Sachihiro

The tunnels are narrow at certain places needing us to travel in single file but mostly they are wide enough for us to spread three abreast. The walls are a sharp black stone that seem to be exerting some sort of force onto us slowing our progress, we keep steady progress with an artifact shield barrer at the lead.

There are only twelve of us in this expedition under the Foothills to face this scourge of the Aldermen people and their villages. It isn't only the twelve of us facing it for lack of volunteers either but the tunnel entrance won't allow any more than twelve inside. A strange magical watching system that is likely the benefit of these tunnels being the creatures claimed territory.

The raiding party consists of Ava, Om, Volvox, Wagner's son Pitos, Susanna, Clovis, Asger, Chase, Sigur, Wagner himself and Haige mostly in case we need emergency healing. Though the tribes now have access to the Hito settlement of Honshu relatively close to the Tundra only Om and I in this group have soul weapons. But every single tribesman here has a spirit-bound artifact weapon at the ready.

Our passage is slow and careful with Wagner followed by Om at the head of the precession while Volvox and I cover the back. I don't think we like each other much but I do respect the man's abilities. Asger leads the spear wielders, I can't express enough how deadly the man has become with a spear in hand.

He and Caden both have show phenomenal improvement in their pursuit of mastering the spear and so far there seems to be no cap on the utility of the weapon. But even with all these various weapons armed against this creature I suspect it will be an axe that eventually ends it.

The tunnels are dark so eye sight isn't much of an asset in here. The stone of the walls is of a variety I have never come across before and it sweats a black tar that makes it difficult to breath. There are occasional green glowing algae on the walls and side tunnel entrances but the Aldermen guide was adamant we follow the man tunnel straight through. We throw glowing light-bulbs in the side tunnels as we progress to rouse anything lurking within, nothing comes.

It isn't very long before we reach a crumbling door of an ante-chamber large enough to accommodate our entire raiding party spread out shoulder to shoulder. The beast stands before us in the middle of the large rounded room in all its horrifying glory with tentacle like projections slithering across it's neck and back like living snake's each with a mind of its own.

It gazes at us with its eyeless face made of bare bone reminiscent of hard bleached stone, a face only a mother could love from a huge squat tentacle spider. The thing looks like a huge black 900 pound mass of muscle and tentacles standing at 2m at the shoulder.

We arrange ourselves in our attack formation with the shield bearers at the front ready to take the hard hits, the fast damage dealers like me go to the flanks. The spear wielders are right behind the four shield bearers at the front and we move forward, our auras flared as we all actively use them to enhance ourselves.

"Are you all ready?"

We stumble in surprise when the thing projects into our minds in a sweet feminine tasting voice that belies the seething mass of destruction before us. There seems to be more going on here than initially meets the eye.

"Excellent," it echoes it's miasma rising from the floor at its feet like black mist, someone throws glow-bulbs around the chamber that fail to dispel the mist.

We rush forward fast and the thing lashes out with its tentacles stopping the shield bearers cold in their tracks with a single tentacle each.

[Ding].

There is ringing coming from the two shields made of regular iron but the artefact shields hold solidly. Javelins are shattered by tentacles midair spraying their payloads ineffectively about.

The damage dealers arrive next and I feel the tentacle before I even see it as I dodge and roll trying to get past but failing. I meet tentacle to nodachi expecting to cut into it but my blade is also stopped cold as my cut becomes a block, the force spinning me about to dispel the thing's strength.

I block a follow up which pushes me back, rolling under whipping tentacles to a relatively safe spot from it's reach.

I notice the spear wielders are being pushed back as well and someone throws a javelin that disintegrates as it passes into the dark miasma without the protection of being sheathed in aura.

It seems this is going to be one of those fights at the end of which none of the survivors will have any moves kept secret from one another. It will take everything each of us has to face this thing, I think even as I call the Rage to the surface.

The creature doesn't let up one bit and barely moves from where it is standing as the tentacles do all the work. My movements have never before been at these speeds as consistently as they have been in this fight but the Rage has a way of somehow preserving stamina even in the worst of high paced situations.

The creature is now using two tentacles to keep me at bay and I'm proud of myself for pushing my opponent to such extremes. My nodachi has woken up from her slumber as well, now humming absorbing force everytime I deflect trying to get to the body of the creature.

So far Om is the only one that has gotten the closest, his berserker powerful beyond normal measure for any person not yet even a tier 1 awakened. His shield long since reduced to splinters he weilds his hammer with every strike against the thick tentacles thumping conclusively in the delude of battle.

The other shield bearer who wasn't fortune enough to wield an artifact shield is now quivering with flayed skin and broken arms at Haige's feet. Everyone has pulled all the stops and I've finally seen the monster lurking within Volvox as he fights for his life with a insidious continence vilifying his visage yet keeping the creatures miasma from fully affecting us.

I roll and slash and duck and slash and spin and stab even as my blade circles around me in a feat of acrobatic flexibility as I deflect a tentacle that was heading towards Om's flank. The man is a beast of power and skill as he maneuvers his stone hammer like a staff delivering devastating blows that would have long since crushed any other opponent.

The thing has hardly moved with ten people trained in the Academy and the Conclave compound giving it their best. War veterans of the War with The South and still its hardly moved from its initual spot while some of us are starting to flag. There is no one not giving their all, everyone is in constant motion in seemingly choreographed preplanned moves as we compliment each other with our actions.

