It turned out the Rogue could beat Night Eyes when it came to scouting. Daniel was still confident he could outrange Shuni with regard to audible threats, but she’d seen the mural before he had. Just like the walls themselves, whatever paints had been used had to be magical to last this long. Dropping his hold of the blast bow to just one hand, Daniel shakily pulled out a spark torch of his own and held it up.

  The mural was about five meters off the ground, or two thirds the way up the wall. The height alone convinced him he was right about what this corridor was. The width of the colorful depiction, perhaps, an idea of the speed they once traveled. It was a wild combination of pigments against what might as well have been a white canvass, including the entire rainbow but arrayed as if someone had blended it first, at least for most of the art.

  Stretching across tens of meters of the corridor was a depiction of people, all gazing and reaching upwards with a single hand. All human, assuming there wasn’t another race that looked human from behind. All those on the wall were painted with what could have been a cross between a lab coat and a jacket, though Daniel hadn’t seen anything exactly like it before. The sleeves, for one, ended just after the elbow making it look as if everyone was too large for their clothing.

  Perhaps the strangest thing was that they all had a target on their backs. He’d definitely gotten a sense that the strange jackets were a type of uniform, and that was made more clear by the symbol painted on the back center of each. It was fairly simple, a circle with two intersecting lines making what was to him crosshairs. Lastly, almost as an afterthought given how much more attention was given to the painted crowd, was a faintly purple sky above them glittering with stars.

  “This place is a temple,” Khiat sighed wondrously as she gazed up, the image not even level for her. “But why Star? This is Hammer’s Realm.”

  Sigron managed a grunt in reply but didn’t elaborate, the lingering effects of his curse making themselves known. Willow spoke up in his stead. “I don’t know if this is for Star. That symbol, I don’t recognize it.”

  “Old.”

  “Pre-Grafting at least,” Daniel agreed with Khare. That would normally go without saying but he wasn’t sure anymore if that had happened after the last Collapse. At the very least, he knew that there had originally only been humans because of the existence of the Illustrious and the identities of every god he’d remembered so far. This mural only added more evidence to that being one truth amidst a sea of lies. “I haven’t had the chance to study as much because of all the enchanting I’ve been doing, but you were educated growing up right Willow?”

  He saw the Spirit Master flinch slightly but she nodded. “I was, as best as my father was able to arrange after… The symbols associated with each god do not change. They are as much their identity as anything else. It should be the same across the Octyrrum.”

  So this would be Grave’s? That doesn’t feel right, unless you extended the bars out so it looks like some of those older-fashioned ones. But that’s associated with Christianity. It had to be said that everyone, even Tlara, was taken by the sight. The absence of any non-humans had to have an impact on most of the team. It was a reminder that no matter how hard they tried, they weren’t the original people of this world. Well, neither am I. Hell, Sigron’s the only person here that can claim that.

  As he wished Snap Shot would work more ways than one, Daniel deactivated the torch and decided it was time to move on. “Let’s-“

  Shuni had a hand over his mouth faster than the second syllable and she was glaring out from under her hood at the others. He’d barely seen her move, but in this case it had been raw speed rather than stealth. Considering his enhanced attributes and the fact that he’d started using them since the last Rogue he’d met, that was impressive for someone just at level 2.

  Rather than protest, Daniel strained his ears but didn’t hear anything. He blinked this at Shuni but she held a finger from her free hand to her lips and pointed back the way they’d come while removing her other hand. That was concerning. Keen Senses could pick up on the god of illusion, how could monsters evade that? Unless they were monsters significantly more power than them.

  Shuni’s extended finger slowly moved from pointing straight ahead to pointing up and Daniel started to hate life. He wasn’t arachnophobic but seeing a giant spider dropping towards him would trigger him in a way the near biblically accurate angel the whitesprings had fused into hadn’t. There was something to monsters reminiscent of home that your basic flesh monstrosity struggled to match.

  Once more Daniel bemoaned the absence of Lograve’s Telepathy as crude hand signs replaced what could have been a more precise tactical discussion. Either way, he readied explosive shots, taking no chances with what could be level 4 monsters. Shuni’s signing indicated there were only two, but she lacked an identification power to determine more than that. Worst case they got close enough that he had to swap out magazines to avoid friendly fire, but there was a secondary benefit to discovering he couldn’t damage the walls.

