Even with the humanoid demon dealt with, there was still an undercurrent of tension to the pair’s exploration--the eye demon remained a presence in Riza’s mind regardless of if it could see them or not.

Ignoring it the best she could, they searched the myriad of rooms attached to this corridor. They were all close together, the rooms small themselves. Identical layouts and containing little furnishings.

It quickly became apparent there were two types of rooms here: one with a plethora of single beds spaced out within the larger type of room while the other was more personal; it contained a single bed, along with a small desk and a simple dresser and shelves.

The single rooms even had an ensuite bathroom attached! What heights of luxury did these people live in? The plaques stuck above their doors suggested they were people of import, deserving of a personal living space.

As for everyone else, they had to share one of a few communal showers and bathrooms the pair had discovered.

Once it became clear they had searched all the rooms in their immediate vicinity, Lefie dashed to the closest personal space and launched herself onto the bed, sinking into the soft mattress with little mews of delight.

“Not afraid of all the insects living in the bed?” Riza asked dryly from the doorway, prompting Lefie to shoot up off the bed.

“What? No? That’s possible?” She asked frantically, patting and wiping herself down with her hands. She even gave her hair a quick rinse with water, just in case.

“Bed bugs exist. I wouldn’t trust an abandoned mattress to be the cleanest thing.” Lefie frowned in response but didn’t do anything.

Although, it looks surprisingly intact. Riza pressed down on the mattress, feeling the springs compress under the force. Springs as well. More modern furnishings.

“It doesn’t look like there’s any bugs,” Lefie states, leaning over the bed. She shoots a look at Riza before plopping herself back down on the bed.

Meanwhile, one of the shelves caught Riza’s attention. The room was clearly lived in, with a homely amount of mess and insignificant items littered on shelves and the desk. As such, she picked up a picture frame, blowing on it to get rid of the dust.

A man, dressed in clothing that definitely did not fit in, had his arm around a woman, his other hand on the shoulder of a young girl bearing resemblance to both of them. In the background was a large mountain, summit hidden above the clouds.

Riza turned the frame over but the back lacked any information.

The frame itself was metal and slim, and lacked a stand to keep itself upright.

Placing the personal memento back down, she took her time to peruse through the other items they found, feeling only slightly guilty at this breach of privacy.

Not like they can complain. They’re probably dead, anyway.

She checked through the dresser as well, seeing a surprisingly large number of intact and non-eaten outfits, none of which fit in with the fashion here or where Riza came from.

There were, interestingly, what she would describe as different kinds of outfits; casual, formal, work. At least, that was what Riza ascertained by their looks and assumed difficulty in putting them on.

Any bit of clothing that took 10 minutes to wear could not have been everyday wear.

A thought popped into her head as Riza looked down at her own tattered robes and she quickly made her way off to another room, telling Lefie to stay put.

There were quite a few personal spaces and, as such, quite a few dressers to rifle through. The majority of people were definitely bigger than her but, as a whole, based on the clothing she found, they were startling close to heights she was familiar with rather than the default giant-ness of Skaldians.

While not an exact size, Riza quickly found some clothes to replace her shoddy ones; a jumpsuit-like item and what she could only describe as a grossly unflattering jumper--I’ve worn worse. Her legs would be a bit cold but other than the brief moment of change, she could feel the warmth seep into her bones.

It was like relaxing in a hot bath. The thought made her shiver in desire. We’ve got showers…

Testing the shower, the water worked and warmed up quickly enough. Stripping down, Riza doused herself with water, luxuriating in the dirt and grime sliding off her body. She tousled and ran her hands through her hair, untangling the now short strands and enjoying the damp sensation.

Although, she couldn’t help but wish she had conditioner and shampoo on hand.

It expends too much essence for Lefie for either of them to have taken a shower; this was like heaven to her.

Quickly enough, Riza stepped back out and wiped herself down as fast as she could. Her hair was still damp but that didn’t matter with it’s shorter length.

