For the better part of half an hour, the platform made its way down, the chain above groaning and creaking precariously. Every so often, the chain would glow, causing another coiled chain lying nailed to the mountain wall to unspool and attach to the platform, resetting its length for further travel.

And like this, they made their way through the skeletal remains of an entire civilization. Until at a certain point -

"What in the world?"

Surprisingly, it was Li that uttered this statement. He narrowed his eyes as he saw coiled around the bridges, pathways, and mining contraptions what was best described as a black ooze. It shuddered rhythmically, as if breathing, and it glowed with a sickening shine that indicated a slimy, slick texture when the light Li shone glanced upon it.

And there was so much of it, too, wrapped around almost every surface, all of it attached to each other in tendrils like a massively complex web. Notably, there were no corpses here anymore, likely absorbed into the sprawling mass.

The party tensed up, seeing what Li saw, and immediately all of them stood up, wary of the unknown.

Li was surprised largely because he truly had no idea what this substance was. It did not match anything he knew. His first thought was some kind of black slime which would have been rather high leveled, but no, this was not anything like that. In fact, he could not sense anything from it at all. No magic. Nothing to read for their status.

Much like when Li tried to read the statuses of full-blooded heroes.

The black mass shuddered in unison, and Li spoke, "Stay near me, all of you!"

As he anticipated, the mass attacked, and tendrils shot out from every single direction, aiming to grasp at and overwhelm the platform.

Li immediately cast [Moonbeam], not holding back at all on power output as twin lights of silver lit up the dark innards of the mountain. Thankfully, the moonbeams were highly effective, burning up and disintegrating the approaching black mass with ease. But the attacks came from all directions, and even as Li covered vast swaths of area with his moonbeams, the mass seemed to be infinitely regenerative, and soon enough, the platform began to shake and rock violently.

Tendrils had likely managed to lock onto the chain holding the platform, and it was only a matter of time before it snapped and everyone went into a freefall.

And so, Li prepared a defense. He leaped into the air and closed his fist, casting [Chrysalis]. A cocoon-like shell of green energy materialized around the platform, snapping off the chain. He prevented the energy encased platform from going into freefall by shifting his arm into a mass of roots, extending them to curl around the cocoon like an anchor, tethering it to him as he sprouted wings to keep everyone afloat.

In the short time Li focused on creating the chrysalis, tendrils had struck at him, or rather, they focused more on attaching to him. The ooze seeped into his skin, causing the muscle fibers and blood vessels beneath to blacken and swell, but because this organic form was simply just an artificially constructed vessel, it did no real damage.

Instead, it let Li know that the kind of damage these tendrils did were entirely independent of magic, passing through his innate magical and physical resistances. These things did not belong to Elden World. And thankfully, it would seem that they could not pierce through the energy construct barrier that was the A-ranked Chrysalis spell.

He reactivated his moonbeams, burning away the stray tendrils that had managed to latch onto his arm and legs.

But as Li peered down, he realized the sheer enormity of volume that this thing was attacking with. Fifty meters down was the flat base of the mountain, and it would be no exaggeration to claim that all of it was completely covered in this mass.

Simple moonbeams would not do enough, and he was not going to go ahead and Fusionboost himself as he was not in anywhere near a threat level similar to the Darkbeast hand, though the mechanics of the fight were similar.

Instead, he opted for something else.

"All of you, close your eyes," said Li. "Unless you want to go blind."

Currently, Li flew along with the smaller version of the multi-colored [Wings of Simurgh], but even at full shapeshifted power, those wings did not have the consistent damage to destroy the black slime.

The wings sucked into Li's back, and for a second, the platform was in free fall. But as bright light exploded like a nova around Li, the platform halted. Wings flared to Li's sides. Bright red, feathered wings lined with gold and covered with an ever-flickering aura of bright white light, much like the solar flares around the sun's corona.

The wings extended far out, being much larger than Li himself, and the light they emitted was so intense the average person would have gone blind looking at it. But more than that was the brutal heat emanating from it.

All the black mass nearby immediately burst into flames before disintegrating into charred nothingness, and even the mountain sides so far away were beginning to glow red as their rock started to grow molten and melt.

These were the [Wings of Sanzuwu] belonging to an immensely powerful crow monster that was said to have a shard of the sun itself within it. There were ten of its kind, and when all ten crows were together, they could cast an Ultima-tier spell that manifested a miniature sun.

What Li could do right now with this shapeshifting was far less in scale compared to that, but it was still enough to beat away the black mass's approach.

As Li descended, the ooze retreated. Initially because it could not advance due to the intense heat, and then afterwards in legitimate retreat, sinking away. Which indicated that it had some form of intelligence or instinct. Or perhaps someone controlling it.

With the ooze gone, Li could see that it had seeped through what appeared to be two enormous slabs of solid, rune-carved metal sealed together to form the mountain base. It was evident that judging from how the slabs overlapped and latched together, that it was something like a horizontally oriented gate that could open up to reveal more space below.

Li reached this gate and withdrew his wings, resting the Chrysalis on the ground. He did not deactivate it because the lingering heat from his wings still warped the air, though remarkably, the gate itself stood unharmed, its runes still glowing with active power that he recognized as highly magic-resistant.

"Okay, all of you can open your eyes again," said Li as he stood right outside the cocoon, looking into everyone closing their eyes. Tia had both her hands wrapped tight over her eyes, but it was evident at how they shook that she very much wanted to see out of them.

"Do not step out of the barrier yet," said Li. "I used a wide area of effect heat based attack to destroy the threat. But it may yet return, not to mention that the heat still remains in the air. Especially you two, Mason and Mercer – the moment you step out, your lungs will collapse and burn up."

"Duly noted, sir," said Mason with a shiver at how astounding Li's power was.

Asala put a hand to her chin as she peered around her. "This is the Helgat, the gates that lead into the dwarven civilization proper under the ground."

"So no dwarves lived above?" said Li.

She shook her head. "Nay. The Triforge Dwarves are more attuned with the earth than their Montagne counterparts, thus, they preferred the comforting cool and dark of the underworld. But still, to think that thou art capable of damaging the Helgat with magic – thou art truly a force of nature unparalleled."

"Actually, I am more surprised I did not melt straight through this," said Li. He inspected the runes, each of them the size of a man and glowing bright purple with anti-magic energy.

"Gods," said Mercer as he looked down, seeing the metal gate shine with a cold, slightly blue luster. "This is Adamant. I'd only heard tell of it in stories and myth. And here, there is so much of it. Even a shard of it enough to forge a dagger could make a man rich for an entire lifetime, and here…"

His words trailed off as he saw the adamant gate stretch far into the distance, far beyond the boundaries of light that Li shone.

The gate was immensely physically sturdy, to be sure, being likely a dozen or so meters of solid reinforced Adamant – a Mythic ranked substance – but he was not at all impressed by that. What was more of note was its magic resistant enchantment strong enough to resist the flames of the Sanzuwu, an A ranked attack that nothing in this world could have escaped unscathed.

"The Helgat is one of few artifacts yet wrought into existence by the gods themselves," said Asala. She motioned to the runes. "These runes thou see before thee hath been written by the Great Serpent herself."

"That would explain it," said Li. Already, the heat in the air was fading rapidly, the magic resistance barrier absorbing and neutralizing it.