– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 216, Season of the Setting Moon, Day 34 –

Terry first became aware of the hard floor on which he was lying stomach down. He felt a headache throbbing in his temples. He dazedly opened his eyes.

“Wh-what?” Terry mumbled half-asleep. Not far from him, he spotted a small silvery blob with a tiny mana core squish into a crack in the dungeon wall.

Dungeon wall… Terry repeated inside his head. Dungeon… Dungeon. Crap!

The thought jolted Terry awake and to his feet in an instant. He instinctively jumped backwards.

*BAM!* A large gorilla-like fist with a strange glow smashed into the floor where Terry had been.

“What the— Oh mana damn it!” Terry reflexively retrieved slabs of tertium to transfix and protect himself from the onslaught. His mana sense was already informing Terry of the situation he found himself in. He was trapped inside a dungeon chamber without any obvious exit.

*BAM!* *BAM!* “Hiss!” The only other inhabitant of the chamber was an adult juggernaut. More than twice as tall as Terry. Arms thicker than Terry’s whole body. A golden set of mandibles that were longer than Terry’s forearms.

Terry threw a pair of bolas in an attempt to buy time for himself. He was still trying to orient himself in the chamber. He also desired to drink something because he suspected his headache might be related to dehydration which had not been mitigated with mana consumption.

The bolas transfixed around the hellspawn’s muscular arm. The immovable weights forced it to momentarily halt its onslaught on Terry. A short moment later, a dark liquid emerged from the juggernaut’s forearm and enveloped the bolas and the Immovable Object spell deactivated, much to Terry's chagrin.

Ichor-aspect? Similar to the shadow-aspected ability of the undead shades I encountered on top of the Bulwark…

“I don’t remember that part from the hellspawn introductory reading,” grumbled Terry.

You weren’t supposed to challenge a swarm of hellspawn before even taking the exam.

“Thanks, why didn’t you say so earlier?” Terry grimaced while transfixing several throwing needles and tertium slabs.

“Wait—” His intrusive thoughts reminded Terry of the main question.

How did I get here? Where is the Valkyrie? Where are the Tiv soldiers?

Terry fought completely on reflex and instinct while his thoughts tripped over themselves to make sense of the situation.

There was the veil tear with the approaching behemoth champion and then I blacked out and— Is it this shit again?

Terry was not able to tell mana signatures of different dungeons apart consciously, but something told him that he wasn’t in the same dungeon as before.

“Just great,” cursed Terry. He coughed up a clot of dried blood and spat on the floor. He wiped his mouth while noticing a change in mana around the juggernaut.

The hellspawn creature punched his fist towards Terry and black fluid escaped from its knuckles. The fluid transformed into expanding blades.

Terry transfixed a tertium slab and jumped backwards warily. The memory of how the ascarab in the previous dungeon had managed to move its pale tendrils freely was still fresh in Terry’s mind.

*Clang*

Terry narrowed his eyes at the juggernaut’s seeming lack of comparable movement flexibility. He was not sure if he could trust this new insight after a single test.

A part of Terry’s mind was wondering once more what he was even doing in this place, but most of Terry’s mind habitually focused on the battle. Whenever his mind drifted away too far, he could almost hear and feel the nostalgic thwack from Sigille’s instruction sessions.

Terry dashed to the left and air-jumped on sheets of divine mana to get into the juggernaut’s blindspot from above. While moving, he retrieved the mana sublimator and equipped it with a fire-aspected mana core. Over the past days, Terry had gotten pretty good at preparing everything without having to take his eyes away from his opponents.

Terry rotated himself in the air, so that he was going feet first. He transfixed his boot mechanism to land against the air. Simultaneously, he took aim and transfixed both the handle attachment of the mana sublimator and his protective back plate.

*BOOM!* A dense net of fire-aspected mana assaulted the juggernaut.

Only two fire-aspected cores remain… Terry mentally bemoaned his significantly diminished stock of mana cores. He had kept these last few for emergencies when fleeing from the horde but against a full-grown juggernaut, he felt ill-prepared.