She made her way back to the room she left Lefie in, seeing the lazy teenager hadn’t moved one bit from lying down on the bed the entire time she was gone.

“Having fun?” Riza asked teasingly.

Lefie’s eyes drifted open and then she shot up to a sitting position as soon as she saw her.

“You look…” A giggle. “You look like an Ancient!”

Riza looked down at herself. I feel more like a seasonal murderer.

“Your hair’s wet.” Lefie stated simply, now noticing the darker colour. Geez. I didn’t realise.

“Took a shower. You probably should too, as well as changing out of those clothes.” Although Lefie’s robes weren’t as torn as Riza’s were, they still had their own fair share of wear and tear.

“Probably.”

The bunker continued to confuse Riza. Even as they were walking along a corridor--Lefie dressed in clothes comically too large because there were no children’s clothes to loot--Riza struggled to understand the place.

For one, the size and layout was very strange to her. When they arrived at the quarry, there was a massive, geodesic dome situated on top of the plateau. It would be so far away from the bunker but both were clearly belonging to the Ancients; they must be connected somehow.

Which meant there were incredibly long ascending tunnels and stairs in this bunker somewhere, and that just seemed odd.

Not to mention, the machinery all still worked. Plumbing, pumps, water, electricity. It just needed to be turned on. With all the infrastructure intact, the startling lack of destruction, and how rooms looked like they were suddenly abandoned, how this place came to be was a giant mystery.

The Ancients looked human. Or, Skaldian. It’s reasonable to believe the demons would’ve wanted to kill them. No blood nor destruction, no signs of fighting, means the place was probably abandoned before the demons came to inhabit it.

So, the demons are squatters.

That begs the question: what caused the Ancients to leave this place?

Riza’s goal wasn’t to uncover the mysteries of the mountain but now she was here, she couldn’t deny her curiosity.

Riza’s hand whipped out, bringing the pair of them to a halt as a sound grew louder.

“More spiders,” Riza whispered after a few seconds, letting out a held breath as the swarm of insects came skittering by not long after.

“That’s like the fourth one! Where are the demons?” Lefie asked, sounding almost disappointed.

Riza shrugged and then continued walking.

They passed by innumerous rooms, giving each a quick once over--none containing demons--until they came upon a stairwell.

Wide and climbing up to what was clearly another level, a low excitement began to build as they began to ascend.

The stairs were long and gave the illusion the ceilings were higher than they actually were.

When they got to the second level, R iza faintly sensed something out but above them still. Nevertheless, they stepped out and had a quick look around, seeing nothing important in the rooms, and returned to the stairs.

The stairwell was metal, the steps themselves filled with uniform holes and extending from the wall. They felt weak and unstable but didn’t move under Riza’s and Lefie’s combined weight.

It didn’t take many steps for the world to begin to fill with a white miasma once more.

Riza stopped in her steps, swishing her hand forwards as the fog refused to obey gravity once more, filling the upper stairwell in it’s entirety.

“That’s odd,” She said.

“There’s demons!” Lefie stated excitedly. Riza began to sense something, though the direction was not clearer than simply ‘up’.

In preparation, Riza raised the spider she was carrying with her, setting it at the strongest she could maintain, just in case. She placed it on her shoulder, taking the stairs one step at a time.

[Animate Critter] (10/10)+ -Learned

Raise a corpse smaller than yourself into a level 19 zombie

Casting Time: 5 sec

Cost: 7 es/sec

Higher and higher they climbed until finally reaching what seemed to be the highest floor in the bunker. At least, the stairwell didn’t ascend any further.

Stepping out, Riza was presented with a corridor of doorways once more but now, she had a strong direction to follow. The signals were getting stronger and, best she could ascertain, there were two strong demons a little ways away. A humanoid and an eye demon, according to precedent.

However, there were dozens of incredibly weak signals as well--weaker than even spiders. Even as the pair walked towards them, they didn’t get any stronger.

