Raphael took a step back, his eyes darting between the choke points, watching the lines of sight and approach angles as if he were already seeing monsters attack.
“Good,” he said finally. “This should let us hold for a while.”
Thanks to their hard work, the new camp was like a fortress, as much as anything in a living dungeon could ever be.
It may very well be that we’ll return to find it occupied, but then again, anything that can penetrate all the defenses we’ve set up without breaking them isn’t something we could face in the open field anyway.
Still, that didn’t mean there was nothing he could do. Nick waited until the others got into their own tasks, then walked the perimeter alone.
He removed four monster cores from his ring. Since they were from hobgoblins, they were somewhat larger and more durable than most. In Alluria, he wouldn’t have bothered with them, but here, they were invaluable.
He knelt at the northern edge of the camp first and placed the first core into a shallow pit. Using a thin wind blade, he shaved away the dirt around it and carved a circle, tracing a specific rune directly into the exposed stone and the packed earth.
Algiz was not a spell by itself, but it provided protection and warding, and was a good basis for what he had in mind.
He repeated the process at the other cardinal points. East got Tiwaz, representing the oath and law. South was assigned Sowilo, symbolizing the sun and victory. West was given Eihwaz, signifying the boundary and endurance, the axis that did not bend.
With the framework in place, he knew he could do more to protect the camp if it came down to it.
I just need to be within sensing range, and I can activate this at any moment. I trust the others, but having a backup plan is always wise in case something goes wrong.
Nick dusted his hands off and went back to the central fire pit, where an early lunch was being served.
“We should have heard from them by now,” Malik said quietly. He stood with his arms crossed, watching the canyon mouth as if expecting two figures to appear at any moment. “They had more than enough time.”
“They’re not children,” Yvonne replied, with a sharper tone. She was cleaning her blade with a cloth, but her focus was on her companion. “They know the way back. If they’re late, it’s because something happened, not because they got lost.”
“That’s exactly my point,” Malik said. “Something happened.”
Raphael listened to their concerns silently, then tapped the map with two fingers. “They should have arrived at Long Reach by yesterday morning at the latest, so they could have rejoined us last night at the earliest. We lack enough information to know what happened to them; they might have decided to stay in town and rest.”
“Which means we should go look for them,” Malik insisted.
“And give up all our progress while others dig deeper and take all the resources for themselves,” Yvonne shot back. “No. If they’re alive, they’ll find us.”
“That’s not—”
Raphael raised a hand, and silence fell.
“We shall wait until nightfall,” Raphael decided. “If they’re not back by then, we will look for them at first light tomorrow.”
His decision dissatisfied everyone. Nick could sense it in Malik’s tense aura and in how Yvonne’s anger cooled into a hard, resentful calm.
But Raphael was the senior apprentice, and more importantly, Tholm had given him overall command. His words couldn’t be challenged.
“Understood,” Malik said, clipped.
Yvonne nodded once.
Raphael rolled up the map. “Good. We came here for a reason, people, let’s get to it.”
They left shortly after, leaving the fortified basin behind. The canyon passages quickly closed in around them, the sunlight dimmed as they descended deeper, and the air grew thicker as mana clung to their skin like humidity.
Nick walked near the center of the group, the Shard locked on his shoulders, with a deliberately neutral expression.
He had already made the decision, but now that he was acting on it, it felt heavier. Not deadly in a clear way, as he had performed bloodier, uglier rituals, but any experiment in a dungeon carried its own risks.
If I want to achieve the Ten Steps to the Tree of Life, I need to begin now. Few places have the ambient mana required to support a Greater Ritual, and letting the dungeon slip by just because of some old hesitation would be unwise.
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Malkuth, The Kingdom, The Grounding, was the First Step.
To achieve it, he would need to embrace the physical world, accept his limitations, and face the harsh reality of mortality. Essentially, he’d have to stop living with his mind in the ether.
Nick’s mouth tightened. That is inconvenient.
He had survived this long because he cheated by listening to the aether’s whispers, tasting fear and bloodlust in the air, and knowing what was coming before anyone else. Giving that up now was a very risky move.
Marthas’ voice resurfaced from memory, unpleasantly clear as it warned him that relying too much on sensory spells could become a problem later on.
He wondered if Marthas had seen something in him that told him he wasn’t exactly following the known path.
Shaking his head, he let go of all those worries and decided he was already in too deep, so he should focus on completing the first step properly.
That meant no [Empyrean Intuition] during the entire hunt. Essentially, he needed to prove to himself that he was no less when confined to his flesh.
Turning his head toward Raphael, he lowered his voice to avoid sounding dramatic. “The dungeon interference is getting worse. The static is starting to make my long-range readings less reliable. I’ll need to adjust my sensing spell if I want to keep using it safely. It might take me some time.”
Raphael’s gaze flicked to him sharply, and for a moment, Nick saw the calculation and wondered if his excuse would be accepted. The senior apprentice had already expressed doubt about his methods, after all.
But Raphael also had too many fires to put out to start a confrontation now.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s all be more careful then.”
Willow looked back, her eyebrows narrowing, but she said nothing. Malik just grunted, still annoyed.
Nick narrowed his awareness and intentionally stopped extending beyond his mortal senses for the first time in quite a while.
The world suddenly felt smaller. It was an uncomfortable sensation that was hard to describe, after spending so long fully aware of his surroundings, but there was no other reasonable choice he could make.
