Chapter 9 - Lair (Patreon)

After about a hundred-meter sloped descent, the tunnel opened into a large cavern and all of the adventurers were dumbstruck by the sight before them.

The Holy Wall extended deep into the earth, and the cavern turned sharply to the left.

What is it made of?

Echo stepped over and closed his eyes with a hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Reveal the nature of your composition, Identify Material."

• Material: Divine Stone
• Creator: Unknown
• Properties: Absorbs the corruption of The Void, the hardest material in existence. Only shapeable through divine will.

Echo assumed that it must be some old evil, if the whole of The Empire was surrounded by it.

"What are you doing? Get over here in the front," Rickard ordered.

Echo nodded and took up a ready position at the front of a basic star formation. The light blue glow of Ingrid’s staff and Echo’s lantern illuminated everything around them and cast dancing shadows across the entirety of the cavernous space.

He cast his gaze about for the magical sensor that was watching them in the tunnel but could not spot it.

"There's something there!" Ingrid shouted as she pointed to the front-left of the group. All of them took up a ready position as a shape emerged from the shadows of the cavern.

It was a puppy, or rather, a wolf pup. Covered with the same chitin as the larger one was.

Echo held his stance firm and kept himself interposed between the creature and his party members.

The creature bared its fangs and lunged.

Echo's raised his shield to not only intercept the bite but also bash the creature to the ground where he quickly followed with a downward slash, ending its life in an instant.

Velu sighed, "The parents are here."

And they were - four enormous wolves, the height of horses and twice as long, crept out of the shadows; fangs bared. They were much larger than the one that attacked them at camp.

"Chill of Aqua, protect us from harm, Shield of Fervor!" Ingrid raised her stave, and the protective spell surrounded the group.

"Spreadshot!" Velu was the first to attack and the fight was truly engaged.

As she drew the bowstring back a flame of purple manifested and she let it loose. The wolves moved with preternatural quickness, dodging to the side as the arrow split into three in mid-air; all shots dissipating against the wall.

Rickard headed to cut one of them off and raised his hammer before bringing it down towards the creature, "Feel my Goddess’s power! Light's Wrath!"

His hammer glowed with a yellow-white hue as he swung it in a wide, horizontal arc. Due to the way he swung it, even though the creature dodged he was able to score a hit on the wolf's flank. It yelped in pain and limped slightly - he had broken something.

Bertram dashed alongside Rickard and seemingly appeared in the space the wolf had dodged to, stabbing forward, and scoring shallow slashes across the creature's uninjured side. It snapped its jaws at him and connected, immediately crushing the pink barrier, and shattering it as the teeth sank deep into his arm.

Fortunately for him, he felt nothing and kept stabbing at the creature as Rickard wailed at the wolf with his hammer.

Unfortunately for Echo, he felt the pain immediately and almost dropped his shield as it felt like his arm was crushed in a vice.

Adrenaline kicked in at the same time as the Regeneration Ability, dulling the feeling enough that he could move.

He rapidly opened his pocket dimension, grabbed a health potion, and chugged it down, feeling his arm rapidly repair itself.

Three other wolves had circled, and they descended upon Ingrid and Velu, chomping through the barriers and rag-dolling both in their jaws. Ingrid was grabbed by a leg and an arm and was ripped apart, whilst Velu had an arm nearly torn off.

Of course, they didn't suffer these injuries.

Echo suffered instead.

He coughed up blood and felt his entire body light up with pain as he grimaced. He collapsed to his knees and stabbed his sword into the ground to support himself.

“Enhanced Regeneration,” he growled through the pain. It dulled enough where he could act.

He pooled his Quintessence into his blade, "Reshape to my will, Transmute Substance - Worldbreaker!" His silver magic flowed down his sword and into the earth below.

The cavern rumbled for a second before the ground under each of the four wolves turned into a set of spikes, rapidly closing like a bear trap upon the creatures who had no time to dodge the attack.

The battle ended with the single, decisive spell as Echo collapsed to the ground, breathing hard and struggling to push himself up.

Velu was the first to escape from the wolves’ dead jaws and Echo winced as the teeth tore her skin - which meant that it instead tore his skin. "Are you alive?!”

The other three came over and Ingrid crouched next to him, holding her hands over him, and preparing to cast a spell.

"Wait," Echo said roughly. "Can you give me Quintessence?"

