Chương 67: Chapter 66 - They're in the Trees!

A vine wrapped around his right arm, preventing him from swinging his sword.

"Not again, what the fuck is it this time? Fucking dungeon bleed" Dominic swore, scanning the ground for any vines. Aether Cannon materialized in the clearing, aimed at shrubbery. Her head whipped to and fro, looking for the fluxspawn. Then she, too, was in the air. Huh, those painkillers were seriously strong, I couldn't feel it at all. And just look at all that vine. The cannon slowly pivoted around, but its firing arc was restricted low.

"FIRE" Nythera screeched desperately, sending a shell rocketing off into the woods. Dominic leaped twenty feet up to Rowen and hacked at his vines, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Nythera began to spin as the vine pulled her up into the canopy. Her eyes traced it to its source.

"Huh, that tree is absolutely fucking loaded with flux, isn't it?" her mind felt foggy.

"HELP" Kennick screamed, plummeting out of a nearby tree, swinging on the end of a vine. Rowen ducked. Kennick's head slammed into Rowen's and sent him tumbling into a bush. The vines snapped taut and he shot fifty feet up into the canopy. Nythera waved as he passed. Dominic bent down and launched up as a human rocket, sword swung in a perfect arc to send Nythera back to the ground. Rowen intercepted with a dive, barely stopping her head from cracking on the ground.

"Nythera, use your vision skill, where is the enemy?" Rowen asked.

"I saw some really bright trees Rowen, I mean REALLY bright, thats where the vines go" she giggled, trying and failing to suppress it. His face scrunched up "What was in those painkillers? All he did was pour it on your arm" Rowen spat "Fine point me at a target" And so she did. Her finger moved from one tree, then to another, and yet another. Rowen's face increasingly grew confused.

"I'm serious we don't have time to fuck around, Dominic's up there trying to get Kennick out, hurry up!" Rowen scolded, cuffing her over the head. She giggled "It's all of them, they all Glow" whispered the last word. Dominic landed right before them "Got Kennick out, he's up there cutting through as many vines as he can, did you guys find the source?"

"I have an idea! Help me out" She tapped Boxy and drew out a [Thanaphyte Ordnance], careful not to have her legs crushed.

"Load this in the cannon please" She asked, trying to pull herself off the ground with a small tree as support. Every ounce of her wisdom was used to disrupt the shell formation so only the "blasting flux" remained. The cannon pivoted into place, Dominic cutting off a set of vines snaking for Nythera's ankles.

"FIRE" she yelled. The shell slammed instantly into the tree not forty feet from them, detonating in a field of death-flux. The life-flux fled in an instant, blinding Nythera with the intensity and sending her tumbling backwards in shock.

"By Kronan, that's the shell you made with Edwin's alchemicals, isn't it?" Dominic could do naught but watch. Vines writhed around them, tearing through bush and branch. Dozens shot into the violently shaking canopy. Blackened leaves fell around them, coating the forest floor in a canopy of death.

"Reload it, fast!" Nythera giggled again and another shell popped out, landing straight onto Rowen's foot. Yanking it out from underneath "Watch where you drop those things, just where the Hel did you even store this?" he swore, clutching his crushed toes.

"Milady has some kind of spatial artifact, as I suspected" Dominic's face scrunched in suspicion, "It is best we keep this secret" and heaved the shell into the cannon. Aether Culverin slid across the soil, scraping off the top layer as it turned.

"FIRE" was followed by many giggles and a boom. The trunks rotted from the outside in, leaves blackening as they fell. Sun shone through the newly cleared areas, brightening the undergrowth.

"These fucking trees are connected" Dominic swore. Bridges of wood, once covered in dark vines, now lay bare to the light. Exposed.

"All the flourishing trees are connected, the small stunted ones are not" Rowen observed, readying his blade "If we cut the bridges, would that defeat it?"

"Only one way to find out" Dominic sprang off, flying into the air. His blade swung so fast her eyes could not trace its path. But she could follow its destination. The sword stopped halfway through a bridge, stuck within the material. And left Dominic hanging by the pommel. A black sap rolled down the blade. He swung up, landing on the top of the bridge, and pulled the sword out with both legs braced. Frenzied hacking began.

"I am going to assist Dominic, Nythera continue to target trees that are part of the bridge network. The vines seem to have retreated, but if you get caught, scream" and then Rowen was gone, lunging deep into the undergrowth. Three artillery shells later. Level Acquired! x 3 Aether Cannon (lvl 17 > 20) (3 tokens) Flux Sight (lvl 12>13) (2/2 tokens) Artillery-Command (lvl 10>12) (0/2 tokens) A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Shellwright (lvl 10>11) (1/2 tokens) Well that's new, so using the weapons I make counts? What if other people use the shells I make? Nythera strode through the undergrowth with confidence, the corpse of her fallen enemy all around her.

"This fluxspawn was the worst, definitely a dungeon-bleed type" Dominic examined the biggest trees Nythera had hit, nearly a yard in diameter, the giant had not fallen to her shells. But the big holes of blown-out bark suggested another story. Flux leaked out of the tree, dissipating into the surrounding environment. Insects feasted on the corpse.

"Is there anything worthwhile we can acquire from this foe?" Rowen asked, wiping hardened sap off his sword… and failing.

"The tree is useless" Kennick's voice came from behind. Dominic nodded "Aye, these plant creatures tend to be the least valuable of any fluxspawn. Fuck" he spat.

"What about that?" Nythera pointed at a tree surrounded by thick undergrowth. It wasn't especially tall, and its leaves, while healthy and bright, were entirely shrouded by the surrounding canopy.

"What about it?" Dominic readied his sword.