A new type of demon? Riza mused. She planted Spidey 1 on the ground whilst retrieving soon-to-be Spidey 2 from Lefie, raising it at the weakest she could and planting it on her shoulder.

Spidey 1 skittered forwards towards the signals, peeping round the open doorway.

The room itself was windowless but with bright, large, lights embedded into the ceiling. The walls were far apart, plenty of space, with large tables thrown onto their sides and against the wall. Bits of metal littered the ground with broken equipment sitting on the tables and stuck to the wall, as well as half-destroyed plant pots.

The plants themselves were long dead but hadn’t been cleaned away, along with all the dirt coating the ground.

An eye demon aws glued to the wall, quickly noticing the rogue spider. On the other side was a hive of fleshy… something. Arranged in a hexagonal pattern like honeycomb, filled with pus and pulsating membranes hiding whatever was inside.

The humanoid demon had a small, odd creature in it’s hand. A mouthless demon resembling a large tadpole, it had six stubby legs and ridges trailing down it’s body. It squirmed in the humanoid demon’s hand.

As soon as Spidey 1 had scouted out the room, the humanoid reacted, opening it’s mouth--presumably to gargle something--before striding forwards swiftly and stamping down on Spidey 1.

Spidey narrowly dodged out of the way but didn’t retaliate.

What happened next was an utter surprise to Riza. Instead of fighting, the humanoid reached into the demon hive, piercing the fleshy membranes, and pulling out handfuls of tiny tadpole demons.

It clutched them to it’s chest and… ran.

Riza was slack jawed but quickly regained her presence of mind, switching her vision to her shoulder-mounted demon and hurrying to the room.

“Follow the humanoid but don’t fight it,” She ordered Spidey 1, the buff demon scurrying after the escapee.

Lefie jogs into the room right after her, seeing it for the first time.

“What happened?”

“Humanoid ran off. Took a few of those,” Riza gestured towards the hive, prompting Lefie to give it a closer inspection.

Riza, however, switched her vision back to Spidey 1. It was chasing close behind the humanoid but unable to catch up.

The creature ran, swinging past corners with intent, knowing exactly where it was going. It quickly found a stairwell, practically jumping down the floors and gaining distance on the zombie.

And, soon enough, the pair were out of reach, too far for Riza to look through the demon’s senses.

Fuck. It got away.

Back in the room, Lefie had pulled out a tadpole from the hive. She dropped it the instant it started squirming in her hand, shouting ‘ew’ and wiping the slime away with a splash of water.

“It’s disgusting. What is it? Some kind of baby demon?” She asked, keeping a good distance from the specimen.

Riza leaned in close, picking it up and trailing her finger over it’s smooth, soft body. She placed it on a table and cleaved it in half with her dagger. Effortless.

“It’s weak.” With the tip of the blade, she sliced through skin and pried the creature open. “No skeleton. The ridges are sacs filled with some kind of liquid. No brain in the head.” A quick autopsy.

“I’d be sorry for anyone who had a baby like that.”

“So would I.” Riza refocused her attention onto the hive.

It was giant--wall-spanning--and filled with an innumerous amount of identical creatures at presumably different stages of growth. Far too many signals and far too weak for her to get an estimation on number but she wasn’t ruling out over 100 of the little things.

“We should kill them all,” Riza stated coldly. “You’re better at that.”

Lefie didn’t argue, readying her lightning finger and firing the first blast, disintegrating the first cell and everything inside it.

See if I can get some answers. Riza turned towards her other demon, hoping beyond hope it was within reach.

Her vision sunk away instantly, the shapes rearranging with the corridors from the lower floor.

Spidey 1 was still in pursuit, chasing the humanoid demon. No fog, as expected, but the area itself was unfamiliar to Riza.

Sadly, they didn’t stay within range for very long, running too deep in the bunker for her to reach.

A sudden worry emerged in her mind as she applied a low level [Heal] to herself.

