The [Descent] into Dark Depths III: Through the walls
~~~
From deep in the dark passages, red eyes flared to life. Then another pair. Then another. Until the tunnels seethed with a forest of gleaming points, all fixed squarely on them.
Jin felt his blood turn cold as he counted the shapes—forty, maybe fifty animated corpses pressing forward with relentless purpose.
We're completely surrounded. Tunnel behind us, tunnel to the left, tunnel to the right. All of them are filled with the undead that just keep coming back.
Jin retreated toward his friend, his mind racing through their options. Fight through fifty skeletons with limited ammo? Pointless—they'd keep reanimating. Try to harvest necromantic energy again? Suicide, but more painful.
Wait. The Essence Edge. There's a lot of stored essence in it from the initiation. I can tap into that...
Jin pressed his back against Rudy's, feeling the solid reassurance of his best friend's presence. "Rudy, I need you to buy me thirty seconds. Can you do that?"
"Thirty seconds?" Rudy's greatsword swept in a wide arc, pushing back the approaching skeletons. "What are you planning?"
"Something that's either gonna save our asses or we will be joining thier ranks."
"Huh? I've no plans to be a skeleton, Jin! I love my muscles."
Jin gripped the Essence Edge, feeling the stored power thrumming through the enchanted blade. This is gonna hurt. But it's better than being torn apart by dead guys.
The dagger blazed with silver light as he channeled everything he had into the incantation:
« "O Foundation of the World, hear my call—let stone rise and earth answer, let barriers stand where I command!" »
The cavern floor erupted around them. Stone walls burst upward in four directions, each one three feet thick and eight feet high, creating a rough box that enclosed Jin and Rudy while blocking the advancing skeletons. The sound was deafening—tons of rock grinding and shifting as Jin's will reshaped the cave itself.
The effort hit Jin like a sledgehammer to the chest. His essence reserves, already strained from his stupidity with harvest, drained to almost nothing in seconds. Manipulating that much stone while modifying the sorcery at his current level was like trying to lift a car with his bare hands—possible with enough power, but devastating to his body.
He collapsed to one knee, gasping for breath as his vision blurred.
"Jin!" Rudy caught him as he swayed, keeping him upright. "You good?"
"We bought ourselves some time," Jin panted, wiping blood from his nose. "But not much."
Jin looked at their makeshift defenses. The stone walls were solid but rough, clearly formed in haste. Already, he could hear the skeletons on the other side, their bone claws scraping against rock as they searched for ways around the barriers.
This will buy me just enough time. I hope.
"So what's the plan?" Rudy asked, his grip tightening on his greatsword. "Because I'm guessing we're not just gonna hide in here until they get bored and leave."
"No, we're not." Jin forced himself to stand, his mind still racing despite the exhaustion. "Rudy, the cave walls here are thin. With a little sorcery and those new muscles of yours, we should be able to break through them when we need to move."
He could hear the skeletons attacking their barriers. Rusted weapons scraped against stone, and cracks began to appear where the undead concentrated their assault.
"Break through them? Why would we want to do that?"
"Because we're not running away from the necromancer anymore." Jin pulled out an essence boost potion and a handful of crushed herbs. After a quick mash into the liquid and thorough shaking, he examined his handiwork.
o________o
DUBIOUS POTION OF ESSENCE BOOST AND RECOVERY
SUCCESS RATE: 89%
FAILURE RESULT: NO EFFECT
SIDE EFFECTS: MINOR NAUSEA, POSSIBLE ESSENCE DISRUPTION
o________o
Jin scowled. Why the fuck is everything I make tagged as 'dubious'?
Shaking his head, he downed the potion. One second... two seconds... nothing.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me."
Stomping and cursing under his breath, Jin quickly concocted another potion with the remaining herbs, this time focusing harder on the mixing process.
o________o
DUBIOUS POTION OF ESSENCE BOOST AND DENSITY
SUCCESS RATE: 86%
FAILURE RESULT: NO EFFECT
SIDE EFFECTS: MINOR NAUSEA, POSSIBLE ESSENCE DISRUPTION
o________o
Praying to whoever was listening, Jin downed the second potion, ignoring the bitter taste. One second... two seconds... just as he was about to curse again, the potion's effect kicked in. Energy flowed through his depleted channels like warm sunlight.
