170, 2/2

The cavern joined with another, their flows of mana combining into one to continue down,

down,

down.

In the new tunnel the mana stream was two kilometers wide, but also 7 kilometers away, while the other side of the cavern was too far to see through the gloom and the rainbow light, though Erick knew it to be 16 kilometers away. The math of this place was too perfect to be anything but engineered. If it weren’t for the monsters constantly tearing up the place, Erick suspected that every bend and break in the cavern wall wouldn’t be there; this place would be perfectly flat and smooth—

Well.

‘Flat’.

The curvature of the cavern wall was not flat at all, but if Erick squinted he could pretend it was flat.

At least in this new tunnel there were fewer monsters. This did not make it any easier to go forward, though. The ones Erick had been killing to get here were starting to get tough, and from the way the monsters ahead spread out from one another…

They soaked in the light of the mana stream above, each one controlling a territory that was as large as its Domain, spaces measured in multiple square kilometers. If any of the previous ones were any indication, every single monster ahead had to be Level 93 to 95, from the elementals of stone and gold, to the dogs made of lightning, to the floating krakens swimming in the air atop the cavern wall, to all the rest.

If there was another cavern past this one…

If these monsters here were not the true threats of the deeper Underworld, then Erick was going to be surprised. He still killed them, though, for they were in his way, and his Domain freaked them out, and they were all monsters with grand rads inside of them, anyway. He still moved forward, deeper into this new cavernous tunnel.

He could have taken to the sky, and skipped the monsters on the ground like the other flying monsters were doing, but that seemed like opening himself up for attack. Erick didn’t go that route. He went straight through, sticking to the cavern wall, with one of his Ophiel flowing out [Aura of Unmoving Stone] so that Erick nominally had a wall at one side. A lot of monsters had Stone-based Domains, though, so the efficacy of this technique was debatable.

The first few monsters fell easy enough. But then things changed.

Erick pressed forward with his Domain, breaking the monsters’ powers one at a time, then breaking the monsters. But every time he killed one, another Domain flooded in from the side, crashing against his, threatening to overwhelm him if he allowed it, or if he faltered. And what was worse, was that this cavern had been kinda stable before Erick arrived. Killing one beast set off a chain reaction of power grabs all across the greater cavern, with opportunistic strikes happening between neighbors who finally saw that they could get more space for themselves.

For that’s why the monsters were here; they wanted exposure to the mana stream. It empowered them. This was not a new thought for Erick in the past day, or two. But the depth of this reality before him reminded him of conversations he had had about mana and monsters and Experience.

Shadelings could cycle their mana inside their core to gain Experience, and thus Levels. Months and months ago, in Last Shadow’s Feast, Quilatalap had told Erick that dragons did the same thing, but on a much, much larger scale. Dragons were even able to reach into the 90s by creating multiple cores and cycling through each one.

And it seemed there was another way: Be a monster and stand under the mana streams of Veird to directly absorb the ambient, thick mana. Wizards or Shades could probably do this, too, considering they both had cores…

Well. Shades had cores, for sure.

Erick still wasn’t sure if a Wizard Core was the same, or not.

… He was hungry, tired, and stressed.

And he was also currently fighting three battles at once as he had these extraneous thoughts; a turtle of ice, a bird of decay, and a vine monster of shadows, each assaulted him from left, right, and behind. Erick killed them all, stressing his Domain to break, defend, and redirect as he needed, while Ophiels flew around and struck with needle-like precision, carving into eyes and exploding brains, piercing chests and bursting hearts, and severing tendrils into tiny little pieces before descending with lightning to finish off the job.

Notifications pinged.

Level 94.

Erick decided to stop moving forward for a while. Instead, he settled, and he secured his position. Monsters came to him, from the sides and from the sky, testing him due to his diminutive size no doubt, for he wasn’t about to flow his Domain all the way out there like the rest of them; he would be broken in a flashing second. He had pushed too hard against too many assailants for too many hours. He needed rest. He knew he wasn’t going to get rest, though, so it was better to keep himself small and concentrated.