Name Riza Level 18 Health 100/100 Stamina 74/100 Essence

6790/6800 Power 5 (5) Constitution 5 (5) Endurance 5 (5) Vim 6 (6) Essence

5 (340) Spirit

105 (1590) Health Regeneration

100/day Stamina Regeneration

120/day Essence Regeneration

463/minute

Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck! Her fist came crashing down on a table in anger, startling Lefie.

“Wh-what’s wrong?” She asked, sounding very concerned.

“Spidey’s 1 still alive and I told him not to get engaged in a fight.”

“...And that’s bad?”

“He’s draining essence and I can’t give him any commands. I should’ve told him to return if he gets too far away.” Such a stupid mistake.

[Message] (1/10) -Learned

Telepathically send a [Message] to someone of up to 20 words. They can send a [Message] back.

10m range

Cost: 5 es

There was little hesitation in the purchasing of [Message]. She had mulled it over in the past and knew she was going to get it sooner or later. Any time when she had more than one summon, she found herself wishing she didn’t need to walk to every one to give instructions.

It would also prevent situations like this from happening again.

“What are you going to do?” Lefie inquired.

“Drain myself empty, I guess,” Riza replied, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her tone.

Fortunately, it didn’t last, [Meditate] assuaging any remaining emotions. Riza quickly returned to a calm, rational state, picking up Spidey 2 and placing it on the floor in front of her.

Lefie returned to extermination while Riza dropped [Meditate], mind pricking with anger but ignoring it the best she could.

Deep breaths. Just a simple mistake; it’s not the end of the world.

Getting herself comfy--the best she could in an abandoned bunker--Riza focused on her new skill and closed her eyes.

Now, telepathy. How does that work? What are the limitations?

I need a way to target it. Two things immediately come to mind: someone I can see and someone I can know. She opened her eyes.

Range of 10 metres.

Her gaze narrowed onto Spidey 2.

Walk outside, wait five seconds, return.

Nothing. The zombie didn’t move an inch.

Hmmm. Thinking it doesn’t work. Maybe I need a name?

Spidey 2. Walk outside. Wait five seconds. Return.

Again, nothing.

Need something more. I need to invoke essence somehow.

“Come here,” Riza said, [Leech]ing the spider once it was within reach and quickly raising it again, getting really familiar with the exact feeling of essence.

“Run outside for about 10 metres,” Riza said, waiting a few seconds afterwards.

She imagined the spider in her head, complete with it’s name, as she spoke the next few words.

“Spidey 2. Return to me.” As she spoke, Riza tried to feel the flow of essence inside her. She closed her eyes, focusing on the signal she sensed that was Spidey 2’s. Weak but about 10 metres away.

The combination of it meant, just a few seconds later, the little guy returned and with him went 5 essence.

A massive sigh later, relief filled Riza over her success. This does mean I have to speak out my commands, though. Doesn’t feel very telepathy but something to work on later.

Riza got to her feet as Lefie finished clearing out the last of the tadpoles. She wiped a hand across her brow, clearing off the sweat.

“Finished!” She was enthusiastically exasperated.

True to her word, the hive was completely destroyed with barely any of it remaining. Riza sensed no demons living in the debris as well.

Which meant just one was left.

“Let’s go.”

The pair decided to regroup in the dorms. There was safety in familiarity and the comfort and closeness placed this area above both the kitchen and the entrance hall.

Along the way, Riza kept practising with [Message] on one weak spider, grinding the skill until it reached level 10.

[Message] (10/10)+ -Learned

Telepathically send a [Message] to someone of up to 200 words. They can send a [Message] back.

100m range

Cost: 23 es

With level 10 finally achieved, she had a 100 metre range where she could talk to any spider. This opened up a plethora of new possibilities but first, she ordered Spidey 1 to finally kill itself to open up her essence regeneration.

