The unblocked tunnel did indeed contain something that wanted to kill intruders, but John and Matayal stayed at a safe distance with the rest, merely feeling the battles around some bends in the tunnels. The first things encountered were swiftly defeated by Gesine and the Molten Sea, revealing little information until John caught up and saw their form.

They were large jellies, about half the width of the tunnel. As far as he could tell, their tendrils had only minimal presence of stingers and toxins, but of course what he could see was skewed by how they were partially boiled. There seemed to be a large number of them in the area, John’s quarry leaving a trail of destroyed bodies behind them.

“I don’t recognize this particular species,” Matayal commented. “Even from my previous trip here.”

“Perhaps that just means you stayed in reasonable places,” John replied.

They continued to creep after their quarry, who didn’t seem to have been slowed down by the assaults as of yet. Another pulse through the waters reminded them of the great power in this place, but they could still endure something at the current level.

Tunnels joined together, the Molten Sea clearly continuing on at a reasonable pace. However, more jellies flowed out of one of the splits. They blended in with their surroundings- not visually, but in terms of aura. Then again, why shouldn’t they? They dwelled in the area. Sharing the same aura of watery power was not odd, though they were much weaker.

The jellies didn’t execute any sort of complete maneuvers as they approached the pursuers. Instead, they merely extended their tendrils and nearly flung themselves forward. That was certainly quite a different sort of behavior from the norm where they would be considered drifters, but they were simple enough to deal with even without a Ascending Soul Phase cultivator.

John split one in half with his sword, while Matayal punched a number of holes through another. They didn’t seem to have any particularly critical organs, but enough structural damage would still kill them- and they weren’t without organs either.

“I don’t know which of these mostly transparent globules was important,” Matayal said, “But we can test that a little bit at a time.”

There were more than just two- but the other dozen or so were taken care of by the rest. The jellies seemed bent on wrapping themselves around a cultivator, perhaps crushing or suffocating them. Even fish had gills that could be compromised. Though John also detected some amount of an acidic substance, so perhaps they were to be restrained and slowly digested. That would work against truly weak creatures, but there had to be more. Then again, based on the trail of bodies they were following, perhaps they simply made up for things with numbers that were ever increasing.

The group ahead of them certainly didn’t make it comfortable to follow them. Along with pockets of superheated water that fortunately didn’t last long, floating bits and pieces of the jellies made it inconvenient to move about. Then there were floating motes of something John didn’t want to touch. A simple flow of water pushed them aside so the group could pass, but they seemed to be coming out of some weird lumpy blobs.

More attackers came from behind, and hiding from them was almost pointless. They would fill the whole tunnels, inevitably running into anything in their path. Once they actually got a grip, it was difficult for a cultivator to free themselves. The bigger issue was killing them without using too much spiritual energy, so that those ahead might notice them. Perhaps that was already impossible, but John didn’t think they were completely compromised as of yet.

The worse was when the pulses of water came just at an intersection, propelling a group in from an intersecting tunnel. The main path was always cleared, but these things seemed to be converging on the intruders. John didn’t like making things easier for those ahead, but they also had to keep up. The attacks weren’t actually constant- perhaps a short skirmish every five or ten minutes- so they were currently able to keep their energy replenished. But they would have to consider when it was time to retreat. The number of enemies couldn’t be infinite, but it didn’t have to be to wear them down.

While the individual creatures didn’t seem particularly dangerous- even the rarer ones distributing some sort of poison- that only seemed true for the first two. John was glad that the group ahead ran into a third type first, because the blast of energy produced a shockwave that even passed as far as their group. It was little more than a spurt of water at their point, but it was still a cause of concern.

Once again, the creature that caused it seemed to have very little form. Though obviously it was hard to tell with pieces of it charred and separated from its body, it seemed to be little more than a cylinder. Like a wide and squat worm, about one meter by two meters. It had some teeth, but from that pulse of spiritual energy it didn’t seem like they mattered much. It wasn’t just water element either, but fire. John had thought he was conflating it with the Molten Sea, but he could feel fading remnants from the corpse.

The effect on the tunnel showed its power, however. Somehow, a hundred meter length was twice as wide… not melted away but seemingly gone. At the edges nothing was any clearer, with a smooth sloping transition from the normal width to the larger area. But while the normal tunnels certainly felt cramped, John was more apprehensive of a wider tunnel, especially as he saw it filled with bodies of creatures. He also picked out some human blood- since it was blood like substance. Nobody dead yet, but injuries were being sustained.

“We need to be quite careful of these,” John said. “We should focus our attention on converging tunnels. I don’t think as many will be coming from directly behind us as the sides of the area.”