Probably.

It seemed to work, anyway.

Erick killed ten more assailants before the nearby cavern occupants had adopted a new configuration that included him.

To his left, kilometers away, a monster made of green and flashing steel —might have been a bird— settled down into the ground and spread its ‘wings’; unfurling in the rainbow light to soak up the mana glow like a cat in the sun. To the right, also kilometers away, a thing of black branches extended itself outward and also soaked up the light. Their Domains collided directly onto Erick, but Erick held them both back. Their Domains also collided into each other, and into all of their new neighbors.

No one started a fight. None of these collisions seemed to disturb the settled monsters, each of which was easily forty or fifty meters tall, and double or triple that wide.

Erick took a breath, and forced a bit of relaxation into his spine. Then he opened up Ophiel’s [Aura of Unmoving Stone] directly below, before he cast [Obscuring Redoubt], extending his Domain into his spellwork so that it could actually work like it was supposed to. He had to pry a bit at both of his new neighbors to get his Redoubt to take, using an unaligned Domain to do it, too, but his neighbors didn’t seem to care.

Erick went into this hidey hole and began setting it up. He still had some beans, so those got copied, but he had no water. Luckily, he had to pee.

[Cleanse] turned that water drinkable, and [Duplicate] made more.

Ah.

Survival.

Bear Grylls would be proud.

Jane would certainly be proud, and that buoyed Erick’s spirits quite a bit.

After a short break, a short and very inadequate dinner, and a short [Scry] session to check down the tunnel, Erick discovered a few things. The first discovery was that he could probably take to the sky now, since the distance to the ground and the mana stream was well over five kilometers, and all the other monsters who couldn’t land a spot on the wall were already airborne and moving around up there with minimal fights. Erick’s arrival and elimination of fifty-three monsters had set off a chain of repositionings, though, where opportunists in the air took to the ground and took their places among the crowd, so the air here was a bit clearer of monsters than it had been.

But monsters were always flying through the air, probing for weakness among the wall-dwellers and mostly getting scared away. The air around here likely wouldn’t be clear for very long… So perhaps it was better to ignore the temporary window of easy movement. Avoiding fights might become more of a trap, than an option.

With further [Scry]ing, Erick discovered that higher level monsters were capable of a bit of strategic thinking, with some monsters probing for weakness but running away when they found none.

But those were small facts compared to one major truth.

The tunnel ended after a few hundred more kilometers. After several more hours of walking Erick would finally be able to see something new. He wasn’t sure what it was he was looking at, but the physicality of it all was easy enough to understand.

A white mist hung in the air across the entire path of the tunnel, looking like the thickest clouds anyone would see on the surface, but they obviously weren’t that, at all. The mana stream didn’t seem to care about the cloud wall, for one, for that glowing air continued straight on through the cloud wall, unimpeded.

Another difference was in the cavern wall, starting about a kilometer before the cloud wall. The cavern dipped away in all directions, like someone had beveled the edge with a kilometer-wide slope. It was a perfect bevel, too, for a lot of the land there was able to fully repair itself, for they didn’t have many monster fights, because the monsters before that beveled edge, before that cloudwall, were different.

Mostly, every single monster in the cavern was a unique specimen; each one a Variant of some base beast. But the monsters located on the edge of that bevel were all the same white monster. Each one was humanoid-shaped, but hunched over, standing twenty meters tall at the hunch and covered with white scales that stuck out more like spikes, than as protective coverings. Each beast had a single eye in the center of its thick-necked head, and each one stared forward, at the cavern. They were guardians, for sure.

There had to be maybe exactly a hundred of them, and they all stood in an organized line upon that beveled cavern wall, each half a kilometer away from each other, with the cloud wall behind them and their Domains locked forward. They were obviously working together, but Erick was pretty sure they were monsters, so this was odd. He’d have to confirm their monstrosity with a closer inspection, of course…

Maybe they weren’t monsters?

“Ah.” Erick said, “Right. Let’s try this one.”

[True Viewing Screen].

