For Rory, one moment he had been bickering with Zoey within a dark altar room, the next he was in a brightly lit cavern, eyes widening slightly.

"Oh wow, this is interesting," Zoey said as she looked around. "It's like Journey to the Center of the Earth meets The Core."

"I'm surprised you even know those movies."

"Journey to the Center of the Earth was one of my favorites, something my mom introduced me to, though I'm pretty sure it was one of her older assistants who had the idea. The Core was playing once on a plane I was on."

Looking around, Rory couldn't deny that the two movies were a good approximation. They were in a massive underground cavern, with a giant column of magma running vertically through the ceiling and floor, directly in the center. Dotted around the cavern were what almost appeared to be hot springs, except they were filled with terawa and were immensely deep. Scattered about, fires were burning atop the stone as if it were a natural occurrence. Still, even stranger was the fact that lush green moss and vegetation grew there, along with a pungent, spiced smell in the air that reminded Rory of cinnamon and pepper.

"That aside, you feel that, right?" Zoey asked, a look somewhere between apprehension and anticipation.

"Yeah… She's coming."

An aura was rapidly approaching, rising from the depths of one of the hot springs, the presence of a Tier 8 opponent.

"Chain, quick!" Rory yelled as Zoey nodded, flicking something his direction, and just in time, too. From one of the ponds, a jetson of terawa exploded as the monstrous pliosaur monster rode upon it, its giant snapping jaw catching Zoey and whipping her through the air.

Shit.

A notification had appeared, which Rory barely registered as mentioning something about being given a fragment of a chain. Instantly confirming it, Rory felt as the three Oblivion chain components fused, a physical object dropping from nowhere into his hands. It was a chain of pure black and blinding white all at the same time, freezing to the touch and utterly scalding. On one end of the chain was a hook, but that was all that Rory had time to notice as the Queen of the Hidden Depths turned her attention to him, still riding the wave of terawa as if it were the nimbus cloud kinto'un.

Two twin vortexes of terawa appeared, elongating and tightening their rotations until they seemed more like lances or spinning drill heads aimed his way. Faster than his body could react to, they shot forward.

But not so fast for his cognition.

Near instantly, four crystalline shields appeared, as the vortex lances crashed into them. Even imbued with his lattice affinity, the attacks from the Queen overwhelmed his conjured defense with little difficulty.

Rory hadn't expected to hold back the attack, not from a tier eight monster. Still, it was enough to delay them a breath as he lunged out of the way, every gem in his armor activated.

Alright, I've been holding on to these bad boys for long enough.

Snapping his hand forward, Rory pointed at the Queen. What appeared wasn't any form of magical attack; instead, things were released from his inventory where they had been collecting dust for ages.

What had been a two-versus-one battle suddenly became an eight-versus-one as six golems, all with similar proportions to Rory, charged at the monster.

Surprised by the appearance of six new foes, the Queen barely lost an instant as more vortex lances appeared, striking the golems. It was good that they were made as durable as they were, as they were instantly launched, crashing about but rising to their feet without a single instant of pain to slow them.

"Zoey!" Rory yelled. The golems wouldn't keep the Queen distracted long enough, even with six of them.

"On it!" Rory heard a voice yell out as something blurred by, Zoey zipping past from where she had been tossed like she was auditioning for the role of the Flash. Back in the fray, her attributes returned to their normal durability focus.

Between six golems and Zoey, Rory had enough breathing room to focus on the Oblivion chain in his hand. Its sheer presence was overwhelming, something that required dedicated attention to handle. Acclimating, Rory watched for several seconds as the six golems plus one Zoey threw themselves at the tier eight monster.

To call it a fair fight would have been a lie. It was only through numbers and their sheer durability that they were able to keep the monster distracted.

Not surprising in the least.

The Queen might have only been level eighty, but it was an Alpha Variant. Even attempting to fight an ordinary base-tier-eight monster would have been a large ask, but an Alpha Variant, which was closer to the likes of a low to mid-tier eight?

Which was the point of the Oblivion Chain, Rory suspected.

Alright, I can take it.

