“What was that?” Kur shouted.

  Leon, gritting his teeth, slammed upwards with his shield, meeting the long, fleshy limb of the fungal nightmare as it came crashing down upon him once again.

  “This thing is too strong!” he shouted bac, as their clash echoed throughout the passage. “I’m blocking it, but it's still breaking the damned pillar under us!”

  “We’re also being hit from behind!” Nar warned. “We’ve got those living bombs heading our way!”

  “Ugh, Crystal’s sake!” Kur muttered. “Everybody hold on. We need to think!”

  The fungal nightmare was a powerful war machine, combining its own might, plus the shroomlings and their status effects, the roguelings that aimed for the healers, and now, the living bombs climbing the wall up from the waters below. It was the perfect weapon to throw at them, especially when coupled with the narrow, frail passageway that they now stood upon. It made the damned beast not even the greater threat. It was gravity.

  The assassins had come up with a perfect plan.

  “We cannot fall off the passage,” Sej had warned them all before the fight. “The waters underneath the waterfall are too powerful for most of us to swim out of, and they are filled with aquatic beasts as well. Whatever happens, we need to hold back and not destroy the pillar of rock leading up to the Gloom.”

  What do we do then? Leon thought. Do we swap? Should we try to pull the nightmare behind the frontline? But what of the healers then? And the living bombs?

  The fungal nightmare wiped one of its limbs at him again, and once more, unable to simply take the hit for fear of transferring the impact down his body and into the frail rock underneath him, Leon was forced to attack it at an angle, and hope to deflect some of the energy away. The shockwave from the meeting of flesh and shield made him wince, not for its [Strength] bearing down on him, which his tank’s body and training could almost fully shrug, but for the very vague, snaking crack he heard from under his feet.

  “Its flesh is surprisingly tough, Kur. Without being able to use our full strength, Eum and Mach aren’t doing much damage, and me and Medis are getting distracted by all these ads. I think we should swap!” Calli said. “Your status effects and DOTs are probably the way to go!”

  “I agree!” the domain leader said. “But we still have these traps moving in from behind us… Sej, I’m assuming we can’t just destroy them?”

  “No, they’ll explode if their sacs rupture,” the guide explained. “And then this thing will really go down on us.”

  Quite the trap you laid for us, Leon thought, as he reached up to redirect another blow.

  Their options were limited to either brute force their way through the entrenched nightmare or take a ma’bat back to the Jungle Tops and trek through a month of the Jungle Tops and the Dense Jungle in order to come down into the Gloom from the north instead, and that second option just wasn’t even realistic.

  They needed to get Eum into the Nest, and following that, Era into the Dream and Mach into the Giant’s Canopy. If they took such a long detour, they wouldn’t be able to achieve all that, not to mention that they wouldn’t have Kur and Row’s parties’ help. Eum and Era’s quest was likely something that they could do on their own, but not the retrieval of the aelix winged serpent egg for Mach to bond with.

  So, that had left them with the nightmare.

  I hope we meet face to face, Leon thought, his jaw tightening. You will learn what it means to come against us, then.

  However, right now, he couldn’t even fully stop the fungal nightmare, and as the creature shifted its aim just a smidge, to obviously go around his shield with the curved tip of its fleshy appendage, Leon was forced to take the full brunt of the hit head on. The breaking of rock reached his ears as once again, as the pillar shook beneath him.

  This will not end us… And I will find you all, the paladin swore, his eyes blazing as he stared up at the cavernous, pulsing fleshy maw towering above him.

  But this isn’t good. I can’t even use my hidden skill here, or I would just be killing everyone else, Leon thought through gritted teeth. At times like these, he truly needed to believe the foresight of his winged patron, and that there was a reason for granting him such a destructive skill, instead of something else that he could use to further protect his people or function as a tank. Especially given the prohibitive cost of that skill, a cost he never wanted to pay… He hadn’t even been aiming for a hybrid tank/DPS path in the first place either. His patron had decided that for him.