Erick spied upon the targets again, and nothing changed. The mist remained. The white monsters remained. Not an illusion, then. Or perhaps it was a very, very good illusion? Erick wouldn’t know until he tested them, personally.

But…

Erick told Ophiel, “Okay. So. It seems that someone put those guardians there. But who? And do I care? I might be able to avoid the guardians with burrowing, but that seems like a dangerous game. Who knows what’s past them… I could check though.”

Ophiel chirped. Burrowing was fun.

“Burrowing is fun, yes.” Erick considered. “But, no. We’ll try the front door… But first we’ll watch for now. We’ll see what happens while we rest.” He glanced at his beans, in his bag. “And make some more bean soup.”

– – – –

Erick ate his fourth bowl of bean soup while he watched the world around him, and also the Screen hovering in front. He had noticed a few things in the last hour.

He had also had to kill his black-branch tree neighbor, because the damned thing had wormed into Erick’s [Aura of Unmoving Stone] and burrowed into the Redoubt. A bit of Light dissuasion wasn’t good enough to stop the burrowing, so Erick applied more and more Light to the problem. His new neighbor was a bird of bright gold feathers lined with shadows, and she seemed more preoccupied with hatching her eggs than she was with anything else.

But as for guardians and their cloudwall: Monsters tested that land all the time. Monsters tried to burn and fry and freeze the guardians, tried to do everything they could to eliminate the problem at the end of the tunnel, to open up more space for themselves. But no matter what the monsters did, their spellwork never breached the passive resistances of the guardians’ Domain. A single attacker was not enough, at all. As soon as the guardians reacted, the various monsters all went away, or they were killed.

For every time monstrous spellwork struck a guardian, every single guardian within range turned as one, and fired off blinding beams of light directly at the offending monster. And those beams of light looked eerily similar to [Luminous Beam].

That was only the first oddity. The second oddity was that the guardians didn’t aim to kill. They aimed to injure, and drive off, and they accomplished this rather well.

A third oddity appeared when one monster —a giant floating kraken of air and lightning— started sending ten kilometer long blasts of lightning skittering off of the Domains of many monsters below, to smack into one of the guardians. That lightning actually managed to pierce through the guardian’s Domain. It had been the only attack to do so in the last hour of watching.

The bolt left a small blackened space upon the left shoulder of the intended target, but every single other guardian across the whole beveled edge of the cavern also gained a small blackened spot upon their left shoulder. None of the guardians cared about the damage, for there wasn’t any, but the nearby guardians still sent [Luminous Beam]s back at the attacker. That kraken of lightning and air lost several limbs, but it managed to get away, until one of the monsters near the cavern wall decided they wanted calamari for dinner.

Erick focused on the guardians. He would need a few more examples, but he formed a hypothesis that every single guardian was linked to every other guardian, and that the damage one took, they all took. As he was having that thought, he witnessed several random guardians cast spells upon themselves, erasing the little bit of damage that had been spread to all hundred guardians on the ring. The small black soot spots vanished.

“Linking Domains for strength and sharing damage taken?” Erick guessed.

Ophiel shrugged, chirping a noncommittal chirp.

“Are they summoned [Familiar]s? Using their creator’s Domain?” Erick said, “Or a Domain made specially for them.” He glanced to Ophiel on his shoulder. “I need to make this sort of Domain for you, but you’re already using your maximum two auras at once.”

Ophiel chirped; he was.

“No new Domain for you, just yet.”

Ophiel chirped; shouldn’t try to make any special magic like that right now, anyway.

“You’re right.” Erick breathed deep and then he stood up, saying, “Time to go.”

With nine Ophiel taking to the air around Erick and one remaining on his shoulder, Erick stepped out of the [Obscuring Redoubt], and into the gloomy, rainbow air. His neighbors glanced his way, but they did not attack. The steel and green feathered thing stared at him with a bright, crystalline eye, but did not otherwise move. The golden bird with shadowed feathers glared at him, too, but her wings were spread to cover her small nest of three gold-black eggs.

