The pair continued walking through the dark tunnel, their only guide being the faint silhouettes of the group ahead of them and the sound of their footsteps. One of the silhouettes began to grow larger as it came closer to them. It was Junyo, who had come to check up on them.
"How're you guys holding up?" He asked through an awkward smile.
"Fine," Kompto said sternly. "Isn't it embarrassing having to continuously apologise for Decker?"
Junyo sighed. "It gets like that sometimes, and he means well, truly." Junyo rolled his eyes. "He just isn't very people-smart, and I understand that."
"Hmph," Kompto replied. "Regardless, we should catch up with the rest of the group." Tang-Ji and Junyo agreed.
As they caught up to the party, a pebble fell from the darkness and landed squarely on Kompto's head.
"Creed, are you alright?" She asked, confused by his reaction.
"Ouch! What the hell?" He rubbed his aching forehead and crouched down to examine what had hit him. Its surface was hard, but it looked like a normal rock.
"Hey, wait a minute," Junyo said, looking concerned. He summoned his Leere and did a quick scan of the rock. "Just as I expected. This rock is an obsidian ore."
"Huh? Obsidian?" Kompto asked.
"Yeah, you can tell from its glass-like features, it's also a little too dark to be just a random pebble."
"Wait, did you just say that rock is obsidian?" Ji-Soon asked with dread in his voice.
'Obsidian ores don't usually fall from the ceiling.'
He clenched his fists and lifted his gaze from the ground, now looking behind the tail end of the group. What greeted him was an abnormally shaped boulder with two glowing rings and multiple dark spots all over its surface.
Ji-Soon raised an eyebrow. "Wait, guys. What's that?" Everyone turned around, but before anyone could say anything else, the boulder began to shake, causing the same rumbling from earlier.
A red icon appeared above the boulder, with text highlighted in bold.
"That's not a boulder! Everyone, get ready for combat!" Ji-Soon yelled out.
The creature somehow managed to cling to the ceiling. Tang-Ji's eyes widened as she was immediately lifted off the ground by Ji-Soon who tossed her a dozen steps back to prevent it from landing on her.
The Mineral Mite's landing sent up a huge cloud of dust, which made visibility worse than it already was. The mite's large body slowly emerged from the cloud, slowly revealing its oppressive features.
"Ah, shit! I can't see a goddamn thing here!" Decker shouted before furiously charging into the dust cloud.
"Wait, you moron! HEY!" Junyo cried out, however, it was a bit too late. The monster's body suddenly split into dozens of little mites that surrounded the entire group.
"What the fuck!?" Decker jumped backwards and dodged several high-velocity rocks thrown at him. "These little shits are everywhere!"
Decker became enveloped by a blue light. "
On his back sat the power source of his armour, a spine-shaped generator that radiated crackling blue energy, which illuminated the walls of the cave.
His entire outfit was a similar colour to his mask, now adorned with strips of glowing blue scales beneath his armour. The mask itself resembled that of a fierce Oni, and it had a deep red scar over its right eye and two horns, the left one larger than the right.
"Alright, you shits! Time to die!" Decker screamed, making a mad dash for the enemies in front of him.
"
"Piss off! You'll just get in the way. Hell, you might even hit me!" he replied angrily. "I AM the big glowing target after all!" He jested before eagerly diving into the mass destruction to show off his dominance.
"HAHAHAHA! Can't catch me!" Decker yelled out, catching the attention of the hordes.
Ji-Soon clicked his tongue. As the Mineral Mites began to crawl closer, he started kicking them away, sending them flying back in the hopes that it'd stall them for a little longer. Kompto joined in, unable to use explosives in this environment, lest he bury the mites and all of them.
"I've debuffed their defence severely! You should be able to kill the mites now instead of repelling them!" Junyo called, typing something into his Leere, which resembled a glove that had a screen and keyboard on it.
Ji-Soon and Kompto kicked and stomped on the creatures as they continued their unending approach, reducing them to piles of ground-up dust.
Tang-Ji summoned her Leere and attempted to charge a group of mites in front of her but tripped over a rock she hadn't seen, causing her to drop her shears. Looking out into the darkness, not even the light from Decker's armour could help them see further than a metre or two at most.
More mites began to emerge from the rocky floor, their stony bodies blending seamlessly with the cavern surroundings. The emerging Mineral Mites took notice of Tang-Ji and began making their way over to her instead.
