The immortal six seconds passed, and Warden plunged his blade into the skull of the hybrid wolf-bull. Void energy charged out of the sword a micro-second later, but the fiend was already overpowering him.
However, before he could have a real contest with his first fiend-rank monster, Agnes came flying. Large Black wings spread on her back, completely made out of the essence of darkness. Her speed rose to an unprecedented level, as in a matter of no time, she swooped down on them.
Her legs hurtled dozen on the back of the fiend, stunning it for an instance of a moment. But that instance was enough for her to swing her arm as a thick rope of darkness wrung around Warden and she took flight again.
Paying the creatures chasing after her no mind, she carried him into the warped way.
Instantly, they were in a new environment. It seemed like an ancient catacomb with dark spatial waves tittering all around. The suppression on them doubled just as immediately as they came down. it was closing in towards the 20% now.
Agnes spat blood on the ground, though there was no sign of weakness. She resigned her dark wings and turned to him.
"What kind of fucked up shit were you trying to pull?" she asked. "I thought you'd be grazed-- Shit! Shit! Where the fuck are the others?"
Warden looked around and found no sign of their companions. The atmosphere and natural swirl in the catacomb were simply chaotic enough that no residual aura a person leaves behind would survive there.
"My shitty luck!" the captain cursed again, but then her expression calms down. Finding him oblivious look, she explained, "They probably fell into a different part in this catacomb. It happens with these types of chaotic warped ways under some peculiarities."
"Does this happen often?" Warden couldn't help but ask.
Agnes nodded. "It's more common when there's no correct designated teleportation point. If there's a time gap between the people entering along with some other- well, don't worry about them, the catacomb is not dangerous, and they are resourceful people."
Warden could only agree to her. Under her lead, they began moving. Her familiarity in moving showed she had been here or place like this before.
"Your darkness power," Warden said after moving around silently for a few minutes, trying to strike a small talk. "It has more utility than I thought."
Agnes replied with a solitary nod.
Failing to strike a conversation, Warden put his attention on the chaotic swirls of spatial waves. He pushed his awareness on them and found it dissolving in mere seconds before he could read anything in the current.
"We can actually find our way back to the warped gate, reading the spatial current," Agnes said as the passed a turn. "There's a pattern in things, even if this place was destroyed thousands of years ago."
Warden perked an eyebrow. Seems like Agnes was just as knowledgeable about stuff as June in these types of matters. Well, her perception and insight probably couldn't compare to his favourite elf. Honestly, very few could compare. Besides, Agnes's depth of power was combat-based.
"What?" she asked, finding him staring blankly.
Warden's senses didn't pick up that much of a threat. Whatever that moving around wasn't dangerous, a couple of smaller humanoids—their shape indicated goblins, at the early stage of iron rank. They came their way, and without giving any look in their direction they went their way.
Agnes dropped her stealth a minute after, a contemplating look in her eyes.
"From your expression, I can guess goblins are not common in this part of the region," he said, and was about to ask the question, but she raised a hand to silence him, deep in thought.
After a few seconds, she let out a sigh and brought out a handy longread. She fidgeted a bit, but finding no connection, stowed it away.
The connection to outside of the rift was impossible for a longread, considering the glitch in the timeline, but it was somewhat possible to use the communication device inside the rift, However, it was never easy to communicate long distance with such suppression in natural energy and strong spatial currents.
"Probably won't connect unless we get back to the first fold of the rift," she muttered. But she didn't seem to mind that all that much, though her expression barely returned to normal. "Looks like we have something to worry about now. Goblins rarely move in small numbers."
"Did they get the winds of the essence vein somehow and came with the task of scouting as well?"
Agnes did not dislodge that idea, as the same thing had been playing in her mind after she sensed the goblin pair.
"Let's stalk after them," Warden said and brought his legendary cloak out of his subspace and draped it on. "My equipment has some stealth abilities."
He even turned on the ability and almost disappeared into the shadow to shoot it to her.
enjoy on m|v|l|e-m|p|y|r
The captain shot him an incredulous look. "If you had such an item, why have to stored it away? You didn't think it would be useful in this mission?"
Warden smiled awkwardly. "I'm too dependent on them."
Agnes gave him a look as if she didn't understand him. "I can glimpse there's a very deep connection between you and the cloak. They are not your regular artifact. It is bound to your soul, which is literally a part of you..."
In a way she was saying depending on them was nothing wrong.
Warden shrugged, not giving her more explanation. "So, we go after them?"
Agnes thought for a second and nodded. She used her stealth ability as the two of them moved in the direction the goblins moved.
About a minute had passed since the goblins moved on, and the spatial current had dissolved the aura from the atmosphere. Thankfully, goblins were rarely your silent type on their move.