  He chanced a whisper to Shuni. “Tell me when they’re a hundred meters out.”

  The Rogue held her breath for a moment, but whatever she was tracking didn’t react to the noise. She nodded and Daniel started doing something complex. As a power, Quick Mind was very versatile. Rather than speed up his primary thought process, which in hindsight could have altered his perception of time and had all sorts of unpleasant side effects, it gave him the ability to run automatic thoughts in parallel for tasks such as estimating distances or helping parse language while reading.

  It wasn’t something that was always on, rather it worked like his Focus had when Earth-Daniel was on the line: responding to mental prompts. Most of the time he’d ignored it, though now that the problem of aiming was rearing its head he was experimenting more with it. His first shot against a monster had been accomplished because he slowed time to perfect his shot, so why not do something similar and have Quick Mind help? Ballistic computers existed in his world for a reason.

  Unfortunately, Quick Mind wasn’t as straightforward as Snap Shot. He had to ask the right questions and make the movements himself. In this case, all he needed to know was when his weapon was pointed 100 meters away and towards the ceiling. He slowly tracked the barrel across, waiting for his power to ping him and hoping it happened before Shuni’s signal.

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  He made it first, and a hidden sheen of magic enveloped the slug inside the weapon as he activated Scatter Shot. This distance was dangerous if he were using a Power Shot, but the chained explosions from a regular one didn’t do any appreciable damage beyond twenty or so.

  Shuni opened and closed her hand and Daniel pulled the trigger. The discharge of the ammunition was silent, but the explosions were not. As soon as the distant tunnel lit up the presence of the monsters registered to three of his senses. It seemed they had been using a stealth power that was broken by the damage. The monsters did not, however, fall from the ceiling as he’d hoped. Something was also wrong with the tags he placed on them.

  Arcadian Crawler - (Astral Projection: Grade 1)

  In addition to not having any sign of a level, the light around them was purple. The only moment he’d ever seen an aura different from what he’d expected was when Doran had combined his own with Squad Sight. This was something else. At least it still outlined the general shape of the monsters, and he could tell they were multi-limbed and about a third of the height of the chamber. Smaller than Tlara, but he saw neither a head, nor obvious wounds from his shot.

  Shit! “They’re tough! Shuni, it’s just those two?”

  “As far as I can tell.” That wasn’t a confident answer, but it was the one they had. The other two archers in the group were firing as well, but only Khare could hone onto the mark Daniel had placed. Khiat’s first shot missed entirely, though her aim wasn’t at fault. The gestalt didn’t fare better as their arrows clattered off a tough hide.

  He had an idea of where he’d gone wrong, but with another round already loaded it was worth testing. Have to time it right. Daniel fired at the leading one that was now charging on one of the side walls, moving at about what his running pace was now. It had long limbs that first rose to be level with the main central mass of the body before spiking downwards. There was nothing appreciable on the body itself, so it seemed the only way for it to attack was to spear things with its legs.

  Daniel’s explosive round detonated on one of the legs, and as soon as the mana flow of Snap Shot ceased he triggered Moment of Clarity. It only took a few relative seconds to realize what was happening. The shot’s not penetrating whatever armor it has. This is like a pure tank, not even the lightning dragon would have gone unscathed from that, though it wouldn’t have cared. What that didn’t tell him was the relative strength of the monster compared to his group. It could either be an extremely defensive level 2 with little in the way of offensive power, or just a level 4 that was only a little harder than average.

  He relayed this as best he could as he fell back, also swapping out magazines on the way. The monsters were reaching the boundary of the dropped torchlight, and it was Sigron who came up to meet them. The Knight was dauntless as he demonstrated exactly what his new arm was capable of. As one of the limbs as tall as he was came down to crush him, the metal twisted and the hand became a shield. There were no clever inner workings of gears and moving parts, instead the arm became as liquid for a brief moment to reform.