Like the ultimate satisfying morning stretch, the influx of essence afterwards was very relieving and fulfilling.

With how quickly the skill maxed out, Riza realised that she could level 0th tier skills within an hour, like she had just done. They all required 4500 essence and she had 6200 to spend at once.

When they reached the dorms, and Lefie hurrying away to wash off any gunk she might have missed, Riza got to thinking.

She had experimented somewhat with [Message]. The skill went through walls and, as far as she could ascertain, any obstruction. All she needed was a name and to know what the entity looked like.

Interestingly, even when the Spideys had the same name and the same stats and were completely identical, Riza could still delineate them with the skill.

Even the need to use her esoteric senses to feel the entity was only due to inexperience; enough practise familiarised herself with how essence interacted with the skill allowed her to target Spidey 1 whose whereabouts were completely unknown.

Additionally, while the spiders couldn’t send a response--because they were spiders--if they were dead, the skill just wouldn’t work. No essence would be consumed.

Hypothetically--because Riza doubted how useful this would be--she could place a spider at every intersection and corridor that they hadn’t cleared out of demons. The spiders would be incredibly weak which was actually a good thing as they’d die to any hostile demons.

Riza would then periodically send a [Message] to each spider. If the skill went through, nothing to report. If the skill didn’t go through, something happened at that location.

In a way, it was a form of pseudo clairvoyance.

She had also tried relaying instructions through other spiders, sadly to no avail.

The skill worked just fine on Lefie, and she could even reply! She had to audibly speak to reply, though, and Riza wondered whether that was because she had no experience with the skill or it was a hard-coded limitation. Maybe there was a higher tier skill that worked 100% telepathically.

They also experimented with how long Lefie could wait until she was unable to reply. The timing was about a minute and it sent everything she said, starting at the first word, until the limit was reached. However, if there was a one minute pause between words, the skill cut them off there.

Which led to some rather interesting implications. If only she could get the skill to work without being required to say something…

The scampering of footsteps echoing through the doorway caught Riza’s attention, quickly followed by the sliding form of Lefie, her long, brown hair still damp from a wash.

“You didn’t have to run; I wasn’t going anywhere,” Riza said, seeing Lefie taking large gulps of air.

“I think I heard something… a little… down that way,” Lefie pointed towards where they came from between breaths.

Instantly, Riza’s demeanour hardened. She stood up from the bed and chucked a spider she had quickly revived to Lefie.

[Animate Critter] (10/10)+ -Learned

Raise a corpse smaller than yourself into a level 2 zombie

Casting Time: 5 sec

Cost: 1 es/sec

“Stay here with him. I’m going to grab some more spiders. Kill him if you need me.”

Riza hadn’t expected to be able to try out her idea so quickly but she wasn’t exactly complaining.

Not much time had passed before Riza returned with armfuls of spiders and spiders carrying spiders. She had a whole army to play with.

In all, there were about 25 spiders which meant each had only 15 health. Not much but hopefully enough any death was the result of a hostile action.

She grouped them up into teams of five--Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo--and each had a number from 1 to 5, with 1 being the team leaders, not that the spiders understood the concept.

Her orders were simple: to traverse down the corridors and split the groups up at intersections. They’d travel for about 100 metres until returning and trying another intersection, if there were more intersections than groups.

If else, they’d travel until another intersection and then return.

Orders received, the miniature army scuttled away rather amusingly, leaving Riza and Lefie to wait.

“I feel a bit lonely, now,” Lefie joked after half a minute had passed.

“Am I not good enough for you?” Riza asked, pretending to be insulted.

“You’re nothing compared to Spidey Echo 4,” Lefie giggled.

“First sitrep coming up,” Riza changed topic, voice lacking amusement.

First [Message], directed at Alfa 1.

“Alfa 1. Do you copy?” The spell went through, Riza’s essence drained slightly.

Ah. I forgot to account for this. All the essence I’m regenerating is being used to maintain the spiders. I’ve got a limited amount of [Message]s to use.

