Chrysalis

Rip and tear. Rip and tear. Rip and tear.

Holy moly, I’m getting sick of all this ripping and tearing!

The stupid demons are endless! I’d go so far as to say that the demons start coming and they don’t stop coming! It’s not even that there’s just an endless sea of demons swirling around us, it’s the percentage of those that are overwhelmed by the big daddy demon and come wading through their kind to get at us. And maybe that’s only one percent of every demon we see, but that still adds up to INFINITY demons.

Even I’m getting tired, and I’m basically immune to fatigue, for now at least. The further we plunge into the third stratum, the further from the Colony we get and the more tenuous my link through the Vestibule becomes and the more nervous I get.

I’ve been kind of hoping that I’d connect to the ants below me, in the fourth, since I know our territory is roughly vertical as it descends, but I’ve got nothing yet. We’ve known for a long time that the third was deeper than we thought, but this is getting ridiculous.

So far, we’ve descended four times, and everytime we get down a layer, the mana gets thicker and the environment more unwelcoming.

[Just how deep does this place go?] I complain to Al. [If it gets any hotter, my cooling enchanted rings are going to melt off!]

The giant eyeball of fire stares at me. I can barely even feel the heat coming off him at this point, it doesn’t make any difference when the ambient temperature is this high.

[I do not know precisely how deep the third stratum goes, as I have never exited it into the fourth. We are almost as deep as I have ever been, however.]

Well that’s something at least. To be honest, I probably don’t want to go much further. We’re too far from the Colony for the Altar to be as useful as I need it to be. Only the support of Tiny, Crinis, Invidia and Al gives me the confidence to venture this far out, but that faith is starting to wane.

not so much. And the heat is literally melting Crinis, she’s barely able to keep

have the trail?] I demand of

His eye flashes.

[I have it.]

Torrifex’s scent. Al and Crinis were the ones to detect him, getting a whiff of his mana on the edge of their awareness. Unfortunately, the big coward is still retreating, probably

get away. I’m going to flatten those tier eight demons if it's

jet up into the air, hundreds of metres high,

I think there’s

sweat dripping from his matted fur. Poor guy. As we run, we see yet another abandoned

defending them in the current climate, and fair enough too. Built into cliff walls, or atop jutting peaks that thrust up from the plains, these are often intimidating-looking fortifications, possibly housing gates and precious resources that are

least the little monsters aren’t spawning on them, but the more advanced ones are climbing up there to do

been letting him go and have a nice therapeutic rampage when we pass close by one,

running with too little battling isn’t good for the big ape’s mood and it's a real downer when he starts

one,] I tell him, [so

[I willssssss.]

starts bounding

my attention back to our surroundings. There’s nothing here right now, but that could change in an instant,