Erick took to the air, leaving both feathered monsters behind, Ophiels trailing in front and to the sides, each of them tiny and fully covered in [Animadversion]. Easily, and without pause, Erick pulled out from between the oppressive weights of both enemy Domains.

With a soundless, slippery shift, Erick was in the air, under his own power, and far enough away from the cavern wall that the monsters below didn’t care about him anymore. This had been another thing he had learned from watching for a while. In this large space, he could walk above the monsters and they wouldn’t try to kill him. Going along the ground would have been an unnecessary risk.

Erick looked ahead, down the way, at the gently curving tunnel that led into darkness, and light. And he felt a bit giddy. The idea of being taken unaware and murdered without even knowing what had caused the murder was getting to him.

He stared across the land, eyeing hundreds of monsters. He glanced left at the hundreds more. He looked up and saw even more deadly Variant beasts. Some controlled territories of multiple square kilometers. Most controlled less—

A bird of fire and ice tried to divebomb him, but Erick responded with cutting light. Half-vaporized frozen chicken fell all around him, carried by its own inertia. The golden shadow bird below snaked some shadows up into the sky, grabbing at the bits of bird to feed to its own chicks; they had hatched while Erick wasn’t looking.

Erick placed one foot in front of the other, with [Lodestar] and [Greater Lightwalk] working in tandem all around him, and Ophiels flying in defensive formation. He began to lightwalk through the cavern, once again, with his head held high. He was trying to avoid unnecessary fights by being up here, but…

He knew that he could murder every single thing in this entire land, if he wanted.

That thought settled his nerves a bit, because while it wasn’t a Truth, it was rather close—

He clipped an unseen Domain from a monster down below, and he glared at the offender.

The monster, a massive thing of churning blood and claws and with a Domain that covered multiple square kilometers… retracted his Domain a bit.

Erick continued forward, unimpeded.

Over the next few hours, monsters challenged Erick eleven times. Ten fliers and one ground dweller dared to fight. Erick carved up the lot of them, [Luminous Beam] doing the heavy lifting, while [Fulmination Aura]s helped on cleanup when some monsters proved able to survive having almost all their body and their grand rad vaporized.

– – – –

Both faster and slower than he thought possible, Erick found himself standing in the air three kilometers away from the guardians and their cloud wall. It was much more impressive in person. The rainbow mana stream was barely visible as it passed into the cloudwall, for the clouds were bright white, and that light drowned out almost all others, aside from himself.

The guardians stood at the start of the beveled edge of the cavern. The cloudwall hovered a kilometer beyond them. The guardians themselves were 20 meters tall, and they for sure saw Erick. Their eyes were as big as their heads and they surely saw everything that happened all around them, but they did not seem to care about the speck of light hovering at the edge of their effective range. Other monsters were closer to them than Erick.

Erick dared not get any closer, for now. These things were somewhat autonomous, but there might be an entity beyond them, watching for anomalies.

Erick had an Ophiel switch over to [Physical Domain], but he did not try pressing against any of the other Domains out there. He simply let his presence be known as he took control of all sound for kilometers around—

A particularly large lizard of bright green ooze and shadow controlled the land directly below, and it did not like Erick’s gentle touch. It attacked him.

So Erick killed the lizard.

In order to stop another series of reorganizations and a cascade of fights, Erick descended to the cavern wall, taking the monster’s place at the edge of monster territory, butting up directly against the guardians’ collective Domain. Now the guardians looked at him. Now they wondered what he was about. None of the other nearby monsters seemed to care that Erick was in their space, but they would probably start caring if he kept his weakly-empowered [Physical Domain] touching them for much longer.

Erick hurried up and tested the blockade with words, speaking through his [Physical Domain], “Hello. I would like to inquire about—”

Several monsters instantly did not like this, and they expressed themselves in the usual manner.

Erick defended himself while the guardians watched. When the battle was over, Erick’s territory had expanded several-fold, but he had no interest in holding this land, and so opportunists started coming at him from all sides.