  “We need to push them over without damaging them!” Sej explained, and Leon focused back on the discussion that had been ongoing in the background of his mind. “Mul and Raf would be the ones with the right [Strength] for this, and me and Nar can cover them and the healers from the roguelings!”

  “It will be too risky, with all the roguelings, no?” Row asked. “We can’t let anything stop the healing flow.”

  “Yes, too risky!” Kur agreed.

  This is a mess! Between the breaking pillar, auramancy and aethermancy, and all of these enemies and status effects, we can’t just move recklessly, Leon thought, even as he intercepted another limb.

  He himself was effectively locked in with that boss, almost tanking to protect the floor under them rather than the delvers themselves. Eum and Mach were mostly self-sufficient thanks to their particular paths and his [Oath of the Ardent Protector] passively syphoning a good portion of the damage they did suffer to him, and Gad’s [Pull of the River] threat flows were keeping Era, Calli and Medis protected from the twin streams of glowing shroomlings hambling down the passageway on either side of the nightmare.

  But while we could have slowly erased the ads, the roguelings and even the living bombs and then shift focus to the boss, this pillar isn’t going to survive that long, Leon thought, as more cracks reached his ears.

  “We need to do something. Now!” he snapped into the chatter of planning. “This thing is breaking more and more.”

  “Sej, would moving the boss around work?” Kur asked, his voice taking an almost serene tone.

  “It could buy us some time… Moving it could keep it from damaging any one spot too much, but eventually, we would still run out of spots,” Sej said.

  “And how far are we from the other side?” Kur asked.

  “The other side? You mean the Gloom?” the guide asked. “Uh, the passage isn’t super long, but there should still be close to a half mile until the exit…”

  “Kur, what are you thinking?” Row asked.

  “And is there enough space on the other side for us to fight?” Kur asked, ignoring the red haired party leader.

  “Plenty, but…” Sej was completely lost as to what Kur was getting at.

  “That’s good enough then,” Kur said.

  “You’ve got to be crazy, Kur, but that might just work,” Calli said, and Leon noticed the awe in his sister’s voice. “Just try it then, we’ll handle everything back here, and follow as soon as we can!”

  “Heh?” Row asked. “What are you on about?”

  “We’re having a change of plans!” Kur announced, just as Tuk cleared another round of explosives overhead. “The aethermancers will fall back to cover the healers and handle the living bombs coming up from behind us. As for the boss, Nar is going to aggro it and drag it with him to the exit.”

  Leon’s shield almost faltered in shock and missed the fungal nightmare’s attack.

  “Are you crazy?” he shouted at the auramancer party leader.

  “Probably,” Kur said.

  Eum burst out laughing from Leon’s right, even as his glowing red, dripping bloody aether claws slashed at the fungal nightmare, though with little effect.

  “I like it! A party leader needs to be a little bit crazy, right?” the tygaris shouted.

  “Holy Azzin” Leon sighed. “Nar, can you handle it?”

  “Should be alright,” Nar said. “But my passive threat won’t trigger while you’re actively aggroing the boss.”

  Leon sighed again. It was a crazy plan, but it might just work.

  But only because it’s Nar, Leon thought. Radiants, what I could do with someone like him at my side…

  “Alright, let’s do that then. But be careful of the assassins. They might be waiting on the other side, ready to pull something else off,” Leon warned.

  “Got it!” Nar said.

  “He won’t be going alone,” Kur announced. “Jul, you and I are going with Nar, and we’re going to wreck the nightmare’s mind. Plus, with your senses, we can make sure nothing surprises us too badly on the other side.”

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  “Okay!” the fear warrior shouted, without a hint of hesitation.

  “Right, you focus on that then, and let me and Row take charge back here!” Calli said.

  “Yes! Gad, push your flows deeper in, and see if you can open up a path for them,” Row said. “Even if you can’t fully clear it, just reach as far as you can.”

  “I will open the way,” Gad declared.

