This whole thing was going to be Blood's show, as was rather evident when the wolf dipped a long claw into a small pool of blood, lifting it out to sniff it before making it disappear with a gesture. She didn't say anything, just turned and led the way into the system of caves and caverns that were filled with the mana type of her namesake. Blood was right at home in this place, and Sera and Beth had to just follow along behind, occasionally fighting a rogue beast or monster. They had to be a bit more serious here, as the underground was far more dangerous than many other places. The place with the void mana they had just been was underground, yes, but it was a very particular set of circumstances that had led to the mana being powerful, but not yet that powerful. Given another even six months without intervention, that place would have been spawning level one thousand beasts and have an environment allowing the monsters to get to rebirth fifteen or twenty.

This place was different, as it was deeper underground and the mana wasn't spiraling out of control, but it was still heavily weighted to a specific type. Fortunately, they had an expert of that type, and Beth was only slightly surprised when, after just twenty minutes, Blood stopped by a wall with a strange color and a trail of dark liquid dripping down the face and stuck her arm right into a gap, fluid smelling of iron squelching out as she did so. The wolf withdrew her arm after only a second, holding within her hand a bright red gem about the size of a golf ball, though it had fourteen or sixteen flat faces and glowed a deep, blood red color. Blood gave it a sniff before shrugging and popping the gem, which was indeed a blood core, into her necklace and continuing on.

The mana density in the area was due to a series of blood pools that had been created at the death of a massive, powerful Legendary Beast, similar to the one that Beth and Blood had ridden during the Trial of Celestial Awakening. Just a large portion of the beast's blood, not including any other part of its body, mana, equipment, or so forth, had been enough to create this large area of altered environment, showing just how much power it was possible for some beings to have. Not only had it been months since the beast's death and there was still so much power in the remnants of its blood that it altered the mana properties and even physical environs of dozens of miles of cave system, but that effect was even growing stronger still. The place had a guard set on every cave opening that led in and out of it because of what was often spawned or brewed in those depths, teams of skilled Wayfarers needed to ensure the citizen of the world's safety.

Blood was much like, well, Beth didn't really want to say it, but a bloodhound, tirelessly and accurately hunting down and collecting anything rare and valuable near them. That included far more than just the blood cores, though those were both their objective and by far the most valuable items they grabbed. Still, the various herbs, minerals, gems, ores, and other minor items that Blood was able to quite easily detect in the confusing swirl of blood and death mana was all valuable and would either be directly useful or produce a tidy profit when sold. Beth was at a total loss underground and trying to ferret out resources in the thick haze of blood, nothing she had able to provide any assistance, even her heat-based vision of little use. Sera wasn't quite that hopeless, with a very strong nose, but even she struggled mightily to distinguish things in such a strange environment.

Far beyond even excelling, it seemed Blood was getting some benefit out of the environment beyond just the mana density. The wolf looked more alert, moved faster, hit harder, and her skills seemed particularly sharp and fierce. The beasts they encountered were fairly powerful, but Blood cut through many of them with ease. So much so that Beth had to ask her just what exactly was going on.

"They're made of blood," was Blood's answer.

"Well, duh," Beth said. "We all have blood in us, and we're in a cave system full of blood."

"No, I mean, they're all very heavily aspected to blood mana," Blood growled. "I can see the mana in them and even manipulate it. Nothing so far has been stronger than me, and I can use my link to blood to weaken the beasts before we ever even start battling with them."

"Oh," said Beth smartly. "I didn't know you could do that."

"I could do a bit similar with the void monsters," Sera volunteered. "It was just a lot harder."

"Because they're monsters?" Beth guessed.

"Exactly," Sera said with a nod. "Monsters are much more resistant to the kind of manipulation Blood is doing right now. Which is also something she should keep in mind."

"But she can just reduce the strength of an enemy?" Beth asked.

"Well, yes and no. She's limiting the amount of blood mana they can draw in from around them and even slowing it cycling in their bodies, which hinders non-sapient beasts. She's also able to do it because they are weaker than her, generally, and less skilled at manipulating mana. If it were a stronger target, it wouldn't work as well, and if it were a target that's much better at controlling and manipulating mana, it likely wouldn't work at all," Sera explained.

