Chapter 55 Strange Labyrinth (Patreon)

            As soon as the illusion of the trio of mages stepped into the dungeon’s area of influence, the essence beast of the labyrinth began attempting to attack the illusions. Any creature that had to attack with its teeth, claws, horns, or beak was immediately killed when it stepped into the vacuum bubble. The shredder geese’s squall attack was also dissipated by the bubble long before it reached the illusions, and the mages casually cast shadow spear, with their doppelgangers made of light appearing to be the start of the attack, to kill the geese. Vacuum bubble was an overpowered defensive spell because it outrightly stopped all fire, water, wind, and poison spells while also killing nearly any creature that tried to attack with their body.

            That said, the mages were being careful, as always. They were invisible to all light and heat spectrums thanks to bending light, and thanks to illusion, any monsters that could attack them through the vacuum were focused on the fake copies of themselves. They were taught that the dungeon would be aware of where their real bodies were, but that did not translate to the essence creatures knowing where their real bodies were, as dungeons could not take complete control over a creature, albeit they can give directions, which is why mages had so many levels of defense active when they went into a labyrinth.

            The battle as they entered the labyrinth was fast, chaotic, and brutal as the various essence creatures swarmed them. It was nothing new to the mages; in fact, it was logical. If the dungeon could kill them, or another mana creature, with swarm attacks, then it should.

            A part of the reason why the battle was so fast was because the mages had haste active on themselves. So, although they were leisurely walking and weaving spells, an outside observer would think they were sprinting and moving their hands frantically. When the dungeon saw them move, the only way he could describe it was watching a movie that was being fast-forwarded. That said, the speed boost allowed the mages time to react to most variables in a chaotic battle with level-headedness and forethought.

            That said, the mages were confused by the large, floating bear that lagged by the other essence creatures. The floating bear was very odd, albeit not the oddest thing they had ever seen, as it had its arms played out like an X connected to a ring of some sort. It was coming for them, but the trio had never seen anything that flew move so slowly.

            Victoria asked, “Is it moving with wind?”

            Claude said, “I don’t know. Perhaps the dungeon found a way to use lightning to give its creatures flight. Don’t hit it with shadow spear, let's see what happens when it hits the vacuum bubble.”

            Albert asked, “What if it attacks us before it hits the bubble.”

            “Don’t worry. I have a force wall between us and the creature, and its focused on the illusions. We need to see if this creature is worth studying.”

            Victoria said, “But it's so slow.”

            “That’s fine, this may just be the dungeon's first attempt at…. whatever that is. We won't know what until we study it. This could turn into something dangerous or be nothing at all; be patient.”

            And so the trio waited as the bear floated toward their illusions protected inside of a vacuum bubble. To the mages that were moving at ten and twenty times the speed of the normal world, the wait was excruciating, but their safety was paramount so they had to lose time. When the bear finally reached the vacuum bubble, Victoria and Albert were shocked when it continued to float, even though there was no air. Claude, on the other hand, was delighted. This was something new, he would be rewarded if he brought the bear's corpse back.

            As for the bear, although it had a cradle of metallic helium keeping it afloat, its lungs and bodily functions worked as normal, and so the air was ripped out of its lungs, and its blood boiled due to low pressure, killing it in a few short seconds. Once it died and stopped sending power to the ring of metallic hydrogen, its body fell to the ground.

            Victoria asked, “How did it float in vacuum? It does not have a vacuum core; only vacuum core creatures are supposed to be able to do that.”

            Claude had a huge smile on his face as he led the invisible trio toward the bear and said, “I don’t know, but if it has a lightning core, we are going to be rewarded.”

            Albert asked, “Why?”

            “Because that means we either have new spells to learn or new warriors to make, or both.”

            When they reached the bear, Claude did a quick examination and triumphantly said, “It has a lightning core. I bet this guy flies with lightning, and he can do it in VACUUM!”

            Victoria asked, “I guess we completed our mission then. Summon a familiar and put the core in it.”

            Claude made the floating bear corpse disappear into his storage space, thanks to a trick of folding space, and said, “No. We are going to have to find another lightning core; we are going to keep this corpse intact so that we can discover how it was able to float in vacuum. Besides, we still have to learn how this labyrinth killed the vacuum warrior, as that bear didn’t do it.”

            Victoria sounded melancholy as she said, “Yes, sir.”

            With that, Claude led them to one of the tunnels, and he was confused as he stared in. “These tunnels are very different than what the records say. They are supposed to go straight into an underground labyrinth, but now they are much bigger, have a gap we have to jump down in and go in two directions. The records also say that the underground tunnels are supposed to be flat paths, but there are several metal things going through the tunnel. Do either of you have any idea what those are?” The three rails were alien to the mages.

            Victoria said, “No.”

            Albert said, “No, but they may be some sort of tripping hazard or elaborate trap. This is an earth dungeon, and some of them have monsters that dig deep pits and cover them with thin dirt.”

