Emily sinks below the surface quickly, the current gripping her and f her down the moment she rexes. She els light through her hands, illuminating the water below as she approaches the riverbed at speed. The bottom is revealed, showing a gaping hole just wide enough to fit Emily, dragging in the surrounding water with immense force. The closer she gets to the hole, the strohe current grows, to the point where Emily isn’t sure she’d be able to resist it in such a limited space.

  If there’s purchase on the sides of the tunnel, I may be able to pull myself out. But there’s no way the others will be able to swim out. This is possibly a one-way trip.

  Frowning, Emily grabs The Clock from its pouch before letting herself slip into the hole. She shoots through the tunnel, desding tens of metres before the narrow passage bends, smming her against solid rod dragging her down further. She bounces off the walls a few times as the passageway twists and turns, quickly closing the vertical distaween her and her Diver.

  The travel is disorienting as her dire ges repeatedly, but Emily simply focuses on her feet, watg calmly and waiting for a ge. After a minute of shuttling through the narrow, twisting el, her feet hit a swirl of ing water, th for her to see through, before she’s shot out into the open air, overshooting the water that tio plummet into the unknown.

  The moment the space opens up around her, she calmly els mana through the Air Walker, f a solid barrier against the soles of her feet. Her legs press, abs her momentum, before rexing as she drops and twists gracefully to pce her feet below herself before creating a ptform to stand on.

  Emily looks around, pulling off her Gills before pointing her hands in all dires to try and take in her surroundings. She finds nothing but the ever-persistent darkhat gs unnaturally to her skin, sending shivers down her spine as it noticeably encroaches upon the glow from her hands.

  “It’s gotten stronger,” she mutters, juring a ball of light and tossing it above her head, p mana into it. “And I think it’s alive.”

  A small zone of light slowly forms around her as more and more mana flows into the spell, f the darkness back. Emily looks around her haven of light, drinking in the new space.

  Behind her is a small waterfall, blooming from a solid stone wall and falling into a quickly flowing river below. The water is an eerie mix of bd grey, the fog seemingly having lost its vigour, blending into the inky water, no longer separated like before. The riverbank is pletely clear of fog, and though there are still crystals lining the roof, they’re all pitch bck, seemingly drawing the light away from the tunnel around them instead of providing it.

  Emily walks forward, l herself onto the riverbank and stepping onto the smooth stone.

  “Might as well have a look around before I reset,” she mutters, gng back up towards the mouth of the waterfall a dozeres above her, watg the powerful torrent of water cascade into the flowing water, the hole she came through now obstructed by the living darkness. “That would be a massive pain to go back through.”

  Emily takes out her boat as she walks, dropping it into the water beside her and cheg The Clock.

  If I move fhteen hours, I return tht before I ehe duo save damaging my boot and wasting potions. I guess I’m getting a rematch after all.

  With an amused smile, she tinues into the darkness. She reduces the size of her light to reduce the mana drain, opting to walk with a two-metre area of vision and sending a bird ahead with a thermal papensate. She pulls out the Diver’s tablet and checks their retive position as she moves, her amusement ging iement as she firms that she’s moving towards it now on the correct elevation level.

  I’m getting closer.

  An hour ter, walking through the empty tunnel alone, Emily suddenly freezes as she hears a faint clig sound. She lowers into a bat stand advances, sing through her bird’s eyes to locate the source as the sound slowly grows louder.

  She sees a flicker of movement through the bird before her e is suddenly severed. Emily pauses as her brows furrow in anger, before she activates her own infra-sight and tinues on, a crag magic circle f behind her in preparation to greet her bird’s killer. The g sous closer, but Emily doesn’t see anything iunnel ahead, and her oppo doesn’t seem to notice her approach either.

  This darkness seems to be limiting the range of my infra-sight. No wo got my bird. I probably flew straight into it. At least it’s providing cover for me too.

  She es to a halt, celling her infra-sight and instead elliheion. Instantly she locates her target and, without wasting a beat, she unleashes an arc-bolt on it. The foe seems to notice her dete, turning to her the moment a pulse of her earth mana reaches it, but it’s too slow to dodge her attack, taking a torrent of burning psma to the head.