  “Eum and Mach, fall back to the healers,” Calli ordered. “Eum, help Sej in killing those roguelings, and Mach, use your gales to push those living bombs off the edge. Raf, please give them a hand with that.”

  Yeses rang out across his mind as the party shifted to obey the new orders, and just as Kur raised his voice to cast his [Words of Endurance] and [Words of Encouragement] over the auramancers, there was a glowing blade at Leon’s side.

  “You sure about this?” Leon asked the swordsman. “This thing is way worse than that ripper!”

  “So am I,” Nar said, smiling brightly at him.

  “Eh, I guess so,” Leon said with a grin of his own. “I’ve stopped aggroing it. It’s all yours!”

  “Thanks! Watch over my people, yeah?” Nar asked him, as his blade got to work.

  “Nothing will touch them, I swear,” Leon said as he slipped backwards, into the throng of shroomlings that Gad pulled towards the auramancer frontline.

  As he turned, the last thing he saw was Kur, Jul and Nar standing before the towering nightmare. A brightblade, a flurry of darkness coated weapons, and a non-melee party leader, who nonetheless stood tall and fearless before a beast that could kill him with a glancing blow.

  Let’s get this done quickly, Leon thought as he dashed over to fill the gap left behind by Raf and to cover Teb. Even if it’s Nar, and even if he's grown like crazy in this dungeon, I have a feeling that the boss was also holding back in this unstable ground…

  **********

  Crystal! Nar thought, as he dodged under a double slam from the boss’ fleshy limbs.

  “Hang in there, Nar!” Kur shouted. “I know you can do it!”

  “Leave it to me.”

  Glancing back, he found that the last of the shroomlings had been cleared out of the way.

  Hang in there Gad, Nar thought. I’ll be fast.

  With a surge of [Sword Aura] he sliced into the boss, foregoing damage for quick slices to infect the fungal creature with as much of his [Lingering Aura] as he could pump into it. From the other side, safely away from the boss’ limbs and attention, Jul did the same, aiming to quickly stack up her [Insidious Fear] counters. Kur’s [Sneer of Contempt] was already hard at work, slowly sapping the boss’ HP, even if by an almost negligible amount, and messing around with its mind.

  As for [Lingering Aura], while the effect from his [Aura Infused Strikes] did not come with a counter, it did increase in strength and damage depending on how much of his aura seeped into the insides of his enemies. However, this time, he was having trouble increasing the effect.

  That’s either thanks to that crazy HP, or a really strong aether, Nar thought, though the answer was probably a combination of both. At over two million estimated HP, this was the strongest enemy they had ever faced, not counting the hydra they had been forced to escape from. The fungal nightmare was likely to have a mighty aether to match its HP, and which was even now hard at work fighting off Nar’s aura invasion.

  “Do you have him?” Kur asked.

  Nar took a couple steps backward, and just as he’d expected, the grotesque fungal growth chased after him, its glowing orange sacs jiggling with each ponderous half-step, half-dragging of its body across the rock pillar.

  At least it looks like this might work, Nar thought. That said…

  “Kur, those sacs…” he said, in their own private party channel.

  “Yeah, It’s likely that the boss is also not going at full strength for fear of collapsing the passage. Even those fungal bombs it was throwing at the others before weren’t strong enough to damage the rock,” Kur said. “But that will probably change once we’re out there.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Cen asked them, back behind the protective front line.

  “We’ll be fine,” Kur assured her, and the others. “Just do your best to clear through these ads as soon as you can. Nar, go! Before it damages the pillar any further.”

  “Let’s do this then. Jul?” Nar called.

  “I’m ready!”

  With another [Sword Aura], driving his [Lingering Aura] into that unholy mixture of grey fungal flesh, Nar dashed backwards, running up the passage. The ponderous tremors that followed him were indication enough that, at least for now, their plan was succeeding.

