Tunde led from the front, the team making their way down the stairs in silence, nothing but the dusty steps and their own quiet footfalls for company.

  His Ethra sight painted the entire tunnel in a new light, revealing hidden crevices where earth and rock Ethra seeped out, imbuing the stubborn little plants that grew from those corners with their affinities.

  Even the small rodents scurrying about sported one mutation or another, from large stone protrusions on their bodies to sharp claws built for shredding through rock.

  They scattered the moment they sensed the trio, unaccustomed to such large and strange beings invading what had been their realm for so long. The first signs of trouble were the changes in his Ethra sight.

  Tunde raised one hand and the team came to a stop, shielding the light crystals slightly to reduce their visibility as the tunnel was thrown back into semi-darkness for his teammates.

  "Spawns?" Draven muttered.

  Tunde nodded, unsure of what he was seeing. Trails of Ethra mashed together with other substances that looked like dried paint filled the air. He turned to them and spoke softly.

  "Stay here, just in case," he said, before creeping forward, heart pounding.

  Edging closer to the wooden-braced passageway ahead, he stared in confusion at what he saw before grim understanding settled in.

  What he had taken for some sort of construct was actually a living creature, towering over him, its brown Ethra fused with what Tunde now recognized as the lifeforce of the being itself.

  It looked to have been done roughly, two strands of Ethra forcibly mashed together to create the hulking abomination. It was munching on what Tunde now realized was a bloody arm, no doubt taken from one of the miners.

  He shot forward, fist cocked back, nothing but raw strength imbued into his form. The creature whipped its head backward in shock, its budding scream dying as one punch from Tunde obliterated its entire skull.

  The body dropped to its knees before toppling forward, and Tunde caught its upper frame even as blood continued to pour from the stump of its neck.

  He winced. It had been initiate rank, tier 1.

  He glanced back to see Isolde and Draven moving slowly toward him, guiding their light crystals in his direction, and he nodded to them.

  "So that's a Corespawn," Isolde said, more to herself than anyone.

  "Ugly things. This one looked like it had fully given in to whatever creature's core it absorbed," Draven murmured, axe still in hand.

  "Forward sentries," Isolde said as she unfurled the map.

  "We're barely at the entrance to the forgotten mines. If they're positioned this far out, whatever's going on inside, I don't think we're going to like it," she added.

  Tunde stood, Ethra sight sweeping for hidden threats. He realized, in hindsight, that he should have done so immediately rather than leaving himself exposed.

  Seeing nothing, he watched as Isolde moved to the walls, running her hand along the stone as she spoke softly.

  "The clan built light collectors back when this sector of the mine was still working," she started.

  "The cost in light Ethra crystals and charges from the light mages was running too steep. A little help from the artificer and they made this," she said, pressing a section of the wall Tunde hadn't noticed.

  Lines of light Ethra, a fusion of bright yellow and pure white, ran through the cracks along the wall, lighting up the entire room. Tunde switched off his Ethra sight, allowing his normal vision to return with a brief blink.

  It revealed the room in all its dusty entirety. Overturned and worn-out carts once used to ferry large chunks of crystals lay broken or in various states of disuse, some even serving as makeshift homes for the mine's denizens.

  Large rodents shot out from under them, coming straight at the trio. Perhaps fright had triggered their aggression, or perhaps they simply had nowhere else to go, but they charged, and Draven stepped forward for the first time.

  Rock Ethra imbued both his weapon and body. Tunde watched as his skin seemed to harden and his entire frame grew heavier. He raised his axe before swinging it through the air with a projection technique.

  The line of rock Ethra, light brown touched with silver, tore through the air and ripped through the creatures in their dozens with shrieks of agony, blood spilling everywhere.

  Tunde was already moving for the next room, Ethra sight activated once more as he left the reach of the light. He saw them immediately, a mass of tier 1 Corespawns closing from the darkness ahead.

  "Spawns!" he shouted, and pushed toward them at disciple-fueled speed.

  Their shapes were as bizarre as they were difficult to describe. The first he came in contact with held a burning torch that lit the excavation room beyond. Tunde's first priority was the light.

  He snuffed it out with one hand even as he grabbed the tier 1 creature by its head, three razor-sharp horns adorning its crown.

  A quick application of strength from Vengeance and it fell dead. A blow to the chest of the next, which had six arms and a mouth full of fangs, eradicated its entire chest cavity.

  He twisted under the slash of a third creature with razor-sharp claws, shattered its hand with a counter, and snapped its neck backward.