"Tang-Ji!" Ji-Soon cried as he tried to rush over to her.
However, his legs were firmly stuck, with most of their length covered by masses of mites. Ji-Soon tried to brush off as many as he could, but fell over in a panic, causing more and more mites to crawl onto his body.
'Damn it! If only I had a bit more time!' he thought, reaching out to his slot machine. 'I might have to use my trump card now.'
Kompto was faring no better, with his legs also being weighed down by the weight of the Mineral Mites. Junyo was beside him, trying desperately to peel off the mites, not noticing the mites climbing up his own body.
Everyone was being overwhelmed, and without support, so would Decker, who was doing well holding his own. Suddenly, a faint ring echoed amidst the chaos. The slot machine had finally stopped rolling, with the icons on the face of each slot landing on a hammer.
Ji-Soon got an idea. "Oi, jackass!" he called. "Pull the lever on my slot machine and give yourself a weapon!"
Decker flashed him a look but continued to wail on the enemies in front of him.
"You're the only one who can help us right now! Please!" Ji-Soon begged.
Even beneath the mask, it was obvious that Decker had his signature shit-eating grin on. "Finally realised how bad you need me, huh?"
In an instant, Decker was beside the slot machine and extracted his prize, a large, solid hammer, perfect for smashing stones. "For me? You shouldn't have!" he said playfully.
"Now…" Decker said, adjusting his stance.
"I'm gonna need all of you to get down for me. This is gonna be a very precise operation, so try not to move too much or I might break your kneecaps."
"Rush technique, deployment level 2, Midnight Rampage: Special." The once-dark tunnel became filled with bright blue light as Decker ran through it, smashing Mineral Mites along the way using his new weapon.
With each move he made, he left a trail of light in his wake, moving at explosive speed where no one but himself could move. Within the span of a single second, the overwhelming numbers of the Mineral Mites had been reduced to nothing, and all that remained was the party and several piles of crushed minerals.
Decker slammed the hammer into the ground and leant on it, releasing his Weeping Blue mode. "So, what'd you think of my technique?" He asked, still wearing the vile smirk from before.
"Thank you, Decker," Ji-Soon replied, helping Tang-Ji up from the floor.
"You know, quiet girl, you should really work on not being useless, you know," Decker added, his ego now getting to his head.
Tang-Ji did not respond. 'He's right. So far, I've had to be saved over and over, without doing any of the saving myself…'
"Leave her alone, dude. We appreciate your help, but it doesn't mean that you can be a dick," Ji-Soon replied.
"Listen cunt! If you keep pampering her like this and keep letting her do nothing, we'll all die when we have to rely on her. Something about the weakest link, right?"
As Ji-Soon was about to speak up, a hole opened up beneath Tang-Ji, swallowing her whole in an instant. As she fell, Ji-Soon reached out for her hand, but the earth where she once stood closed up before their hands could touch.
Silence filled the air, and Decker slowly backed away, fearing that he had somehow triggered her disappearance. "Oh. Shit." Ji-Soon put his hands on his head. "She's gone, just like that…"
"DAMN IT!" Ji-Soon shouted, slamming his fist into the hard, rocky wall of the cave. Pain welled up in his hand, causing tears to form in his eyes.
Suddenly, he felt a hand on his back. It was Kompto. "Fret not," he interrupted. "I'm sure she will turn up if we keep moving. She went below us, no?"
Ji-Soon nodded, still with tears in his eyes from the pain and the fear of her safety. "Kaz is going to kill me when he finds out I lost her," he mumbled.
"Then we will have to find a path going downward." He looked back at Ji-Soon, who was cradling his hand. "Tang-Ji will be fine. I'm sure of it. I haven't known her for very long, but she is stronger than even she knows. She will survive."
"I don't know what you see, but I have to believe in her too," Ji-Soon replied.
"Let us continue onwards then."
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As Tang-Ji fell, she once again felt the nauseating sensation of her stomach tying itself into a knot. Falling for what seemed to be an eternity, her senses became overwhelmed by the rushing wind, and her screams were lost amidst the darkness that enveloped her.
Tang-Ji's body tumbled uncontrollably, bouncing against the rough, rocky walls of the pit as she continued to plummet further into the abyss. Blood spilt each time she made contact with the walls, filling the air with tiny shards as the blood evaporated into crystals of code. Each cut and scrape shot searing pain across her entire body.
