Chapter 679: Titan (1/2)

Chapter 679 Titan

Ilea stood on the side of the descending cliff, a circular abyss below her with massive cannons and war machines all around. Her fight in the Dome would be in four days, their gold not yet invested to avoid others doing the same. Right now she was an entirely unknown new fighter, apparently taking on a promising young dwarf. She felt a little bad for him already, but it would surely be a valuable lesson.

The Guild had offered a few jobs but generally they just took everything the divers would find, to then categorize, organize, sell, and bring it to the various smithies in the town. One of the most interesting jobs was an ancient notice asking divers to investigate a deep part of the caverns, apparently called the Shining Caves. Few who went in there came back, and those who did were not quite themselves anymore.

Ilea assumed some high level mind magic to be at play. And what good war machine titan would let such a dangerous creature endanger the locals? The location was rather deep too, which would allow them to have a look at various dangerous sections of the pit on the way down.

“You have the map, right?” Ilea asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Verena answered, the three of them lacking any visible gear other than Ilea’s war machine.

A few of the machines walking past gave them curious glances, some muttering something about newcomers or fresh meat.

“Our first stop should be on this side of the pit. Four kilometers down,” Verena said.

Pierce whistled. “Now that’s depth.”

Ilea walked forward, her wings extending out of her armored back to keep her heavy falling form at least somewhat stable.

The others followed.

She felt a few impacts going down, seeing some old machinery and outcrops of rock shattered by her legs and back. “Sorry,” she whispered, using her wings to accelerate downwards. The descent would take minutes if they were only falling after all.

“We’re close!” Verena shouted through the wind, her body slowing down.

Ilea moved out her wings and turned around in the air, her steel hands and body slamming into the stone wall of the pit, ripping out entire chunks as she slowed her descent, most of the work done by her entirely overwhelmed wings.

“It’s here!” Verena shouted from above, Ilea leaving a line of destruction in the stone before she finally just stored her armor and teleported upwards.

She resummoned it once inside the large crevice leading into the stone. Okay don’t fall for several thousand meters. You cannot stop.

“Are these the shining caves already?” Pierce asked, looking over the cliff side and into the darkness that still went on for an unreasonable distance.

“No, but the tunnels could lead us there. This was a silver mine… two hundred years ago. They collapsed most of it when they came upon high level undead,” Verena informed.

“We will cleanse the cursed,” the titan said, its vibrating voice traveling into the depths.

Detonations resounded from far below, dulled and far away.

“They’re having fun,” Pierce said.

Ilea increased her weight and walked into the dark mine shaft. She actually fit. The dwarves who had built it must’ve been quite considerate of war machines. Easier to dig with these things too, for most people at least, she thought and formed and ashen drill on her right arm. She glanced at the two Elders behind her, their forms not quite small enough to finish her cosplay but she was close.

They came up on a collapsed tunnel about ten minutes later. Ilea prepared her drill and got to work, the sounds reverberating through the vicinity, pebbles and dust falling from above and into the darkness. Only Verena’s flames and the occasional sparks from Pierce illuminated the vicinity, none of them particularly bothered by the darkness.

“Another ten meters,” Ilea informed.

Verena stored most of the large stone chunks in her storage item before she teleported away to dump it all in another tunnel.

“Any monsters?” Pierce asked.

“Yep,” Ilea said and displaced one of the waiting creatures next to the woman.

[Cursed Undead Skinner – lvl 410] – [Hostile / Confused]

The creature looked a little like an elongated hyena, its face distinctly dwarven with thin hair sticking to its skin, unkempt fur covering the rest of its body. It screeched, its mouth opening wide. Sharp teeth lined its jaws as a venomous cloud spread outwards.

Lightning cracked in the darkness, blue energy burning through the wailing monster that tried to get to Pierce. It took a few steps when a massive steel arm slammed down on its back.

Ilea grabbed the creature and smashed it against the wall a few times. She finished it off by breaking its neck. Or so she thought.

The skinner continued to slash into her armaments with its sharp claws. It gurgled and spit an acidic substance onto her helmet.

Ilea aimed the undead towards the section she hadn’t dug out yet. A bright flash of flames and heat burst out. The dark tunnel was illuminated for a second, the undead entirely incinerated including a part of the tunnel wall. A ding resounded.

Pierce coughed, waving away the venomous cloud as her armor flowed out to cover her face. “Ugh… that’s vile. And now I’m poisoned. Great.”

“My child, do not fear the darkness,” the titan said, trying to pat her head.

The Elder dodged away. “If anyone’s a child, it’s you.”

“Then stop whining,” Ilea said, her drill bit spinning once more.

“We’re about to break through,” she informed the others. “Twenty of those things will come rushing in on us. Maybe make some distance.”

Both Elders vanished, appearing about twenty meters back the way they had come from.

“Knock knock,” the titan said and broke through with its drill.

Ilea watched twenty of the undead creatures crawl out with impressive speed, near instantly on her and spewing out their acid, clouds of venom covering the whole vicinity. She remained calm as her armor was scratched and eaten through, a sphere of flames flashing out a moment later.

Bits and pieces of undead were thrown aside, a smoldering sphere added to the tunnel system with strewn about creatures. Ilea was surprised some had even survived. She stepped over, lifting her foot above a slowly regenerating undead. It came down with a wet and heavy impact. An unrecognizable mush flowed away from her boot, her drill arm coming down on another creature. She displaced it back when it tried to avoid the attack. Her weaponized arm came down, the high momentum ash ripping apart the undead in less than a second, splattering the walls and Ilea’s armaments with black blood.

She stopped the spinning and used her other hand to move the bits that remained to the right of her drill. The titan stepped close to the wall where the drill spun again, the still living undead ground away between stone and ash.

She healed her armor in the process, walking onward where she could see another group of undead rush towards her from the halls of an ancient tomb.

Ilea made her drill disappear and clenched both her fists, lightning flashing past her as she changed into a slow jog. Her steps made the walls tremble. Dust and debris fell down as she alerted more undead further in the complex.

“Come to me,” she said, slamming down her fist on the first unfortunate critter. They were certainly fast and could see well enough in the dark to dodge her slow attacks. But what she had was mass. Ilea simple stepped to the side, slamming her massive form against the wall. Several creatures turned to mush, bones splintered and heads cracked.

Ilea finished off the ones close to death with her reverse healing, just in case they were actually suffering. Nothing she saw suggested any kind of intellect remained in inside their brains, but she wanted to be sure. She nearly stumbled after slamming herself into the other side of the tomb, her control still questionable.

The creatures did try to bring her down, some jumping on her chest or using their acid on her legs specifically. It was all inconsequential.

Ilea stomped those close to her legs and displaced those on her chest into her massive hands, squeezing until their bodies were broken chunks of flesh. Everything around her died, the next group of approaching creatures riddled by lances of ash. Ilea jogged towards them and tried to jump, falling onto the group of injured undead with a reverberating crash. Black blood splattered against the walls before she tried to push herself up with her hands.

She slipped and slammed into the mush again, nothing even remotely reaching her real form deep within the hunk of steel.

“Brutal,” Pierce said as she walked closer. “Do you need help getting up?”