At least twenty minutes and exactly thirty-five high level Variant monsters later, the cavern was well on its way to a reorganization, again, with fights breaking out all across the inside of the cavern, spreading back, all the way back to where Erick had come from. But the space directly next to Erick had been resolved. This time, his neighbors accounted for Erick’s gentle-pressure [Physical Domain].

He wasn’t sure where, exactly, but he had reached level 95 somewhere in the massive melee, possibly between the hippo/lizard/tree and the worm/bird/ooze.

Erick returned to questioning the guardians through his [Physical Domain], “Hello. I would like to know what this blockade is about. Please respond. I will wait for a little while for a response, but please do not take too long.”

This time, the monsters all around him did not respond to his words. The guardians didn’t respond either. So Erick summoned a chair and sat down to wait.

As seconds ticked on toward minutes, and minutes piled up, Erick noticed a few more things about the guardians. Each was not a perfect copy of each other; there were small differences here and there, from the arrangement of scale-spikes across their humped backs, to their irises being of slightly different striations. They all breathed in time with each other, though, and none of them had grand cores at their center. They were firmly ‘not monsters’, which was fine. Their shared Domain seemed not-fine, though. There was simply no way past it that Erick could see.

Each one of the guardians perfectly blended their Domain with the ones at their sides, and that power reached all the way toward the mana stream in the center of the cavern, where it seemed to tatter and fray as it touched the thick, rainbow air. Erick certainly wouldn’t be braving the mana stream to get through the blockade, so he needed the guardians to let him pass. Or, more accurately, he needed the people controlling the guardians to let him pass.

… But as time ticked on, Erick was starting to doubt that the guardians had controllers.

Or maybe the controllers were assholes.

Erick asked again, “Hello? I seek to pass this blockade.”

No response; the guardians that stared his way were already staring his way, while the rest stared at the other monsters nearby, waiting for them to make a move.

Erick opened up a hole in the center of Ophiel’s [Unmoving Stone Aura] and sent a different Ophiel burrowing down into the ground with [Stone Travel]. A tunnel ten meters across instantly began to extend down from part of Erick’s power, flowing down into the ground, guided by Ophiel toward the land under and beyond the guardians.

Ophiel hit a wall of Domain power that prevented further movement—

The guardian directly above Ophiel twitched, and the ground collapsed around Erick’s [Familiar], crushing it utterly, breaking the sunform Domain around Ophiel and sending a shock of power back to Erick, like he had touched a live wire. Erick flinched a little, for though he had expected something like that, he did not expect that much strength behind the guardians’ collective Domain. If he had put more power into that Ophiel’s sunform, then he likely would have suffered a real backlash; actual injury.

He sent a second Ophiel into the ground, but this time he had Ophiel go deep, deep into the wall of the cavern, going one kilometer down, then a second, before turning forward and—

Erick was ready for the breaking of his sunform Ophiel this time. He had relaxed that Ophiel’s Domain so he got less feedback, but he still felt the breaking of that Ophiel like a harsh tap on the forehead. He frowned, and then he summoned enough Ophiel to get back up to 10.

This was annoying.

Erick was fed up with whatever the fuck this was.

He spoke again into the gloomy air, “I am going to pass this blockade, and if that requires the tearing down of your—” Ah. Wrought? Well, duh. Erick stopped speaking in Ecks, and started talking in Ancient Script, “Hello. I would like to pass your blockade, please.”

One of the guardians looked to him, and this time there was an intelligence behind his eyes as he spoke, “Password?”

… Not much of an intelligence.

Erick couldn’t help but be a bit sarcastic, “I’ll clear this entire tunnel of monsters for you, if that’s what it takes to gain entry.”

“Invalid password. Remove yourself from this area.” The guardian mechanically said, “Do not attempt to cross our blockade or we will respond with violence.”

Erick tried again, “I seek entry into the lands beyond.”

“Invalid password. Remove yourself from this—”

“Yadda yadda yadda.” Erick tried, “Kill all elves!”

“Invalid password. Rem—”

“Triumph of Light!”

“Invalid pass—”

“Suck my dick!”