Panic set in and her mind was consumed by a primal fear of the unknown. With a jolt, her descent stopped abruptly, and she landed roughly on the rocky, hard floor of the cavern. Tang-Ji felt the impact in her bones and let out a cry as the shock knocked the breath from her lungs, leaving her struggling for air in the darkness.
Disoriented and dishevelled, she struggled to compose herself and push her body upright, her trembling hands searching fruitlessly for any semblance of familiarity.
In time, Tang-Ji rolled onto her back and attempted to steady her breathing, but the adrenaline pumping in her veins made it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the aching pain throughout her body from where she had been knocked, scraped and cut.
Looking from side to side, Tang-Ji stared into the blackness that surrounded her and took a sharp, ragged breath as she realised that she'd been completely separated from the others.
Dragging her eyes upwards towards the left side of her vision, she noticed that her health bar was dangerously far into the red zone. 'I'm alive, somehow,' she sighed. She tipped her head back onto the cold floor, relieved that she hadn't been reduced to a bloody mess of flattened flesh and bone.
Now looking directly upwards into where she had fallen from, she could see dim light filtering down from above, contrary to how the hole had sealed up when she had first fallen in.
It was clear to her now that the tunnel she had fallen into was adorned with small, colourful crystals, each shining beautifully, albeit faintly.
Droplets of blood hung suspended in the air, casting crimson shadows against the walls of the shaft as the faint light of the crystals shone through them. It was a morbidly beautiful sight, that something so pretty could be created by the suffering of another.
Now having the strength and composure to sit up, Tang-Ji gently pushed herself from the ground, the cuts on her hands sending jolts of pain throughout her body as she pushed on a dull, raised groove.
Properly upright, Tang-Ji opened up her inventory with a subtle, yet painful, wave of her hand and reached for a healing potion. As she drank the sweet, deep-red liquid, she heard the whispering of a small voice, no louder than the rustling of a tree's leaves.
"Hm?" Tang-Ji thought as she scanned the room. Besides herself, there was nothing but the multitude of illuminated crystals keeping her company. "Maybe I'm still shaken up by the fall…" she mused, brushing the sound off.
"...t's… ou…" a wispy voice called. Tang-Ji shuddered, her eyes darting around the room once more. As she looked behind herself, her eyes met a pair of bright yellow ones.
"Eek!" Tang-Ji cried, jumping backwards, away from the glowing eyes.
"It's you," the voice called calmly. Tang-Ji slowly opened her eyes. The voice seemed to come from a shadowy figure sitting on a rock ahead of her.
The shadow's form wavered but seemed to resemble the silhouette of a cat. Its unnerving, bright yellow eyes pierced the darkness and seemed to look right through Tang-Ji.
Behind its shadowy body appeared to be two dimly coloured lights, one a deep purple, and the other a faint yellow. The lights moved hypnotically, almost as if they were swaying gently in the breeze, despite there not being any breeze so far underground.
"What's a cat doing down here? Is it an enemy?" Tang-Ji pondered. "Umm… Hello, kitty. Do you know the exit to this place?" She smiled awkwardly.
The shadow did not respond; instead, it tilted its head slightly. Tang-Ji put a hand over her face. "Of course that wouldn't work... It's a cat." She shook her head. "I need to find a way out of here, so I can get back to-"
"Kazami," the shadow whispered. Tang-Ji's stomach dropped as her eyes widened.
"Did that cat just talk to me?" She thought, frozen in fear.
"Indeed," the 'cat' replied bluntly, as if it knew her very thoughts. Again, Tang-Ji froze, shocked that she had not only discovered a talking cat but also one that could read her mind.
"Tang-Ji… I bring a message of utmost importance," said the shadow cat, its eyes unblinking. "A calamity approaches, Tang-Ji. Be wary."
"How do you know my name?" Tang-Ji replied. "And what do you mean, a calamity?"
"You will see for yourself when the time comes. I look forward to what you wish for this time, Tang-Ji," the shadow whispered.
"Until then, I will watch over you, Tang-Ji." The cat's shadowy form began to waver more than it had before, eventually beginning to dissipate and blend into the rest of the darkness.
"Wait! Who are you?! I don't even know your name!" Tang-Ji asked the dissolving shadow.
"Divi," the voice called. Its body had almost evaporated, leaving nothing of what it had once been.
Before Tang-Ji could even begin to process what had just happened, a larger shadow began to take shape where the previous one had been.