She went through with each spider, all team leaders still alive.

Popping up her stats, Riza had kept an eye on her essence, seeing the [Message]s deducted costs but no gain. All 25 are still alive as well.

“We need to move up--staying within 100 metres of them.” She motioned towards Lefie and the pair began to walk.

Lefie was constantly looking around, checking behind them, and staying close to Riza. Even though nothing should’ve been able to sneak up on them, Lefie clearly didn’t feel that secure with the measures Riza had taken.

Which Riza couldn’t blame her for. Already, she had encountered one problem with this tactic. The fact it was completely invisible apart from the occasional [Message] Riza sent surely did nothing to assuage Lefie’s anxiety.

It didn’t take very long for the first point of essence regenerated. A quick relay of [Message]s told Riza it was just Delta that had been attacked, her regeneration suggesting all 5 were down.

“Shit. Delta’s down.”

“Where are they?”

“Fuck. I don’t know.”

Riza Closed her eyes and focused on [Meditate], focused on that esoteric sense of hers.

Details. Details! Faint but numerous. There were innumerous signals popping up, from other spiders to larger demons but only four groups of signals had any sort of uniformity to them. At a guess, they were her spiders.

They were spread out with wide gaps in between them. Thankfully, they were all close enough Riza could ascertain how far away from them she was.

One gap between groups was larger than the rest and beset by a handful of strong signals--greater demons, if she had to guess.

That, Riza believed, was the most likely place Delta were.

Now, Riza came across another problem with her plan: retreat. She had to send a [Message] to every spider rather than just the team leaders in order to tell them to return--or kill themselves.

Thankfully, the [Message]s were short so she only had to use [Message] at a low level, consuming about 100 essence total, but if the orders were more complex, it’d be a problem.

A problem solved by more intelligent creatures capable of communication. Something to think about later.

The spiders quickly regrouped and were subsequently killed off by Riza, the essence alamalgating into one strong spider that was sent forth to scout. This time, Riza tapped into it’s senses.

The attackers had moved on from the site of the incident but Riza could still sense them and gave directions to Spidey via [Message] like a remote control drone.

It skittered along the ground, trying to be stealthy as it got in close. It peeped round corners as it’s senses washed over the corridors and eventually found the group. It had to get perilously close to compensate for it’s limited sight without fog.

“Fuck,” Was all Riza said in response.

“What is it? What happened?” Lefie asked worriedly.

“Spidey, hide and don’t move,” Riza said, feeling like a military commander and adjusting the skill to only consume as much essence necessary for those words.

She ran a hand through her hair, momentarily surprised as she remembered it was shorter now.

“Big problem. There’s ten greater demons all grouped up together. Three of them emit fog. I couldn’t see any beast demons either.”

“Ten? Are they hunting us? They don’t usually attack spiders, do they?”

“No-maybe. I don’t know. They attack the spiders if they’re hostile but Delta weren’t--I didn’t order them to.”

“Ten’s a lot.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Sounds like a humanoid demon sent them. When did we fight groups of them?”

Riza ran through her memories, coming to the same realisation Lefie did.

“Shit. You might be right. They’re hunting us. That’s why they’re in this part of the bunker. And they’ve grouped up, as well.”

An intelligent enemy. I can only imagine the reason a humanoid demon isn’t with them is because of how rare they are.

“We can’t run,” Lefie said. “How much essence do you have?” She said, turning to Riza.

“I’m going to be full,” Riza replied, hastily doing maths in her head. “How much does [Lightning Bolt] do?”

“120. 480 when maximised. 40 essence each,” Lefie swiftly supplied.

[Double Cast] makes that 960 damage for 80 essence. Round health to 15,000. Say that’s 15 attacks. 15 seconds per greater demon.

“Total essence?” Riza asked.

3000 essence. That’s… 37.5 occurrences, 75 attacks. If we’re lucky, that stretches out to 4 demons she can kill.