  Every couple of steps, Nar had to turn back and attack the boss, so as to not allow the aggro to slip from his fingers and shift onto Jul or Kur, due their continuous attacks and DOTs. Plus, every time the fungal nightmare reached over to attack him, he had to grit his teeth to take those brutal hits and try his best to absorb as much of their impact as possible, lest their mad run cause the very collapse they were trying to prevent.

  Damn, Leon. You crazy bastard! How were you keeping this place intact? Nar thought, his teeth rattling as the fleshy appendage smashed down on his blade, the boss fully ignoring the burning touch of his glowing sword thanks to its insane HP.

  Even swinging his sword at the right time to shift the attacks, to redirect them, rather than absorb them, his feet were still cracking and embedding themselves into the rock under him. His bones and muscles hissed with each impact, reminding him that unlike the paladin and the other tanks, he still didn’t have any [Toughness] whatsoever.

  At least the blade is quiet, Nar thought, as he cycled without concern. Thank Everything you’re a picky eater, eh?

  Though he should probably stop teasing the sword, in case it changed its mind about that disgusting, slimy, and flabby mushroom flesh.

  A cloud of smoky darkness burst from the boss, and the creature halted in its tracks, darkness pouring out of its toothless maw.

  “Jul!” Nar shouted, grinning.

  “I-I got him! But it will move again soon!” the warrior said, her wakizashi and pickaxes still a frenzy of dark streaks upon the gray flesh. “And it's really tough. I’m too slow!”

  “You’re doing great, Jul!” Kur told her. “Come you two, if we work together, this boss will be half dead by the time the others are done.”

  Nar grinned as recognized Kur’s words for what they were, and his [Words of Encouragement] filled him with a rallying warmth, even as the fungal nightmare snapped out of Jul’s [Insidious Terror]’s paralyzing effect and chased after him once more.

  It was one of those surreal moments, when Nar couldn’t fully tell whether he was dreaming or awake.

  The nightmare’s pulsing glow shone across the rocky, uneven floor and the wall to their left, beyond the chasm that led to a watery death. And on his other side, the waterfall continued its precipitous pour, crashing down with a strength that he had no doubt he could do nothing against.

  He ran, ducked, and parried under that twilight green and purple light, everything from the walls, to the others, to even the boss and himself coated in that shimmering effect from the reflection of light through the water. It was a moment of beauty and of terror both, where it felt as though rather than a pillar or rock, Nar ran across a naked blade, balancing his and the fate of his party upon its sharp edge…

  He snorted. It was funny how beauty and horror seemed to so often walk hand in hand.

  Or maybe that’s just the kind of life we live.

  “We’re getting close!” Jul said. “I can hear the air blowing in from the exit!”

  “Hang in there, Nar,” Kur said.

  Nar glanced at his health bar.

  Yellow, uh? He thought. Self-healing is just barely holding on. Taking those hits, rather than just dodge around them is not great.

  But even as the thought crossed his mind, he was forced to raise his blade up high to stop a double whammy from the fungal boss. He bent his knees and tensed in order to keep as much of that shock from transferring to the fragile rock underneath him.

  Guh! He grunted internally.

  His HP bar dropped squarely to red, and for a moment the passage swam before his eyes, darkness mingling with shimmering twilight.

  “Nar!” Kur shouted.

  “I’m alright,” Nar said. “Let’s just get out of here so I can start dodging around this thing!”

  Thankfully, a few more steps, and one close encounter that he just about managed to dodge, and they were out.

  “Keep going!” Kur shouted. “You don’t need to take hits anymore, but just in case, let’s get some distance from the passage.”

  Nar didn’t bother replying, and now, making full use of his movement and sense attributes, he dodged around one of those momentous hits and slashed at the boss’ underbelly. Or at least he thought that was belly. 70% of the best seemed to be composed of it anyways.

  Huh?

  He kicked up small puffs of white dust as he led the beast further away from the cave. Now that he paid attention, he noticed a slow, silent rain of deathly white falling upon him. Glimpsing about him as he dodged around the raging beast, he saw that the entire area was covered in sterile white.