"It has even more flux than the thing we just killed, all of the ambient life flux is flowing towards it" Nythera's face bore a transfixed look.

"That'd be the dungeon, lets go have a look" he sheathed his blade reluctantly, scanning one last time for sap stuck to the blade. Cutting a path through interwoven bush and thorn, they came before a great oaken door set within the tree. Dimmed by the choked branches, they could barely make it out.

"Can you tell Nythera?" Dominic asked.

"Yeah, this is strata two, isn't it? It has way more energy than the Quartz dungeon. But how did you know?"

"The number of enemies and their strength is a pretty good indicator. This dungeon is not far above our ability, but for this party it might be." Dominic said.

"Surely we can just take a look? I have yet to get a single material to make shells from" Nythera pleaded.

"How much of that greater flux do you have left?" Dominic asked. Ah I see what he wants.

"I have enough for two shots, so two guardians then?" He stared for a bit, contemplating. She barely caught the avarice in his eyes.

"Fine, maybe enough for a guardian or two. But at the first sign of trouble we are leaving""Are we sure this is wise? Perhaps returning with a better equipped, more suitable party would be a better course of action. This is now the second dungeon milady has uncovered, it will surely be cause of great celebration" Rowen's apprehension was apparent.

"We'll be fine Rowen, I can handle the Guardians in one shot" she shot him a smile. Dominic pulled the door open and the party entered the passage way down, made of interwoven vine and root. … A vast open jungle, branches tangled and the sounds of birds and animals permeated the area, assaulting their senses. The blue sky above glimmered with distant stars. Wind blew through the trees sporadically.

"How is there a whole jungle down here?" Nythera asked no one in particular.

"There is something deeply wrong here, don't go in there yet Kennick" Dominic said, leaning in to inspect a bush from which bird song came from. As he got closer the sound died out. A gust of wind passed through them, sending all the branches into a flurry. The birdsong returned with vigour.

"The animals are fake, the birds are fake. The whole place is just plants. When the wind passes through the leaves scrape together to make birdsong. I suspect even the sky is fake" Dominic backed up with a disturbed look on his face. The heat, on the other hand, was very real. They were all sweating within minutes. Do we really need three suns? Even deep beneath the canopy, light reached them. And it burned. They learned quickly to avoid it, even minutes in its contact caused red burns to develop on Rowen.

So would a lower strata person just get grilled? Rowen tripped.

"Ow, what could I have possibly-" in a flash he had his sword in his hands. Rowen zipped past them, dragged off into the undergrowth. He came out a moment later "WATCH OUT FOR THE ROOTS" he screamed. Dominic's sword flashed as he swung down. Kennick leaped off the ground and up the nearest tree. Nythera felt something wrap around her leg. I really REALLY need to get something to deal with shit like this. Her leg was pulled out and she was yanked into the foliage with a scream.

"NYTHERA, Get to her Kennick!" Dominic shouted. An arrow lodged itself through the root and into the ground a moment later, stopping her kidnapping. Kennick leaped down and fell on the root with a knife. Severing the writhing plant.

"Let's go" he never looked towards her, keeping an eye on the trees. Dominic ripped up a root cluster with his sword, flinging it into the air where the writhing ball of death was executed by Rowen.

"We should have just gone back to the Quartz dungeon, these enemies are worthless, even as alchemical ingredients" he thrust his sword down, spearing another. Cutting through, they eventually find themselves before another tunnel, going further down. Water dripped and drizzled down the edges, coming from between cracks in the vines.

"Even if there was loot, we wouldn't be able to find it through all the damnable plants" Dominic casually skewered yet another root cluster. The dark corridor twisted and turned, circling back on itself several times before depositing them in a much colder chamber. Dominic had not taken his hand off the hilt of his sword since they entered. A large clear pond sat dead center in the room, a tiny island with a boulder lay in the middle of that, with a single, large pine tree on it. A pine tree that positively glowed.

Around the pond was clear ground followed by heavily forested jungle on the left and right, but not on their side, and not on the far end.

"Even without your skills I think I can tell who our enemy is" Dominic snorted.

"One lone pine tree in a room full of jungle plants? Yup, it's the pine tree. Probably a guardian." Nythera nodded "Yeah its so packed with flux it's hard for me to make anything else on that island" Aether Cannon already sat ready before Dominic had a chance to give the word. As it snapped into the place, the flux whipped around it in a frenzy. Digging her claws through the shell formation, it returned to raw flux.

It's been awhile since I've got to hit something with Hyper-flux, and the first time I'll be doing it with this cannon! She hummed a tune as the thick flux flowed out and into the cannon. Rowen and Dominic both withdrew their swords, their eyes flicked around frantically.

"What's wrong?" She leaned against the cannon.

"Something feels wrong, very wrong, the air feels… tense?" Dominic said, not dropping his vigilance. Rowen nodded his head. As the flux-field from the cannon interacted with the ambient dungeon flux, new channels were created around it. The jungle twitched. Then began to shake violently.

"I think it's just the cannon, don't worry about it" Nythera said.

"This feeling is from the cannon?" Dominic's eye snapped onto her. With a nod Dominic and Rowen both sheathed their blades.

"That is ridiculous, you're still just strata one, how can it have this much flux?" Dominic muttered. Rowen sat down, back against the rooted wall.

"Father told stories about how strata three and four mages skills would affect the flux around them, but I never thought I'd actually see it, let alone from a strata one" He shivered "it just feels wrong". Nythera shrugged "Can't help it". The rustling of leaves and shaking of branches built up to a dull roar, echoing off the cavern walls. The pine in the center had not moved. Waitttttttt, has it? She squinted, pulling on Precision-sight. The pine inched back, bending near the stump.

"TAKE COVER" she screamed diving behind the cannon.