"The high tide ended yesterday," Astrid said, rolling her shoulders as the party walked up to the Dungeon entrance. "We haven't come in the day after high tide without having culled their numbers before that, so I don't know how many of the shimmerbugs might be in here. First things first, Muti, you're leading the way. Like before, we're looking to avoid all contact as we come in. When we push further, as soon as we get into orange territory, I want everybody but Felix and I to be constantly consuming the grapes Vera gave us. She gave them to us for free, we have literally hundreds of them, and they last for half an hour each. If they do what she said they should do, then they should make sure that nobody is completely ambushed by an orange and it's worth it to just have a permanent uptime with them.
"Felix and I will start doing the same once we've gone two kilometers past our first encounter with an orange. We don't know how powerful the reds will be, but, barring anything going wrong, we'll change that today."
The reviews of the plan for the day that they did before going into the Dungeon had initially felt awkward to Astrid. After all, they all knew what they were there to do, they knew how to do it. There was no reason to act like anybody would be surprised. However, as they had spent more time working together, the reminders of what the goals were for the day served to ground the party and refocus them on their goals.
When Astrid finished speaking, she looked at each member of the party, and they all nodded. Benedict reached into his spatial pouch and pulled one of the grapes out, plucking it from the stem as he put it in the pocket of his duster. Though the fruit that Vera had given them were grapes, and apparently grew in the same way, Astrid had taken a little while to accept calling them that. They were an off-putting brown, and each grape was about four centimeters in diameter and tough, with the taste being like mulch more than fruit. Unlike the rest of the fruits that Vera had sold them, the brown grapes were unappetizing in every way.
That said, Vera had promised their usefulness, even if they had been a failure in being pretty and delicious. Today, the Wanderers would put that to the test.
Into the Dungeon they walked, and shadows from Muti spread out to cover the party. In reality, there was very little need for her to use her aura at this time, but the party had all resolved themselves to stop being so relaxed. With Shadow Aura cloaking them, the Wanderers quickly made their way through the first handful of kilometers. There was, perhaps, a slightly higher concentration of indigo shimmerbugs on the fringes, but not by much. The only real difference between the environment that hadn't been hunted being that, here on the edges of the Dungeon proper, there was the occasional blue.
The blues, which had outleveled them only four weeks ago, was now 10 levels lower than them, and though it had a better growth rate than the violet and indigos, it still was only about as strong as a hobgoblin of its level. Not even an orange had the level by level growth of any of the Wanderers, though perhaps the reds would. The oranges were superior to the Wanderers in attribute totals not only because of their higher levels, but also because of the boost that all monsters went through each time they crossed a watershed.
Astrid rebuked herself as she found her mind wandering. Yes, she and her party had grown quickly. No, they couldn't be complacent.
In about ten minutes, the party had made their way five kilometers deep into the Dungeon, and to the furthest distance where they had ever seen an orange. At Astrid's signal, Benedict, Skandr, and Muti all threw one of the grapes in their mouths, chewing on it with a crunch nearly that of an apple sounding out. Skandr's face twisted a bit as he finished the first bite, and then threw the other half of the grape in his mouth and finished it off as fast as he could. Muti threw the entire grape in her mouth, chewed twice, and swallowed audibly. Astrid imagined she could see the bulge of the largely unchewed grape going down her friend's throat, but she also had tasted the grapes. They tasted like mud and only slightly of grape, and getting them down sooner rather than later wasn't a bad idea.
Benedict, of course, put on a whole show of disgust, but still only took about five seconds to chew the grape and swallow. Then, he pulled his canteen out of his spatial pouch and took a few bracing swallows before making another face.
"If you want something that tastes better," Astrid said quietly, "then it's your job to convince Vera to give it to us."
He waved his hand dismissively at her, but that was all the joking that the party allowed themselves. While the oranges weren't especially dangerous to them when the party was prepared, they were still remarkably good at sneaking up, and the reds were, of course, going to be even better.
