Traveling as zamasu

The tremor hit hard. Somewhere ahead and to the left, stone groaned deep and loud. 

Aiz Wallenstein didn't flinch. Her boots gripped the floor as the corridor lurched beneath them. Dust fell from the ceiling, briefly clouding the green glow of the dungeon fungi.

Behind her, Tiona let out a quick yelp as a wall bulged inward, forcing her to roll aside. Tione cursed and steadied herself with one hand against a nearby pillar. 

Bete growled low, claws dragging across the floor as he kept his balance on the shifting incline.

"Left wall closing!" Aiz called out, her voice steady over the grinding noise. 

The air shifted against her skin — Ariel warning her of the pressure building in the stone.

She didn't hesitate. A blur of silver and white, she surged forward with Desperate held low. 

Just as Tione pulled herself past the collapsing section, the corridor slammed shut behind them with a heavy crunch, cutting off their original path.

"Tch. This damn place," Bete muttered, kicking a chunk of loose stone out of his way. His ears flicked under his headband, picking up sounds beyond the settling debris. "Quiet up ahead. For now."

"That's the second big shift since we hit the junction," Tiona said, dusting off her blades. Her usual energy was still there, but her smile was tighter. "Feels like this place is putting more effort into kill us."

"They won't kill themselves," Aiz said. Her eyes swept over the new path—narrow, sloping downward, the walls close and tight. 

The mental layout Finn drilled into them had already fallen apart. 

Now, she relied on instinct and the pressure in the air—magic humming below. "Down. Stronger flow. Could be a command point."

She didn't wait. In Knossos, pausing was a good way to die.

They were the spear tip of Loki Familia, driving straight into the rot festering at the center of Knossos. The current goal was simple: cause damage. 

Cut off communications, take out key Evilus leaders, and throw their defenses into disarray. 

Every kill, every room destroyed, gave their allies a better shot—especially weaker groups stuck deeper inside, like Raul's.

Opposition came fast. A group of four Evilus fighters stumbled into view, clearly thrown off by the last floor shift.

Aiz was already moving. The wind told her everything—their steps, their breathing, the twitch of the leader's fingers as he raised his sword. 

She closed the distance in a blink. 

One clean sweep behind his knee dropped him screaming. Before the next man could react, Desperate arced up and severed his arm at the elbow. The third got his guard up, but her blade was already slipping through his armor. 

He didn't move again.

The last man hesitated. Tiona's Urga knocked the weapon from his hands. Tione's fist finished it a second later, destroying his jaw with a heavy thud.

Aiz kept walking. Her blade was already clean. No wasted motion. Eyes ahead.

"Clean," Tione said, flicking blood from her knuckles. A grin tugged at her face. "Too easy. I want something that fights back."

Bete passed them in a blur, dark against the faint glow of moss. "Then move faster before this place caves in again."

He stopped at a scorch mark on the wall. The sharp tang of ozone still lingered—magic. His eyes narrowed briefly, scanning the nearby blood and broken gear. His lip curled.

He kicked a helmet across the hall, hard enough to crack it against stone. "Focus. More trash up ahead."

Then he moved, fast and angry, burying the thought with momentum and violence.

Knossos resisted every step.

Corridors slammed shut without warning. Walls split apart, groaning as they revealed narrow, unstable routes. 

Floors slicked with glowing slime made every step a risk. Low ceilings dropped, forcing them into crouches or short bursts of speed. The air felt thick—choked with rot and old magic pressing down on everything.

But they moved like they had a map burned into their muscles.

Aiz led the way, calm and collected. Her senses caught traps before they sprung. A crossbow bolt fired from the dark veered off course—Ariel warning her before it flew. 

A scout leaning out for a look didn't even react before her blade reached his throat. She cut wires, spotted ambushes, and pushed forward without slowing. No hesitation. No wasted steps.

Behind her, the others kept pace, each covering the gaps in their formation. 

