Chrysalis

Ah, to be back on the road again, my good friends by my side, such a wonderful feeling. I’ve got the breeze blowing through my antennae, a wide open plain before me, and fresh, crisp air in my lungs.

Except the breeze is in fact filled with smoke, ash and death, the wide open plain is in fact choked with demon monsters in a fighting frenzy, and I don’t have lungs.

Who needs ‘em, anyway?! What have lungs ever done for anyone?

Even the friends aren’t quite “by my side” so much as “running rampant smashing everything they see, clinging to my carapace and greedily blasting things with green lasers.”

At least Al is being cool. I mean, he can’t really be cool in a temperature sense, due to his nature as a knowledge demon formed entirely from fire, but he’s… cool… in a different way.

My mastery of words continues to impress!

It didn’t take us long to make our way to the tunnel opening between this layer and the next, despite the rampaging demons. The gravity domain continued to be amazing for this. Reinforced by the Altar, it kept the weaker demons squashed flat.

My sub-brains continued to grind on my magic Skills as we travelled, blasting gravity spells at random targets. The levels tick along steadily. Gweheheh.

The issue we face is….

[How in the heck are we supposed to get down?]

We stand around the pit that was once the entrance to the tunnels. I say pit, it’s more like a lake. Of lava.

[I see that this might prove an obstacle for you,] Al notes.

[Well yes, my body is comprised of non-flame elements. Not to mention, I lack the inborn demonic trait of heat resistance. Swimming through lava is not really my thing.]

[Pity….]

I suppose, to him, it is fairly odd to not be able

there a solution? If we need to swim through a kilometre of melted rocks and angry demons to get down, we might be better off

we can arrive at a satisfactory

thanks to the Altar, and we were all a burnt mess when we managed to clamber out the end and onto the roof of the next layer down. Except Al and Invidia,

Crinis groans as she

the enchanted gear

gear I could and given all of it to Crinis in the hopes she’d be able

I’m weak to this much heat. I’m sorry,

this environment is like kryptonite to her. It’s only

we can descend to the

stronger as time goes by. Stupid

find our way down, I can’t cling upside down like this

(IV) has reached Level

descend on a platform of force and arrive on said ground, we find ourselves

the name of heck can it

It’s honestly impressive to see. That all translates to more higher tiered demons, though, which is great news for

other issue we find is, Arconidem’s influence seems stronger as well. Any demon that has succumbed to his Will turns on us the moment they lay eyes on us, breaking off their fights and sprinting

is not normal behaviour. The urge to annihilate anything that isn’t native to this stratum has overcome their instinct, and it’s revealed in the manic way they attack us. The more we move around, the more

I sigh.