Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Monique's spear was covered in divine silver aura, while Jonah was fighting in a storm of blood. The vampiric swordsman had spent the last weeks when they were waiting for Evee's message with training. Jonah worked on fusing his blood arts with the powers he gained as Munara's Apostle.

The result were ritualistic sword dances that reminded of rhythmic gymnastics. Fast and elegant sword moves with an enrapturing, almost hypnotic effect. Razor-sharp ribbons of blood painted quick traces of death into the air.

As much as Jonah complained about his own perceptions of the skills, they were scarily effective and almost any enemy. Despite being mesmerized and stunned by the sword dance, Jonah's attack still could not deal any great damage.

Monique was in a similar peril. Her spear was covered in Athena's divine power, but the attributes of the goddess mostly improved Monique's physical damage and had little elemental or magical attributes. Since the divine power itself had no great effect on the phantoms, it was also proven that they were not undead.

Still, Jonah was better off than her. Thanks to the mental status effects and his vampiric power, he was able to keep the Air People at bay when Tekar lost their aggro. Monique on the other hand was mostly ignored, despite her efforts. Suddenly, she heard a bunch of notifications, and her spear was also enveloped in an aura of flames.

<Ding! Party member Ray had enchanted your weapon with Tribal Fire. You will deal 20% additional fire damage for 20 minutes>

<Ding! Party member Ray had enchanted your weapon with The Curse of Shax. Your attacks have a 35% chance to inflict the target with Blindness, Deafness, or Confusion.>

<Ding! Party member Ray had enchanted your weapon with Melinoe's Dark Gift. Your attacks have a 55% chance to inflict the target with Madness or Nightmares. >

"Thank you, Ray!" she exclaimed, as she immediately started distributing curses on the distracted phantoms. The Tribal Fire finally gave her a good way to deal damage, while the slew of status effects opened a way for her to attack.

Still, it became clear that not only the difficulty in the abyss was a lot higher, they also had a bad compatibility with this dungeon. Maybe it was them, who had laughed too early? While the three vanguards barely had the chance to reap any kills, the three rearguards were also not as successful as they hoped. The elemental creatures also had no particular weakness to magic.

The only thing effective was the fire magic Alison was able to cast, but it was not enough for a great effect. Although Tekar kept taking the aggro and they layered various crowd control effects on them, the creatures only died slowly, one by one.

"Urgh! Retreat! Retreat! We have to report to the Commander!" the leader's voice clearly cut through the air. It was like a support buff, helping the other get out of the effect of control skills.

When they finally started dying off, the leader somehow came back to his mind, and ordered his people to retreat, when most of them were only holding on by a small thread. One by one, they started fleeing when the crowd control effects wore off.

They kept firing at the fleeing creatures, but once they were on the run, the party only managed to finish a few of them off before they turned invisible in addition to being intangible.

"Argh!" Monique exclaimed, ramming the ground with the butt of her spear.

"How annoying! How can there be such annoying creatures?!"

it was quite obvious how frustrated she was. None of her teammates was any less aggravated about how the fight went. Although they were in no danger thanks to Tekar, being almost unable to put a dent in your opponent, was this what it felt like to fight Seth?

"Calm down, everyone. Look at your experience bars."

Alison was the voice of reason that called everyone's attention to their status screens. Their eyes widened when they saw their experience bars. Although they had only beaten a bunch of them before they started running away, the experience gained was visible!

The maybe 25 creatures they killed had given them as much experience as 200 beasts on the surface. As aggravating as it was to fight these things, the experience gained was tremendous, almost ten times greater than anywhere else.

"I guess this means we are going to stay here, eh?" Jonah commented slightly more motivated to keep fighting.

"Before we run after them, we have to come up with a better strategy. Although it helped when Ray enchanted my weapon, we are taking too long to take them down. Alison is currently the only one among us that can deal proper damage to them."

"Well, sorry, but don't expect too much from me. I asked Seth for a ring to improve my alchemy, not my fighting power," the wizard shrugged her shoulders. Despite not having a piece of offensive legendary equipment, Alison was able to hold her ground alongside others like Lyxiss or Jess, since her title as a bookworm allowed her to strengthen her magic based on the knowledge she accumulated.

"I guess the time has finally come to roid up?" she suddenly asked, pulling out rows and rows of test tubes with colorful liquids and potions. The crazy smile that suddenly crept on her otherwise expressionless face, made her really look like a mad scientist.

...

"Cough" "Cough"" Cough"

Their lungs burned the moment they entered the dungeon. The dungeon was a world of twilight with a thing haze that burned when breathing in, hanging over everything. The dungeons gave the impression of a dead forest.

Pillars that may have been massive trees at one time, were covered in mushrooms making the whole dungeon look like a land-based coral reef.

"Is this poison?" Mina asked coughing, as she noticed her HP slowly draining.

"Cleanse! Recovery! Share Endurance!" Bulko cast and a warm holy light enveloped them. They felt better for the moment, but breathing was still uncomfortable. Fin also tried to cast Antidote on everyone, but it was not effective.

"It's not poison. I guess this haze are the spores of these fungi. All I can do is improve your Health regeneration and basic defense by sharing my endurance with you," the priest theorized.

They had stayed long enough on Urth, to have absorbed some of its advanced knowledge. If magic did not recognize these spores as poison, this meant they were real spores. Tiny seeds of mushrooms that actually attacked their lungs from inside.

"We have no gas masks or any of the like. I guess the best we can do is cover our mouths with a cloth or something." Mike suggested.

They had just entered, not even meeting any monsters yet, and already had a bad time with the mere terrain. They all placed a wet cloth above their mouths, which kind of helped deal with the spores.

"Everyone okay? Then let's go inside for real," Mike said and took the lead with his armored Dread Wolf pet. Thanks to Evan's thorough care, it had recently evolved, gaining the strength to play the role of their tank. The party followed the two, into the twilight of the mushroom kingdom.