The party pushed onward and managed to make it another kilometer before being forced into a fight. The brawl with the orange's swarm went quick, and it was only about forty seconds before the fight was complete. This time, Muti had been targeted by the attempted stun, and though it still had some effect on her, it was only enough to slow her reactions for about ten seconds.
"That means with the reds," Astrid said as she and Felix carved the regeneration organs from the orange and three yellows, "we need to make sure that they target Felix or myself. If something even stronger than that hits one of you three, it might take you out of the fight completely."
"To say nothing of their capstone Skill," Skandr said, his eyes peeled and staring at their surroundings. "Every new Skill has gotten stronger than the last, so I'm willing to bet that the final one is the strongest."
"That's true," Astrid nodded. "However, with everybody's Skills and our practice now, I think that we're ready to at least encounter them. Worst comes to worst, I think we can survive long enough to run away if necessary."
"And, as soon as we are even suspecting that we're getting close to one," Benedict said, looking at Astrid for confirmation, "we're totally done with holding back. Right?"
"Of course."
The rest of the party settled even more into a serious stance, ready to protect themselves however they needed to. They'd gone through contingencies and plans on how to extract themselves, each plan adjusted slightly for which members of the party were in most danger at the time and how to extract each person safely. Skandr had a new spell in his rings for that specifically, and he was looking forward to an opportunity to use it.
As ready as they could be, the Wanderers made their way forward.
***
It wasn't long before the party hit level 77. As always, Astrid was the last to reach it, given that she had been, for the past two tiers, anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 experience behind her party, simply due to the length of time it had taken for her to complete her evolutionary quest compared to the others. Even so, the full recovery and additional attributes were all welcome as they continued into the forest, disgusting, massive grapes in hand and mouth.
Now, instead of the occasional red sprout, there were plenty of red vine-trees, and though they looked and felt no different than the rest except for the color, the surrounding light going from a warmer yellow and orange to a more ominous red made Astrid's heart beat a bit faster and her instincts a bit twitchier. Just the constant reminder of the amplified danger she was walking in kept her from being able to relax even a little.
And it was all the better that she hadn't relaxed.
Muti's hard work with being able to better understand the subtle hints of a shimmerbug's attack bore fruit. She stiffened and, unlike usual, shouted out, "They are here!"
Astrid, in a second, activated Heroic Aura and Unconquerable Aura, as well as Body Surge. Everybody else went through their own quick and prepared lists to make sure they were at their absolute strongest, Benedict's Skills and Skandr's spells both covering the rest of the party. Once that was done, over the course of just over a single second, Astrid then spent two charges of Physique to make sure that everybody was then at their peak.
Her efforts were just in time. She staggered under the effect of an orange's stun, stronger than the others she'd experienced, but was fine after just a quick twinge in her stomach. Muti and Benedict were also hit and recovered quickly, though they did obviously suffer more of a negative effect than Astrid herself. Skandr, however, was obviously hit by the red. He locked up, similar to the first time that the party had encountered an orange ambush, but, with a twitch of his finger, he was able to activate his enchanted grimoire. A somehow pure wind blew from the pages of the book and into his nostrils, and his shoulders swelled as he managed to push off the worst effects of the attack.
"They are surrounding us," Muti shouted.
Astrid and Felix stepped to different sides of the party, making sure that their two most vulnerable, Skandr and Benedict, were between them, as Muti stayed close for now, but ready to ambush and fight.
"Any sign on what the new red Skill—" Astrid started to ask, her words a blur, as the much larger Felix suddenly grunted.
"It's a mind-affecting Skill. Single target. Went for me. Felt it coming and resisted with Impenetrable Fortress."
"Finally, some good news," Astrid said, a smile crossing her face. A mental attack? That was one thing that her party was uniquely well suited to resist, between her own aura and Skills, as well as Felix's.
There was no more time for conversation among themselves as their surroundings exploded with shimmerbugs. Though there were probably a total of thirty violets and indigos, they didn't seem to actually be a part of the assault force. They were scattered between at least thirty blues and just as many greens. These seemed to be the main fighting force for the swarm, but fifteen yellows and three oranges also came charging. The various different colors seemed to have scattered themselves among the swarm and were charging all together from every side.