  Two feline-looking Corespawns launched themselves at him next, the raw speed of initiate rank and above propelling them through the air.

  Tunde noted they could see clearly in the dark, possessed of whatever wasteland beast's grace and speed they had absorbed. Fortunately, they lacked the human mental capacity to use it well.

  A gust of sharp wind tore through the room, opening up their skins as they yowled in pain.

  Draven dropped from above, axe cleaving one in two before it even registered it was dead. Tunde seized the other, snapped its neck, and let it fall.

  Isolde lit the room again. The light was weaker this time, the bank of power it drew from considerably diminished. Staring at the carnage, Tunde glanced at Vengeance.

  The silver gauntlets were coated in blood, along with the better half of his robes. Isolde moved to his side and pored over the map, glancing between it and the room with a frown.

  "Something is wrong with the room," she said.

  "In what way?" Tunde asked.

  "There should be more power here. This passage leads to the main excavation zones, and yet it feels like the energy of the mines themselves is being leeched, like the Ethra is being siphoned," she explained.

  Tunde used his Ethra sight to survey the entire room, searching for signs of it. He wasn't sure what to look for, but he trusted he'd recognize it when he saw it. He was about to speak when the Ethra lines grew dimmer again.

  "I think I see what you mean," he murmured, watching as all the Ethra seemed to be flowing in one direction.

  He led them forward, following the Ethra lines until they stopped at a large rock door. A circle of dark inscriptions was etched into its surface.

  "I'm guessing this is what they were protecting," Draven said.

  Isolde moved to the door, looking it over before speaking.

  "That shouldn't be here," she said.

  Tunde glanced at Draven before turning to her.

  "What do you mean it shouldn't be here?" he asked.

  "There's no mention of a stone door anywhere in these records. That pathway leads to the newest sections of the mines. This should be a blank wall," she replied.

  "Maybe the clan built it at some point," Draven said with a shrug.

  "Leading where, exactly?" Isolde asked him.

  Tunde was about to speak when the inscriptions lit up, and the door began to grate open. The trio shifted backward immediately as he felt it, a familiar touch of energy he hadn't forgotten. His eyes went wide.

  "Rift!" he said.

  A large pincer shot out of the space behind the door as pure rift energy tore into the room, filling it with the same energies as the rift he had entered before.

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  Draven flooded his body with Ethra, drawing what he could from an already thinning supply. Isolde scrambled backward, map stowed and blades drawn, as they stared down a monstrosity of epic proportions.

  ****

  Jath watched as the last crystal was placed within the circle. The etchings and the circle itself came alive, and the large door carved by their lesser kin shuddered, cracks running through its surface before it exploded.

  Kurl was already there, one hand raising the earth in a projection technique born from the Terahudon beast he had absorbed, catching the force of the explosion before dispelling it.

  It revealed a large, swirling green rift entrance. Jath moved from behind Kurl to stare at the gateway itself.

  "It worked," he said breathlessly.

  The lesser kin positioned around the door had been vaporized, the tangy rift energies flowing around the room and consuming what Ethra they could find. Rifts were meant to strengthen the Ethra in their surroundings, not steal it. Perhaps the nature of this rift itself was the cause.

  The very ground vibrated, the same energies running rampant and tearing toward the other carved doors.

  "Is it done, brother?" Kurl asked.

  Jath grinned and nodded.

  "Indeed. Our part is done. Now we await their arrival," he replied.

  Together they watched as the location where the demolished citadel once stood released a pillar of light into the skies above, painting them dark green as a tear began to form in the heavens.

  ****

  Elder Moros stared in shock at the power shooting into the skies, raw rift energy tearing unnaturally from the mines. He ran to the deck, the captain beside him, a huge man with a shaggy beard.

  "By the hegemons," the captain said softly.

  "Contact the clan. Head straight for our lands and don't stop for anything. Inform them this is no longer just a Corespawn attack. Inform them that we have an incursion," Moros said.

  With that, the elder vaulted off the ship, free-falling toward the ground before crashing into a cliff face with a bolt of lightning sheathing his body like a shield.

  He hit the stone and took off immediately toward the direction of the rift tear tearing apart the sky.

  ****

  The creature was composed of sharp-looking crystals, glowing a midnight color with a humanoid frame and four large crystalline pincers jutting from its back.

  Its crystalline head was shaped like a helm, blazing purple eyes glowing from deep within its sockets. Its aura was unmistakably that of a tier 3 creature.

  Tunde was the first to move. Draven and Isolde were petrified at the sight.