Using pressure from synergy with my zanupakto Spirit Suppression is as high as I can manage and everyone else that has passive skills that eat away at a foe are at it, giving their all. Volvox's little spirit or daemon or whatever is possessing him comes out above him like a shadow of 3m tall, the bike shadow exhales noxious fumes at the creature ehich shreeks in a wail that makes me feel like I'm at the edge of despair.

Wagner's experience is showing as he is the least wounded of all our group besides Haige. The merest touch of the tentacles on skin enough to melt the skin off like undorning a glove. He roars again as he tries to push forward but another tentacles comes in from his left to knock him clean across the room.

That seems to be the opening Om needed though as he takes just a single ponderous step forward to deliver an uppercut hammer blow who's concussive force lifts the massive creature slightly into the air.

A screech from the thing pushes us all back again as our eardrums bursts and we stumble, struggling to keep footing. Everyone that is a Barbarian in the Rage, Volvox and Susanna are on their knees seemingly struggling with something but they are both up one after the other a moment later.

Susanna seemingly still dazed and trying to retreat towards Hiage, but Volvox just seems really pissed off. I grin as I try to redouble my efforts, my zanupakto now honed in a mixture of aura, spirit, soul.

I push past my limit-break exerting my body beyond what it can safely endure launching forward with everything I have and more even as my right leg is shattered at the tigh by a tentacle. Om's example has shown me that I will not get a hit in without sacrificing my body.

My slash is deep and leaves a long mark across its it's bone face that has it screeching again and stumbling back even as another tentacle to the chest caves in my sternum as I fly back pushed my the force of the blow.

I land in a heap trying to roll and rise but my leg not able to support me as pain radiates through me. I can hardly breath and I can see the white soft tissue on my chest before the red droplets of blood cover it quickly.

I try to stand looking up and I can see that my bloody example has been followed as all the tribesman sacrifice their bodies to get hits into the now injured creature as it reels back screeching. I grin at the sight of it struggling, this is a worthy opponent and if I die it will be a worthy death.

Seeing a gap I rush in again with a little hop and limp as it's distracted and flare as much spirit and aura as I can onto the point of my zanupakto. Honing her point with everything I can concentrate as I push her as hard as I can into the creatures flank.

[BOOOM]

An explosion of light and sickly darkness spreads out from the thing as in pushes us all back, a bellowing mist of dark miasma clouds it from view. The cloud is sucked inward and suddenly a womanly shaped thing with no eyes on it's eery face stands before us.

The silence is pregnant.

It waves her arm and every single wound I have sustained starts itching, I look down to my chest as I realise I'm somehow being eaten alive. She moves to lift her hand again but I instinctively just throw my nodachi at her with everything I have.

Asger does the same with his spear, it being an artefact it retains it's spirit honing even when not directly in his hands.

Our weapons pass through its miasma and pierce into its flash without a problem. It frowns as it looks at us, then speaks in an unwholesome disgusting language eliciting bleeding from orifices before utter and complete darkness envelopes us all.

Someone screams a loud bellow of pain and indignation that can only be achieved by a berserker. I know exactly where she is though because she still has my zanpakutō in her flesh and I do something I've never before done. I summon my blade back to me while it's still embedded in another's flesh.

I stumble with vital energy disappearing in a single instance.

There is a sizzling sound and then I have my zanupakto in hand again, the darkness slowly receding as the creature's presence is now gone from the chamber, just gone. The wounds stop spreading and we all stand a moment looking around just to ensure the thing is really gone.

There is a shredded twitching body on the floor but my soul sense from tells me he's still alive even as Haige reaches him. He looks like just a sack of meat and bones so I can't really tell who it is and frankly I don't want to know.

'You have completed the wondering dungeon of the Lilithian Daarksider. You each now have immunity from rot mana effects and can walk the path to unlock dark miasma.'

Something seems to whisper meaning into my mine like the voice of nature as did that first time in the tent at Isis' shop. Looking around I realise that everyone is hearing something similar, then a fire in my chest seems to blossom painlessly like a lotus and spreads outwards to the rest of my body.

Slowly my body starts to heal itself as my skin becomes luminous and comfortably warm from the inside out. Everything starts to fade to my eyes as but another sense seems to be opening and enabling me to see 360° all around me much clearer than I ever did with my eyes.

'Because you chose to banish her and not kill her she has gifted you with dark awareness, you will never again be blind in the dark.'

I'm not the only one that is healing but I think I'm the only one that can see everything so vividly.

Everyone's berserkers reced and as we are reeling from that, the purirst ether I have never imagined fills the room like a cold north wind. Rocking all us at our cores as it infuses itself in us hungrily and there is nothing we can do but enjoy the burning bliss of an ether influx.

I had nearly forgotten that dungeons are useful for this very reason, their pure absorbable ether but none of us knew this was a dungeon. I've never even heard of a dungeon with only a single creature and with ether influxes only when completed.

The painful wonderful feeling is like being tickled till you want to cry, painful but enjoyable. And I spread my arms wide as I enjoy it, letting it all in and suddenly I feel like I've been punched in the gut as I reach and surpass the threshold I needed to Awaken.