Soul of the Warrior

"Hold the line steady!" Reivyn shouted. "Don't hesitate to switch out if you need to!"

Reivyn tossed some Spells over the heads of his men as he encouraged them. With the number of spiders rushing at their position, this was a marathon situation, not a sprint, so he had to regulate his Mana accordingly. His Mana regeneration was enough that using three or four 50 Mana Spells a minute was enough for him to sustain the rate for a very long time, so that's what he did.

The spiders, despite living their entire lives in almost pitch blackness, weren't affected by the light of the setting sun, but it seemed like they were getting more active as the light dimmed. Reivyn alternated between his elements to find which one affected them the most, and after several rounds of experimentation, he discovered that Lightning Mana was the most effective.

50 points of Mana wasn't enough to create a huge chain of lightning, but he could blast one with the magic and it would jump to six or seven others nearby. There were so many of them crowding around each other, like a sea of darkness trying to consume the soldiers, that there was no possibility of the lightning not affecting more than one spider per Spell.

Fire also affected more than one target at a time, but they had high enough resistance that it didn't persist on their corpses to catch others on fire and spread, and it wasn't as much as the lightning. Reivyn wasn't particularly enthusiastic about trying to set the horde on fire, either, because then they would have a flaming tsunami on their hands.

Water didn't do much but douse the spiders rushing at them, and earth was mostly shrugged off by the oversized bugs. Air was decent at slicing through the joints of the spiders, but it couldn't pass through more than two spiders at a time.

The other Tier 2 Affinities were more deadly than water and earth, with ice being more fatal than water. It didn't do much else, though, other than slow the movements of any spider that wasn't outright killed by the strike. Magma and Plasma were the second most effective, but the rate of killing was a little slower than Lightning.

Mud could cause some spiders to sink into the ground, but the other spiders would just crawl over their bodies, and once the earth hardened again, the spiders that weren't killed would just crawl out of the little swamp that was created. Mist was absolutely useless in this situation, as the spiders didn't use their eyes to pinpoint their targets, to begin with.

Metal and Wood could create powerful enough single-target Spells, but it was nowhere near as good as the chains created by the lightning.

Reivyn experimented with one Spell cast with a Tier 3 Affinity, Kinetic, and it was very effective, blasting through several more spiders than the Air blades he launched at the horde, but increasing the Affinity, despite the costs listed by the System being static, would cause him to burn through more Mana. The costs didn't equal the results, and it was only on par with using Lightning Mana.

More Spells were launched from Mages to either side of Reivyn into the mass of spiders, most of them concentrated on the edge of his company in order to prevent the spiders from flanking them. There were only a few Mages spread across the rear of the line to help lessen the burden on the soldiers, and the rest of the Mages were on the far end of the battalion doing the same job as the ones on the edge of Reivyn's company.

A large portion of the spiders coming up on the north and west sides of the hole immediately zeroed in on the battalion and rushed straight to them. Other monsters nearby, seeing the activity of their fellow spiders, were also dragged along with them. It was almost a third of the spiders spewing out of the deep hole that turned and rushed toward the soldiers left alone on the battlefield.

Not all of the spiders attacked the battalion, though. Most of them simply ran off into the distance, scattering across the sands. Kayzor was no slouch, and he had immediately noticed the problem before the battle had even begun, and he and his speed elites had rushed off to intercept the spiders rushing in the direction that Reivyn had informed him and Kefira where the civilians had been left.

Reivyn didn't hear the orders, but he had Sensed the Mana pulse of him using his communication device, and he knew that he had sent orders to the rest of his troops to expedite their travel.

We only need to hold off on the spider horde for a couple of hours before we get fifty-thousand reinforcements, Reivyn thought, sweat dripping down his brow as he blasted another group of spiders with his Lightning Mana. If they're even anywhere close in power to the elites that followed Kayzor, this will get a lot easier.

I'm very confident that we'll be able to hold on for that long, too. These spiders, other than the odd one out that's much larger, are on par with the nuisance lizards down below. Their behavior is also really strange. Sure, they're aggressive by nature, but they shouldn't be this aggressive.