Their rhythm wasn't perfect—but it didn't need to be. They just had to keep moving.

Tione was the hammer.

She didn't hesitate when two armored brutes came barreling out of a side passage. If anything, she looked excited. 

Berserk flared. Her muscles tensed and thickened, and she met them head-on. 

One raised a spiked mace—she caught it mid-swing, snapped the haft like a twig, and drove her fist into his visor. The metal folded. He dropped like a stone.

The second swung an axe. She ducked, grabbed his arm, and used his own weight to slam him into the wall face-first. There was a crunch. She didn't even look as he slid down.

"Pathetic," she muttered, wiping her hand off on her thigh. Her grin said she was just getting started.

Tiona moved around the chaos like she was born for it.

While her sister bulldozed forward, Tiona struck from the edges. Fast, clean, efficient. Her blades flashed across joints and grips, disarming and finishing fighters before they could recover from Tione's hits.

"Left!" she called, leaping over a sudden crack in the floor.

Her Urga sank into the exposed shoulder of a thug mid-swing. He dropped without a sound. She didn't stop.

Where Tione broke through, Tiona flowed—covering angles brute strength couldn't.

Bete was the predator in the dark.

He moved ahead of the group, senses tuned to every sound, every flicker of movement. His claws ripping through flesh before anyone could shout a warning.

He grumbled constantly.

"Move your asses. Slower than snails," he snapped, kicking a loose chunk of stone as he passed. His tone never softened, but his focus never wavered. 

None of it mattered unless it led to more targets.

They reached the command hub.

The door was thick, reinforced, and guarded by six. Inside, a crystal array pulsed with dim, toxic light—clearly the control center for that sector.

Aiz moved first. The two outer guards dropped before they noticed her—Desperate silent, quick, clean.

Tione followed with a single kick that caved the door inward.

Tiona darted past the falling debris. Her Urga struck the crystal core before the mage beside it could cast a single word. Sparks burst from the array. It died instantly.

Bete was already on the commander, slamming him against the console. The man didn't even get to scream before Bete's claws ended him.

Fast. Clean. No one left standing.

A piece of Knossos, broken.

They pressed deeper.

The air turned colder, heavier—every breath thick with ozone and something older, rotten, buried too long. 

The floor shook more often now, violent lurches rippling through the stone like something massive was shifting just below them.

They moved through a wide corridor lit by clusters of pale fungus when the ground bucked hard.

Tiona stumbled.

A massive pillar, already cracked from earlier strain, groaned and started to fall—straight toward her.

There was no time for a shout.

Wind howled.

Aiz moved—fast enough that the air cracked around her. She shoved Tiona aside without a word. 

Desperate flicked upward, cutting not at the pillar itself but the air in front of it. A narrow crescent of compressed wind burst forth—Aerial Slash—and sliced the stone clean through.

The two halves crashed down with a thunderous boom, landing harmlessly to either side.

Dust rolled out in a thick wave.

Tiona coughed, brushing debris from her hair. "Nice save."

Aiz didn't respond. Her eyes were already on the next corridor, listening for the shift in the air that would signal another collapse.

"Thanks, Aiz!" Tiona gasped, scrambling to her feet, eyes wide.

"Stay alert," Aiz replied, already focused beyond the settling dust.

The collapse had unveiled a new path—an enormous cavern with a ceiling lost in shadow, its floor choked with rubble and jagged veins of pulsing green crystal. 

The air thrummed with unstable magic, each vibration crawling across their skin like static.

It was here they found the guardians.

Two figures blocked the only viable exit across the cavern, bathed in the eerie glow of the crystals.

One was a woman—unnaturally tall and gaunt. She wore layered robes of deep indigo, the fabric absorbing light like a void. 

Her face was pale and angular, half-hidden beneath lank strands of black hair. Power coiled around her, thick and stifling, the unmistakable weight of a high-level caster. 

An Evilus captain.

She regarded them with frigid calculation, then slowly raised a staff tipped with a pulsating black crystal.