However, this shadow did not waver and had loud, heavy footsteps accompanying its arrival.
Tang-Ji looked up, awe-struck.
The thing that stood before her was a man, and a very tall, burly man at that. The man was dressed in very futuristic gear, well past the time in which Tang-Ji herself lived.
It seemed that he had cybernetic implants, as his left arm and right leg appeared to have a silvery, metallic glint barely visible underneath the fabric of his clothing. The man stopped marching and stood directly in front of her, his gaze aimed downward towards her.
Tang-Ji broke into a cold sweat and stared up at him awkwardly, wondering if he was a player or an in game mob.
"Have you seen a girl with blue hair and a white dress?" the man asked robotically.
"Blue hair, white dress? I'm not sure who you're talking about…" Tang-Ji answered honestly.
"No," the man said adamantly. "I am sure you know something! You were brought here for that very reason!"
Tang-Ji shook her head profusely. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Don't lie to me!" the man called, beginning his charge towards her.
It seemed that conflict was unavoidable now, and Tang-Ji had only herself to rely on.
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"Come forth!" Tang-Ji cried, summoning her Leere. A bright flash of light enveloped them both, blinding the armoured adversary as she brandished her Leere. Now brandishing her shears, sparks flew as their blades collided with the man's hulking frame.
Tang-Ji took a step forward, preparing to attack "Level 6 deployment, rush tech—" Tang-Ji began, however, her command was interrupted by a heavy hand on her shoulder, locking her in a vice grip.
Before she was given the chance to activate her skill, Tang-Ji was forcefully thrown across the room, her back landing squarely against the wall of the cave.
The force of the impact created a loud bang, causing several crystals and pebbles to fall to the floor. Tang-Ji winced as she felt a burning pain in her back.
"Agh!" She groaned in pain. The strength in her body began to leave her.
She began to slide down the wall, but before she could collapse, a single mechanical hand clamped down around her neck, hoisting her back up to eye level as if she weighed less than nothing.
"Where. Is. The girl?" The gruff voice demanded again as he choked her.
A mechanical sound hissed into her ears, and Tang-Ji's gaze locked onto the spiralling neon light that emanated from his mechanical arm. Fear washed over her face as she realised that she was losing her grip on her Leere.
"I-I don't know what you're talking about." Tang-Ji managed to croak out the words, her voice trembling.
The hands that had been tightly gripping her neck released their hold slightly, offering a brief respite. Tang-Ji heard a loud, resounding bang before everything became black. It was as though a massive town bell had fit in her head and then begun ringing.
When she finally regained consciousness, Tang-Ji found herself sprawled on the ground, her head throbbing with pain. Virtual blood oozed from a gash on her forehead, forming a dark trail down to the ground. The mechanical titan grabbed her by the neck once again and hoisted her up, his grip unrelenting.
"I won't ask again; where is she? The girl with blue hair in a white dress."
'White dress? Blue hair?' she thought, despite the excruciating pain in her head. 'Those descriptions only match one person… Ukiyo? But why? What does this man want with her?'
Tang-Ji remained resolute, refusing to utter another word. It was painfully clear that he was after Ukiyo. No other girl met his description but her.
The man smiled vilely and continued his work. Loud, thundering bangs echoed from the cave for roughly ten minutes, until they weakened and ultimately stopped.
The iron titan couldn't help but chuckle, seemingly impressed by Tang-Ji's unwavering resolve. With a swift motion, he lifted his right leg and forcefully stomped it down upon her hand, which clung tightly to his leg.
This time, the cracking sound was even more pronounced than before, resonating through the walls of the dark cave like the sharp popping of corn kernels.
Tang-Ji, who had endured the torture thus far, was at her limit, as her health crept slowly back into the red zone. Her five fingers were mangled beyond recognition, and her wrist had been twisted at an unnatural angle. She lay in a small pool of her own blood and tears, a result of the cyborg's unrelenting dedication to his work.
A powerful kick to the head sent Tang-Ji's limp body hurtling towards the wall like a discarded rag doll. Her ears were ringing, and her body was numb, unable to do anything.
"You must be really dedicated to her, huh, girlie?" The man crouched over her. Tang-Ji could only watch as his cybernetic implant transformed itself into a cannon. Neon light spiralled throughout its barrel, as he stood up and pointed it down at her.
"It's been fun, but you're of no use to me if you keep your mouth shut." The cannon began charging with a violent electric hum.
"Sayonara kiddo."