            Claude nodded and said, “That would make sense. Perhaps the dungeon made a giant electric spider and these metal pieces are connected to its threads somehow.” Claude reached into his storage space for a moment and pulled out a handful of iron dust and tossed it toward the three rails. As soon as it hit the middle rail the iron sparked and went up in flame. Claude nodded and said, “I have about a hundred pounds of iron dust in my storage space for the lightning labyrinth. Anywhere that I think might have lightning, I just toss the metal dust and wait for the sparks to fly.”

            Victoria asked, “Why does it matter? We all have lightning immunity.”

            “If there is a giant lightning spider waiting to jump out at us, or some other lightning essence creature, then this may give us some warning.”

            “So you think that middle rail is hiding some lightning creature?”

            “Who knows? The dungeon that created this labyrinth is known for material knowledge and creation, so it could just be some sort of trap. It could also be some way for lightning creatures to see us despite our invisibility. My records show that invisible warriors have come through this dungeon, and this may be the dungeon's early attempt at finding a way around invisibility.”

            The other two nodded; they were well aware that the reason why the ancient mages, mages that existed before the immortals, started pulling souls from other realms and making dungeons out of them was because they needed dungeons to do research for them. Most of their spell and material knowledge came from the dungeons. Many of their best genetic lines came from human hybrids made from the dungeons. The mage’s society had millions of dungeons on the various moons around the gas giant to do the research the mages just didn’t have time to do. Albeit the labyrinths the dungeons made provided cores, and often other resources, but the dungeon's main purpose was always research. In modern times, that meant research to help mages better prepare for the immortal dungeon, but that was still research all the same.

            Without another word, the three mages entered the strange tunnel. The tunnel had two paths, and they randomly chose the one on the right. Although their movement seemed very fast, thanks to haste, the mages were in fact very careful looking for any trap, in their view they were inching forward carefully examining everything, but to an outside observer they were jogging. Claude, in particular, was using his force spell to tap on the ground, walls, and ceiling, hoping to trigger any trap laid out by the dungeon.

            The reality was that this trio would have done better to jog, as every ten minutes, a subway car went from one of the two entrances to the other at one hundred miles an hour. With just a quarter of a mile trip both ways around the weaving, meandering, now circular tunnel, it was a short trip. The mage's luck just so happened to have them walking directly toward the subway car as it took off directly toward them.

            The mages didn’t even notice the subway car until it was just twenty yards away. Two of the mages had haste at ten times, but Claude had his on twenty times. From his perspective, the fifteen-ton car was moving at around ten miles an hour. Although his perspective had the subway car moving at ten miles an hour time, magic was finicky and could make the car hit harder or softer randomly based on hundreds of factors.

            What haste did for Claude was to give him enough time to adjust his force wall spell. The way this particular spell worked was that the more mana you poured into it, the larger and more sturdy it became. With only seconds to spare in twenty times speed and perception, Claude couldn’t do much more than pump mana into the spell. As he did so, the rails were broken and pushed aside, and the invisible wall became large enough to fill the room.

            Even thought he spell was supercharged, the wall was violently pushed back into the mages, even as the subway car crumpled under its force. As the force wall was shoved back into the mages, the water bubble surrounding the mages took the force, and flung all three of them backward. As they flew Victoria’s illusion spell did not waver, so the illusion mages copied the real ones by mirroring their flight, albeit thirty feet behind them. As the real mages flew they bounced along the ground, wall, and ceiling, but the bubble of water took most of the force. Furthermore, thanks to the earth spell empower they managed to avoid any broken bones. Oddly enough the collision knocked them back much more than physics suggested it should, but that was due to the haste spell. As for the subway car it was demolished from the collision with the force wall; even so, it continued moving down the tunnel a hundred feet. Fortunately for the mages, they were thrown back a hundred and fifty feet.

            As soon as the mages stopped rolling on the ground, Albert ran to Victoria and cried out, “Are you all right?” He was so worried he had tears rolling down his eyes.

            Victoria said, “I am all right. How about you?”

            Albert stopped, felt along his body, then said, “I think I am okay.”

            Victoria said, “Good, good.” Then she turned toward Claude and asked, “Are you all right?”

            Claude said, “Yes. Good job keeping up the illusion spell.”

            “Thank you. So do you think that’s what killed the vacuum warrior?”

            “Perhaps, but that trap changes things. I would have done better stopping that trap with my ice and rain magic, so I will add another defensive layer on top of the vacuum.”

            “Why? We are not going to continue exploring this labyrinth after this?”

            “We can all still walk, we will continue exploring.”

            With that, the trio went deeper into the labyrinth, only pausing to allow Claude to put the subway car into his storage space.




Authors note Book 9 is out! If you can rate it and leave a comment as it helps with amazons algarithem. Have a great day everyone.

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