Chrysalis

Down and down into the depths we plunge, battling the furious monsters of the wave every step. The number of cold undead creatures we encounter continues to rise as we progress, and I can't believe the sheer variety of shapes the shadow monsters can take. I understand that their shadow flesh makes them the basically formless, squishy and mouldable things that they are, but some of them are just weird.

Tiny battled a disgusting beast who resembled a slug fused with a seahorse that fired some strange form of death plasma out of its face-hole. The whole thing was rather traumatic from my point of view and I wish I'd never seen it. Only Invidia's intervention managed to prevent my ape friend from suffering a premature death during that fight, and in fact during many fights.

Without much ability, or inclination, to avoid damage of any sort, Tiny has come to rely rather heavily on his armour to prevent damage, which works well against physical attacks, but doesn’t help much against the more insidious attacks levelled at him by death monsters and demons. Without the eyeball of Envy, Tiny would have had to face-tank all number of poisons, curses and toxins that were sent his way and I've little doubt he wouldn't have survived long.

Before he evolves to tier six I'm going to make sure that he covers his bases and gains a few more points in cunning. I'm starting to think the reason I've never seen any of Tiny's species evolve beyond tier two is simply because the lightning fist ape and what comes after are simply too dumb to survive without constant babysitting and supervision. I might have a chat with Granin about it when we get back… Still, it would be encouraging to learn that my first pet's total lack of survival instincts was an inbuilt flaw rather than something I introduced myself.

The number of demons has also continued to rise and without the benefits of my evolution they would have been a right pain in the backside to deal with. Despite being tier five, both Tiny and Crinis struggled against tier four demons, the resilience and sheer brutal power of the creatures simply a tier above what we had seen so far.

[Disgusting trash! You will be rendered into pieces before you lay a claw on my Master!] Crinis ranted, her limbs wrapped around the foul visage of a hulking demon, sawing away at it.

[Need any help, Crinis?] I ask.

[Do not foul your mandibles or mind on this infernal creature, Master! I am enough to end its miserable suffering!]

I think you are more the cause of its suffering Crinis. Nevertheless, she is successful in ridding the poor beast of its condition, namely the one of being in one piece, and swiftly descends on the Biomass. In just a few seconds the looming threat of the Wrath Demon is gone, along with any evidence it existed in the first place, vanished into the three maws of the blob of death.

Despite her victory, we are still surrounded, and I once again bring down a domain of scorching blue flame, using my main mind to supercharge the spell and increase its range, burning any monster who dares to come close.

[This is exhausting,] I complain, [there's no end to them.]

anything different; did you Master?

paradise for you! For his part, Invidia just continues to float alongside us, the intense light of his eye resting on each of us

of burning monsters ringing in my ears and causing me to become irritable, [but I was kind of hoping they'd stop flooding upward

descent has been very different than what we experienced in the first strata during the last wave. At that time the tunnels were filled with spawns of weaker monsters with occasional stronger ones feasting on the free experience and Biomass, and although it was draining in the extreme, it wasn't too difficult to clear them out. This time, it's so, so different. Moving downward in the Dungeon has felt like walking into the face of a gale force wind. We want to go deeper, but it appears as though every other monster in

can you maintain this

flooding into my core through my legs and idly

I keep dragging in mana, probably indefinitely? It would take most of my concentration

suggest we

two can relax. Invidia, can you deal with anything that gets

flashes dark

ssssshall take my

[Sure thing buddy.]

the press of monsters on its own, though it does damage them. Sadly, most of the demon spawn are resistant to the flames, which allows them to push through it, which is where the power of explosions comes into

BOOM!

we settle in for a short break

BOOM!

guys think we need to go before we reach the third

do not know how thick the shadow layer is, nor can I say how far we have travelled so

around us sadly. By my estimation, we've come a significant number of kilometres down, the slope we've been travelling on has been fairly steep, and despite fighting every step of the way, we've been pushing hard without rest. At least the fire domain helps keep the cold

you two managed to

face whilst Crinis just