It's almost like they're... Reivyn's eyes widened in astonishment as the thought crossed his mind, and he instinctively knew that it was correct. It's a Dungeon Break.

I only assumed that all of the Dungeons down there were Boss Dungeons, but what if one or two of them was a regular Dungeon filled with spiders? With the way instanced Dungeons work, if the Runic Spell activating did something to them, it could have broken innumerable overlapping Dungeons at once and released the monsters within.

If it wasn't a Dungeon Break, I doubt there would have been enough spiders down there, despite how large the space was, for it to have been this endless for this long.

Reivyn considered informing the others of his thoughts, but he ultimately decided to keep it to himself for now. There was no reason to distract anyone else with what was basically useless information at this point. It didn't matter if it was a Dungeon Break or not. The spiders were there and they weren't going anywhere.

It only mattered how many instances were released from the interference caused by the Runic Spell. He didn't know the full mechanics behind a Dungeon Break caused by the destruction of a Dungeon, which he didn't know if that was the case or not, but he did know that there was a finite amount that could break at a time when a Dungeon still existed.

Once we defeat the horde, we'll have to send people down to investigate exactly what happened down there.

The fight continued on, the soldiers of the battalion not giving any ground. It wasn't super important that they hold this specific position, though it was advantageous as it was atop a small sand dune on top of the spiders having to climb out of the hole, to begin with. If they tried to retreat in the face of the pressure, they would risk having their line break.

The Mages didn't have the luxury of sifting through all of the available Affinities like Reivyn did, as they were mostly specialized in one or two of them. They were effective in their Spells, though, and it did a lot to lessen the pressure on the melee troops. Kefira walked up and down the line Casting her own Spells while she simultaneously checked on the Mages to make sure they weren't burning through their Mana too quickly. Most of the Mages in the Mage Corps didn't have anywhere near as many Mana reserves as Kefira and Reivyn.

The sunset and the fight continued. The soldiers continued to fight by the light of the Spells going off, and the scenery was quite surreal. Memories of Dreams of night combat sprang into Reivyn's mind. The landscape was mostly lit with a subdued light with the occasional flash of much brighter light. The extent of the horde still charging at them was mostly shrouded in the darkness, but the creepy crawlies could be seen in a horror scape for the brief flashes.

Occasionally, the dim light extinguished, and because nobody had their night-eyes trained, complete darkness would descend for a second or two, and only the horrifying click-clacking, screeches, and sound of combat could be heard by most of the masses. Those short periods of complete darkness were the most dangerous times, and their frequency was increasing as the Mages got lower and lower on their Mana pools.

Before it became a problem, Reivyn pulled himself away from blasting the occasional lightning-chain Spell, and he concentrated on his hands. He had gained the Skill Dual Casting by splitting his focus between his hands, but that wouldn't cut it with the size of the battalion line. Instead of just concentrating the Mana into his palms, he bore his will down even further and split the Mana into his fingertips as well.

The Mana in each hand tried to retain its cohesiveness, but Reivyn systematically severed the connections between them until he had ten little balls of Mana on each of his fingertips. He infused them with his Light Affinity, and then hurled them into the sky to hover in place. Once they were up there, he fed them all with additional Mana, creating individual little highways running down his arms and through his fingers to attach to his threads connecting to them in the sky.

The ten orbs of Light, evenly spaced along the line of the battalion, grew in size and luminosity until the battlefield was lit almost like day in the little circle where it was taking place.

New Skill Unlocked!

Tier 5:

Multi-Casting (0 ->1)

Once the System Notification flashed into his view, maintaining the separate threads of Mana became instantly easier. It wasn't nearly as simple as Dual Casting had become with the increase in his Skill Level, but it was no longer taking all of his concentration to maintain.

Reivyn surveilled the battlefield, but he refrained from once more engaging the spiders with his Lightning strikes. His lightning blasts were marginally helping, but the loss of them was nothing too big. Maintaining consistent lighting over the entire battlefield was much more important, and it would save far more lives of the volunteer soldiers than extinguishing a few more spiders would.

Reivyn had to adjust his position, as the farthest orb of Light Mana was just outside of his range to comfortably keep floating in the air from where he had been standing, but he was still close enough that he didn't have to abandon overseeing his company.