  It lets out a horrid screech that quickly slurs as millions of volts surge through its body, melting through the armour that protected its head and causing it to slump to the floor in a twitg mess. Emily approaches the fallen figure, bringing it within the glow of her light and finally seeing her enemy.

  The creature is as big as Emily, with smooth, bck, chitinous armour and two deadly scythes lying limp before its chest, attached to multisegmented, whip-like arms. Its body is split into two torsos, one small one: eg its head, and arms, and e oh twelve jagged legs stig out. It’s a grotesque mix between a praying mantis and a spider that sends Emily’s survival instincts into overdrive the moment she sees it. Reition fshes through her eyes as she remembers a key piece of information about the abomination of nature.

  Mantolyc are metal ah-based creatures with high lightniance… And they have three brains.

  Her realisation es just in time, as her trol core immediately diverts all her cores into assistive processing, celling her light aion spells but slowing the world around her. Maa flickers beh her skin in silent and, and Emily twitches back, wreng her head away from the creature in the nick of time.

  A sharp bde whips up as she moves, carving a el through her body armour, barely meeting aance, before catg against her throat and gouging a deep line from her colrboo her , taking a k out of her jawbone on the ast.

  It fug baited me!

  Emily grits her teeth, ign the stinging pain and the gushing outpour of blood, f herself to go on the offeo save herself from the perilous situation she has walked into.

  A near-instantly cast acceleration spell charges her body with magical lightning to match the biological kind already c through her system, and she presses forward, sliding in uhe now-raised scythe. Both her arms stretch forward, one moving to deflect the sed scythe as it cuts towards her chest, and the other smming a palm home into the tre of the creature’s smaller abdomen. The derh the palm crackles with maa, overdrive stressing it to the max as Emily activates the firing meism. A single, razor-sharp bde flies out, pung a hole through the first torso and into the armour of the sed behind it.

  Unfortunately, the bde doesn’t carry enough power, but Emily doesn’t let her assault end there. With two of the creature's three brairoyed, Emily takes advantage of a slight pause in the mantolyc’s movements to throw herself uhe creature, arriving at its slightly softer underbelly.

  It immediately goes to crush her, rexing its legs to drop its full weight on her, but Emily reinforces herself with rock body, the spell ing her limbs in deh mana that allows her to forcefully hold up the oversized bug’s immense weight by jamming her elbows into the floor at her waist. Her bones creak slightly uhe force, even with the help of the spell, but Emily doesn’t care, a manic, triumphant grin c her features.

  “Checkmate,” she mutters, ign the pain that shoots from her ihroat as a giant magic circle forms between them.

  Emily is givey of time to cast a rge spell now that she doesn’t have to worry about the creature’s arms, and the mantolyc realises its mistake as a bzing arrow of light slowly forms against its abdomen. It tries to stand up, but does so far too te as a , searing hole is bored through its tre the moment it releases the pressure on Emily’s arms.

  Emily rolls to the side as the creature goes sck, dropping to the ground with a thud. She rolls onto her knees, standing up smoothly and casting a light again, to look at her fallen foe, while raising a hand to her burning throat. It es away covered in blood and, looking past it, she sees a waterfall of red casg down her front.

  Well, shit.

  She starts elling a healing spell, but it only stems the bleeding, struggling to close the wound in a reasoime. Clig her tongue, and wing in the pain, Emily reaches into her belt and pulls out a vial of healing potion. She pops the cork and pours the glistening crimson liquid onto the wound. It slowly starts to knit back together and, after two more potions, the loose fps of flesh oher side finally ect, sealing the wound with a raw scab.

  Emily frowns, resisting the urge to sigh while gently massaging her sore neck with healing light, and kicks the mantolyc’s side in frustration.

  I let my guard down. I wasn’t expeg to run into a third circle beast so quickly.

  Her frown slowly shifts into a grin as she looks out into the darkness ahead.

  I’m getting closer.

  She sets off again, leaving the corpse behind and heading towards her Diver. She runs into a few groups of beasts in the dark, the moles, screamers, and lightning eels still present in the new yer, and she even enters another mantolyc, which she brutally dismantles, shredding it to pieces with the Cws in a battle of whips.

