“So if we get separated, you’re leaving us here?” Orthos asked. He took a casual bite out of the Hydra’s meat.
“Guess so,” she said, but her grip shifted on her sword. That was the only reason she hadn’t dashed up the corridor in the ceiling already. If the labyrinth shifted again and sealed her off, she wasn’t confident in blasting her way back down.
And what if more of these Hydras started funneling into the chamber while she was locked away in some broom closet?
Mercy chewed on her lip and looked up, and next to her, Ziel let out another heavy breath.
“We don’t have much choice,” he allowed.
“Can you take a look and then come back?” Mercy asked.
Yerin eyed the opening in the ceiling. There hadn’t been another Tomb Hydra yet, but she could feel power gathering above them.
She had been keeping an eye on how the labyrinth shifted, though. It seemed like the tunnels closed off at the entrances, not in the middle, or they would have been crushed to paste the first time an entrance shifted while they were still in the hallway.
“Better to move quick than wait to die,” Yerin muttered. She sheathed her sword and spread her arms wide. “Come here, everybody. Family hug.”
Ziel walked over to her, still dull-eyed as ever. Even Orthos hopped from the ground to land on her shoulder. Mercy’s eyes sparkled as she joined, wrapping everyone in an eager hug of her own.
“I never thought I’d hear you say those words!”
Yerin was a little thrown off at how easily everyone had joined her. “I’m about to carry you.”
“I know,” Mercy said, squeezing Ziel with one arm and Yerin with the other. “It’s still nice.”
Yerin held on to everyone and leaped.
She had expected to have to walk the others through her plan, but since they seemed to be sharper than she’d expected, she didn’t say anything.
The second they cleared the inner entrance to the tunnel in the ceiling, Mercy spread out a web of Strings of Shadow and Ziel Forged a hovering circle of green runes. They landed on this Forged platform, and Yerin released everyone.
Mercy gave Ziel and Yerin each one more squeeze before she released. Then she patted Orthos on the head.
The aura above them was growing stronger, and though the tunnel was long—long enough that Yerin wondered if it extended aboveground—she could see the glow of death madra above her.
“Seal yourselves off when I’m gone,” Yerin ordered.
Ziel had already started Forging runes over their heads.
Yerin wasn’t sure how the platform of madra beneath her feet would hold up to a full-powered jump, so she hopped onto the wall and then bounced between the inside of the tunnels as she made her way up.
All the time, she had her spiritual perception extended. She regretted it almost immediately.
Whatever was in the chamber above her felt nauseating. Like the Bleeding Phoenix, it had a sense of hunger, corruption, and death. It felt like a ravenous pile of corpses, somehow brought to hideous life.
Her stomach twisted, but she ran her madra through her sword. If she had to end up retreating from the labyrinth, ridding the world of a creature like this would have made her trip worthwhile.
The higher she got, the more the sensation churned her gut, but she braced herself.
She still wasn’t prepared when she cleared the upper entrance.
Eyes—glowing with the pale green of death madra—glared at her from every direction. The entire chamber was a mass of disgusting flesh, endless, as far as her spirit could sense. Motion stirred in the distance, and she spotted another Tomb Hydra emerging from a slick bulbous sac.
It wasn’t the only thing in here. Dreadbeasts had half-merged into the flesh, melted, as this thing fed.
And its spiritual presence…
It wasn’t a Dreadgod. It didn’t have the endless sensation of the Phoenix or the Titan, though its corruption was equal.
She would call it a Herald, but it felt more like half a dozen Heralds stitched together and smeared across the chamber. Its spiritual pressure crashed over her, and she found it hard to take a breath as every eye in the room focused on her.
Tendrils of flesh snaked across the entrance to block off her retreat, but Yerin wasn’t about to let it get its way.
This thing might have been a highly advanced dreadbeast, but it was full of blood.
The Final Sword was difficult to use in the labyrinth normally, because it required aura, and the aura here was all being consumed by hunger. But there was enough blood aura inside this massive body that she wove it together quickly.