Emily dodges a distortion-wreathed tentacle perforated with bullet holes, leaping after it a mont later and slashing a lightning-charged blade through one of its most damaged points, severing the limb. Their enemy lets out another space-quaking scream, but Emily and Gaius both pour more mana into the large stabilising array they have trapped the beast within, reinforcing it against the sonic attack.
The fifth circle monstrosity they're facing reabsorbs several bleeding stumps into its writhing mass of dark purple flesh, opening fanged maws and eyes in their place, as Emily throws out a few spikes of fire to burn away the separated limbs before it can reclaim them. She shifts the portal linked to Pod's gun across the surface of her armour to target a few of the new eyes while kicking off thin air to dodge another formless blade of cutting space.
"I'm out!" Pod yells through her communicator a split second before the gunfire stops, but Emily barely reacts, slipping between two more strikes and drawing the Spitter to continue peppering the beast's eye with bullets.
She glances at Gaius sitting cross-legged on the opposite side of the rotund beast that's shrunk to half its initial size: it now towers over her by a re twenty tres as opposed to forty. Emily sees sweat pouring from Gaius' brow as his hands move with purpose, constantly updating the array fixing their target in place. nsacus is standing before him with his arms curled protectively around the old man, spewing mist-like malice that saps the energy from all incoming attacks, but she can feel her son's energy levels rapidly dropping, with his batteries and circles nearing empty.
"I'm gonna finish it!" Emily yells to her allies, turning her focus back to the target and searching for an opening in its frantic defence. "Prepare to take the full load of the array: we should only need a second."
She dances between attacks, keeping most of their target's focus on her for a few more seconds, before the blade protruding from her left palm snaps as it catches a tentacle's distortion field head-on while she's mid-parry. The beast tries to capitalise on her weakened defence, slinging half its available limbs and several spatial blades at her at once. This inadvertently creates a small gap in the wall of flesh blocking her from approaching its main body, exposing one of the only eyes that's never reford into another limb.
Emily activates her lightning and tal connections, cutting off the supply of energy she was feeding into the stabilising array, setting her eyes and the faint cracks emanating across her face alight with mismatched mana. She silently asks Harriet for help and coils her legs, waiting until the target's blows are millitres from landing before kicking off, releasing her built-up tension and turning into a bolt of golden lightning that tears forward in a flash. She rematerialises inches from a pitch-black eye blown wide open with shock, and her montum carries her tal-coated body through the creature's gaping cornea, deep into the soft flesh behind it.
Her entire body electrifies as her mana reserves quickly drop, and she feels grey matter bubble against her hardened skin as it's burned away. The sickening sll of burning at fills her lungs, and the creature's rageful howl turns to a wailing cry that quickly peters out.
Emily cuts off her outward mana-flow the mont the dinsional beast falls silent, deactivating her lightning connection to save the last dregs of her energy but keeping the tal up for a few more seconds, just in case. She begins digging through the remains of their target's brain to get out, but it dissolves into mist before she gets halfway, and she drops to the floor below, coated in ash that doesn't fade as easily.
She releases the last of her tension, letting her skin return to normal as the light pouring from her eyes fades, and looks up to et Gaius' tired but amused gaze.
"Did you just use yourself as a bullet?" he asks, releasing his control of the array and letting it break apart.
"Unfortunately," Emily replies, casting a quick Cleanse to remove the detritus clinging to every inch of her equipnt.
Space begins twisting around them once more, but Emily holds up a hand before Gaius can worry, pointing to the space above her, now vacated by the corpse. They both look up to see a small crack in reality growing, with a similar fractured-mirror appearance to the dungeon's door as it ford. Dense spatial mana is flowing from and into the fracture, building it up towards the density of a fifth circle material, and a doorway to the next rest area spawns beside it as Pod, Ivor, Silica, and the wendigos appear behind Emily, brought closer as the trial space collapses in on itself.
"So, that's a spatial essence," Gaius mutters in awe, pushing himself off the ground and approaching. "It's beautiful."
"It's yours if you want it," Emily says, drawing his attention back to her. "I've already consud tal and lightning. I just need to gather more mana and complete this dungeon to ascend."
"Are you sure?"
She nods calmly, turning her attention to gathering the turret Pod has half-burnt out with Overdrive back into her Dinsional Factory.
"In that case, take these." Gaius produces his share of the materials gathered from the fourth circle dinsional beasts, including the claw he claid alone, and holds them out to her.
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"Thanks." Emily smiles and deposits the loot in her belt before gesturing towards the dinsional doorway above with a tilt of her head. "That should lead to a rest space where we can recharge before the next trial. I think it will take us to separate spaces if we aren't connected when we enter. Are you coming through with us, or…"
"No, I'll go alone. Thank you for your help: I wish you luck on the rest of your trials."
"You'll need it more than , old man."
Gaius chuckles and floats up to claim his spatial essence before vanishing into the doorway. Emily's group follows him, after nsacus has bound them together, and they find themselves alone in their break room, once again under the light of three suns.
