I was awake. I knew that well; I was no longer in Agatha's domain, but the darkness lingered, heavy and silent.
And it shouldn't be silent.
[Fire Resistance is active]
[Decay Resistance is active]
[Acid Resistance is active]
I read the notifications, and little by little I began to regain my senses.
The heat and nausea overwhelmed me. An unmistakable metallic taste in my mouth followed. Blood.
'What the---'
I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt heavy, as if something were forcing me back to sleep.
I felt sedated, my body wasn't fully responding, and it seemed like something wasn't right inside. But I wasn't sure; I didn't feel any pain.
I kept straining my eyes until finally some light began to enter them. In front of me, a golden, semi-translucent light flickered rapidly. It felt strangely familiar.
'A dome?'
"Liv—" I wanted to say, but my voice was drowned out by a gurgle. I lowered my head and opened my mouth to release the blood that had accumulated.
'Shit'
I raised my head and looked for the girls. As I tried to turn my head, a violent contraction stopped me, shaking my insides and forcing me to release another cascade of dark blood onto the stone floor.
[Your Adversity rejoices]
Just as I was about to curse my luck, the flickering light—the golden dome—cracked. The structure fractured into a thousand golden splinters that disintegrated before they hit the ground.
[UNDETERMINED has forcefully activated Sense of Danger]
My adrenaline surged like an electric shock. A terrible smell hit my nostrils, a fetid aroma of rotten eggs that made me twitch my nose and reflexively gag.
But in doing so, I noticed another notification that gave me an answer to what was happening.
[The spell Sigil is transforming your pain into Essentia...]
I realized it in that moment; I needed the pain to fully awaken. I moved my fingers and broke the spell.
As I did so, a pent-up pain that felt more like a stab, burned my throat, my eyes, and my nose. But above all, my chest hurt like never before; it was as if I were being ripped apart alive.
But the pain worked. My instincts kicked in, and I immediately went on high alert. I scanned the area again for the girls.
Only this time, when I turned my head to the left, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Less than a meter away, a giant, jet-black spider loomed over Livia. It had used its front legs to immobilize her and its fangs were mere millimeters from her torso.
I froze. A primal fear, the kind I hadn't felt since my mother's death, left me completely rigid. But then I saw Livia's face: it was covered in blood, her eyes unfocused, and tears streaming down her face.
At that moment, the fear died. In its place, anger was born. I was going to kill that thing.
[You have successfully broken free from a mental attack]
Driven by an instinct that wasn't entirely my own, I clasped the fingers of my right hand together in the shape of a gun and cast the spell.
'Clawchaé'
The veins in my arm glowed purple, then fire manifested and threads of the same color formed above my hand. For a moment I thought I saw the symbol of Legemens change on it, but if it did, I didn't care.
I just concentrated on condensing the threads on my five fingers to form the bullet—it was a three-star rank.
I threw my entire shoulder back from the recoil caused by the shot.
CRACK! CRACK!
The spider, which seemed to have been frozen for a moment, was hit by two of the three blasts. The first pierced its fangs, leaving a hole between them. The second struck the joint between its front leg and body.
The creature's limb dislodged with a disgusting crack. The spider released Livia and retreated without making a sound, melting into the shadows.
I stood up abruptly and hastily, ignoring the dizziness and nausea that gripped me. But I didn't run toward Livia. I ran toward the monster.
I channeled the essentia again, preparing the three-star spell once more. Only this time, I prepared both hands.
Right at that moment, as I was about to slash the bastard, I felt a chill run down my neck, followed by a tremor.
[Your Adversity is resonating]
[Auto Taunt has activated]
I paused for a second, and that was enough for the spider to disappear completely into the darkness. It practically became invisible.
'Damn it.'
Without hesitation, blindly trusting my instincts, I shot the bullets from my right hand toward the direction I thought it should have been. Then shoot the ones from my left to where it could have dodged.
The sound of the rock exploding filled the air. Fragments of stone flew in all directions. Part of the tunnel wall also burst open.
"You better be dead, you fucking bug... _Cough, hack!" —I spat out some blood as I backed away with my arms in guard, without taking my eyes off the direction of the impact.
My foot bumped into something soft. I immediately knelt down. Before letting my guard down, I checked that nothing was coming up behind me.
I wasn't blind or stupid, I read the auto taunt notification.
After briefly finishing the scan, I focused on Livia.
"Hey! Hey, Liv!" I yelled, giving her quick slaps on the cheeks.
'Come on, Liv.'
She looked awful. She was pale as a corpse, her mouth was stained, her skirt was ripped, and her long-sleeved white shirt was covered in red.
But the worst part was the vacant stare on her face.