“Invalid pas—”

“I’ll suck your dick!”

“Invalid pass—”

“Perhaps fuck you in the pussy?”

“Inval—

“I’ll destroy every single one of you!”

“Hostilities detected.”

Erick smiled. A change!

The guardian spoke, “Remove yourself from our vicinity or prepare to meet Rozeta in person.”

“Already met her! Several times.” Erick said, “Pretty cool lady. By the way: I think you stole my magic. How the FUCK do you have [Luminous Beam]?”

The closest guardian began charging; its eye-for-a-head glowing brighter and whiter. This was completely for show, of course. Erick had seen the thing and its cousins instantly fire off [Luminous Beam]s many times already.

Erick wondered if he was being stupid, or if he was just too fed up to care. Could he think about passwords for a bit, and possibly guess the correct one? Likely not.

So Erick stared down the guardians. He held his ground, three kilometers away, glaring at the automaton and four of its neighbors. [Luminous Beam] could hit several kilometers away, but it was best within 100 meters. It’d still do damage at this distance, though, for sure!

If Erick let it.

But [Luminous Beam] was just light and light byproducts.

Erick dropped his [Greater Lightwalk]. He suspended himself in the air with Ophiel’s spellwork, and protections. And then he turned on his own [Physical Domain] instead of using Ophiel’s. [Lodestar] and [Physical Domain] would be enough. These two spells could influence light from two different directions; one Elemental, one physical.

The guardian spoke, “Leave.”

Erick responded, “Fuck you.”

[Luminous Beam]s erupted out of the eyes of the ‘charging’ guardian and four of his neighbors like five directed geysers of white light. They left the Domain of the guardians, and struck the edge of Erick’s power.

And Erick shut them off.

Discord turned half of the light inside out, one half canceling the other. Beta and alpha decay particles turned into twinkling glitters that showered toward Erick, but spun off in every other direction except forward, looking like air bubbles at the base of waterfalls. Erick had never needed to shut off his own [Luminous Beam]s like this before, but he had made the damned spell, and he knew exactly how it worked. Whoever stole this power from him—

Erick held back the guardians’ attacks like he held back his anger. Whoever made this here was probably just some wrought who got Particle Mage because it was the newest, best thing, and then they replaced some normal defenses that were always here. And that was fine. Erick could forgive that.

But an unmanned blockade that killed whoever tried to cross it?

Or worse: A purposefully hostile blockade.

Rage flooded through Erick’s brain like an ocean turning red.

As the enemy Beams ended, Erick spoke with power, “I’m going through this blockade whether you like it or not, so turn off your toys if you don’t want them erased.”

Several more [Luminous Beam]s shot Erick’s way from the seven nearest guardians. He turned them all aside. The monsters near to him began to squawk and roar and slither in agitation as the guardians kept casting at Erick, filling the cavern with bright light. Some of those monsters looked ready to attack the guardians alongside Erick. Some looked ready to eat him after the guardians softened him up. Others ran.

Erick didn’t want to do this, but he did anyway.

[Undertow Star].

Up above, inside Erick’s power and well within range of the guardians, a star began to form. A drop of pure white light sent out inky blackness that was barely visible against the rainbow gloom, but that darkness became visible soon enough. Erick reached forward with his Star, designating the guardians as enemies.

Uh. Failure.

Bah!

Minor twisters of shadow and light impacted the gathered domain of every single guardian half a kilometer away from the target and was rebuffed. [Undertow Star] failed to reach the enemy.

Fine.

Nearby monsters began to screech. Some took to the sky to get away from the conflict. Some ran at their neighbors, and started to fight those neighbors. Some took the exact opposite approach and attacked the guardians on the other side of the cavern, opposite the mana stream from Erick. No one attacked him, though… Aside from the guardians. Apparently the ones that had been looking at him like he was weak were thinking better of that idea.

Nine guardians fired nine beams at Erick, striking his [Physical Domain]. Erick sunk their power into nothing much easier this time, turning light and radiation into scattered sparkles that never got anywhere near him.