***
Stepping out of another glowing doorway that shuts behind them, Emily's group find themselves standing on what appears to be solidified clouds, in a pale blue expanse, with the dungeon's three suns beating down on them from a little too close by.
"You know, after the last trial I thought nothing could surprise …" Pod mutters, crouching down and poking at the oddly spongy floor while releasing tendrils of machina to try and understand its composition.
Ivor hums his agreent while attempting to scoop up so of the cloud to store for later, watching it dissolve between his fingers the mont it separates from the greater mass. Emily turns her head to take in the cloudscape, searching for their targets for the trail. She notices several raised dos of wispy material, numbering far more than the expected eight. Most are far off in the distance, but one is only a few hundred tres behind them, with the clouds sinking gradually towards it and eting its base tens of tres below their current position.
"Looks like we have a lot of company," she says, drawing her apprentices' attention away from their failed probing of the ground.
"Who do you think it is?" Ivor signs thoughtfully, following Emily as she starts towards the nearby do. "The mana composition here leans heavily towards wind, but there were no fourth circle wind mages among the New Denntimo forces who were waiting with us. Do you think weaker mages are sent to the sa trials?"
"I doubt it. If the dungeon goes so far as to offer breaks between trials, I get the feeling it won't outright doom weaker mages by sending them to face fourth, and subsequently fifth, circle foes." Emily sidesteps a sharp talon as a flock of birds, boosted by swift winds, bursts from the clouds beneath their feet. She draws the Spitter and shoots them down, before they can circle back for another attack, as nsacus and his wendigos snatch several of the weak creatures from the sky almost as fast as her bullets fly. "It's probably a group who entered one of the dungeon's other entrances together. Maybe clan Visori: they were aware of the volcano entrance and they're cohesive enough to stick together upon entry."
Ivor nods along with her reasoning without batting an eye at the ambush, shouldering his own rifle and shooting at a few birds that leave the do ahead. They reach the swirling wall of dense white mist quickly, and a tentative poke with the barrels of their weapons confirms that the do isn't as solid as the ground despite blocking Emily's magical senses from reaching inside. They push through into a disorienting white room filled to the brim with birds of various breeds and sizes, so perched on the floor and so circling in the air, their feathers a range of colours but all streaked with a faint green tint.
Emily senses, more than she sees, several clusters of churning wind and, narrowing her eyes on their positions, she spots the barely-visible cores of wind elentals, with the largest floating in the centre of the do, emanating the pressure of a fourth circle being.
"I'll take the elentals," she says while rapidly twisting several spells together, conjuring a violent wind and dozens of jagged icicles to circle her like a blizzard, before shooting out towards the elentals' cores. "Deal with the rest."
The group explodes into motion, filling the do with gunfire and blood as Emily shoots forward to et the strongest elental head-on, distracting it from controlling the wind currents boosting its allies. She makes quick work of her opponent, pelting it with ice until the protective mist wrapping it can't react as fast as her blade. She slashes clean through its core, splitting it in two. The elental disperses, leaving behind its core in two stable chunks of mana that she happily tucks into her belt for later, joining the materials from the space trial that she was unable to make into a suitable elixir without the essence to go with them.
The cloud do bursts with the central elental, and the weaker surviving creatures flee imdiately, slipping below the clouds or shooting high up into the sky. Emily looks back over her party, confirming no one has sustained any injuries from the brawl, and notices out of the corner of her eye as one of the distant dos scatters with the wind. She focuses on it and sees a few birds dispersing, but her gaze is drawn to the familiar figure in the centre, flanked by several mages wearing matching robes and wielding clockwork rifles.
"Looks like Morzea found the mountain entrance," she says as she rejoins her family, nodding towards the distant group.
"Wait, is that…" Pod trails off, pulling a rifle with a magnified scope from his bag to look closer.
"Morzea's Guardian," Emily confirms for the others, considering her next move. "Shall we go say hello? I'd quite like to know how many he brought in with him."
They set off towards the distant group of mages who start towards another cloud do before noticing their approach and pausing, throwing up several spells to prepare in case of an attack. Emily raises her hands placatingly while Pod and Ivor point the barrels of their guns down.
Another do, a few kilotres from them, bursts before they can get within comfortable speaking range of the Morzean mages, and Emily glances over to see Gaius holding a shattered elental core, surrounded by dissolving corpses. He looks over and ets her gaze with an amused quirk of his brow, starting towards her before yet another do disperses behind him, revealing Guntal, Second Mouth of The Scattered One, surrounded by two dozen mages of his clan.
"That's a lot of people," Ivor signs, his expression creasing with concern. "We're pretty certain the number of fourth circle targets increases with each person who enters, right? You don't think this is enough for…"
"Possibly," Emily responds to the implication with a slight frown, nodding to the distant Lebard mage as he brings his party closer. "Let's hope that if there are more, they co separately and give us ti to rest between. If not, I may have to burn my limited stock of nukes."
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