Matayal agreed, and they took more care to allow groups to push onward towards the back of their enemies- saving themselves the trouble and adding to their opponent’s hardships. It helped that Gesine stood out like a beacon, her Ascending Soul Phase power clearly obvious even from a couple hundred meters back.

As they moved along, the standard size of the tunnel continued to increase in width, with occasional wider bursts from the weird tube creatures. They were a problem even when dead, as John saw some of the other types lingering around the wider areas. Fortunately, they would move on at some point, but not always together.

Soon enough they were several kilometers into the leviathan, wrestling with what John hoped were some of the final foils in their way. The tunnel shapers seemed to lead groups of others, and John finally got to see how they worked.

It seemed they had some number of spikes protruding from them at first, but instead of using them as weapons the one they encountered simply had them explode outward into the walls. Those spikes were then pulled into the stone of the tunnels, which began to writhe and undulate in a truly unpleasant way as it expanded. The burst of energy from the tunnel shaper was also clearly a signal to draw more things, so John and Matayal weren’t willing to drag out the battle.

There were dozens of the jellies pouring into the area, and a couple of the poison sacks. Then there were more specimens they hadn’t encountered. Only a handful of one, which seemed to launch bone spears from their oblong bodies. Even if they only had several each, the force of their impact was astounding. It was a good thing that the Brandle Clan cultivators were able to swim around easily and augmented their Tenebach allies, but their arrival was the first death. John hadn’t expected this war to happen with no one perishing, but he had presumed it would be at the hands of powerful sects. Or at least the leviathan itself. These were just… weird inhabitants.

Or were they? They were certainly not attached, but on the scale of a leviathan he wasn’t certain what should count as part of it. That thought was put aside for later as a monstrously sized jelly squeezed its way through the tunnels.

It occupied literally every centimeter of the larger tunnels, and even the further widened areas, a mass of flesh just pushing its way along. John and Matayal gathered the rest of their group around them in formation, with the two of them taking the forward central positions in the tunnel. They had been serious before, but here it was most clear they needed a united front instead of individual actions. The large blob was ponderous, so they had already killed most of the attackers- and the spear launchers had depleted themselves.

John and Matayal let the outer edges of their formation test the creature as it approached, stabbing and slashing at its flesh. It was clearly tougher, many of the weapons slipping off of its durable outsides, but even when attacks made it through they couldn’t go deep enough to cause serious damage. And it continued forward, forcing people back as it tried to wrap itself around everything- enemies and allies alike.

It was possible to outrun it- but fleeing constantly might push them into another group or worse, the Molten Sea. But as dangerous as it seemed, it also appeared to lack intelligence. “Let’s try some lightning,” John said to Matayal. “If you could augment my efforts…” he drew one of the bone spears towards him with a tendril of energy as the group maintained a fighting retreat. His wife’s energy joined with his- he had his own water element he could boost his power with, but hers was more plentiful. He tossed the spear directly into the ‘maw’ of the creature, though it was more like a large blanket or pillow than a grasping mouth.

The shock seemed effective- but only at slowing it down for a few moments. That was good enough for them to reach a point where the tunnel narrowed once more. Surprisingly it didn’t move any slower as it squeezed through something half the size, but it did force it into a position where John could reach more of it. He tried some earth element, specifically with Bite of the Gorgon. Solidifying parts of its body proved effective at further limiting its movements, though it seemed to have some survival instincts. Or perhaps the opposite. Once it was clear it was in danger, it forced itself forward in a great burst that nobody was prepared for, wrapping itself around and over everyone and everything.

John tried not to panic. Being smothered was unpleasant, but it wasn’t as if he had even been breathing to begin with. He felt some sort of acid eating away at his spiritual energy, but the squeezing pressure was more important. He could barely move his sword arm, but he was still able to augment the sharpness of his blade. He also still held onto Matayal with one hand, and together they cut and stabbed their way towards each other, eventually carving out an area that no longer functioned. From there, they moved towards their other allies one at a time, systematically tearing apart the voluminous creature.

It only stopped moving when it was more holes and tears than form. Various people had injuries- acid burns, broken bones and the like- but most had survived. They had to take turns to mediate and purge some of the poison from their bodies- as only in this situation had they been exposed long enough to feel its effects.

Inescapable wave tactics seemed to be part of the strategy here, and it had been working. Now, John wanted out. But was going back the way they came the best option, or should they continue to follow after the Molten Sea? He certainly didn’t want to die, but he also didn’t want to experience the world where they got their hands on whatever they were looking for.

Ultimately, it was decided that following in the wake of the Molten Sea was still safer, and if they found something that seemed to be a way out they would take it. At least they had some understanding of the tunnels being wider deeper in.