"Alright, it's gone. Let's go," said Jamie.

We were all huddled up together, under the shields Giada had summoned. The gaseous dragon breath, which seemed capable of melting steel itself, ignored the shield itself while it had lit up everything else, melting tech creatures into a puddle of liquid metal.

Yet, for some reason, Jamie gave the order to carry on, and the people did.

Harlow and I almost panicked when Giada removed the shield, yet nothing happened. The gas, which by now had yet to disappear, didn't touch us.

I didn't understand how Jamie had been able to tell but taking a good look at him; it was clear that his eyes, more precisely his irises, had transformed.

It might have been a power, or maybe something else; still, I couldn't tell, at least not until I gained another Shade star; if I gained another Shade star.

We ran through the few dozens of meters that separated us from the second winding-down platform, the only problem in front of us being the still white-hot puddles of melted metal that had once been tech-creatures.

"Hop on the platform," Giada said, forming a platform for us to walk upon with her barrier ability.

Then climbing the stairs, we were out of the Metal Trenches; there had been not enough time for the monsters to spawn once more.

It had been incredible. The number of creatures this few people had been able to tackle was simply incredible.

It showed how long we still had to go, both personally and as a team.

However, by my left, Harlow was back in shape; even her armor's Durability had recovered perfectly; the same could be said about Loki, who was ready to attack at my command.

In front of us, the vast Citadel rose up in the sky; the shadows of its hollowed-out or decayed building made only of metal made me think about the southern Dump. They seemed mirror portraits of each other. The only difference was the size and homogeneity of the Fallen Kingdom's Citadel structures.

They were dark, seemingly in ruin, yet solid at the same time, and clearly full of life if that could be called life.

Even to my Perception, I couldn't really distinguish the creatures I could see from here, at least not in all their details, but one thing was clear, there were thousands of them.

They looked hysterical yet tame. Docile, yet ready to act.

Some of them stood immobile as statues as if they were dead, but if something attracted their attention, they moved, twitched, turned their heads with eerily perfect movements.

There were hundreds of diverse shapes, tall, fat, big, small, spheroid, rhomboids, squared or even looking like an amalgam of the above. Yet what clearly scared me the most, setting aside the Dragon in the sky, was an eerily tall creature, which I didn't notice right away.

I only noticed it when it shifted its head slightly in our direction.

It was so big that I had taken it for a building, and given its frame, it was clear that I could Trace it even from here.

"Damn," Jamie said before I could do anything, "The Colossus is active… what is it with this Dungeon today."

"Yeah. This is by far the worst response to an Eclipse we've faced," Giada added. She turned towards Jamie, "Are you sure you can take down the dragon?"

Jamie nodded, "If Glick, here, debuffs it, and that weird Kobold from Horn's team is still alive, then I'm positive."

Harlow and I shared a look.

"You can take down that dragon?" She asked him.

Jamie nodded. "I've become a Sniper since last we… spoke. And I've unlocked one of the most powerful Skills out there. Your… friend, here, can tell you."

"My lover, here," she said, nodding toward me, "has already told me about your Death Shot. I just didn't know it was that powerful."

"It is if the correct conditions are applied," Jamie said. "Conditions which we can trigger with a couple of debuffers."

Noland patted Jamie's shoulders, "He might not look like it, but the boy has got his moves. We've become the strongest party around since he's jumped to Ultimate. Two years and he's already reached level sixty-one, can you believe that?"

"Thank you, Noland… so, yeah. I might not look like it, but I've got the stuff."

"Yeah, you should have had the right stuff a long time ago. You had the wrong stuff, though," Harlow answered.

I cleared my throat, a little affronted by their back and forth, for some reason or another.

Yet Harlow took my hand, "Let's go; we should be able to find Alistar and get him back."

"You are not going anywhere; I'm scouting here," said Rey.

"Yes, also, I don't see Horn's party anywhere. It's said to say, but they might have fallen," Jamie said.

My heart started drumming in my chest. Alistar had fallen?

No, I wouldn't believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.

However, it was clear that the Dragon had taken his leave. It was circling in the sky, uncaring of our coming.

Noland and Rey shared an intense look; it was clear that scouting was not something to do lightly. Also, we were at the Inner Ring now.

In front of us lay many a few different paths.

Some of them wanted us to travel the ground, some others to swim in the waters, some others still were entirely bare ground, mysteriously empty.

From the orientation of Rey's body, it was clear that he was going to scout ahead through the bare ground, but even in lack of a working Sixth Sense, I was ready to bet that the path he had chosen was the most dangerous one.