"So, somebody stronger could do it to us?" Beth asked as they continued deeper, Blood scouting the way and hunting treasure while she and Sera trailed behind.

"Well, again, yes and no," Sera said with a slight frown. "Sapience is a key factor, as that conscious thought and ability to reason and problem solve at a high-level leads to a much greater control in general. There are ways to hinder an opponent's access to and control over mana, but they are difficult, time-consuming, and sometimes they just won't work. You can hinder even a technically stronger opponent, but that only works up to a point. Like, for example, if somebody like Andrea were good at hindering magic, just for example, she could interfere with you a little in a fight. Only slightly, though, compared to a little more with me or Blood, or even more with some others. Then again, think about the same scenario, as strong as we are right now, and her trying to do that to Baelvyr, or even just someone like Jaq."

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"She wouldn't stand a chance," said Beth.

"Right. So, at the end of the day, power always matters, but control also matters. In general, Blood is stronger than her opponents and she has more control. If we meet monsters, they might have more control than a beast, and they would also be a little stronger. If we were talking about people, they would be a lot smarter and have way more control," Sera said.

"I understand," Beth said with a nod, and she did. Trying to interfere with somebody else's mana wasn't done very often because the person doing the interfering needed, at minimum, a greater level of mana control, and even that wouldn't work if the opposing person were way stronger. A good thing to keep in mind.

Blood continued leading them, not saying much, as was her wont, and pushing forward, taking them deeper and deeper into the cave system. The wolf was truly in her element down here and pulled one interesting item after another out of the blood and the surrounding area. She also easily and aptly cut down everything that came anywhere near them, sometimes even before Beth or Sera had detected that particular enemy. Beth would have been a bit concerned that Blood might be getting a bit more experience than them, but they were at max level, so that issue wasn't going to be a cropping up.

Beth did have to admit, as well, that the area was becoming a bit uncomfortable for her, as being inundated in blood wasn't exactly the most pleasant experience she could imagine. Fortunately, they wouldn't be down here that long, not with Blood discovering things left and right, including blood cores, some of which were in the strangest places. The heart of a dead beast? Check. The roots under a weird flower? Check. The back of a pool of weird acid with little drops of blood constantly falling into it? Check. The wolf was just racking up blood cores one after another, finding five, ten, fifteen of them in just a handful of hours.

It would still be a while, as they had fifty of the things to get, and Beth and Sera just trudged along behind Blood and killed anything that looked hostile. It was useful to have them covering Blood's back and killing anything that came from the tunnels behind them, considering the tunnel system was a webwork of cross-connecting paths and rooms. Blood dealt with anything ahead of them, and Sera or Beth killed anything behind with a couple quick attacks, often not needing to turn around to finish off whatever beast was running up behind them.

Blood suddenly changed direction at one point after close to a day of wandering the depths, heading deeper into the caves very quickly. That included diving into a massive lake of blood that they had to swim to the center of before following the wolf down into the depths, Beth not loving what swimming through blood felt like. It was more about the knowledge of what it was for her, and how sticky it was on her skin and especially in her hair when she was out of it, than it was about difficulty or even grossness. They found a tunnel under the lake, something not surprising to Beth, and entered that, moving through a long, long passage under the blood until they hit an underground room.

The three emerged from the blood in a little room that was at the top of a hook up in the tunnel, perhaps explaining why it wasn't also flooded in the red liquid. They walked forward into a larger room, still under the lake of blood itself, with a giant red crystal in the center. A crystal the color of fresh blood that grew from the floor and took up a decent amount of room in the middle of the room. A crystal that had a very large, very upset monster in front of it, like a ten-foot-tall gorilla with red fur and glowing red eyes that turned and screamed at them when they entered. And then charged them, swinging all four of its massive arms at Blood's head with the clear intent to leave very little but a smear on the floor left in its wake.

Blood was, however, much faster and more adroit than the monster, dodging its swipe and firing back with a burst of energy from her claws. Just as the beast defended itself from that attack Sera hit it, quite literally, the dragon woman flying across the room from a leap that shattered the stone under where she had started. She slammed the tip of her spear into one of the monster's armpits, not killing it outright, but doing quite a bit of damage and drawing its attention away from Blood. The monster roared again, a very loud and deep sound, before taking several swipes at Sera, who did not dodge or flee but struck back. Their exchange caused the cavern to shake and the dragon woman to take a step back, but she was by no means outclassed by the monster, and she didn't have the highest STR of the party.