Ingrid nodded and held her staff over him, "Channel my power into this willing vessel, Transfer Quintessence!" A stream of blue light washed over Echo, and he felt immediately strengthened, sitting up slowly, and looking around at the carnage as he regenerated from his wounds.

The wolf that Rickard and Bertram had been dealing with was smashed and oozing viscous red blood that had coagulated beyond normal means. The three other wolves were impaled upon the earthen spikes.

"Agh, impressive lad,” Bertram stated matter-of-factly.

Rickard grunted and put his hammer on his belt, as he started to glow yellowish white. "Having to only heal one person will make things easier."

Echo held up a hand, "My Regeneration will cover it.” He was anxious about what could happen next – if there were more of these things.

Rickard harrumphed and held up his hand. "Don't tell me what to do. Let the light wash over you, Soothing Radiance."

Echo felt his bones pop back into place.

Velu slapped Echo's helmet, "You idiot, you could have been killed."

Echo just glanced at her, "You would have been killed. Those jaws were no joke." He looked up at Ingrid, "How strong was that barrier you cast earlier?"

Ingrid shuffled backward and looked down in disappointment, "Strong. I don't get it; how could these wolves be so strong?"

"Because they aren't wolves," an unfamiliar voice echoed through the cavern.

The whole company turned, and Ingrid increased the brightness of her light as a male figure stepped into view at the far edge of the cavern where another tunnel lay.

He looked to be a professor of some sort; gaunt but confident in his stance and wearing an archaic form of a lab coat, tattered all along the bottom and stained a dark brown.

The shadows seemed to flicker about him and disguise his upper body, but Echo immediately saw through his Detect Magic Ability that the figure was incredibly powerful; Quintessence seemed to radiate off him in waves.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Rickard yelled out, brandishing his hammer in one hand, and holding his holy symbol up in the other.

"None of you pathetic weaklings." The figure pointed at Echo. He whispered something that Echo couldn’t make out.

Echo instinctively ducked behind his shield…but no attack came.

The target of the spell was their healer, Ingrid.

However, Echo's Ability changed the target. He felt his neck explode as blood sputtered out from gaps in his armor. His breath left his lungs, and his helmet went flying off as an invisible force sliced through his neck.

If not for Regeneration immediately fixing his wounds, his head would have separated and gone flying.

Echo gasped as his neck re-attached.

That was close.

He reached into his pocket dimension and pulled out a panacea – the strongest type of healing potion - and slammed it down his gullet. The only one he had. All of his wounds healed and his Quintessence refilled from the elixir.

"You’re using Bulwark. Inconvenient.”

Velu loosed several flaming purple arrows at the figure.

He raised his hand and they dissipated, consumed by the swirling shadows in front of him.

Rickard shouted, "Light of the Goddess, banish the shadows, Ray of Light!"

A pure white illuminated the whole area. The hostile mage’s shadow concealment vanished as he winced in pain. His shoulders and arms were covered in sharp spikes of bone that pulsed with brown veins.

Bertram had managed to sneak around to his side and threw a dagger coated in poison which sunk into his torso.

The bone-spiked figure glanced down at the blade and sighed. "Really? Poison. Amateur."

He pulled the knife out and threw it back at Bertram who barely dove out of the way in time as the dagger sailed over his head and bounced off the stone behind him.

"If you don’t deactivate that Bulwark, this will hurt.” He raised his hand as Velu, Rickard, and Bertram dashed for cover.

Echo jumped in front of Ingrid. "Reshape to my will, Transmute Substance!" he shouted.

"Incinerate all within sight, Firestorm." The bone-shouldered figure incanted at the same time.

Echo's spell caused his shield to warp and he willed it into a cocoon that gave himself and Ingrid total cover.

At the same instant, a sheet of fire flew outwards from this figure’s hand; the orange flames crackled with a sickly brown as it expanded.

The color of the mage’s Quintessence helped to give shape to the spell as it flew outwards; not just exploding outwards but rushing around obstacles like a burst dam.

The other three were caught in the flames, but Echo took all the damage, feeling his Quintessence rapidly drain to heal the burns as they were inflicted upon him.

This exhausted him to the point he was shaking, and the searing pain burned, unlike anything he had ever felt before. Echo was panicking as his adrenaline kicked in.

His shield reverted to its original shape as he collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily.

“Help me out!” Echo shouted at his cowering company members.

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