  Oh, this is—

  “Dont worry about it!” Kur said, noticing Nar’s surprise. “It’s a buildup effect, so it won’t affect this fight. For now, just—”

  Kur’s words were swallowed by a screech from his [Instinct], and Nar backpedaled across the field of white as the fungal nightmare dropped his jaw even lower, and spat a peal of bright orange flames at him.

  Fucking Crystal! Are you serious? Nar thought, kicking up a storm of white as he dodged the flaming orange cone. I mean I knew it could do it but…

  “Watch out for the fumes!” Kur warned. “That’s not a status effect. It’s just acid smoke!”

  “This thing is so nasty!” Nar muttered as he ran around another burst of flames.

  His self-healing was already working at its maximum capacity, guzzling down his aura bar as it sought to undo all the damage he had incurred while dragging the nightmare away from the others. Even now, his legs shook under him, his arms groaning every time he raised his sword.

  His very bones creaked as though they might crack at any moment, and he was pretty sure that something wasn’t quite right with his right elbow, forcing him to favor his left arm. And yet, even as his pathways blazed with his self-healing needs, he rolled under the flames to slash at the beast's flappy belly, driving another [Sword Aura] into its fleshy, fungal folds.

  “Watch out!” Jul cried from behind the beast.

  Explosions soon followed her warning, and the air was suddenly dense with flaming white particles.

  “We’re okay!” Jul let him know, but Nar had already ascertained that from his party view status.

  Instead, he darted and danced around the beast, keeping its fire attacks focused on him and away from the other two, his sword just an after image of blinding aura. The fungal nightmare howled in rage and slammed at him, his two front limbs chasing after the much smaller shape of Nar through the flaming particles.

  And that’s when Nar’s [Instincts] howled in his mind, so loudly that it nearly left him paralyzed. He just barely ducked under another jet of smoking, orange flames, and glimpsed behind him as he gained some space once more.

  The Gloom stood behind him, an impenetrable fortress of towering, calcified tree trunks piercing up from the white covered ground. The white trees were bereft of foliage, and they were half absorbed by fungal growths that reached to the very lifeless gray skies above. Silent white dust fell from the Gloom, and its nooks and crannies grew pitch black as his eyes sought to penetrate deeper into the next step of their journey. As expected, the jungle of the dead trees was quite the sight to behold, even if it was a sight that gripped tightly like a vice over his heart.

  This place would not be simple to traverse, given the being that made it its home.

  “Watch out! Don’t go in there,” Kur warned him.

  “I know!” Nar said, dashing through the storm of flaming white to put as much distance in between himself and the silent jungle. “I-I think it’s here, watching us!”

  “I think so too,” Jul said, staring transfixed into the dark eyes of the jungle.

  “It won’t come out of there, so let’s just focus on this thing. Jul. Jul!” Kur called.

  “Oh, shit! Sorry!” Jul said, and she sprinted back over to the boss.

  Before she could reach it, however, the creature emitted a guttural below, his pulsing orange sacs glowing faster and faster.

  “Oh, no,” Kur whispered, his face going as pale as the white dust that now covered his long hair and shoulders. “Thats—”

  The orange glow shifted, gaining new colors. Purple, green, red, and blue now joined the original orange, the sacs of spores expanding and contorting as though a living being was trying to push its way out from within the fungal monstrosity.

  A new limb sprouted with an explosion of gray goo, and another followed after it. And another. And another, until the beast began to lift its ponderous body up from the floor on shaky, new-born limbs. Sloughs of flesh melted off its body, and its previously wide lower section began to rise in the hair, new fungal explosives revealing themselves across its length.

  Its eyeless face distended, becoming skinnier, and long slits formed alongside its now multicoloured sacs.

  Here we go, Nar thought, pushing more aura into his blade as a torrent of shimmering, multicoloured sprouts erupted from the nightmare’s main mushroom head.

  The real fight was about to begin, and his HP had only managed to recover to just above red.