That honor belonged to Beth, who hadn't bothered to teleport but had instead gotten a running start at the monster, curving around to the side opposite of Blood before impacting the being. She stepped one step past the monster as she moved up to it, planting her right foot behind it as she twisted her body and brought her left fist slamming into its stomach with bone-breaking force. She didn't just punch it but fired off a Spatial Obliteration as soon as the tips of the knuckles of her gauntlet hit flesh, slamming a burst of runaway space mana into the creature's torso. The massive being was lifted off the ground and sent flying more than thirty feet before it impacted the solid stone floor and staggered a few steps, just barely retaining its balance after the heavy blow.

It had no more righted itself and turned to strike back at Beth before a wave of bloody attacks, quite literally, hit it from the side, Blood using both Blood Queen's Claws and Rending Blood Wave to rip into the creature's side. Despite the monster itself being aspected to blood, the wolf's attacks still caused a huge amount of devastation, tearing apart flesh and cracking bone. The monster spun again, but it was hopelessly outclassed, getting hit by dozens of overwhelmingly powerful thrusts from behind as soon as its back was to Sera. It couldn't even turn again before Beth slammed into it, hitting it so hard it was lifted off the ground and sent flying. A flight that was cut short when Beth seized it by an ankle and slung it back around over her head, slamming it into the ground with so much force that everything around them shook and the blood lake, if they could currently see it, would have shown waves of half a dozen feet or more rippling across the surface.

The monster peeled itself out of the ground, screaming in rage and, to their dismay, healing quite rapidly. It wasn't all good news for the gorilla-like beast, however, as it pulling so heavily on the blood mana in the massive crystal pillar gave Blood several valuable insights, including into how the crystal worked. She signaled Beth and Sera, who renewed their attacks on the creature while she quickly examined the pillar. The monster screamed in anger yet again and tried to stop Blood, but it was not nearly strong enough to bull through Sera's impressive END and defenses, and it had even more trouble with Beth. The tall, raven-haired beauty met the monster fist-to-fist, the multi-ton creature taking a large step back each time they clashed.

It wasn't long before it had to try to pull energy from the blood crystal pillar again, roaring and beating its chest while it tried to heal and power up. The look in its eyes transitioned from rage to fear very quickly, however, when that energy simply didn't come. It stared at the pillar for a moment before snapping its head around to look at Blood standing near the crystal, screaming in anger and a little terror at the wolf. Blood ignored it, reaching out an arm at the pillar and making a firm connection with it. Blood mana and energy flowed through the air, enough to be visible to everyone in the room, causing the monster further agitation, but that was quickly solved. Blood fired an attack from the hand not facing the pillar that was so powerful that it tore the monster's head off and splattered the little that remained of it across the far wall.

After which, Blood sat down while still facing the crystal, lowering her arm but still obviously connected to the pillar. Beth glanced over at Sera who just shrugged and raised one perfectly gorgeous eyebrow in response, moving over to the body to start breaking it down. The monster had a very powerful core that was likely, while not unique, to be a very rare type that was extremely valuable. It had been strong, considering it showed only four rebirths, though a lot of both the toughness and the regeneration came from its connection to the pillar filled with blood mana.

Beth didn't exactly know what Blood was doing with that pillar at the moment, but she just sat down to wait, smiling a little when Sera sat behind her and used her long tail to pull Beth into her lap. The two enjoyed each other's company for a while, though they still stayed alert to their surroundings, Beth complaining for a little about how hard the blood of various kinds was going to be to wash out of everything and everywhere. They carried on for several hours before Blood suddenly stood up, walking over to the pillar and placing her hand on it. There was a great booming sound and a massive fluctuation of energy in the room before the pillar dimmed and started cracking, little shards flaking off everywhere. It didn't take very long for the pillar to essentially dissolve into nothing but dust and little bit of bloody sludge, Blood nodding in satisfaction before turning and walking away.

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