During the transition to the other side of the world, the surroundings spinned, knotted, and twisted around with surreal energy as Kade felt goosebumps around his skin which indicated that he wasn't quite used to this.
He felt his stomach churned as his entire body… no, molecules to cell split and reassembled back together as his weak, fragile self travelled to an entirely different world.
Aria and the others felt the same, but only subtly and were already accustomed to it after a long time as a hunter… Well, sort of.
All this didn't take more than a second as usual when they appeared on the other side of the glimmering portal.
They stood at the mouth of a dark cavernous tunnel as they heard the distant drops of liquid from the ceiling. The stalactites and stalagmites protruded from the highs and lows of the cave. Jagged, rough dark surrounding walls stretched afar with bioluminescent fungi that clung around with a faint glow in the darkness.
Aria was the first to take the step forward, as the leader of this temporal squad before the rest followed as Ren raised his palm, and then, a burst of golden flame erupted which made an illuminated circle over the hunters.
They moved forward as Aria unrolled the parchment map and studied it again for a while, before explaining her knowledge.
"As from the diagram of the estimated map, there is a structure deep inside a chamber that bears the dead boss's domain."
Her gaze never left and still examining the map with a precise eye.
"And if there's no other than the unknown structure, then I reckon that it's the thing that is responsible for this incident, now."
"Let's get this over with, and I hope this won't take long before I get hungry," Gregory said, peering from behind at the map.
Mia grimaced and sneered.
"Are you for real? If so, then you should've gotten yourself a kiddy meal pack, I mean a big fuck like you needs large grams of diet."
Gregory scratched the back of his head as Arsen snickered.
Along the way as they strode forward, Kade at the back position, didn't hesitate as he brought out his notepad, then he scribbled in Aria's initial hypnosis.
{An unknown structure that remains after the raid, suspected to be the thing behi~}
Before he would even finish, something snatched his notepad in a quick blur. And with a frown, his gaze landed on no other than Mia, who had just used her enhanced speed ability with no problem to snatch it.
She held it high in a mocking manner, before she crumbled it whole without any slight effort.
"We don't write homeworks here, Mr!"
The sight of her always sent fear within him, but also a creeping and boiling indignation as well, which he had never shown.
"Now how do you expect me to gather my own personal report?"
"Duuh! Use your head, dimwit."
A furious frown contorted Kade's face, his fist clenched unconsciously then he realized that Arsen was enjoying the scene that was about to unfold, before he turned and ignored the whole thing.
They matched deeper in a pair of rows with Aria and Ren at the front, Mia and burly Gregory in the middle, and then Arsen and Kade took the rear as their crunching footsteps echoed the empty, deserted dungeon tunnel.
At a point they reached an area that was littered with empty exoskeleton husks of what looked like a giant bug.
Only its chitinous head that mostly seemed unperturbed by the passage of time, with a large razor sharp mandible. Its thorax and abdomen were severely damaged from the previous raid.
Aria crouched to the maimed corpse of the giant rustmite, trying to avoid the spit acid that had ruptured from its gland sack as she placed both hands over it's large head and shut her eyes in order to sense influx, or anything.
After a while, she opened her eyes slowly, and then with a sigh, stood up.
"There's no speck of mana within it and it's probably not anything that has to do with this incident."
She glanced around with scanning eyes.
"But this is weird because there's no energy around this dungeon."
Ren gazed at the dead corpse of the giant Rustmite. "Well the corrosive acid still looks preserved." He said, also crouching to the corpse.
"The sack must have maintained its quality over the passage of time before it couldn't hold much longer and burst open recently," Aria reckoned carefully. "Well, we have to go deeper to find out more about this creepy dungeon."
And then they continued their journey through the wide central path of the tunnel deeper within the embrace of total darkness, guided by the radiance of Ren's flame.
All around were dried corpses of Rustmite that were stained with their own fetid acid. The bioluminescent fungi that clung to the wall glowed with dim ghostly lights as they all walked past it, as if activated by their presence.
It was like an endless path shrouded in shadows and the eerie distant drops of water.
Aria occasionally placed her hands over the jagged calcium stalagmites for any trace of mana, but was pointless after all; there's nothing in it to find.
While Mia with high intuition would remain calm to sense any triggering influx of mana around the surrounding.
But nothing seemed to happen as they strolled deeper.
After what seemed like half an hour or so, they reached a point where the path narrowly branched into different directions to form a network of labyrinths.
Each path stretched into the darkness with eerie silence, but the wide central tunnel still went deeper into what looked like an opened space.
Gregory hesitated for a while, before he pushed on.
"Come on, we're almost there. I can see it, the chamber of the mysterious thing waits ahead."
Arsen sneered.
"Quit yammering because you're hungry and get into focus, we need to be accurate about this."
As soon as they reached the entrance to an open space of a dome-shaped chamber, they saw a long mountainous anthill with so many holes as entrances all around its surface. Some parts of the structure had been crumbled and broken from the previous raid.
And right at the center of the chamber stood a giant goblet brimming with long dark flame. The structure looked like it was cut off from the ground of the jagged and rough cave itself, and that's not all. It was etched with a shimmering letter that looked like the Gamma symbol which glowed faintly.
A strange, unwitty and cold aura rippled out from it like a source of energy.
"Eureka! We've found it! C'mon let's go in"
Gregory exclamated at the sight of the cavernous altar.
But before the full celebration could start, Mia gave a startled yelp as she flinched sharply like she was stung, which made the rest of them jump off their feet in a startled stance.
"What's the matter? Have you sensed anything?" Aria asked in a shocked tone.
Mia's body shivered as she glanced all over the surrounding area.
"It's… it's everywhere, I can feel it, the universal mana… is changing!"
She squealed as if the entire place was going to collapse.
"The structural influx is turning different, complicated and more hectic."
Just like she had said, Kade began to feel a subtle flow of energy around him, not just from the altar, but from the whole dungeon.
His stomach was knotted and twisted.
And he knew that feeling, which was during the transition, but this time, it felt ten times… no, dozens of times worse.
The nauseous sensation struck him like a jolt as he fell to all four. The side of his vision blurred with swirling images as a bright blinding radiance engulfed them all with the surrounding.
A gust of mana rushed in and out of his body like flowing essence in high speed which felt like his mind, nerve, and soul were going to tear and blow up.
As such, he felt like he and the whole dungeon was submerged and drowning into a pool of cold shivering mana energy.
He couldn't decipher anything while the whole place was consumed with the bright blinding radiance of mysterious light.
It was certain that the others were witnessing it as well while they screamed in shock… well, in the embrace of the blinding light.
And then, after what felt like a long unruly magical ride, Kade's body reconstructed firmly as his vision adjusted to clarity to take in the sight before him.
Then he froze in horror.