Pushing his own pneuma through the chain, Rory felt as if he was playing tug-of-war with some ravenous beast that wanted to eat him alive from the inside out. Beginning to spin the hook end of the chain like a lasso, Rory focused on the Queen of the Hidden Depths. He had a plan, but just yelling it out would be telling the Queen.

Oh, right… Ghost Message.

A skill that he had taken for working on his golems, Rory saw a new use for, which, in fairness, was its intended use. Pricking his finger on the end of the chain, Rory pointed a finger gun at Zoey as a tiny blood arrow shot out, striking her and dealing no damage.

Which had been the point. Rory only needed to convey his plan without the Queen finding out.

Zoey's response was to stick a thumbs up, still engaging with the Queen as her shield intercepted vortex lances from the monster.

It's a good thing her armor has spent so many years absorbing excess heat elements.

It was the Akashic Record of her promethium armor that allowed it to repair over time by drawing on fire or heat-related concepts in the environment. When fully restored, that same excess would instead overcharge the gear, making it stronger and more durable, but with the downside being that it wasn't a permanent effect; it would wear down the more it was damaged.

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And oh boy was it being pummeled.

Splitting his mental threads, Rory held the swinging Oblivion chain in one hand, his staff in the other as golden circles appeared beneath him.

Sapping out a massive store of the pneuma within the war staff, Rory fixated on the image of a second chain, this one large enough for the anchor of a commercial ocean trawler. Projecting something large was already more work than a smaller item due to simple volume differences. Added to that difficulty, the chain needed to be strong enough to hold a tier eight monster for at least a few seconds. That was a massive ask, and was only possible if Rory wasted precious seconds using the stored pneuma within the staff to fold it upon itself, 'leveling' it up as much as he could. The conduits throughout the staff began to flow thicker, filling with liquid pneuma as he continued to augment it. Solid pneuma was still beyond him, but that didn't stop Rory from pushing the state of the liquid pneuma as much as he could, condensing it and refining it even as he attempted to draw in pneuma from the pneuma-rich surroundings.

Zoey, meanwhile, was slowly backtracking, burning through gems Rory had given her ahead of time at an expeditious rate.

That was the other part of the plan; the Queen needed to be as close as possible if they wanted to minimize the time it had to react to the trap brewing.

The Queen continued spamming the vortex lances, and at one point even bathed its opponents in a ray of gooey, liquid fire, napalm by any other name. It quickly realized the error of that line of attack as the promethium golems ignored the napalm as if it didn't exist, their promethium bodies damn near immune.

Zoey, while not made of promethium, still benefited from wearing promethium armor in tandem with her already monstrous durability investment. She had some ugly-looking burns, but ugly burns were better than being melted into a puddle of fleshy goo.

Closer.

Zoey continued her slow retreat, the Queen agitated at her inability to crush mere tier seven flies as easily as she would have liked.

Careful, don't piss her off too much.

They needed to draw her in range before she went all out. After their last encounter, it was likely going to be far more wary of Rory; thereby playing a balancing act of annoying it enough to continue its rampage and chase after Zoey while also avoiding opening itself to a sucker punch from Rory, while also not pushing it too far that it gave up pretenses.

Closer.

Less than a hundred feet away, it may as well have been two steps away, for as fast as any single person or thing here was.

Which is why when its gaze suddenly snapped onto him, Rory felt a chill down his spine.

Rory knew the Queen wasn't mindless, yet he hadn't really considered how much.

Or that perhaps it was purposely playing into their game, drawing closer to the real threat, to the only thing here that had ever managed to inflict any real damage to it.

Oh, shoot.

One moment, the Queen had been distracted by its annoying assailants; the next, it was in front of Rory, its body riddled with cracks, like flowing arteries, coursing with magma all over its body. Its jaws were mere feet from his head, ready to bite it straight off, with no chance of defending himself.

But he didn't need to, as another figure had reacted, noticing the split-second shift in its demeanor. Zoey, once more with her attributes inverted, was a step behind the Queen as her fist smashed straight into its face. It saved his life, but in return, the Queen spun with the motion as its tail smacked into Zoey, launching her like a firework.