Beside her stood something monstrous.

It towered over the woman—a grotesque fusion of insect and reptile. 

Its segmented body was the color of dried blood, supported by six sharp, multi-jointed legs that clacked and scraped against the stone. 

Scythe-like claws gleamed at the end of each limb, easily capable of gouging through rock. 

Its long, flexible neck ended in a triangular head with rows of faceted green eyes that burned with malice. 

Drool hissed where it hit the ground, eating into stone. It didn't just look dangerous—it radiated raw, unnatural rage.

The woman's voice cracked through the air, dry and hollow, yet unnaturally loud.

"Loki's attack dogs. Your disruption ends here. Feed the guardian."

The Captain raised her staff. Shadow magic condensed into jagged shards and launched toward them like a volley of black knives. 

At the same moment, the hybrid shrieked—an awful, piercing sound—and lunged forward. Its claws tore deep into the stone as it charged.

"Magic-user's the threat. I'll handle it!" Bete snapped, already veering sideways. He disappeared behind a fallen crystal slab, angling for a fast flank.

Tione roared and met the hybrid head-on, activating Berserk mid-sprint. "Finally! Something that hits back!"

She didn't dodge the first claw swipe—she caught it on her forearm, muscles braced and Skill-enhanced. The impact rang out loud, forcing the beast to recoil. 

Tiona moved in behind her sister, quick and precise. Her dual blades struck at the creature's legs, chipping away at joints with sharp, repeated blows. Sparks flew with each hit as metal scraped against armored chitin.

Aiz moved fast and clean—not toward the monster, but sideways, cutting across the cavern. 

The shards of shadow magic twisted midair, drawn to her like iron to a magnet. She didn't stop. 

She slid between broken pillars and debris, every step a calculated dodge. 

Each shard struck stone behind her in bursts of black flame, keeping the barrage focused on her—and away from the others.

The Captain's expression tightened. She caught on. Her chant shifted, faster now. The crystal atop her staff pulsed brighter, feeding on her words.

That was Bete's cue.

He shot from behind cover, low and fast, claws already bared. He was on her in seconds, fangs pulled into a grin.

"Gotcha!"

The Captain didn't turn. She flicked her staff downward.

The floor beneath Bete exploded in a tangle of writhing tendrils—pure shadow, groping and cold. He twisted midair, snarling, nearly clear—until one lashed around his ankle. 

It yanked him down violently. He crashed into a jutting crystal formation with a dull, cracking thud, the air driven from his lungs.

"Fell Shadow!"

The spell detonated.

A wave of absolute blackness surged outward from the Captain's staff, swallowing the center of the cavern whole. Sound vanished. Light vanished. 

Even the hybrid's monstrous screech was cut off mid-cry.

Tione, locked in brutal combat, vanished inside. So did Bete, struggling against the tendrils. 

Only Aiz, positioned near the cavern's outer edge, and Tiona—who had leapt onto a tilted stone slab just in time—were spared.

Aiz didn't hesitate.

She couldn't see the Captain. She didn't need to. That malignant presence burned like a beacon inside the dark—hatred, precision, and power wrapped in one.

She raised Desperate.

Wind screamed down the blade, compressing tight. Light flared—brilliant white, condensed at the tip. 

"Aerial…"

She drove the blade forward, channeling everything into one line of destructive purity.

"…Slash!"

A crescent blade of compressed wind—razor-sharp, howling like a banshee—tore through the unnatural darkness.

The shadow field split cleanly in two.

A moment later, it shattered entirely, vanishing in an implosion of hissing black mist.

Light surged back into the cavern.

Tione reappeared mid-grapple, muscles taut, locked in a brutal clinch with the acid-dripping hybrid. Bete snarled as he tore free from the last dissolving tendrils, blood matting his fur. 

Above them, Tiona dropped like a hawk, twin Urgas glinting, poised to strike.

The Aerial Slash kept going.