His Mana began to tick down exponentially faster than it had been before, but he had been frugal enough with his Mana that he was confident he could maintain the Light orbs until the break of dawn in several hours.

The hours, as well as Reivyn's Mana supply, steadily ticked down, and the sun eventually crested the horizon to the east. The increased visibility once again showed that the tide of spiders was finally beginning to thin out. The spiders leaving the hole on the far sides dwindled down to a trickle, and most of them were pouring forth to continue to assault the battalion's position, but even that was already considerably fewer monsters than had been coming out for hours on end already.

Reivyn wiped the sweat from his brow as he cut off his connection to the Light orbs floating in the sky. The lights winked out, and the battlefield dimmed slightly once again, but it wasn't a problem any longer. The Spells from the other Mages continued to occasionally blast holes in the swarm, but Reivyn didn't join in once again. He had gotten to below 1,000 Mana in his reserve, and he felt it was more prudent to save the remaining for an emergency.

The pressure lifted as the tide of spiders turned into a river and then into a stream, and there were no additional surprises once the last of the spiders was killed. The corpses of the spiders had slowly fallen down the slope of the sand dune, and many had further been moved out of the way as the additional spiders had crawled over their dead bodies. The field was completely littered with dead spiders, and it was connected to a ring surrounding the hole.

"Jek, take charge of the company, I need to go report to Lady Fira and Major Dobrik," Reivyn ordered.

Jek offered a tired salute and turned towards the company. Reivyn made his way to the center of the battalion where he could see Kefira and Major Dobrik, as well as his staff, already getting together for a discussion. Reivyn walked up and offered his salute before catching Kefira's eye, indicating he had something to say.

"Captain Reivyn, you have something to report?" Kefira asked. She, like everyone else, was exhausted, and her clothes, where they were exposed outside of the armor she wore over her robes, were clinging to her body with sweat.

"With my experience dealing with Dungeon Breaks, I believe the majority of the spider horde was caused by one. I don't know if the Runic Spell destroyed the Dungeons down below or what, but their behavior and numbers lead me to believe they have been affected by the Runic Spell in one form or another. I think we should send a team down below to investigate."

Kefira turned her attention to the Major, and he nodded his head.

"Good," she replied. "Major Dobrik, select several of the higher Leveled soldiers to accompany Captain Reivyn down below. Serilla, you go with them as well."

"Yes, my lady," Major Dobrik replied. He immediately turned to his staff and started giving out instructions to them to gather some soldiers to follow Reivyn down below.

It wasn't just finding troops to go with Reivyn to check out the bottom of the hole. The Major and his staff were busy issuing orders for the captains to immediately send their men off to other urgent missions. There were thousands of escaped spiders roaming the desert, and they needed to begin chasing them down. The rest of Kayzor's army should be arriving soon, but nobody knew if Kayzor had already issued them updated orders or not, so meeting up with them was another imperative task.

Kefira had tried to get into contact with Kayzor, but he had apparently been too busy to actually speak to her to answer her questions. She had informed everyone that he was definitely okay, though, as he had responded to her request with a pulse of Mana to the communication device. Even though he and his elite speed troops were strong and competent, they had thousands of spiders to defend against, and a lot of civilians to protect.

It was only a couple of minutes before several soldiers arrived to go with Reivyn. He could have just selected his own soldiers from his company but considering where they were going and the possible dangers, Major Dobrik and Kefira wanted the most experienced adventurers to go with Reivyn. This mission was more akin to a delve than a military operation, and even though all of the volunteers were adventurers, not everyone was of the same caliber. Unsurprisingly, Jekle was one of the ones selected by the Major and his staff. Three Mages had also been chosen from the Mage Corps to go with them.

"Lieutenant Kaerl," Reivyn approached the logistics officer as the soldiers assembled and were briefed on their mission. "We're going to need some rope."

"Ahh, Captain Reivyn," Kaerl smiled at Reivyn. "I told you it wouldn't be long before I had to address you as 'sir,' sir. How much rope do you need?"

