Chapter 126: Double Dungeon Returns: trapped in a time chamber[1]
A vapor cone was left in the sky, the mirage falcon shot towards us, its speed—sonic.
My eyes sharp, focused; the expanding dot capitalizing on my attention, while my hands finished loading the bow.
Aeravat stretched his palms towards the heavens, unleashing a flurry of earthen bullets, aimed to impede the monster.
The monster's charge—that speed...at the speed it was coming, avoiding our attack should be impossible for it. Dodge, avoid? Not possible, shouldn't be possible, but alas, disappointment hit me like a truck.
The mirage falcon braked mid flight, extending it's wings, blasting a gust. The flying debris and sand did good to obscure our vision for that moment.
The raptor twisted in air, rotating at an angle I prior believed to be impossible for a bird like organism—almost looked like a mid-air backflip.
Dodging the flurry, it launched from our blind spot and continued its assault, curving around us, trailing behind.
I rotated on my heels, turning my body and released the arrow.
Riley's sword followed suit, launching a white arc of blazing mana through the air. His attack traced a horizontal path, moving along with the arrow. But the monster shielded itself with its massive wings, just in time.
Luckily, the force of our attack didn't go to waste—the monster was disoriented.
"Destructive Rush!" Aeravat roared. His cry was followed by a sudden blue beam of energy, and the monster was pushed further into the ground, dismissing its possible retreat.
'An ariel monster stuck to earth is as good as dead,' the famous saying was proved shortly, by the events that followed.
Riley stamped his left foot on the ground, sinking the monster in a mud pool that suddenly formed beneath it. It was 'Quagmire', an intermediate level spell that transforms solid ground to mud.
My mind easily recognized the spell from the trauma induced memory Seraphina gave me in the name of training. It was one of her favorite spells afterall.
The monster cried, unable to open it's now mud sunk wings, but her cries were short lived.
From above Sylvie descended, as she declared, calmly—"EXECUTE!"
A blue line was traced in the air.
Her sword launched the lifeless head of mirage falcon through the air like a football.
I stole a glance at the now dead monster's body, its blood was red, just like ours. It even smelled like hemoglobin and yet, this creature was a monster.
It tried to attack us in the open, which was unlike a mirage falcon— they were stealth predators who optimized on their speed.
For it to so openly attack us—it could only mean that it was trying to protect its home, its nest or its babies perhaps? Eggs? I didn't know—but everyone else had similar thoughts.
Mirage falcons usually lived in flocks, so most likely its companions were nearby, or in simple terms, 'we should fuck off as quickly as possible.'
We were by no means strong enough to take on an entire flock of mirage falcons.
The tension, growing by the second, started crawling beneath my skin.
Despite the urgency, I needed to confirm certain details while Riley did as fast as he could to finish whatever he was doing with the now lifeless corpse of the monster.
Aeravat stood vigilant as I retrieved my phone. I needed to check the compass to change our bearing; the screen lit up, only for worry to paint my face.
Fifty messages, two missed calls – all from Svetlana.
'Darn... how did I miss it?!' Worry of another kind, marked me as its prey in that moment.
It was unlike Svetlana to send me this many messages.
I was no one special to her, so if she sent me this many messages, it had to be something important.
Probably some problem?
I hoped not. But as I read the messages, my frown deepened.
Svetlana didn't send me any important messages like I assumed.
All she sent were random messages with emojis, going on about clubs, the platinum jubilee, and... that she met Aeravat. I read through the messages, trying to understand why...why this? I didn't get it.
'Right, Aeravat did mention Svetlana; they met yesterday, so they ended up as friends?' I assumed. I wasn't sure.
'But why...why tell me all this? Her life, what she does. Why does she needs to inform me?' I shook my head in disapproval.
Was it because I was her first friend?
Or she sees me as some savior?
Or most likely, she doesn't have anyone else to talk to? Possible.
'She needs better friends...not me. I'll keep her entertained until she assimilates into her new life. And then, she can enjoy her youth, find better friends without needing to bother with me.'
I replied to her a few times before Riley called me, "We are done."
Riley put the separated wings, claws, eyes, and bile organ of the mirage falcon into his dimensional bracelet. Most probably, he was going to sell them. I didn't bother to ask.
The wind, subtle. But the sky was full of clouds this time. Rainy season was near? I was still not used to this geography.
It rarely used to rain where I lived. In Myria City, it was windy most of the time, but City Z was a hurricane.
Our group quickly left the place where we fought.
Infront of me walked Riley and Sylvie, making some small talk.
Riley, as it turned out, was a blacksmith, or so I gathered from their conversation.
Aeravat proceeded with more caution this time, clearly on alert, not wanting to be taken off guard again while I..."I think we've reached the spot?" It came out more like a question than a confident statement.
Nano's Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR), was detecting stalactites and stalagmites underground.
Sylvie glanced back at me, squinting her eyes, "Where? All I see is a thick canopy of trees."
"Right beneath our very feet," I gestured with my digit.
"Now that you mention, I do remember hearing about some underground cavity around here. This place is a karst landscape," Riley au courant, informed others, but exhaled his thoughts of 'no answer' nonetheless, "But I don't see any entrances or sinkholes around us."
