back

'Dammit, I need to help Master!'

She couldn't care less about the rocks smashing into the cages and killing the valuable Dreneonates or even helping Anput, but without the hound's assistance she would find it hard to escape the eventual pursuit of the elementals thus she decided to fend for her companion so the two of them could go find their master and escape this mess

….

"Cough! Just great"

In the dark tunnel YuJu's sorry state found the energy to complain while relocating his leg joints

It was only one leg that he could quickly put together as the other didn't just dislocate but actually was fractured and would need more time to start healing, there was nothing that could be said about his smashed shoulder though, that club attack was so hard it wouldn't be a surprise if the bones splintered

"Need to get moving"

With whatever will he found in himself he stood and traced his hand on the wall, leaning on it for support as he moved away from the hole he fell in

"Orelic huh, no wonder I didn't find them when I came here, I bet even the dwarfs didn't know of their existence, those guys suck in all the ores in their vicinity so there is nothing for the dwarfs to mine and wake them up"

It was easy to not be able to differentiate between the two as their appearance was similar early on, he wouldn't have known if not for the one that came out the wall and hit him, something rock elementals couldn't do

"Why did they wake up? It couldn't be the sneeze, those guys don't wake up unless someone attacks their sleeping bodies or some precious ore was nearby"

He tried to recall what happened before the shaking started but all he could remember was the little beast sneezing from the sand and…

"Must be the sand, those guys would kill for a Sand Crown"

He kept moving slowly trying to find a way out of here but the more he moved the more he felt suffocated

"...What is this feeling"

Guilt? No, he was doing the right thing, his normal stealth proved useless against their vibration sensory and he had no way to actually stop them in his peak much less his current injured state, it was better he escaped than everyone dying uselessly

But then, what was it that he was feeling

"Panic? Fear? Hope….Ah, I see now"

These weren't his feelings

"It must be those two, I can feel their thoughts, their emotions through the souls of theirs I have inside me…..So unpleasant"

This human part of him he never wanted to feel again, not with how compelling it was to rescue them

"This is dumb"

The sound of footsteps halted, a crossroad in front, neither path looked appealing though and only the way behind called for him

"What a crappy class"

Forcing him to care for his slaves was a major drawback, the only drawback so far

"Hmm…"

His eyes stared at the crystal filled ceiling of the tunnel, debating on what course of action he should take

"....."

The more he looked on the more glimmering these crystals seemed to him, as if a spark had been ignited in his eyes

....

Back where the battle was waging on Ellis could be seen manoeuvring between the thrown rocks, dodging all the attack with Anput in hand, the hound was using her sand to block any attacks that couldn't otherwise be dodged by the quick swordswoman

'If I was running alone this wouldn't have worked'

It had been a couple of minutes since her master was slammed out of sight but she couldn't get anywhere close to the tunnel ever since she carried Anput, what with the rocks and occasional stomps if they were close enough to one of the big guys

'What would Master do if he was here'

She thought to herself, then again he was here moments ago and his only action seemed to be getting swatted…

Boom!

An explosion came all of the sudden catching her attention, one of these 'rock elementals' had the smoke around its head as it turned around to face the enemy

"Master?" "Awuu!"

Both happy called happy to see the figure swinging off a rope attached to the ceiling by a thrown dagger

"Come to me"

He ordered as soon as he appeared and Ellis wasted not a second in heeding that command even through one of the enemies was right in between them, this was no time to hesitate or think

Whoosh!

The massive club in the Orelic's hand forced YuJu to let go of the rope and fall to the ground on his one leg, the big guy didn't cease his attack though and used its free hand to punch the ground but it was so slow it could hit and only provided leverage for the cartwheeling YuJu to climb his way up using his only functional arm and leg

The rotating body only stopped when he finally reached the top of the Orelic's head, standing on his hand as he gazed at the now still rock for a few moments before rolling forward and off its back

Ellis jumped up and allowing him to mount her shoulder so that the three could finally escape this miserable situation… or so she hoped but the big guys on the side didn't agree, throwing themselves forward in a bid to force her back once more

"Ignore them and keep running"

"They will-" "Go!"

Clenching her teeth hard she ignored everything and kept rushing like an idiot, going right through the legs of the guy who was still dazedly looking at the ceiling

BAM!

She couldn't turn her head to look back since his legs were wrapped around her neck but that was clearly the sound of rock hitting rock

'Did they perhaps crash into each other?'

She assumed but the following crash of rocks meant that wasn't the case

"Drop me there"

He pointed her to an area where the wall was filled with many colourful crystals glimmering with a soft light which she arrived at quickly, letting him down and checking the situation behind

The only guy wielding a club was hitting the other five madly, there was already a casualty among them since one didn't know of its partner's betrayal before it was too late, the others however were pushing it back with their persistent efforts trying to make their way to them

"Why is it attacking its friends"

"It's under me now, just like you are"

He gave a brief explanation and turned to the hound

"Anput"

"Wu?"

"Use your sand to push them back as much as you can, I need that guy to stay still for a few seconds and can't have the others interfere"

"Wuu!"

"I'm counting on you, don't mess it up"

He didn't need to stress the matter but couldn't help but do so, after all if anything went wrong he might actually die, a risk he didn't expect willingly taking again so soon after he came back from those perilous times