"Well, we have our own with our gear, but this hole is extremely deep. It won't be enough, so we'll need several lines of it tied together to descend into the depths. The entrance to the caves below was located here, and I had thought that the lizaldon settlement and spider caves were actually considerably further away from this entrance, but it would appear that the caves spiral down without one realizing it if they don't have a great sense of direction. I'm guessing that we might need all of the rope you have, just in case."

"Ok, that's not a problem. I mean, that's what we have the supplies for. Let me round my men up and have them go through our storage pouches to find it for you."

"Thanks."

It's good to work with a competent supply officer, Reivyn thought. Not like that other jerk located at the headquarters. He would have told me that if he gave me the rope, then he wouldn't have any more.

Lieutenant Kaerl gathered his men up, and they began sifting through their supplies to gather as much rope as they could. Reivyn also instructed the gathered soldiers for the mission to go back to their company to get some from them as well.

Once a large number of ropes had been gathered, they took some time to tie them together. They didn't have any gear that would allow them to rapidly repel down into the caves, but everyone was Tier 3 and supernaturally strong, so it wouldn't be any trouble to climb down the normal way.

Reivyn led his task force to the hole, having to navigate walking through the field of spider corpses. They weren't like people, though, and none of them were pretending to be dead to escape the massacre or ambush them along the way. They first had to clear a space around the hole and roll some large boulders in place to secure their ropes to, but that didn't take that much time, especially with Reivyn and the Mages assisting with their Earth magic.

"I'm not entirely sure what to expect below, but there might be some stragglers from the Dungeons. Based on how they were behaving with storming up here and attacking us, though, I don't know if that's the case. But just in case, make sure you're able to get to a weapon quickly and easily at all times as you descend. The spiders won't have any trouble attacking you while you're still up in the air against the wall."

Reivyn was one to lead from the front, so he tossed his rope down into the depths and immediately began climbing down. The rest of the adventurer soldiers quickly followed suit, and a group of 20 experienced delvers was quickly descending into the dark cavern. Noon was several hours away, still, so the sun wasn't in a position to shine directly down into the hole.

The hole at the bottom of the cave wasn't uniform, and there were several pockets on the way down where there was no wall to brace oneself against. That wasn't a problem for Reivyn and the adventurers, though, as they could easily just continue climbing down hand over hand. They didn't even need to climb the ropes in the traditional way in Reivyn's Dreams where they had to brace themselves with their legs for support, and the descent, despite being quite far, didn't take all that long.

Upon reaching the bottom of the hole, Reivyn immediately began scanning the area for hostile creatures. He sent several orbs of Light into the air to illuminate the area below, but his caution was unnecessary as there were no lingering threats. Reivyn waited for the rest of the soldiers to climb down and assemble together, and then he led them along the wall to find the Dungeons he had come from.

He didn't know exactly where they were relative to where they had climbed down, so it took them several minutes to find the location of the Dungeons. Since Reivyn was able to light their path using his Mana instead of stumbling about in the pitch black trying to avoid a nightmare creature, they were able to move at a fast pace.

"Looks like my speculation was correct," Reivyn said to himself.

Reivyn felt the presence of a couple of Dungeons as they neared the hub. The ascent of the Spider Matriarch had altered the landscape down here a bit, and the portals to the Dungeons were no longer located in their own little private alcoves. Several Dungeons could be seen plain as day. Reivyn had only seen Dungeons that blended into the environment and transitioned seamlessly up to this point, but with the walls having crumbled down, it was easy to spot the distortion in the air.

Reivyn had speculated that there could possibly be seven or eight Boss Dungeons down here when he first arrived, but there were only two that they could see. With his Mana Sight, Reivyn could see Mana trickling out of the entrances to the Dungeons, but there was no corruption of Abyss Mana associated with it like from the Revenant Dungeon. He could also see that the amount of Mana coming out was slowly decreasing.

It seems like these two were damaged, and the others were destroyed, Reivyn speculated. Based on the Mana seeping out slowly reducing over time, I would guess that they're self-healing.

The group continued moving forward as Reivyn searched for any telltale signs of the Abyss Gate when Reivyn suddenly spotted a figure walking in the distance. Reivyn held his hand up to halt the men following him.

"Hello?" He called out.

