The second deposit.
After days of incessant construction, the tunnel had finally reached its target.
The coordinated work of level 7 and 8 builders had made the process faster than expected, but now ca the real test.
"Think it's the fire one like you wanted?" Kriz asked as the group prepared to enter.
Elio observed the newly discovered crystal. "We won't know until we finish the first half of the challenge."
Before entering, he turned to Zara. "Like last ti. I need you to guide the other group, but give at least a twelve hour head start..."
"So the exterior won't be left unprotected," she completed, understanding the strategy. Their eyes t for a mont, a silent conversation about caution and promises passing between them.
"Watch my... this idiot's back," Zara told Kriz, who responded with his characteristic mocking salute.
The final group was established: Elio, Kriz, Brok, Taron, and, by the latter's specific recomndation, Arnaud.
"The new groups also need to understand what a deposit implies," Taron had argued when suggesting including the newly ascended level 8.
The crystal glowed when they approached, transporting them inside.
♢♢♢♢
The tunnel that received them was familiar but... different.
"Narrower than the previous one," Brok observed.
After advancing for a while.
"Seems like as Zara told us, the tunnels have different arrangents," Kriz added, pointing ahead.
Two Locus in stasis blocked the path, placed side by side in the reduced space.
The arrangent was different this ti, more compact, more challenging than 100 Locus in a single chamber.
As Elio could have eliminated them all almost simultaneously in that case.
"How are we going to...?" Arnaud began, but stopped upon seeing the smile on Elio's face.
"This ti we're prepared," Elio said, the Corrosive Glaucus undulating beside him while his hands began forming the familiar iron and carbon blades. "Very prepared."
The group positioned themselves, the lessons of the last few days fresh in their minds.
Elio's smile widened upon recognizing the Locus's level. Level 1, barely a shadow of the monsters he had been training against.
"Are those..." Arnaud began, but Elio was already in motion.
The spear in his hands ca alive when a one-ter blade finished materializing at its tip, transforming it (without Elio having any knowledge about sothing alike) into sothing similar to a glaive.
The cost, barely two mana points.
There was no hesitation, no need for coordination. Elio launched forward, his body moving with the precision that only days of training against much more powerful opponents could grant.
A single turn, fluid and lethal, and both Locus's heads fell to the ground.
"By the walls," Brok murmured.
Without losing montum, Elio continued his movent, the blade finding the first monster's torso and cleaving it cleanly. The second, headless, moved erratically, its arms groping the air in search of an enemy it couldn't see.
Two daggers flew quickly from Elio's hands. With a force of almost 20 points, he threw them with deadly precision, piercing the monster's remaining hearts as if they were paper.
The body disintegrated in a shower of bright particles.
"Should we help him...?" Kriz stepped forward but stopped.
More Locus appeared through the tunnel, but Elio's expression showed no concern whatsoever. He collected his daggers with a casual movent and launched himself toward the new targets, his improvised glaive describing lethal arcs in the air.
The monsters' heads didn't even have ti to register his presence before separating from their bodies.
"He's not going to waste more mana, is he?" Taron observed, recognizing the strategy.
"Why would he?" Kriz responded, watching the massacre with both amazent and amusent. "They're like babies compared to what he's been facing."
The resistant alloy that Elio had perfected at the level 10 daily challenge made his weapons practically indestructible against these minor opponents. Each cut, each movent, was a demonstration of lethal efficiency.
Elio advanced through the tunnel like a force of nature, leaving behind a trail of bright cores.
♢♢♢♢
The last level 1 Locus disintegrated, leaving behind a trail of cores that the others hurried to collect.
Elio's work had been so efficient that his companions had barely served as collectors.
The transition to the second level was instantaneous.
Before them, glowing with a soft light, the wall emblem floated in the air.
"Shouldn't we disc-?" Taron began, but Elio had already extended his hand, absorbing the emblem without hesitation.
"I guess it's better that Elio takes them all... The elental emblems will be distributed when the ti limit ends," Brok comnted, rembering how Zara had distributed her three spare wind emblems among companions.
Kriz nodded. "Wonder if we can get more emblems from the first deposit. We only lost Micah's wind emblem..." he stopped, his usual joviality vanishing for a mont.
The emblem of their fallen friend, along with his body, remained in the first deposit's chamber... if the Artromus hadn't moved it from there.
The level 2 Locus appeared, larger but equally vulnerable to Elio's improvised glaive.
Heads kept falling with each precise strike, until...
CRACK
The blade broke near the middle, after about 100 level 1 and 50 level 2 Locus, during a particularly violent attack.
In that brief mont of vulnerability, the second Locus caught Elio in its claw.
"Elio!" Arnaud shouted, stepping forward.
But what followed left everyone frozen in place.
Elio, with his controlled 19.9 points of strength, simply... destroyed the arm that held him. Like a primitive beast, he climbed up the monster's body and began brutally beating it.
Each impact turned the Locus into sothing less recognizable, until finally the formless mass disintegrated into particles of light.
Kriz, normally quick with a joke, kept his mouth firmly shut. None found the courage to comnt on the brutality they had just witnessed.
The silence only broke when Elio, spending so mana, regenerated his broken weapon.
"Let's continue," was all he said, his voice as casual as if he hadn't just pulverized a monster with his bare hands.
The others exchanged glances but followed him in silence. Kriz saved his jokes about the "incident" for another ti... one when Elio seed less prone to turning him, like the monsters, into pulp.
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