Being surrounded like this was severely to the detriment of the much smaller force, and since Astrid and Felix were basically fine, they each grabbed their assigned backliner and simply charged forward through the weakest section of the swarm, trusting Muti to take care of herself. Felix, boosted by Inspiring Song and Guardian's Avatar, led the way, cutting through everything that came close. His legs were long enough that, for anything smaller than a green, he could step over or step on them, crushing indigos and violets to paste while ignoring the blues, due to their shield Skill.
Astrid followed after him, swinging her hammer at whatever monster wasn't immediately dealt with by Felix's charge. She killed four greens and twice as many blues before the party escaped the ambush.
As soon as they were mostly free, Muti reappeared at Astrid's side, pointing with the midnight Mithril blade in her right hand towards where the red was. The Champion nodded back and, now not in quite as much immediate danger, she put Skandr down and then pressed into the thronging mass of chitin.
Shimmerbugs clambered over each other, each one attempting to slice into her, to bite her, to bear her down to the ground. With Body Surge, she was far too strong for that, and dealt death with every swing of her arm.
Even in her strongest form she'd ever been, Astrid could tell the difference between the boost granted by an orange's aura and that of the red, which she hadn't seen until today. The shield Skills of the greens were much sturdier now, not letting the secondary impacts from her echo stone reach the bodies of the monsters underneath. Even so, Astrid was in a more than good enough situation to simply swing a second time. The greens, each at most level 75, were only occasionally tough enough to take two hits from her hammer.
Astrid's shoulder started to ache already, her full force going into every strike. Fortunately, Skandr had recovered enough to use Microburst, and with his feet planted firmly on the ground, the spell he summoned was also boosted by his Boon of Fortification. There was no experimentation to be had right now, as a storm cloud swirled out of his sleeves and gathered into an undulating cloud only a few meters over his head.
Lightning crackled and the spell's bolts, only lightly tinged with red, started lashing out at every bug that attempted to skirt around the party to surround them once again. The shields from blue and above held up remarkably well against the spell, but Skandr focused on the indigos and violets first as Muti pulled out her rope darts and started smashing them into every shield of a green or blue as she bolted around. Instead of being amplified by any elemental mana, the hand-sized blades swung around and crashed almost as a pair into each shield within five meters of the Barbarian.
With dazzling sparks, the shields were destroyed, and the frontline of Astrid and Felix was holding strong.
However, the shimmerbugs were done reorganizing themselves, and two oranges appeared at the same time, each one with three yellows at its side.
"Felix, step forward!" Astrid commanded, and the frontliner did as she said. As he gained a little bit of distance between himself and the backliners, he gave the shimmerbugs more space to close in on him as he continued throwing out Skills to force the monsters' focus onto him. Instead of focusing on killing, he too destroyed the shields of the greens nearby, and their numbers quickly fell as thicker bolts of lightning, as thick as Astrid's thigh, smashed down from the heavens in sets of three.
Skandr continued moving his fingers through the sigils required for his spell as a small cloud dipped into his pocket and pulled out two fluorescent blueberries and put them into his mouth. He chewed, and the mana around him burst into further activity as his mana reserves were recovered.
The kill notifications started to pile up in Astrid's eyes as the weakest members of the swarm were dealt with. Almost half of the greens were already killed between Felix, Muti, and her own efforts, combined with Skandr, but all of the yellows and oranges remained, while they still hadn't seen the red.
Well, it was time to deal with that issue right now, as, on her side, an orange with three yellows was approaching. Only a handful of meters behind it, two more yellows thundered forward, their forelegs glowing with a deadly Skill. A difficult fight, then.
Astrid smiled widely. Pushing a huge reserve of mana and stamina into her hammer's head for a Spectral Graviton, Astrid stepped forward and smashed her hammer into the closest yellow shield. It cracked, and her second strike broke it. The other yellows and the orange rushed to get to her, and Astrid spent a charge of Physique to bring herself back up to full, targeting Felix, Muti, and Benedict to also recover. Then, with the Spectral Graviton and Physique strengthening her, she stepped forward with a scream and uppercut the yellow in front of her.