  As one pincer shot toward them, he grabbed them both and threw them backward, Vengeance imbued with resonance clashing with the pincer in an explosion that ripped apart the space around them.

  Tunde was blasted backward. He forced himself to keep his feet as the ground shook beneath him, eyes watering and fist aching. The creature had a cracked pincer.

  It stared at it before roaring with rage, its scream driving into their brains like pikes being hammered through bone, finally pushing him to one knee.

  The creature took one step forward that shook the entire room, dust raining from above. Tunde struggled upright as Isolde dragged herself away from the reach of its aura.

  He found himself running toward it, Vengeance vibrating as the relic beneath sensed the rift, straining to absorb the energy that Vengeance was preventing it from reaching, the same energies Tunde wanted badly himself.

  He tapped resonance again and clashed with another pincer, realizing the creature had the endurance of a tier 3 but not the full destructive output to match.

  Still, he was fighting on a razor's edge, buying time for his teammates to clear the reach of its aura, which seemed to affect them far more than it did him.

  Seizing a pincer as the creature sought to crush him with its crystalline fists, he launched himself toward its head where his Ethra sight had revealed the core.

  He never made it.

  A second pincer struck with speed he hadn't tracked, and he felt something crack inside him as he slammed into the wall, falling in and out of consciousness before crashing to the ground and spitting blood.

  His void ring was open a second later and a tier 2 healing elixir was in his mouth, knitting his broken ribs back together.

  Draven blazed with both the fire Ethra from his gauntlets and imbued earth Ethra; he and Isolde standing side by side, doing everything in their power to hold back the onslaught of the creature that sought to crush them flat.

  Tunde swayed to his feet, staring at Vengeance, then opened his void ring and removed the gauntlets entirely. The relic on his wrists shuddered with what felt like delight at its sudden freedom.

  It began pumping stored rift energy into his body while absorbing the growing ambient energy in the air around them.

  Tunde felt it course through his entire form, imbuing him with strength rivaling a peak disciple. This was no ordinary creature; it was a tier 3 beast, and conventional methods wouldn't end it. Not today.

  The relic shuddered and began molding itself up his arm. He watched in fascination until Isolde's scream tore him back to reality.

  Draven had been speared through the shoulder by a pincer, lifted into the air while hacking at it fruitlessly. Tunde took one step, feeling the energy within him fusing further with his body, and launched upward.

  One touch of his clawed relic gauntlets to the pincer and it shattered to fine dust, every trace of energy absorbed as Tunde shuddered midair from the raw surge it delivered.

  He caught Draven, who was bleeding badly. The man already had a healing elixir from his void sack, courtesy of Lady Ryka, and was guzzling it as the wound began to close.

  Tunde turned. The creature gave a great bellow, its crystalline hand morphing into a massive hammer raised high.

  He left Draven to Isolde and charged, channeling resonance, feeling it draw from the rift energies within his body rather than his Ethra, before driving his fist through the creature's knee.

  One leg destroyed, it crashed to the ground. Tunde grabbed its head with both hands as he batted away the remaining pincers, each one disintegrating to dust on contact with his other hand.

  He willed the relic to draw from the creature. Its crystalline surface paled as it stopped moving, the rift energy giving it life being consumed entirely, and then it shattered like brittle glass, revealing a midnight-dark core.

  Tunde forced the relic to stop and felt it retreat back to a band on his wrist. He palmed the core and disposed of it into his void ring, then turned to the rift, which pulsed again behind the open door.

  "We need to close it!" he shouted.

  Isolde looked up from where she was cradling Draven, both of them staring around with terror in their eyes.

  "That was a tier 3 creature," she whispered.

  Hissing to himself, he saw she was in no state to help. He spoke quickly.

  "Get to the entrance of the mines, back the way we came. Find Elder Moros if he's still around and tell him there's a rift down here. We have no idea what's happening," he said, before turning and pushing through the rift.

  It was like passing through semi-liquid again before he was deposited onto a dark crystalline surface. He stared around at the strange, dark world he found himself in, like staring at the night sky with no stars.

  The absence of wind and sound left it in an eerie, suffocating state. In the distance, another rift entrance shimmered on a separate piece of crystalline rock.

  The pure rift energy in the space was staggering, grating against his skin as the relic woke and began pouring the energy into his body.

  He felt it working through him, not adding to his advancement, his heart unchanged and his Ethra still dormant, but doing something else, something beyond his understanding, something that made him temporarily stronger.

  The ground cracked as a figure stepped out of the distant rift entrance.