"Again?" Aeravat exhaled, a baffled expression crossing his face, and I couldn't resist smirking.
"Dungeon trial flashbacks, huh?"
"You know the entrance or...?" Riley's voice trailed off as he turned to me.
"Nope, beats me. But you're a ranger right? Can you?"
"I can, but..." Riley's voice trailed off, his gaze shifting towards the sky, his brows furrowing with visible lines of concern.
Looking at his concerned face, I was alerted.
"What is it Riley? Is everything alright?"
Instead of replying, Riley exchanged weary glances with Sylvie, who simply nodded in response.
"The mirage falcon... its scent," Riley finally spoke, his eyes meeting mine with a tinge of guilt.
A collective exchange of weary glances passed between us, a silent acknowledgment that fate was going to prank us soon.
"The mirage falcon had a pack, the one we killed was a female. Some are headed right this way. I can sense it with my sensory skill," Sylvie declared, while Riley knelt down, invoking a spell with his hands pressed against the ground.
In that very moment, a vibration pulsed through the air, and a familiar sensation washed over me.
[Alert! Hostile entity detected!]
Nano's voice echoed in my mind, jolting me into action. Only seconds later did Sylvie's urgency alerted others.
But I was ready.
I allowed my grip to slacken on the bow, granting it a moment of respite before diving headfirst into—whatever was coming.
Aeravat tried to say something, but his words were lost on me. My vision blurred, and a sharp pain rendered me immobile, breaking me in half. Right in my rib cage.
My vision blurred. When it returned, I was in the sky, tears streaming down my ugly face—no wait, I was beautiful. Amidst the chaos, I forgot that I was beautiful, but the nauseating pain was there too. A moment later my brain registered that I was several feet above the ground, a black-winged monster had speared me, taking me into the sky. The wind blasted through my hair.
[Initiating healing...numbing sensory nerves for instant pain relief.]
My grip...it was empty. I clenched my fist, but only air escaped between my fingers. My bow was not there, most likely lost when I got yeeted by the mirage falcon.
From my vantage point, I noticed sonic booms in the distance. Several more dots were approaching.
In my right hand materialized a revolver—the prototype beta version of the weapon I was developing. I wished for the sigma version—but that was still a work in progress; this had to do.
An exhilarating surge of mana coursed through my veins, infusing the revolver with power. The runic inscriptions inside the cylinder came alive, and air was sucked into the cylindrical chamber. I commanded the fiery bindrune inscriptions, pulling the trigger—two times.
???????????! ????????????!
Two balls of crimson plasma were launched from the barrel, bending the light around them. The atmospheric view was painted in a monochromatic pink hue as the 'bullets' hit the monster.
A torrent of flames engulfed the wings of the mirage falcon, and light returned to normal.
The protective feathers were ablaze as scorching heat rushed towards my face. My cheeks flushed red; the searing heat did good to burn my face. Even my bones felt that heat.
The monster let out a pained cry, releasing its grip on me, if only briefly.
Its desperate instinct traced a red line across my right leg with its razor-sharp claws.
Despite the injury, my finger darted once more, launching fiery bullets at the monster's face, and my body began its descent. The sky, now beneath my feet, spun to exchange places with the ground below just moments before a painful jolt ran through my body.
I was reunited with the goddess Earth as she embraced me in a painful hug.
Sounds of clashes echoed around me as Aeravat and Sylvie created a protective cocoon around us.
I landed just beside Riley.
My sense of reality was still not there; the earlier attack made me lose my understanding of the present.
I tried to get up, but my leg felt strange and erratic; pain numbed down, but I could see blood from the earlier wound.
Not healed, results of instructions to Nano: never heal a visible wound in front of others.
"Can you get up?!" Aeravat asked as his sword deflected a mirage falcon's attack. But others hovered above our heads like messengers of death, while Riley was still crouched, his palm on the earth as he kept chanting, not letting the situation disturb his focus.
"I can fight. But... I don't think I can run," I weakly uttered as I fired a barrage of fire bullets at the mirage falcon Aeravat was busy with.
????????????????????????????!
Aeravat quickly looked at my wound, a flash of concern appearing in his eyes. There was a deep gash from my calf all the way up to my thigh.
"It's done! The entrance is near; everyone, follow!" Riley shouted before jumping into action.
Aeravat picked me behind his back like a doll, "No time! I will carry you; hold on tight!"
I hung from Aeravat's back like a backpack, launching a flurry of fire bullets behind.
Surprisingly, even as a prototype beta version, the gun dealt a significant amount of damage and used very little mana.
The plasma balls reached temperatures exceeding 10,000 degrees Celsius—vividly apparent in my augmented field of vision.
'10,000 degrees Celsius... that's like harnessing the power of a stellar core.' My mind converted the unit. That also explained the extra damage my bullets were causing along with the monochromatic pink hue.
I did not design it for such a purpose; it was a lucky mistake.
Walls of ice and earth formed behind me—whose spell, I didn't care.
And in the blink of an eye, we found ourselves descending into a sinkhole.
But it wasn't the sinkhole that captured my attention; it was the sudden notification that appeared in my view, causing my brows to furrow in disgust. It felt like I was vomitted in the name of notification.
[Double dungeon is activating...]
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