The hammer lodged into the bottom of the yellow's head, but it didn't die as it fell onto its back. With a quick thought, Astrid released the hammer and let it remain inside of the monster, the deathly energy ripping it apart from within as it flew back. Then, she braced herself against her shield on the left as two yellows wrapped around the shield and stabbed into her stomach, thighs, and back with their sharp forelegs. They managed to find small chinks in her armor, slicing into her body, but not dealing anything more than surface-level wounds.
She braced herself against the two yellows as the orange stepped over the twitching body of the yellow she'd hammered her weapon into. Astrid grimaced as she pushed Power- and Fortitude-aligned mana into her hands and caught one of the monster's legs in her right arm while the other hamstrung her. Her leg went numb, threatening to fall from underneath her, but Astrid twisted her body to use the pressure from the yellows on her left to slide over the top of the orange.
A screeching hiss filled the air as the metal of her armor scraped across the defensive carapace of the orange, and she slid down its back as it screeched at her and whipped around. Her leg screamed in pain at the rough treatment, but she ignored it for now. Fortunately, she was on the other side of the orange now, and pulled the hammer out of the lower jaw of the now-dead yellow. The kill notification flashed in her eyes for a brief moment as Astrid trusted in Felix's help to keep her healthy. Instead of using another charge of Physique just yet, Astrid took her hammer in hand and broke the orange's shield with a flurry of blows.
The melee continued like that for another few blistering seconds, Astrid allowing herself to take small wounds as she trusted in the recovery rate of her supporting Bard and harried the orange. Even as she did so, her goal wasn't the orange, but instead to find opportunities to strike the yellows. In a few seconds, she'd killed a second yellow before Muti appeared underneath a third, stabbing her swords into its belly and bisecting it. It stayed alive for a few moments, but it was crippled, and the Lethal Shadow dispatched it before the other shimmerbugs could turn towards her.
Astrid and Muti fought side by side for a few more seconds, killing a third shimmerbug with a quick combination. As they did so, the orange caught Muti's leg in its jaws and bit deeply.
Muti screamed in pain and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Astrid ignored the two remaining yellows as she roared a challenge at the orange. It rushed towards her, jaws snapping, and Astrid smashed it twice, once on each side. The echoed sounds of her hammer filled the air with a boo-boom, boo-boom. The orange's shield and most of its protections died at that, and a pillar of lightning smashed into its back.
It twitched in pain, and before Astrid closed back in with it, a blade of wind shot down from the cloud overhead and decapitated it.
The first orange died like that, and as she dealt killing blows to the two now unsupported yellows, Astrid turned her attention back to the other side of the battlefield.
While she had been distracted, the other two oranges had closed in on Felix. Evidently, one kept trying to wrench its attention away and towards the backline, but the Guardian remained steadfast. His body was covered in a multitude of liquids, chiefly the ichor of shimmerbugs and his own blood. Even so, Astrid could tell that he was largely fine, Impenetrable Fortress keeping all of the small strikes from piercing his flesh and the wounds that would be grievous to something much more manageable with Benedict's continued support.
Skandr and Benedict both continued to engage in the fight as well, though Benedict was focused on healing Muti's leg. He shoved a strawberry, a healing berry, into her mouth. She nodded once at that, standing and limping once before then settling her weight more firmly on her wounded leg.
But where was the—
Astrid felt the rumbling of the red behind her and barely turned in time to take the attack on her shield instead of straight to her back. The wind was forced out of her chest, and she wheezed in pain as she tumbled on the ground.
She struggled to her feet, but the red was hardly finished. In fact, the real fight had only just begun, with ten surviving yellows, two oranges, and one red all here on the battlefield, most of them fresh, and the Wanderers at least lightly wounded.
"Come on! This is what we're here for!" she shouted at the red as it continued charging towards her.