Erick thought back to how Ava, the Sewermaster at Candlepoint, spoke of how she had lived in the Underworld, protecting her people from monsters for her entire long, long life, and how the only real problems with living down here were the wrought. They controlled trade routes and patrolled close to the Core so that no one could ever get down here to kill the monsters and gain these high levels. Ava spoke of how the wrought said they prevented people from coming down here for their own good, but Erick was clearly here, and there were no fucking wrought, and the defenses were automated…

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

So was Ava lying?

Or was Ava being dramatic?

Insular and haughty, the wrought never allowed strangers in their home geodes. They had even sent Erick an invitation to their embassy that was situated outside of their major city, Stratagold; they would not have allowed him inside.

So.

Was there some gods-damned immortal asshole on the other side of these guardians, watching this happen, wondering how far Erick could go against this blockade? Wondering if their own stolen power could stack up to the creator of said power? Probably so.

Erick spoke, and his Domain spoke with him, “I’m going to break your toys now.”

He turned off his [Undertow Star] and let his [Physical Domain] expand, all around, brushing up against everything. He kept it strong against the guardians in front, but he did not press forward; he did not attempt to break them yet and they were not able to break him, for he flowed with their stolen light, swallowing their brightness and turning it to nothing. His Domain expanded in every other direction, though, vibrating hard as it brushed up against the larger monsters who stupidly remained nearby, sending them into an unexpected panic.

They did not fight Erick’s encroachment; they fled.

Amplify filled all of Erick’s aura, the entire thing, except for a small portion around himself that he kept safe with Normalize. Ophiel flocked to this inner protection, keeping their sunforms strong and solid around Erick as Erick turned his Domain to Harmony.

Twenty one, then twenty three [Luminous Beam]s vanished into swallowing, chiming power. Soon, the spells of the guardians were but tracer rounds in a tunnel full of thunder. Back and forth, power built.

White light flickered magenta, as though not fully willing to start; not without more time, and more pressure. But every roar, every screech, every rockfall and breaking body added to the noise, and the noise only grew. White light flexed, breaking molecular bonds, creating plasma in spurts and fits until suddenly turning all of Erick’s [Physical Domain] from white to magenta in a single flashing moment.

Rocks broke from the ground, shattering into sand that floated in the sky. Boulders lifted from the breaking cavern and became rocks that shattered further into sand.

Erick could barely see, but he could still see well enough as his Domain shattered the world right out from underneath himself and the guardians—

And the guardians held. Stone reassembled under them. Their Domain pressed against Erick’s, but the guardians did not physically move against him. They did not put real pressure on him, and that preserved distance would be their undoing—

The guardians switched tactics. They began to move forward. Every single guardian took a single step into the tunnel, pressing against every nearby monster, but mostly against Erick’s Domain like an inexorable glacier grinding down the world underneath its power. The [Luminous Beam]s did not stop; they came on even stronger. Closer.

Erick rapidly attempted an experiment he hadn’t tried before. He had four Ophiel drop their [Greater Lightwalk]s and turn on their [Physical Domain] alongside him. Power flooded out into the cavern, shoving back against the encroaching guardians like five extra hands to hold back a thousand; it was not enough.

On the other side of the cavern, a trio of opportunistic monsters launched spells at the guardians; fire, lightning, wind. They didn’t work together, but their power struck the guardians; burning, singeing, cutting. Tiny, barely-there wounds appeared across all of the white guardians. The guardians stopped advancing because of them; they stilled, and solidified their power instead of trying to break Erick.

It would have to be enough. Erick focused his power with his Ophiels, attempting a cooperative cast for the first time. This was probably the wrong time to try this experiment, but Erick knew all the theory. He only needed to put that theory into practice—

Blood poured out of Erick from every orifice and one Ophiel popped as he tried to organize the harmony. He did not stop. He had another Ophiel take over for the popped one and—

It clicked.

Suddenly, in the middle of a maelstrom of flashing, breaking sound, sky, and cavern, Erick linked with his Ophiel, and his Ophiel linked with him in a way they never had before.