Now we're talking.
Jin pulled out two scrolls of Divine Blessing and tossed one to Rudy. "Tear yours on my signal."
"Just tear it? Like vertically or horizontally?"
"Just fucking tear it, bro!"
"Okay, okay..."
"As for the plan," Jin held up the Essence Edge, its stored power pulsing as he reached out to take control of it, "we're going straight to the necromancer."
Rudy's eyes lit up with understanding. "You know where he is?"
"I'm going to find out." Jin held the dagger close to his chest, feeling its remaining stored power. "But I need you to protect me while I do it. And Rudy—don't go too deep into the fight. Just keep them off me."
"And then?"
"We bust through a wall and introduce ourselves. Violently."
"Got it." Rudy flared his aura, red flames flickering around him and his greatsword as he moved into a defensive position. "But if you collapse again, I'm dragging your unconscious ass out of here whether you like it or not."
"Deal. Now keep them off me!"
The first skeleton broke through a gap in their walls just as Rudy's blade met its skull. Bone fragments scattered as the undead warrior crumbled, but two more immediately took its place.
Jin closed his eyes and reached out through the Essence Edge, connecting with its stored power. His mind raced through every sorcery he could remember from the days of his reading and dreaming of being the protagonist, searching for something that could extend his senses without killing him.
There—a two-verse divination sorcery. 'Eyes of the Far-Seeker.' It should let me trace energy patterns to their source.
I hate all the sorceries above two verses... so long to incant, and I have to make sure I don't fumble and mispronounce anything.
Jin whispered the verses, his voice trembling as the words seemed to chisel themselves into the world:
«"Currents of essence, unseen and unbound, Threads of power, etched through flesh and stone — I summon your lattice before my sight, Unravel, disclose, reveal your design!"»
His vision blurred, essence burning behind his eyes, but he pressed on to the second verse:
« "Clarity for vision, perception for truth, I surrender the eye to the flow of streams.
Through distance and shadow, through barriers of veil, I trace your lines back to their origin point!" »
The world shifted. Webs of essence blazed into existence, threads spiraling outward and converging. Every wall, every corpse, every stone thrummed with essence threads—and all of them flowed, twisted, and converged into one glowing nexus. The source.
The second verse emptied half of the Essence Edge's reserves, and Jin's senses exploded outward with overwhelming intensity.
Holy FUCK!
His consciousness expanded beyond his body, synergizing with Reader's Dominion and his natural astral sight to create something approaching true magical perception. The chamber around him became transparent, revealing layers of reality he'd never imagined existed.
He could see everything—the flow of essence through Rudy's enhanced body, the necromantic threads animating every skeleton, the complex web of death magic that connected them all like a vast spider web.
Focus.
And there, at the center of it all, pulsing with malevolent power...
There! Three levels down, northwest tunnel, big chamber. That's where the bastard is hiding.
But even as Jin locked onto the source, he felt something else—a vast, ancient intelligence suddenly becoming aware of his magical intrusion. The necromancer had sensed his scrying, and now those dead eyes were turning toward them with focused attention.
Oh shit...
The strain of maintaining the enhanced perception became unbearable. Blood filled Jin's vision as his overtaxed mind reached its breaking point. He severed the connection with desperate haste, gasping and heaving as he collapsed against one of their stone walls.
"Jin!" Rudy's voice carried panic as he cut down another skeleton. "You still with me?"
"Yeah," Jin croaked, wiping blood from his nose. "But we need to move. Now. I found him, but he knows I found him."
"Okay, I'm going to focus on the 'Where' part?"
Jin pointed toward the northwest wall of their makeshift fort. "That way. Three levels down. Big chamber with lots of bones and probably terrible décor."