  Sigron’s defensive ability flashed twice across the arm as it absorbed the blow, both he and his new Focus remaining steady as he tried to score a hit with the sword in his other hand. The blade just skated off without chipping any of the strange substance. It was black and stone-like in most places, but veins of purple exactly matching the aura ran through it in places. Sigron tested those before Daniel had a chance, but it appeared they were no weaker than other parts of the body.

  “Tlara, go with acid. It might eat through their armor, just be careful.” The wyvern, who had pulled back along with her sister, managed a put upon look before she initiated her palette swap. There were other people on the team but he didn’t have time to manage them. He had no idea what Shuni could do and that was her fault, the rest had to manage. “Charging a Power Shot, don’t get in front of me!”

  If the grenade launcher form of his blast bow wasn’t working, he’d just have to try a railgun instead. That didn’t change the fact that the wait was agonizing. Sigron had at least caught the attention of both, his arm and momentary shields from Willow enough to make it a stalemate. That’s all it was, however. Shuni had attempted to jump onto the top of one of them only to find her daggers useless, while Khiat’s arrows did nothing but slightly crack the hide. Khare had all but given up until Tlara intervened.

  The wyvern’s acid wasn’t a straight projectile like the normal lightning but arced through the air like a fluid, indicating her new power did more than just change damage type. It had taken her some effort to line up the shot without splashing on anybody considering she couldn’t fly here, instead serving the role of backline artillery just like Daniel. While the sizzling was encouraging, arrows and daggers continued to bounce off when the team retargeted. With time it would eat through the ridiculously tough armor, and so Daniel aimed at the other one when his ability finished charging.

  He’d given it a full minute, justifying that if 50% didn’t work he’d just waste more time charging a second one at max power. “Get clear!” The warning was largely unnecessary, but he didn’t want anyone dodging into the path of his shot. It would go through any of them and, hopefully, the crawler. Whereas he had a chance to activate Moment of Clarity after the explosive shot went out, this one flew too quickly to clinically assess the impact.

  It wasn’t as if he needed to anyway. The monster he’d shot didn’t have a mouth and couldn’t scream, but there was a sound made as the body was blown backward before the slug finally punched through. It was like a snick and a crack, followed by rushing air. A purple haze was spilling out of the hole, and the sight of it made Sigron quickly hop back while forming a larger, narrower shield to divert the flow. While it initially gusted towards the Knight, it quickly peeled back as if blown by a strong fan and disappeared into the darkness. At the same time, the aura around the creature faded.

  What was that? “Willow, any spirits?”

  “No.” She sounded just as surprised. “I don’t know what they are.”

  “They’re tough. My ancestral arrows aren’t getting through!” It seemed Khiat had stopped firing while Daniel had focused his aim, probably to avoid damage to her ammunition. The arrows he enchanted she was grateful for, but the ones made from the remains of her village’s dead Blessed were more precious and somehow more powerful. There was no way to get more, and she was down to six after losing a few since joining Wingcraft.

  Daniel almost started to channel Power Shot again, but reconsidered. The mana cost wasn’t terrible, somewhere between 5 and 10% at maximum charge but less than half at half power. “Sigron, are you ok holding against that thing?” There was a delay, but the Knight grunted an affirmative. “Hold off on anything that uses mana! I want to see if Tlara’s acid can kill these things. Shuni, make sure nothing else is coming.”

  The crawler still alive continued ineffectually attacking Sigron, who was himself effecting a conservative defense. The Knight didn’t need the power that made his shield flash to manage the blows, and whatever was keeping the prosthesis on was doing a solid job itself. The acid on the monster would no doubt be a concern as it was the product of a level 3 monster, but after the first initial spray it had settled on the target.

  It only took a minute and another spray from Tlara for a section on one of the legs to break. As before, there was a hiss of pressure release though the escaping purple gas didn’t rush out all at once. He’d blown a clean hole in the side, whereas now it was seeping out of wherever the armor had been thinnest. It would’ve been a good moment to rest, but Daniel had a sudden idea. “Shuni, anything nearby?”

  “Not that I can sense,” she qualified, looking uneasily at the two monsters they’d just killed.

  “Everyone, we’re moving! No way those came from all the way behind us. I want to see where that gas is going.”