[Conductivity] is damn annoying for quick calculations.

Draining my total reserves through [Leech] lets me kill 5 of them.

Damn; 1 off. A level 19 could stall the final one while Lefie regenerates.

Risky. Incredibly fucking risky, but doable. I hope.

“It’s going to be close but I think we’ve got enough essence to kill nine of them.”

“And the last one?”

“Spidey will keep it at bay while you regenerate essence. How long will it take to get 1200?”

Lefie shook her head. “Too long.”

“Fuck.” Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Okay, a weaker spidey and I’ll regenerate enough for [Leech]. Only a few minutes. That’s enough, right?

The greater demons had congregated together, humongous and barely fitting in the tunnels as they prowled down corridors, smashing open doors and trying to sniff the pair out.

Riza’s senses didn’t give such precise information but they weren't exactly being quiet about what they were doing.

The pair kept themselves hidden, taking round-a-bout routes to close the distance whilst maintaining stealth as best they could. It was nerve racking the closer they got, actually hearing the demons thrash the place.

They had gotten to an interaction--plenty of routes to run away--when they were finally within reach of their skills.

Now or never, it was time for action.

The corridors were narrow, funneling the demons down them nicely. They were spread out at an intersection the moment Riza and Lefie showed themselves, firing a barrage of [Lightning Bolt]s and [Leech]ing health from all of them in term, the skill not hindered by classical obstacles.

Almost immediately, the nearest one began it’s rush forwards, a few following close behind.

The blasts of lightning, as they increased in strength, staggered the creature and a quick splash of water, coating the ground, left it slipping and tumbling, creating an avalanche of bodies.

Riza noted that a few had split off, running down the corridors at breakneck speed and away from the fight. Suspicious, but she couldn’t pay much attention to them.

They had some distance and it only took a few seconds for the first demon to come down, blocking the path for the rest.

Riza stepped out to the side to focus [Leech] on the backline while Lefie retargeted the continuous blasting on the next demon, crushing the body in front of it as it scrambled over top.

Seconds later, both were dead, and the disappearing greater demons began to show themselves.

Shit. “We’re being flanked. Keep on that one,” Riza said, pointing towards the half-dead greater demon struggling against the slippery floor. Lefie nodded, only briefly turning away as she flung coats of water down each tunnel. Not much but helpful.

For her, she turned towards one of the other corridors, squinting down as the first flash of white rounded the corner. With the greater range of [Leech], she felt her mind grasp the life of this giant creature and squeeze.

It’s lumbering limbs slowed, muscles atrophying in rapid time, legs buckling under it’s weight, and eventually rolling to a slump.

“On your left!” Riza shouted at Lefie whilst her target died.

Riza turned once more, this greater demon having already covered half the distance. This time, it died right at the feet of the pair of them, far too close for comfort. She thanked these narrow hallways, preventing the demons from bounding down them at full pelt.

[Level up]

You have gained 10 stat points and 1 skill point

Lefie, meanwhile, was firing a [Lightning Bolt] from each hand, pointing down two different hallways--a benefit of [Double Cast] Riza hadn’t considered. The large forms of the creatures meant aiming was hardly an issue.

Riza checked her essence, slightly surprised by how high it was, before quickly focusing on the remaining three greater demons.

“You okay?” Riza asked, getting only a nod in return as Lefie brought her other hand in front of her.

Fog cloudied the tunnel, obscuring the furthest demon from view. Lefie’s lightning had powered up enough that each hit pushed the demons back a little, looking like they were getting shot with a bullet. Such incredible force.

“Stop. Save it for the last one,” Riza ordered as the teenager stepped back.

[Leech]quickly took care of both, having been heavily hurt by Lefie already.

“You see it?” Riza asked. A shake of the head told her no.

Just then, the signal in her head began to move. It turned around and… ran? She dashed right into the fog and found nothing, the greater demon further and further away by the second.

That’s… strange.