  By the end of her time limit, Emily mao reduce the distaween herself and the Diver by a quarter.

  This is amazing. It may only take a few days to catch up with-

  Her thoughts are interrupted whe on the receiver in her hand suddenly vanishes.

  “What?” she mutters in surprise, the ag in her neck already faded. “Somethiroyed it. At least I know what dire to go in.”

  She pulls out The Clock, gng out into the darkness and watg it writhe as she turns back time.

  Now to vince Jules to go uer...

  ***

  Emily drops out of the folds of time a hundred metres away from the dungeon gate, approag it quickly with her friends.

  No injuries this time.

  She ehe dungeon alone, once again ving everyo to follow, and quickly gets to work culling the horde. She rips goblins to pieces with wide, sweeping arcs of her Cws, punches holes through hobgoblins, and decimates the mages with deadly magical precision. She successfully clears out the portals spewing monsters a few minutes faster than the first time: with less mana lost, and an insequential amount of extra stamina used.

  Emily pulls out the Whisper as the chamber begins creating its golem, loads it full of explosive bullets, and aims it at the growing tar-like creature in the tre of the hall. She li up with the f left hip, flicks the firior into full, and unloads the moment the bck mass solidifies into stone. Five shots fly out in an instant, each a soft hiss followed by a harsh crack, then a thundering boom that drowns out the following rain of empty gs hitting the floor.

  The golem’s hips, stomach, head, and chest are blown to pieces in that order, with the loud shattering of the core as the head vahis time. She calmly switches the magazine in her gun back to standard rounds and sends it bato her ste before g her reward.

  Emily leaves with a smug grin, proud of the efficy of her dungeon clear, and faces her friends with the loot once again. They leave to tinue dowunnel soon after, this time without having to wait for her to lick her wounds, and arrive at the crossroads after a short trek through the tunnel.

  “Do we really have to backtrack?” Dante asks, kig a roto the water once again.

  “No,” Emily answers decisively, drawing her friends’ attention in an instant.

  “Really? Where are we meant to go then?” Tom asks.

  “Where else?” Emily asks with a grin, tapping the ground with her foot, a brown magic circle quickly spreading around them. “Down.”

  Enzo and Ivor bnise eartheion instantly, activating the spell themselves and iing the ground below them. It takes them a few moments, but they both soon pick out the odd, faint vibrations desding further than they should, brought by the crashing current flowing down into the tunnel in the middle of the jun.

  “There’s a tunnel uer,” Enzo mutters in surprise. “Do you think we’re meant to gh that?”

  Everyourns to Emily for an answer, and she doesn’t miss the look of horror on Juliana’s face. She reaches out, taking Juliana’s hand reassuringly as she nods.

  “Yeah. The tunnel is wide enough to fit a person, and it tinues down towards The Diver. I’m certain that it will take us closer toal. But I don’t think we’ll be able to e back along this route,” Emily expins, her ck of fidence sending a wave of uhrough her friends.

  “So, we may get stuck down there?” Enzo asks with a hint of caution.

  “Yes and no,” Emily responds with a sigh. “I don’t think we’ll get stuck. I’m fident in being able to work out a way back out, no matter what. I’m just not sure how long it will take.”

  “Then it should be fine, right?” Dante says, fidently hitting his fist against his palm. “We came down expeg to jump into the unknown, right? Why are we getting nervous now?”

  Enzo casts a distasteful gowards his friend, but his expression quickly falls into one nation as he lets out a sigh.

  “I hate to admit it,” he starts.

  “But he’s n,” Tom finishes, surprising everyone.

  They all look at him with varying degrees of shock, to which he responds with a small scoff and a self-depreg smile.

  “I know you’re all pretending I’m here to carry stuff, but Emily’s belt could do a better job. However,” he grins. “If there’s ohing I am good at, it’s throwing myself headfirst into stupid situations without thinking.”

  A small smile creeps its way onto Emily’s lips.

  Maybe I was too harsh on him.

  KeroKeron