“For mana’s sake…” Until now, Terry had faced this unexpected battle determinedly and without much thought to his own fate. The current sight in front of him, however, caused Terry’s expression to fall. The strange glow around the juggernaut had intensified and the hellspawn now seemed almost transparent. Through the translucent creature, Terry saw that the floor behind it was covered in burn marks and some of the rocks were even shining from heat. The juggernaut, by contrast, was completely fine and uninjured.

Terry clenched his teeth until his jaw hurt to bring himself back to focus. He hurled an old throwing needle at the juggernaut to confirm his hypothesis while also jumping backwards to get some distance.

From the corner of his eyes, Terry saw the throwing needle pass straight through the slightly translucent shape of the juggernaut.

Seemingly ethereal. The introduction book didn’t list that as an ability of juggernauts…

Terry clicked his tongue. Something about the intensified glow caused his skin to prickle.

“Champion,” mumbled Terry gravely. He retreated and kept his mana sense fixed on the juggernaut champion. He repositioned behind his previously transfixed items out of habit, even though immovable items might not block an ethereal creature depending on the nature of their etherealness.

Terry was bothered by the prickling sensation in his skin. His wariness intensified further when his mana sense informed him about changes in the dungeon’s mana. Countless thin and dense inscriptions flared up in the dungeon walls around them. Even Terry with his exquisite mana sense could only barely make out that these were inscriptions and not just some uniform mana layer.

The juggernaut champion took this moment to charge forward.

The quiet voice of Terry’s inner Academy piped up and wondered how the charging worked for an ethereal creature, but Terry didn’t have the time to dwell on useless thoughts and entertain his curiosity.

Something unexpected played out in front of Terry’s eyes. The ethereal juggernaut had just passed through a transfixed needle. Two things happened at once: The juggernaut’s silhouette flickered slightly and the throwing needle dropped to the floor.

The juggernaut phased through a transfixed tertium slab and a scene similar to the earlier one played out once more. This time, Terry was sure that the juggernaut’s appearance had turned more solid.

*Squittz* The next transfixed throwing needle pierced into solid flesh and black ichor squirted out of the wound.

“Huh…” blurted Terry. His hand was already busy moving towards the location of the oscillating throwing needle at his leg strap… Only there was none.

Probably left behind in the other dungeon. Hmph.

Terry grumbled inwardly and began to reclaim the oscillating mana in one of the throwing needles inside his storage item. He wanted to gather more data on the interaction of the juggernaut’s ethereal state and his oscillating mana.

Terry had already formed a hypothesis about the champion’s unusual abilities.

Void aspect.

Terry coldly observed the strange glow on the juggernaut.

Presumed to be the intersection of space and death. Given how the veil interacted with my oscillating mana, the inverse would be accelerating the tears. If some hellspawn had an affinity for the void aspect, then that would explain why it’s nearly always hellspawn appearing through veil tears.

Terry’s brow creased.

If Uncle Samuel’s theory on the nature of dungeons is correct, then together with my theory on the void and veil interaction…

It would make sense that dungeons are getting aggravated by any creature wielding the void aspect. They’re damaging or, at the very least, interfering with the veil. The more—

Terry bit his tongue to reign in his academic inquiry. He had used a lightning-aspected discharge from his mana sublimator to force the juggernaut into an ethereal state. In contrast to before, however, Terry had timed his own disruption discharge with the sublimator activation.

*Krck-Boom!” The blasts of lightning and oscillating mana mixed together and engulfed the glowing juggernaut. “HISS!” The strange glow had activated once more, but the juggernaut had not been able to completely avoid the lightning-damage with its void step.

“Its ability still managed to reduce the damage though,” grumbled Terry unhappily. “Not negated but still reduced.”

The juggernaut unleashed a strange ability from its feet that cut the floor around them apart. The hellspawn picked up rocks with its giant gorilla hands and hurled the sharp rocks at Terry with immense speed and force.

Terry didn’t even need to think to nimbly avoid the incoming projectiles despite their high velocity. A corner of his mind could not help but recall all the training with Matteo while he was evading, using his equipment to block with the Immovable Object spell, or redirecting the sharp rocks with his bidirectional attraction inscription.