An hour passed as Nick forced himself to watch for physical signs, trying to remember his father’s teachings. Instead of seeking an emotional signature, he looked for scuff marks in the dust, disturbed pebbles, and the way the wind shifted when a corridor opened into a larger chamber. He observed the others’ posture, how Willow’s fingers hovered near her focus, and how Raphael’s gaze kept taking measurements.
Then it happened.
A sound like crushing glass in a fist echoed from above, and a shadow dropped from the canyon wall.
Then another. Then a dozen.
The explosive beetles weren’t emerging from a nest this time. They were already in position, clinging to walls and stone arches in clusters, and when their ridges split open, the first wave of glowing globules fell like rain.
“SHIELDS!” Raphael barked.
Willow’s ward snapped into place quickly, but not fast enough to prevent the first impacts. Two detonations hammered the ground near their feet, sending shrapnel and concussive force through the corridor. Dust roared up. Someone cursed.
Nick’s instinct urged him to open [Empyrean Intuition], to map the swarm, locate the launchers, and direct a precise counter.
He clenched his teeth and didn’t.
Malkuth, he told himself. The Kingdom doesn’t care about your pride.
He raised his staff instead. “[Crest of the Thunderbird].”
Gold unfolded above them as the stylized thunderbird’s silhouette took shape, its feathers outlined in jagged lines, and the dome settled over Willow’s first layer with a heavy, protective pressure.
The next volley hit, and the Crest flared, absorbing the shock and dissipating the force into the ground as harmless vibrations. Thanks to that, Willow’s ward shook but remained intact, giving her time to reinforce her work.
“Move!” Raphael ordered. “To the left corridor!”
They retreated cautiously, sticking to the wall and using the boulders as partial cover. The beetles kept firing, their globules splattering against the shields and detonating in an endless drumbeat.
Without Nick’s early warning, they were already on the back foot.
This is what it feels like not to be me. I can’t say I enjoy it.
Since he couldn’t lead the others, he made up for it in different ways. Stepping forward, Nick drove the Shard’s tip into the earth, letting his elemental affinity stretch and seize all the natural charge around them.
With so many particles in the air, carving a path for his magic to follow was not particularly hard, even if he couldn’t precisely sense where the enemy was hiding.
“[Lightning Bolt].”
A pale ripple surged down the corridor, hitting the beetles stuck to the walls and bursting in a fierce display as its force spread across the walls and ground at his command.
Several others collapsed simultaneously, their legs curling inward as the electricity ravaged their insides.
Joran capitalized instantly, flinging a bead of green fire that curved upward and attached to a glowing ridge. The beetle there exploded prematurely, taking two more with it in a chain reaction that lit the canyon with harsh flashes.
Mikel planted a pressure mine infused with a burst of mana, then used telekinesis to lift a rock and throw it upward. A beetle tried to dodge, misjudged, and ended up within the mine’s range, where its shell exploded with a wet pop.
Lina’s clay spread in thin sheets along the wall, creating rough ramps that pushed more beetles off their perches and made them detonate where they couldn’t aim.
Raphael flickered forward, folding the space between his feet to go faster, and created two invisible warps, redirecting the globules back into the swarm.
It was chaotic, loud, and much slower than their first fight.
Without Nick’s precise calls, the beetles fired more shots, and the shields endured more damage. Willow’s breathing grew faster, and Nick knew her channels were straining as she poured mana into her magic, even if he couldn’t sense it.
He held the Crest steady, grinding his teeth as he absorbed shock after shock and released it into the earth, refusing to let anyone pay for his decision.
Eventually, the firing slowed. Raphael glanced at the swarm and made a chopping motion. “Crush them. Now!”
They pressed forward under the overlapping shields, aiming to destroy the remaining launchers as fast as possible.
Nick used [Jet Stream], sending short bursts to clip the legs and knock the beetles about, causing them to tumble against their companions. All the while, he fought hard to resist the urge to look further, to see if that was all that awaited them, shoving it down with a grunt.
When the last beetle burst in a bang against the Crest and shattered into glowing fragments, the silence that followed was a heavy one.
Willow sagged against the wall, breathing heavily. “I hate bugs,” she repeated her earlier claim, but this time, nobody laughed.
Nick released the Crest, watching the thunderbird dissolve into drifting sparks. His shoulders ached, and his fingers felt numb from holding on for so long.
And he still couldn’t celebrate because, even without [Empyrean Intuition], he felt the dungeon’s mana intensify, as if in anticipation.
“Something’s coming,” Raphael said, and as if to prove him right, a howl echoed through the canyon a moment later.
The ground trembled beneath their feet, and dust drifted down from above like clouds.
Everyone froze.
Malik’s head jerked up. “Werewolves?” he hissed, incredulous. “Now?”
Nick wanted to answer, knowing the question, though rhetorical, was aimed at him, but he didn’t have [Empyrean Intuition] to verify. He couldn’t know.
So he waited, like everyone else.
A shape crested the canyon rim ahead, outlined by pale light. For a moment, it was just a silhouette against the sky, until it stepped forward.
It was an enormous wolf, taller than a troll at the shoulder, with snow-colored fur and eyes like cold rubies. Its presence felt heavy in the canyon corridor, pressing down on them, and the stone beneath its paws showed slight cracking as it moved.
It lowered its head and looked at them, assessing. A moment later, it licked its chops.
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