Once I was reasonably confident that we wouldn’t get burned by the heat rays if we approached the central area on the ground, we started the last stretch forward. Just as earlier, the group planning to head into the dungeon proper was taking the lead, while the rest of us followed behind. The only difference was that the group in the back was now within a few metres of the one up front, instead of keeping almost a kilometre between us and them so that we wouldn’t interfere with their battles.

As we drew closer to the central area, one of the guys up front raised his fist, warning us of impending danger. It didn’t take long for said danger to manifest itself, showing just how important the warning had been, as another tendril shot out of the soil. While the tendril was quite similar to the ones we had faced earlier, those that turned out to be the legs of an artillery beast, there were some significant differences. The biggest was probably that this tendril was solitary, not part of a set like the others, while another important difference was in its thickness and length. Where the other tendrils were more akin to pillars, thick and sturdy but slow due to that, this one was long and thin, moving more like a whip than a club. And, just like the tendril earlier, it immediately tried to strike down one of the guys up front, slicing through the air at an insane speed.

Luckily, the warning had been enough to make everyone hyper-vigilant, giving the tendril’s target enough time to evade while two of the others moved in to attack, using some of the skills granted to them by the system to speed up their charge. Their first hit stopped the tendril at its base, causing the rest of it to snap around, the air cracking from the speed of the whiplash. Moments later, the second strike hit and, together with the stress from the sudden stop, was enough to sever the tendril at the base, causing it to fall to the ground and turn into the usual goop.

“Keep vigilant, I think more of these are coming,” the guy who had raised his hand earlier warned, making me frown for a moment before a realisation struck me. These tendrils weren’t just here by coincidence; they were part of the central area’s defences. The eye-towers with their heat rays made sure that approaching from the air was hazardous, even if the power of these rays wasn’t as bad as it could be. Sure, they could easily destroy my constructs, but the constructs weren’t designed to be sturdy. If I were to fly towards the structure, using my wings or cloak, I’d likely be able to withstand two, maybe even three of these rays by continuously conjuring Ice in their path, despite the elemental mismatch. However, there were over a dozen of these rays, so the question of how many rays I could withstand was somewhat moot, especially as I needed to get the group to the area.

So, with an approach through the air made difficult by these rays, the only way to reach it was on the ground, unless someone could tunnel through the burned land. I wouldn’t even want to try to go through the soil, not with the tendrils growing from it without issue and the control these cores had over it. At that point, the question wasn’t whether one would die in the attempt; the question was how painful the death would be.

While I was thinking, the group up front continued onwards, getting accosted by another tendril and dispatching it with ease, just like they had done to the first one, allowing us to continue forward. For a few minutes, we tested around, trying to see if there was any indication of where tendrils might lurk beneath the surface or if they were emerging wherever they wanted.

When I arrived at the area where the first tendril had struck, I noticed some faint tremors, prompting me to call out a warning just in time to give everyone a chance to dodge the attack of yet another tendril emerging from the same spot as the one earlier. This time, I was the one to respond, conjuring a ray of freezing cold while dodging the whipping tendril, causing it to split above the frozen spot and drop.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Thanks to a slight premonition, I was ready to react when the second tendril we had destroyed came back, too.

“They’ll probably all come back after we dispatched them, with the core hiding underground,” I called out, causing a few to curse harshly. If I was right, this was essentially a gauntlet, forcing us to continuously advance or we would get clobbered by the tendrils.

“Keep moving, destroy them on the way forward, and I’ll do so again as we move,” I ordered, unwilling to get stuck and forced to fight these tendrils again and again. Especially not given that they didn’t even give EXP, just trouble and danger.

The group up front immediately started to press forward. While they remained vigilant, their cautious and slow tactics were replaced with a much faster approach, though it was obvious that this approach was also a lot riskier. We continued following them, trimming off the tendrils that respawned after their initial destruction while we pushed forward, trying to cross the roughly five hundred metres to the dungeon entrance as quickly as possible. Hopefully, there will be some sort of safe area around said entrance, or this would be incredibly annoying. Or maybe I could make something, even if I wasn’t quite sure which elements might work in this environment.

To make matters worse, a few Bitumen soon joined the tendrils, though their numbers never grew too quickly, making them just another annoyance on our way forward.

The frantic pace took its toll. First came a few glancing hits, just bruises and the odd burn, just because somebody had been a little slow to dodge. One person even managed to get cut by one of the tendrils, its narrow tip just slim enough and fast enough to slice through skin and flesh. Not a deep wound but a painful one, made worse by the realisation that some of the burning goop was likely stuck in the wound.

Then, one of the guys near me wasn’t quick enough to avoid a whipping tendril, the impact causing the body to get tossed some five metres before he rolled a few more metres. Normally, it would have been a survivable injury, especially with dedicated magical care, but, to our horror, it turned out that the tendrils didn’t just appear around us. Or maybe he alone was enough to make more tendrils emerge, I wasn’t sure and not about to run off alone to test it. Whatever the case, his body had barely stopped when a tendril shot from the ground near him and slammed down moments later, the sound of impact one I would likely hear in a few of my nightmares.

“Keep going,” the guy in the lead shouted, well aware that watching a comrade get beaten to death wouldn’t do well for morale. But if we wanted to achieve anything, we needed to reach the central area, so we kept following the leading group. Luckily, we were almost at the centre by this point.

Just before we reached the central towers with the heat rays, a wall of tendrils shot from the ground, slamming down in unison, forcing the group up front to pull up short. There were too many to break through with their tactics, but where tactics and experience faltered, raw power could prevail.

With a snarl of my own, I activated overflow and forced out a ray of raw, elemental cold, the Astral Power causing the air around me to cloud from the sheer cold. The tendrils, on the other hand, were not as fortunate; the ray froze them solid. Now no longer able to twist and move, their residual momentum was enough to break them, making them drop like some sort of twisted icicle.

“Go,” I commanded, barely managing that single word after the magical exertion. We all made our way through the opening in their line, emerging in the central area, right next to one of the towers. Here, the heat was almost unbearable, a haze rose above the ground, and the tower next to us looked strangely liquid, but when I tested it with a bit of Ice, it proved just as solid as everything else.

“I’ll set up some shelter, then you can rest for a bit before heading down into the dungeon,” I told the others, “We’ll remain up here, keep an eye on things and wait for you to get back.”

After getting a few nods of acceptance, I set about doing my part. For once, I would have to conjure the stone for a shelter, not just pull up what I needed from the ground. This was going to be exhausting.