“Rookie,” quipped Terry with a look at the juggernaut hellspawn. Somewhere in his head, Terry noted how odd it felt to joke around when being trapped with a hellspawn. He did not remember when he had become so desensitized to lethal danger.

“Focus,” grunted Terry and dashed to the side while arming the mana sublimator once again.

During his run, Terry noted that the juggernaut had only been able to slice a limited layer of the dungeon floor. Its ability was blocked by a layer of rock that carried similar dungeon inscriptions to the ones that Terry had noticed earlier.

One more thing to try… Terry darted up into the air and accelerated with a burst technique to get into a blind spot.

Even though Terry had found ways to do some damage – using a sequence of transfixed needles or combining an intense oscillating discharge with his sublimator – his options still weren’t all that great.

The Immovable Object spell and the juggernaut’s void step ability evidently interacted with each other, yes, but it was difficult to predict when the ethereal state would cancel. Even worse, the juggernaut moved quickly and still had access to its ichor-aspected recovery abilities. Any delay in breaking the ethereal state meant that there might not be any damage at all and any damage to its outer shell did not represent a serious injury.

The discharge combination worked more predictably, but it had its own problems. First, the obvious problem that Terry had a limited supply of usable mana cores. Second, the fact that the damage was still reduced by the void ability. Third, the mixing of mana made it more difficult for Terry to perform his habitual reharvesting of his naturalized mana. Terry had to keep an eye on his mana pool level and mana core stock to decide if this approach was feasible or not.

Terry attempted another probing attack. This time, he dared to jump closer to the juggernaut. Terry felt he was forced to in a way, because he felt reluctant to use another big mana core just for probing.

The juggernaut swung its giant fist towards Terry.

Terry fleetingly activated his bidirectional attraction gloves on the ceiling to give himself another push to avoid the fist while in the air. He aimed at the juggernaut’s head and unleashed a lightning-aspected discharge from his mana sublimator.

*Krchk-boom* Terry allowed the recoil from the mana sublimation to propel himself backwards while observing the juggernaut’s handling of the attack.

Whole body void step again… Terry mentally took note of the fact that the juggernaut did not appear to have an ability for turning only a part of its body ethereal. The next thing Terry noted was the charging shape of the ethereal hellspawn.

“Hiss!” The juggernaut furiously clicked its mandibles at Terry.

Once again, Terry wondered about the precise mechanism behind the void step considering the ethereal creature was in some way separated from the physical realm while at the same time, it was able to transmit its utterances, which proved that it was still somehow connected to the physical realm as well. Once again, Terry forced down his academic curiosity.

Next, Terry forced down his instinct to set up transfixed items to block his enemy’s charge. He had something different in mind this time. Terry hurled his oscillating throwing needle towards the multi-faceted eye on the juggernaut’s right side. He jumped backwards while making sure not to go left or right – he did not want to give the juggernaut an additional reason to change its course.

“HISS!” The juggernaut uttered a pained hiss when Terry’s aspected needle suddenly made contact inside its head.

*Clang* The oscillating needle dropped to the floor. To Terry’s surprise, the needle had not lifted the juggernaut’s ethereal state even though it somehow managed to hurt it. The effect appeared different from the interaction between the void step and the Immovable Object spell.

“HISS!” The juggernaut voluntarily dropped its ethereal state as the glow on its body turned brown-ish. A dim red light appeared in the juggernaut’s multi-faceted eyes. Its whole body turned black underneath the brown-ish glow. It looked as if it was covered in wet ichor.

The juggernaut charged forward with unprecedented speed. Its spiky shoulders were threatening to skewer and flatten Terry in an instant.

Suddenly, Terry didn’t feel desensitized at all anymore. With eyes wide open, mana bursting, and senses stretched to their limits, Terry barely managed to avoid the spikes. He had had no time to place a throwing needle into the juggernaut’s path.

Terry had no time to catch his breath either because the juggernaut smashed its giant palms on the floor, turned in the air, and charged at Terry full-speed once more. Even full-burst, Terry had trouble following the enraged juggernaut’s movements. For better or worse, however, Terry already knew the hellspawn’s target: himself. This time, Terry managed to place a single septimum throwing needle before jumping back and dodging to the sides.