His voice echoed against the cave wall, but the figure didn't respond. It just kept walking about aimlessly. Reivyn moved forward to get a better look at the person who was down here against all odds, and as he got closer, he realized he could see right through the person. Reivyn frowned as the features of the individual shifted to look like a completely different person as he got a better look.

"What is that? Some sort of ghost?" One of the adventurers exclaimed.

As Reivyn and the others watched the transparent individual walking about, a familiar-looking tiny orb floated over and merged with the apparition. As it was drawn into the person, its transparency was reduced by a fraction and it appeared more solid.

"Ahhh!" One of the soldiers let out a scream, and Reivyn turned to see that another apparition had walked right next to the person from behind.

The ghosts, as Reivyn thought of them now, didn't make any noise, and he couldn't Sense them with any of his Skills. He and the others frantically looked around, and they realized that there were several of them wandering around, not paying attention to anything going on around them.

"I don't know if mundane weapons can do anything to these creatures, but they don't appear hostile, yet," Reivyn said. "If anyone can infuse Mana into their attacks, then be prepared to do so, and if you can't, I or one of the Mages will infuse some into your weapons."

Reivyn quickly followed that up by doing just that. He and the three Mages infused their Mana into the weapons of over half of the adventurers, and they continued to look around for the source of the apparitions. They hadn't been a thing the last time Reivyn had been down here.

In just a short amount of time, Reivyn spotted the source of the ghosts. In a spot where a Dungeon would have been located, the outlines of a broken gateway could clearly be seen. Half of it had been severed and lay on the ground, and as Reivyn looked at it, one of those tiny orbs sprung into existence and started floating around.

The orb bobbed around, not doing anything or going in any particular direction for a while. One of the ghosts walked nearby, and the orb seemed to immediately notice it, though, and it headed straight to the transparent person. They merged together, and the features of the ghost, like the first one they had seen, shifted to look like a completely different person.

"What is going on? Why do these things keep shifting to look like different people?" One of the Mages asked.

"Do you not see the little orbs floating around?" Reivyn asked. As they spoke, another one popped into existence. Several of the adventurers shared looks with each other before turning back to Reivyn.

"Uh... no?" The Mage answered.

"Ok, well, these little orbs are popping up at this broken gate, and they merge with the ghosts. When they do, the ghosts shift."

"Is this where you said you came out of the Dungeon, sir?" Jekle asked. Reivyn nodded his head. "Then is that the gate you came through?"

Reivyn turned his attention back to the broken gateway. He hadn't gotten a good look at it before his attention was arrested by the orb, but he had suspected that it was the gate leading to the Abyss as Jekle suggested. There was no Abyss Mana seeping out of it, though, so he hadn't been 100% sure until he could inspect it closer. Upon doing so, he realized that was exactly what the broken gateway was.

"Hmm. If I had to guess, I would say these orbs are the same things I saw on the other side of the gate that was floating about between the Realms," Reivyn said.

"It sounds like they're souls," one of the Mages put forth. Reivyn turned to him with a questioning look, and the man continued. "Legends say the River of Souls traverses the universe between Realms. When people and sapient creatures die, their souls are sent out of the Realms to seek either reincarnation or ascendance. Nobody knows for sure, but the legends speak of it and talk about how reincarnated souls are wiped clean by the Realm barriers."

"Huh, well it would seem like these ones aren't getting wiped clean," Reivyn said, stroking his chin.

Reivyn activated his Mana Sight and inspected the gateway, all the while more orbs occasionally popped into existence. He didn't notice anything overt right away, but he could tell that there was something strange happening with the gateway. He infused his Veridical Affinity into his eyes, and the truth was laid bare. He pulled out his communication device and immediately activated it to contact Kefira up above.

"Fira, I'm going to need you to come down here," Reivyn said.

"Why, what did you find?" Kefira's voice transmitted through the device. Serilla walked up and frowned at Reivyn. She had been mostly keeping to herself, but her interest was piqued upon hearing Reivyn call for Kefira to join them.

"There's a rent in reality down here where the gateway used to be, but none of us have the Space Affinity," he replied. "And from what I can tell, it's expanding."