The infinity dungeon 203

Chapter 203

Michael started running, masking his footsteps with an explosion right where he had been standing moments before. His magic made the ground explode, and immediately after that the worm followed. It tunneled through the dense rock, lifting layers of stone and sediment, making the whole side of the mountain bulge upwards and then pop like an oversized pimple.

“Fucking worm, wasn’t it supposed to stick to the valleys?”

Michael cursed when the shockwave reached him and made him lose his footing. He fell to the ground, using magic to cushion his fall while still gripping the stolen golden ring he got from the dead man’s body.

The head of the worm reached the apex of its trajectory more than a hundred feet in the air. It reoriented itself, somehow managing to rotate and lock in on Michael even in mid-air, detecting him even though he was standing still, and then began to fall.

It was like a ten-story building was falling down on him. He moved to the side, slipping the ring on his finger for convenience, and realized that he would not be able to get out from under the gigantic monster in time. As he conjured up a shield made of raw mana, he felt a pulse of energy coming from the ring.

Energy he was very familiar with: Qi.

He seized it, shoving it into his hastily erected shield. It did not obey his will, however. It was not his own energy to command, and he lacked the manipulation skill he once had. Instead of empowering his shield, the Qi rushed to his Inner Space, wreaking havoc with his collectors and sending a surge of magic that took his batteries offline.

The protective mana shield flickered around him and then vanished, making him feel naked. 

He looked up. The worm loomed above him, getting bigger and bigger as it fell, and it was no more than a second away from crushing him with its enormous bulk. Even with the raw magic shield, surviving would have been nothing short of a gamble, but without it?

Michael was toast.

“Icarus–”

“The Temple!” the AI cried out, “It’s absorbing the Qi!”

Inside the Inner Space, all the rampant Qi was suddenly pulled away from Michael’s machines by a strong suction force. It tried to rebel, thrashing and clinging to the collectors and batteries, but it only delayed the inevitable. As it flowed into the Temple, its last dregs of defiance managed to break a collector as it clung to it until it broke down into scrap metal, and then it was gone.

In the real world, less than half a second had passed. Soon the ground rumbled again, but this time the source was not the falling worm but something else, a ponderous force displacing stone and soil.

Michael’s eyes widened when he saw what was happening. The strange patch of green moss close to the dead corpse was boiling, bubbling up and outwards. Parts of it had been launched up in the air when the worm had erupted from the ground, some of it had clung to the monster’s carapace while other bits of it had ended up in its gullet.

Now they were growing, multiplying like cancerous cells, covering every inch of the worm’s body in glowing green foam. Michael could feel the magic fueling the growth, the Qi from the dead man’s ring being absorbed by the Temple and used to make the moss grow. 

He wondered if getting access to Qi had been the Temple’s goal all along when the wave of plant life reached him, but then it parted around him like he was some sort of nature god and embedded itself in the stony ground of the mountain. It kept growing, like a tide of green goo, leaving only a small patch of barren stone where Michael stood.

It cushioned and redirected the worm’s fall away from him, sending the monster tumbling down the side of the mountain. Halfway down, the worm exploded, more glowing moss bursting from its orifices and tearing its flesh from the inside.

By the time what was left of the monster reached the valley below, the ring was completely drained of Qi. The moss lost its magical luster, and the Temple inside Michael’s Inner Space turned to face the star and bask in its light once more and then dimmed, going dormant. Its signature was even weaker than it had been before, the last of its energy utterly spent.

The moss did not disappear, however. It stuck to the rocks and coated what had to be half the valley in dark green patches, alive but no longer magically enhanced. Amidst the blooming of plant life, Michael could see the glimmer of silver and a soft light blue glow.

“I’ll be damned. That’s my Force Lance!”

He started walking down towards it, but the bright sky suddenly turned scorching as the first rays of sun illuminated the side of the mountain. Seeing that the bottom of the valley was still in the shade, Michael tried to call upon his magic to speed up his descent, but failed.

“Icarus, what’s going on?”

“The whole mana system’s fried!” the AI replied, “I’m trying to get it back online, but that wave of Qi really did a number on the unshielded machines.”

“All of the machines are unshielded! Who knew that the Inner Space could be attacked like that?”

The ground was treacherous, but Michael could not slow down in his race to get to the bottom of the valley before the sunlight reached him. The top half of the mountain behind him was already being cooked by the harsh radiation, and the moss where the worm had attacked him was wilting and smoking.

When Michael looked again, it had caught fire.

“Icarus!”

“I know! I’m working with what little emergency energy I managed to salvage here. Give me a minute.”

“We don’t have a minute!” cried Michael. Looking up, he could see the disc of the sun about to crest the mountain giving him shade. “I don’t want to leave the Force Lance behind again, but most of all I don’t want to die! You either restore some magic, or we are cooked!”

Inside Michael’s Inner Space, a jolt of energy ran through the collectors and the batteries. The mana grid flickered, turned on, then off, then on again.

“There! It’s not stable but it should be usable.”

Michael immediately summoned a shield. Moments later, the fierce light of the sun blasted it like a physical force. The shield flickered, occasionally dimming and then returning to normal strength, letting some light through and slowly cooking Michael alive.

He wasted no time, using magic to locate a cave and making a beeline for it. He threw himself inside, skin and clothes smoldering hot, and hair singed all over again. He patted down some fabric that was about to catch fire, then used magic to cool himself down.

“Aaand the Force Lance is over there.”

He looked at the valley longingly. The moss soon caught fire, and the Force Lance disappeared in an inferno of flames and smoke.

Michael inhaled, exhaled, and tried his best to keep his rage under control.

“Icarus.”

“Yes, Michael.”

“Is the mana grid under control?”

The AI made a noise.

“What’s that?”

“Er, depends what you want to do with it,” the AI said.

Michael’s jaw clenched. He spoke through gritted teeth. “I want to retrieve the Force Lance, perhaps? What do you think?”

“Shouldn't you wait until it’s nighttime?”

Michael wanted to laugh out of sheer exasperation. “Again? Hell no.”

“Last time it was a coincidence. An unfortunate one, but still a coincidence. It should not happen again. In fact, I am not detecting any–”

“Nope. Had I grabbed the weapon as soon as I could last time, the worm would have been mincemeat the moment it decided to fuck with me. Instead, I’ve been forced to play cat and mouse with it for days. I’m not leaving the Force Lance there one moment longer than I need to.”

“I see. You might want to hop in the Inner Space and fix a couple of things, then.”

Michael sat down, somehow managing to make the action of sitting look violent in his frustration. He closed his eyes, and found himself in space.

“Damn,” he said. It was the only thing that he managed to say.

The damage was quite extensive. All his collectors, batteries, and even the mining drone’s docking platforms were singed and burned. Half their circuits had melted when the Qi had surged through them. The Scrap Foundry had been spared only because Icarus had managed to isolate it from the mana grid in time by cutting the flow of energy to it.

Repairing the damage and the broken collector took the whole day, and some parts had to be rebuilt from scratch. Despite his earlier statements, Michael ended up retrieving his weapon well into the night. Then, clutching the Force Lance tight, he returned to the cave, plopped down on the floor, and closed his eyes. A thin layer of mana acted as a pillow, and he drifted off to sleep. 

Cursing the world, the dungeon, the worm, and the dungeon again for good measure, he slept the sleep of the dead.