If someone asked me why I thought that, my answer would be pretty easy; delvers were crazy.

Still, something else took me aback. Something they, Noland and Rey, shared just before his little brother departed. They beat their chest thrice in quick succession. After that, Rey disappeared with Dash.

I had seen that before; I had indeed seen it. That was not only something my master, the one who had taught me archery, used every once in a while. It was a gesture I had seen Faruq do once, but after the events that unfolded I had entirely removed it from my mind, and he had never repeated it after that day.

"Harlow, what was that?" I said, mimicking the gesture while trying not to show it.

"That? I don't precisely know, but some of the Delvers use to salute my dad like that. He doesn't reciprocate it, though."

I wanted to ask Noland, but Rey's whizzing on the ground, who started blowing up with massive darts and explosions following after his passage, took my attention.

It was crazy. He was running on a minefield, and his speed was such that he kept just barely ahead of the explosions.

It was madness.

Still, he found the time to move around, scouting for the paths at his left and at his right.

Slightly after the explosions, tech creatures burst out from the ground, creatures capable of drilling through the earth with ease.

"See," Giada answered one of Harlow's questions, "the path going down the ground is the most dangerous. It's certain death down there. The one below the water would be the safest, but without a mutation, it's impractical; some creatures swim incredibly fast down there. Which leaves us with the field, but the mines need to be triggered first."

Alistar could pass through the water; he had a mutation for that; his Icy Fortitude allowed him to breathe underwater and even sprout fins and webbed hands and feet.

Still, after reaching the edges of the path with the Citadel, Rey turned back toward us, followed by the tech creature that had sprouted from the ground. It was clear that they were not going to relent. They would be attacking us even though we stood on the winding-down platform. The Eclipse was a bitch.

"No traces of them," Rey said amid wheezing as he joined back to us.

"Good work, now get ready for the incoming creatures," Noland ordered, not only to him but to all of us.

Drick yelled something else, "Don't fear! As long as we don't leave the platform, Eclipse or not, the Dragon won't come. Horn must have left for The Citadel. He pushed himself too much; that's why he fell!"

No, I wouldn't accept that.

Then an idea struck me like a bolt from the blue.

"Hey, Drick! What kind of Kobolds are Horn's party!?"

"They were good Kobolds indeed!"

"Damn! I didn't mean that! Are they land kobolds or water ones!?"

"Oh? Right, they were water kobolds, good lads! Now get ready, let's try that Lok-low again!" He shouted, crazed as he pointed at the incoming creatures full of drills and horns and eyes that were ready to shoot laser beams at us.

"Fuck it; you're useless!" I shouted.

"Hey, that hurt!" Drick answered, exploding into laughter.

Rey, still gasping a little, put a hand on my shoulder, "What were you thinking about?"

I didn't know if I could fully trust the weird Shade-blessed boy, but it was no use lying to him.

"If Horn's team was made of water Kobolds, they did not die to the Dragon; they are likely still waiting for it under the waters. I just need to figure out which of these paths they took!"

"Yeah, it could be… still; you can't swim with that arm and leg of yours. No one here is equipped to take the water paths. So what do you intend to do?"

I bit my lip, grunting, for I didn't know what to do.

Calling wouldn't help, and they were likely fighting under the waters now, even if by any chance my voice reached them, they wouldn't be able to answer.

But I had the feeling that if I didn't do something, that if I didn't find Alistar, I would lose him forever.

Then, Rey surprised me.

"Well, let's do it this way; I'll get you all the way to the far edge of the water, then you go check yourself." His smile was wicked, yet he didn't seem to be telling a lie.

However, even if I looked for confirmation with his brother, he did not answer my gaze.

The others had all headed to fight the incoming horde of creatures; their levels ranged around one hundred and forty.

Still, I would leave Loki to fight, so I traced them all. As long as Loki managed to at least scratch them, we would get the contribution. Sun knew how much we needed to get stronger.

Technomole, Level 141 (5,363,988/14,100,000)

Technobear, Level 139 (1,255,247/13.900.000)

Technoshrew...

.

.

I had no idea what a mole was, but the bear definitely looked like those found at night in Little Bush.

However, none of these creatures had particularly dangerous abilities.

"So, you coming? Or you got scared?" Rey asked.

"It's not about being scared; it's simply suicidal. I can't really swim like this, although…"

There was indeed something I could do.