It screamed across the cavern toward the Evilus Captain, its edge bright and merciless.

She raised her staff in defense. The black crystal atop it flared violently with desperate energy.

Impact.

The explosion of force was deafening—a shriek of wind meeting raw magic.

The staff cracked down its length with a splintering groan. The Captain was hurled backward, crashing through a cluster of glowing crystals. 

The jagged edges shattered around her, and blood sprayed from her lips as she hit the ground with a sickening crunch.

The hybrid let out a roar—part fury, part anguish—as Tiona drove her Urga into a narrow gap at the base of its neck armor. 

Acid splattered and hissed against stone as it writhed violently.

"BREAK IT!" Tione roared, sensing the opening.

She planted her feet and unleashed her fist, blazing with the accumulated force of Berserk, directly into the fractured chitin on the hybrid's thorax—the same point she'd hammered earlier.

This time, it didn't just crack.

It shattered.

Her fist drove through the armor, plunging deep into the creature's body cavity with a meaty, sickening crunch.

A geyser of black-green ichor burst outward, splattering across her chest and the surrounding stone. The hybrid convulsed, its shriek cutting off in a choking gurgle. Its legs spasmed, then collapsed beneath it.

The monster hit the cavern floor like a felled colossus, shaking the ground with a dull, thunderous impact.

Tiona landed beside it, wrenching her blade free from its neck with a sharp jerk. She grinned, chest heaving.

"Down!"

Bete, still snarling from the lingering haze of pain and fury, surged forward.

The Evilus Captain was trying to crawl away, dragging her broken body backwards, raising a feeble shield of shadow with trembling hands. 

Her staff—cracked and flickering with dying power—barely formed the barrier before Bete's claws tore through it like wet parchment.

A swipe. A blur of motion.

Four deep, brutal gashes opened across her chest and throat. Blood sprayed. Her mouth opened in a strangled scream that never finished.

She dropped like a puppet with cut strings.

Silence fell.

Only the ragged breathing of the Loki Familia filled the vast chamber, mingling with the slow drip of ichor and blood from the slain hybrid. 

Aiz lowered Desperate. The wind clinging to her frame faded to a faint whisper. Her golden eyes, hard and alert, scanned the cavern entrances—every shadow, every crack.

Nothing moved.

"The Captain's dead," Bete growled, rising and wiping gore from his claws. "That's the last of 'em, yeah?"

Aiz didn't answer immediately. Her gaze fixed on the far tunnel the guardians had defended—twisted crystal and crumbled stone marking where they had emerged. Her expression didn't change, but her voice was firm.

"Clear."

She stepped forward—calm, focused, leading.

And that was when the grinding began.

Not distant this time.

Directly beneath her.

The ground beneath Aiz gave way. A ten-meter-wide section dropped like a trapdoor.

She reacted instantly—Ariel surged to her legs, and she launched herself to solid ground, landing in a crouch near the far tunnel.

Then the cavern groaned.

Above Tione, Tiona, and Bete, part of the ceiling cracked loose.

"Move!" Bete barked.

"Down!" Tiona yelled.

Tione dove, cursing.

The slab hit. Hard.

The impact shook the entire cavern. Dust exploded outward, choking the air and blocking all sight.

When it cleared, the result was obvious.

A wall of broken rock and crystal now split the team.

Aiz on one side.

The others on the other.

"AIZ!" Tiona's voice cut through the dust, tense but clear.

"I'm fine," Aiz called back, already checking her surroundings. The tunnel ahead was open—only from her side.

"Regroup at Delta," she said. Standard fallback point. "I'm moving to the objective."

"Don't you dare die out there alone, Princess!" Tione shouted, voice rough and angry.

Aiz said nothing. She moved into the tunnel, Desperate in hand, the silver glow of her wind lighting the way. Behind her, the others faded into silence beyond the collapsed stone. 

The way forward was unclear. 

The tremors hadn't stopped.

Chapter 38 end