*Squitch* The juggernaut didn’t seem to care one bit about the throwing needle tearing through its body. The black ichor immediately sealed the wound and the juggernaut continued its charge unfazed.

***

“Holy mana,” exclaimed a Tiv soldier and dodged an intense lightning-aspected ability from one of the dungeon-assimilated mana corrupted that had ascended from the depths of the dungeon.

“Stay out of the crossfire!” ordered Yujin. “The dungeon creatures are targeting the remaining hellspawn. Stay out of their way.”

“Easier said than done,” grumbled the soldier quietly. “These things are crawling everywhere.”

“Focus on maintaining the fortifications and evacuating those left behind.” Yujin continued giving orders. “Stay sharp and we’ll all be going home to our loved ones soon.”

“Yeah, this is practically the least pressure we’ve had to face from hellspawn since we arrived in this mana-forsaken place,” commented another soldier.

“Yeah but why? What happened? This shit makes no sense,” added a soldier with an anxious expression. “Is this just the calm before the storm?”

“Shut up, don’t jinx it!”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass why, I only care that I’m getting out of here. Let some dungeon researcher figure out the rest for all I care.”

“Hmm…” Yujin did care though. Even though she was happy about the decreasing pressure, she didn’t like the feeling of not understanding the situation. The arrival of new hellspawn had slowed down a lot, but why? Yujin glanced towards the battling Valkyrie and took some comfort in the weak-looking elf who was relentlessly tearing through the hellspawn ascending from the deepest depths of the dungeon.

“Commander!” a messenger arrived.

“How is the situation?” asked Yujin.

“Your orders have been implemented, ma’am. Everyone has retreated from the lower floors.”

Yujin suppressed the urge to object to being addressed as ma’am. “How about the tears?”

“Several of them closed a while ago without any discernible reason. This allowed our soldiers to perform an orderly retreat. Three tears are remaining active down there.”

“Mhmh…” A pensive look entered Yujin’s eyes once more.

“I was asked to confirm the orders once more,” said the messenger. “Some of the soldiers are wondering if this might be an opportunity to push back and hold instead of retreating. They—”

“No!” insisted Yujin. “I understand where they are coming from, but they aren’t aware of what is happening up here. I can’t be certain, but I believe this dungeon is getting close to collapse. It’s not just the decreasing spawn rate anymore. It’s the fact that the dungeon creatures have seemingly shifted their focus to the upper floors. Almost as if the dungeon prepares to abandon the lower floors.”

The messenger looked incredulous and spoke with skepticism: “You make it sound as if the dungeon was a conscious being. Are you sure that we can ascribe that much thought to a dungeon?”

Yujin sighed. “They should really give some required reading when assigning soldiers to dungeons, especially the works of Samuel.” She steadied her voice: “This is not the time to discuss the Immune System Hypothesis. Just pass on my orders. They are to continue the—”

*RUMBLE* *WROOM* *RUMBLE* A violent quake rose from the depths of the dungeon.

“What…?” The messenger looked around with an ashen face.

“I believe I may have just been proven right,” remarked Yujin drily.

“Go and pass on an additional order.” Yujin raised her own voice to jolt the messenger out of her daze. “Send a small squad to confirm the state of the lower floors. If they have collapsed, then I doubt this dungeon will remain active for long. Everyone else is to prepare for ascension. There is still a hellspawn swarm waiting outside the dungeon for us.”

While Yujin was instructing her soldiers, the outside of the dungeon was changing visibly. More and more exits opened in a wide area around the original entrance. More and more mana was released from below. The feeling of mana suppression inside the dungeon was growing weaker and weaker.

Inside the original entrance room, a juggernaut was stepping on a mouse. The rodent corpse remained on the floor after death.

It didn’t take long for the soldiers inside the dungeon to notice that their mana sense seemed to reach wider and wider the more time was passing. The dungeon’s interference had disappeared.

A long distance away, a man in plain traveling robes and a white mask jolted around with surprise. “Curious.” The man muttered in thought. “That kind of vast mana signature shouldn’t belong to a random nobody. Even at this distance. Impressive. Purely force-aspected…” His words trailed off. “I wonder— Couldn’t be, right?”

***