Usually, that wouldn't have been a problem with her attributes. The problem was that she had just inverted her attributes before taking the tail-swipe of a tier eight.

Meaning she took the full force of a tier eight with no durability, the only saving grace was the armor that protected her, her life entirely in the hands of Rory's work.

Fuck!

As much as Rory wanted to check on her, he had to take advantage of the opening. With the Queen right in front of him and distracted for a single instant, Rory snapped his fingers as a massive chain appeared, tangling the pliosaur monster up. Even as powerful as the projected heavy chain was, a single flex of its body was already straining the projection.

No time.

Not giving his projection a chance to fail, Rory whipped out the much smaller but much more potent Oblivion chain like a lasso. Without the deliberate effort to dodge, someone of his tier couldn't possibly miss from so close, the Oblivion chain wrapping around the Queen's neck.

"Got ya!"

The hook end of the chain bit into the flesh of the Queen, as Rory pulsed pneuma through the chain once more, sending it in a ravenous frenzy as it began to drink.

Chain in place, Rory sprinted the other direction, letting his golems beat up on the temporarily immobilized monster. Reaching Zoey, horror and relief filled him in equal parts.

The good news was that his armor had saved her life; she hadn't been split in two like a rotten log under a sharp axe.

The bad news was that she was bent in half, and not in the way that humans were typically meant to bend, her heels pressed against the back of her neck as she trembled against a stone column she had crashed against.

"Zoey, are you-"

"Okay?" Zoey cut him off, blood spewing from her mouth. "Been better."

"Can you-"

"Move?" Zoey once more interrupted him, blood again spewing. "Not for the moment, no."

"What do you need me to do?"

"Keep it busy," Zoey said, pain lacing her words. "I'll be fine, but I need time. Thankfully, it was a clean break, and I can recover from this rather quickly."

Seeing someone say they were 'fine' even as the back of their feet were touching the back of their head felt strange to Rory, but if anyone could withstand that, it was Zoey.

A gem appearing in his hand, Rory tossed it next to Zoey as a transparent dome flickered to life. It was a relatively weak barrier, but it would at least protect her from a stray attack.

"I'll do my best."

Knowing that staying near Zoey would only endanger her as she recovered, Rory ran back toward the fight as fast as he could. The Queen was still being jumped by his many golems, the Oblivion chain weakening her as his projected chain held the Queen in place.

Yet, even weakening the monster, it was still a tier eight, and an Alpha Variant at that. With a final flex, it managed to toss aside the golems and shatter the projected chain that had held it in place. The only thing it couldn't remove was the Oblivion Chain, still lodged in like a hungry tick.

"INSOLENT!" A voice rang out, shaking the entire cave.

Oh, good, it can talk, wonderful, love that.

A wave of aura washed out, but this time Rory felt something different. It was still the oppressive energy of a tier eight, except there was less of it somehow, like a swimming pool that was just as wide but only half as deep.

The Oblivion chain.

Lodged into the Queen, what the Oblivion chain had done was to erase its strength. Whether that was something normally possible with the oblivion concept, or something only Eon could facilitate, was beyond Rory for the moment.

All that mattered was that as Rory examined the Queen, a grin crept up on his face.

Queen of the Hidden Depths

Level: 80

It was no longer marked as an Alpha Variant.

The chain, having apparently reached its limit, evaporated in an odd smoke that both glowed and darkened the environment, lasting for a second before it was gone.

The good news. We're no longer facing a level eighty Alpha Variant monster.

It was impossible to overstate just how important that was, as the gulf between the strength of base, low, mid, and high-tiers only increased with each subsequent tier. A tier eight Alpha Variant was simply something they couldn't handle, not without being willing to die in the process.

But a normal base-tier-eight monster? That was a different story entirely.

While that was all good and all, there was still one bit of bad news.

We're no longer facing a level eighty Alpha Variant monster. But now I need to hold back a tier eight monster on my own.

"Typical," Rory muttered, bow appearing in hand. "Just typical."

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