"L... Leo," she managed to say, barely a whisper, as she tried to move her head.
I let out a sigh of relief.
"Liv, where's Milaine? We need her to hea-"
Another shiver ran through my body. My instinct screamed "danger" from the back of my neck. I turned around with my hands outstretched and cast the spell.
'Shieldaé'
A thin but hard, green, crystalline barrier appeared just in time. The spider's front legs slammed against the shield with a dull thud that made my whole body vibrate.
"Got you"
The spider, now visible, lost its balance for a second. I didn't give it another.
As soon as the shield vanished, I cast Clacháe at third rank and unleashed a double swipe, mimicking the werewolf's attack.
The purple threads sliced through the air and the rock. The spider's head split open along with what remained of its fangs.
The rest of the creature twitched in violent spasms before finally lying motionless on the stone floor.
A massive tremor shook the cave, and this time I, too, fell due to my loss of balance. Rocks from the ceiling began to rain down around us.
[Your Adversity is resonating]
The adrenaline started to wear off, or at least the effects were diminishing. My body began to feel weak, the lack of oxygen was noticeable, and the pain was killing me.
But I could still move, and if I could move I could survive.
I hurried towards Livia and pulled her closer to me.
"Livia! Where is Milaine?!"
Livia said something unintelligible, or perhaps in another language. She touched my hand, her blue eyes changing color to gold for a second. And with great effort, she raised her other trembling hand, pointing toward the direction of where we had eaten the sandworm.
'The ceiling'
I lifted her as best I could. My muscles protested, and the air tasted like poison. I wanted to activate the Sigil to stop the pain, but I knew all too well that if I did that, I would fall too.
'Pain teaches us we're alive…'
I remembered what my lieutenant said. It was true; I almost didn't wake up. And that nearly killed us.
I walked as best I could, carrying Livia with me, but I stopped when I noticed an unsettling glow beneath my feet. The ground was turning reddish, and the heat was intensifying.
'Shit!'
Small trickles of magma began to seep through the cracks. I looked where Livia had pointed.
We weren't far; I could already see the light of the red sky, and quite a few spider corpses, but fuck it felt like it was miles away.
I even had to take short breaks to catch my breath.The problem was that each breath was worse than the last; I was making progress, yes, but barely. When I finally reached the area below the open ceiling, I realized something.
Between the fight with the spider, the lack of oxygen, my condition and Liv's condition, I had forgotten about the books.
[Your Adversity rejoices]
'You gotta be kidding me'
"Liv, wait here. I won't be long," I said in a hoarse voice.
"L-leo... d-don't... leave.. cough..."
I carefully placed her on top of one of the spider torsos that was far from the magma craters.
'She might not like it, but at least she wouldn't get burned if the magma level kept rising in this area.'
She tried to grab me, but I easily broke free.
"I'll be right back, just hold on a little longer, please." I reassured her.
Without another word, I ran towards the books. Some of the magma was already beginning to cover the first layer of the ground, but not the entire section. I dodged the new magma zones that had been forming in the tunnel as best I could, and I managed to reach my books.
I managed to arrive, panting and half dead. I even puked from the stress and nausea.
I grabbed Agatha's book and Violet's, one in each hand. Then I turned around and noticed that the path back had almost no places to step without touching magma.
[Sense of Danger has activated]
I felt a jolt that ran through my entire body from head to toe
[Your Adversity is resonating]
Another, much stronger tremor split a piece of the ground between me and the path back. The worst part was that the ground that broke was the part that hadn't yet contained magma.
'Figures'
However, that wasn't all. This time I heard another noise behind me, a little far away. A familiar noise, like two walls being destroyed by a crash, followed by vibrations in the walls.
'Didn't she say they never go through their own tunnels?!!!'
I quickly shielded myself from the falling rocks with the Shieldaé, and stood on the rubble to avoid the magma.
Meeting my expectations, a few meters behind me, breaking through the tunnel perpendicularly, a colossal ring of teeth, bigger, much bigger than the last sandworm, crossed to the other side.
But it wasn't the only one; more vibrations followed. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, maybe more than 15 times it was repeated.
More and more of them crossed the tunnel perpendicularly, making more tunnels.But none of them focused on me; they just kept going, destroying everything in their path.
[Auto Taunt is active]
[Your Adversity rejoices]
Confused, and even kinda scared, I looked at the notification that appeared and couldn't understand what was going on.
'I was sure they were coming for me, drawn by adversity, so why-?'
It was then, while trying to stay conscious due to the lack of oxygen in my head, that another notification arrived.
[Auto Taunt has successfully managed to call the attention of The Ruler of Vulkris]
***