"Through solid rock?" Rudy looked at the direction Jin was pointing, then back at his friend with concern. "Jin, even with my strength, I can't punch through that much stone."
"You won't have to." Jin grinned despite the blood streaming from his nose. "We're not going around—we're going straight down. The cave system has natural chambers and passages. We just need to find the right spot to break through."
"Tear the scrolls!"
Both of them tore their divine blessing scrolls simultaneously. Golden light erupted around them, a warm aura that made the shadows recoil and filled Jin with renewed strength. The holy energy flowed through his exhausted body like liquid sunlight, temporarily boosting his physical capabilities and providing protection against negative energy.
The wall behind Rudy exploded inward. Three skeletons poured through the gap, their weapons raised and red eyes blazing with unnatural fury. Rudy's greatsword met them in a shower of sparks and bone fragments.
"Ready?" Jin asked, drawing his pistol with hands that had stopped shaking.
"Yeah." Rudy replied, flames dancing along his greatsword.
Jin pointed to the northeastern wall. "That one. Hit it right there—about three feet from the corner. The stone's thinner there, and there should be a passage just beyond."
« "O Soil that bears the weight of the world... let stone yield to my passage!" »
The tunnel wall cracked and crumbled as Jin's magic weakened the stone structure. Rudy didn't hesitate. He spun around and brought his greatsword down in a massive overhead strike, channeling his Asura strength into the blow. The enchanted blade bit deep into stone, and the wall gave way entirely, revealing a narrow tunnel beyond.
"Go, go, go!" Jin shouted as more skeletons poured through the other breaches in their fortress. They dove through the hole just as their makeshift sanctuary collapsed under the weight of dozens of undead warriors.
The tunnel beyond was narrow and winding, carved by water over centuries. Jin led the way, his enhanced vision navigating the twists and turns while Rudy covered their rear. Behind them, the sound of pursuit grew louder—clicking bones and scraping weapons echoing through the passage.
"They're following us," Rudy panted as they ran. "How the hell are they keeping up?"
"The necromancer can see through their eyes," Jin replied, vaulting over a fallen stalactite. "It's like having security cameras everywhere."
"Wonderful. Any other good news?"
"Well, this passage is about to open into another chamber, and I'm pretty sure that's where we need to go down to the next level."
…
After ten minutes of running and breaking through rocks, they entered a cavern filled with flowstone formations that looked like frozen waterfalls. But Jin's attention was focused on the center of the chamber, where a natural shaft dropped into darkness.
Almost there. Just need to—
Jin skidded to a halt so suddenly that Rudy nearly crashed into him.
"Why are we stopping?" Rudy whispered, his voice carrying poorly in the vast space.
"We're here, bro." Jin looked down at the floor beneath their feet, then grinned like a maniac.
Rudy frowned, following Jin's gaze downward. "Now what?"
Jin's expression was feral as he pulled out one of his remaining divine blessing scrolls. "Now we make an entrance they'll never forget."
"I like where this is going."
"Remember when you said your solutions always involved smashing things?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, this time that's actually the plan." Jin activated the divine blessing scroll, feeling holy power flow through his exhausted body like warm sunlight. "Rudy, I need you to break the floor. All of it. Right here, right now."
Rudy's eyes lit up with anticipation. "You want me to punch through eight feet of solid stone?"
"I want you to punch through it so hard that we land on top of our necromancer friend before he knows what hit him."
"Now you're talking my language!" Rudy drew back his fist, red flames swirling around his knuckles as his Asura path enhancement flared to full power. "Hope you're ready for a surprise visit, bone boy!"
Jin softened the stone with another quick sorcery:
« "O Soil that bears the weight of the world... let stone yield to my passage!" »
The floor cracked and weakened under his magical assault. Rudy's enhanced fist connected with the cavern floor with the force of a small earthquake. Stone exploded outward in a shower of debris as they plunged through eight feet of solid rock, dropping toward their target with weapons drawn and fury in their hearts.
The necromancer looked up just in time to see two teenagers falling out of his ceiling like the world's most violent surprise party.
Time to end this.
~~~