  Pale-faced, dressed in a hooded robe, a belt of interlocking bones at his waist, and a series of carvings across his face. Red eyes stared across at Tunde's crystal platform with obvious surprise.

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  Adept rank. Tunde could feel it even from where he stood. He willed the relic into the form of a blade. The adept stared at it, surprise flashing across his face.

  "Where did you get that from?" he asked again, before stretching his hand out.

  A bone jutted from his palm and took the form of a blade.

  Drawing deep from the rift energy around him, Ethra sight activated, Tunde watched as the adept shot toward him at near mind-boggling speed, crossing the crystalline platforms and the void between in an instant.

  Yet the energy within his body, pushing him to the very peak of disciple rank, allowed him to react just in time.

  The relic, coated in his Ethra, moved with swift precision and sliced cleanly through the bone weapon.

  Tunde matched the adept blow for blow, the revenant producing one bone blade after another in rapid succession, eyes wide.

  "Impossible. The seekers are all gone!" he growled.

  He stamped his foot and the crystalline platform cracked open, shapes rising from the fissures, some moving on six limbs, others airborne, all composed of the same crystal as the behemoth Tunde had just killed.

  "You opened a rift on Clan Verdan territory, revenant," Tunde replied.

  The adept shot backward, caution suddenly replacing aggression.

  "You know who we are. That means you were sent here," he said before flicking his hand, releasing the creatures toward Tunde.

  He tore into them as they tore into him, the rift energies healing each wound in moments. Flowing freely through his body, Tunde parried and struck with brutal efficiency, shattering them in their numbers as more kept coming.

  The adept struck from behind.

  Tunde's instincts screamed the warning just in time to dodge, but not fully. A cut opened on his arm, and he felt the adept's Ethra beginning to worm its way into him.

  "The Ethra of decay, a concept unto itself. You're a dead man walking. Tell me who sent you, and I might let you serve me as a revenant," the revenant said.

  Tunde felt the relic shudder before it snatched the Ethra of decay out of his body and consumed it. Black veins ran from the cut and vanished at his wrist, absorbed without a trace.

  The adept stared with wide eyes before snarling, producing a scroll and unfurling it, green inscriptions burning to life.

  Tunde had seen such before, in his battle with Gale. A summoning scroll. He cut down the last of the crystal creatures before watching the adept wave his hand.

  A pedestal shimmered to life, and he seized a large-looking core, myriad colors swirling within it.

  "Whoever you are, wherever you got that," the adept revenant said, pointing at the relic.

  "You cannot be allowed to leave this place. For the sake of the cult," he finished, before tearing toward the rift exit on the far side.

  The scroll released large skeletons burning with undeath Ethra, wielding massive black blades and shields, their peak tier 2 auras radiating a sickly feeling that made Tunde want to retch.

  Biting down the revulsion, he registered with alarm that the rift was beginning to close on itself.

  He made a mad dash directly at the creatures, ducking a heavy blade swing, stepping onto the shield of one, and propelling himself toward the adept.

  He crashed into the unsuspecting revenant, and both of them tumbled through the rift exit together.

  Semi-liquid again, and then soft fleshy ground beneath him. Every instinct in his body screamed at him not to turn, not to look, a chilling horror flooding his senses.

  He was through the other side of the rift, a large green core clutched in one hand. He shoved it into his void ring without looking and charged immediately at the crystal creatures that turned toward him, both fists cocked and primed with resonance.

  He twisted around a blade, allowed the relic to form into a blade of its own, and sliced clean through another skeleton's massive sword along with the hand holding it.

  Then he was through the midst of them, making a mad dash for the rift entrance closing in the distance. He jumped through, rolled on the dusty mine floor, and came up on his feet with the relic blade in hand.

  The first skeleton to attempt the crossing lost its head in a flash. The rift hole sealed behind it, reality stitching the wound closed.

  Panting, he swept the room. Isolde and Draven were gone. He nodded to himself. They must have made it to the entrance.

  The mine quaked again, rocks tumbling down to block the path they had come through. Tunde activated his Ethra sight as large Sandshards tore up through the ground around him, accompanied by a fresh wave of Corespawns.

  Vengeance was back on his arms, recalled from his void ring, the relic subdued once more.

  The creatures came for him and Tunde let go completely, sending resonance after resonance into them, draining what remained of the rift energies within his body to tear apart the tide of tier 1 Corespawns with reckless abandon.

  When it was done, gore filled the entire room and the air was empty of Ethra. Panting quietly, he let his cycling stabilize before making his way deeper into the tunnel, alone.