There was a way for me to move underwater, even though not as effective as proper swimming, the problem was with the oxygen. I was fairly sure I couldn't really be in apnea for more than a minute, especially while moving around.

"How deep is the water?" I asked.

"Not much, roughly fifty meters, enough to hide the creatures from sight," Rey answered. The sound of the battle going on was partially covering his voice.

"Ah… let's just go," I said to Rey, "how are we going to-"

I didn't even manage to finish the sentence that Rey got ahold of me and started running on top of the waters.

He was going even faster than before, shooting like a Flow-blast through the sky.

"Son of a Moon walker!" I shouted.

Rey just laughed.

When we had gotten to the edge of the platform, he threw me right into the waters, saying, "Let's see if you're worth the trouble, Night Hunter."

I did not expect that. I had no idea how he knew, nor really knew how to respond to that. If there was one thing I knew, though, it was that right now; and I had a harsher problem to deal with.

I had to check for the waters.

I would find out later who I was really dealing with and who these people and their salute meant.

***

When I entered with a splash into the water, the first thing I needed to do was pretty clear, summon a harpoon.

A harpoon was the best weapon to shoot under the water. With its mass, shape, and with the power with which my clock-arm could throw it, it would travel a decent amount of meters before being defeated by the water pressure.

So I threw it and managed to imbue it with Trick Shot.

The next second and a half later, I was almost at the deepest part of the winding water trail.

What my Perception took in at that point was something I didn't want to see.

Body pieces, blood, and entrails floated about in the waters, legs, arms, and what definitely looked like a Kobold's head lay on the water trail's bed; gently rocked by the movements of the waters, the head unwillingly and emphatically turned toward me.

My heart almost exploded in my chest, but…

Sun be damned, and Sun be praised, that was not Alistar's head.

Alistar scales were red; my Night Sight, printing colors in the darkened waters, definitely recognized the head's scales as red.

But the whole ordeal had left me with not enough air to go on. I had to take a look at the place around me as fast as I could, then I had to get back.

The water trail's bed was littered with destroyed tech-creatures, and although there were a couple of arms too many lost in the waters than what a regular Kobold sported, it was clear that there was no sign of any other Kobolds.

I tried with fast-Tracing anything my eyes lay upon, but nothing important manifested to me.

It was time that I turned back to breathable air.

So, I turned around and threw another harpoon, this time upward.

No, tech-creatures blocked my passage.

***

I took in a massive breath as my lungs let themselves be invaded by what Harlow had told me was called oxygen.

"So, how did it go?" Rey asked, standing at the Inner Ring edges of the trail.

"Fuck you," I said, holding out my hand. Chuckling, he took it and lifted me up.

"One dead Kobold, a warrior, judging by the armor and the weapon, also, not my Kobold," I said.

"Well, at least your intuition was good," he answered.

"But where did they go?"

"They're swimmers; they must have opened the passage to the Citadel," Rey answered, his judgemental finger pointing at a trail that I couldn't see and likely passed through an invisible tunnel of water connected to the water path, and then led to the Citadel.

Before the Citadel, there was only a weird-looking fence, out of which the weird droid didn't seem to move, then the Citadel rose in all its splendor. We were almost at the edges with it.

And it was clear that there were no monsters here. I had no idea why.

"They might be hiding at the water gateways," Rey said.

"What are the water gateways now?"

"Buildings. Buildings from which only people that can swim and hold their breath for at least five minutes can reach. They are like some sort of shortcut, it should go almost entirely ignored by the tech-creatures, but that also means that the moment they come out from the buildings, the whole Abyss of creatures is going to attack them. And I very much doubt they want to reach the Dungeon itself during the Twilight. They might want to wait for the night." He kneaded his barely visible goatee, "Although, knowing Horn and how he gets when he loses one of his… He might do something crazy."

I pinched the bridge of my nose even though I was pinching it with my clock-hand, but if that wasn't enough, things got even worse.

I couldn't know what it was, but I saw the giant Colossus in the distance make a slight movement, change its stance, orienting itself toward us, yet it wasn't looking at me; it was looking far, toward one of the outer ring's paths.

"What is wrong with that Colossus today," I could hear Rey mull over it, "It has never acted so much before…"

Yet I didn't give a damn about what Rey was saying, for I had understood right away why the creature had shifted its attention to the outer ring.

If it had looked at us when I left the Metal Trenches, the only reason why it even shifted toward us could be one and only…

My friends had come back, and Nova was coming here.

Fucking Abyss...