They ran, and the phaser hounds followed.

Tanya had lost count of just how many of them were hot on their trail after the fourth time her attacks ended up bifurcating those monstrosities. Whether the new hounds were as strong as the older ones was subject to experiment, but she wasn’t willing to stand up to them when more than a dozen of them were ready to tear her apart.

She liked living too much for that.

“They’re following us!” Elena cried. “And they’re hungry! Very hungry!”

Tanya was well beyond the point of smacking her across the face. But eventually, she realized that the changeling had been eerily repeating the exact same description as far as those hounds were concerned, and something told her that the words meant something important— something more than just Elena’s sensory abilities.

Elena’s got a gift with monsters, Zuken had once said. Was this what he meant?

A cacophony of grating, skittering noises from the hounds broke through her thoughts as the trio continued to race ahead. The beasts weren’t exactly running behind them. They were clinging to the sides of the walls, their claws biting into the hardened rock as they perched against it. They’d grab onto any available surface and stay completely still, then enter into the nearest slab of smooth rock with a rapid burst of movement and exit from the other side.

And then stop again.

It was akin to watching a dance. A very weird dance, but a dance nonetheless.

“We’ve got to separate them from the rocky surfaces,” Zuken yelled as he ran right beside her.

“Yeah, well tough to do that when we’re all underground!” she hollered back, taking a bend and finding herself facing a thin passage ahead.

In general, going through a thin passage was a bad idea, especially when the monsters chasing you were thinner, smoother, and far more slippery than you. Furthermore, the larger the passage, the greater the chances it opened up into newer ones rather than ending up as a dead-end.

So it was only natural she hesitated a little bit—

“GO! GO! GO!” Elena screamed, pushing her forward.

Tanya staggered as she lost her balance, but eventually kept going as her face twisted into a scowl. “This isn’t going to do anything. We need to halt them with something.” She turned to Zuken. “Use those spear-things again.”

“I can’t, the walls here are too smooth!”

Then maybe we should make them less smooth, Tanya mused to herself as she slowed down to a halt. Raising her hands, she began to summon her kami. Ezzeron was the kind of spirit that lacked finesse, preferring to be ruin made manifest. It was why even during spellcasting, Tanya kept him on a very tight leash.

Not that any other way would work for the kami.

But now? She wanted the exact opposite.

And so she let him loose.

The sentient wind escaped her fingers and rushed through the pores of the rocky surface with a whoosh, tearing its way through the furrows and fracturing the structural lattice in ways a demolition expert would classify as art.

It began as a simple crack.

Then it deepened, and one crack became two, then four.

Slowly, it spread out like a spider web.

And before she knew it, the walls came crashing down.

Tanya turned back around, just in time to see the incoming monsters get bombarded by the falling debris and trapped under the barrage of stones.

Her lips twisted into a smirk.

Sometimes, the best defense was a falling wall.

“This stuff is awesome!”

Lukas twirled his new dagger around animatedly. The blade was long and jagged, its surface a pristine crimson shade. Whether that was its original color or an effect of years of blood sedimenting on its surface, he had no way of knowing.

Either way, it didn’t make the makeshift weapon any less spectacular.

And he had three of them.

He was no weaponsmith, but he knew for sure that this metal was stronger and sharper than anything he’d ever come across in his life. It was incredibly light, yet sharp enough to cut through rocks like they were soggy paper. A lifeforce-enhanced slash of his hand could hack into flesh, but a casual flick from this thing would rend through bone.

Vatuatil. That was what the screen called it. It was a name he’d never heard before, though it sounded like one of those alloys from the Lord of the Rings series. A magical, mysterious metal. Then again, he was in a place that took suspension of disbelief and dialed it to eleven. If there were actual fantasy elements in this fantasy-like world— like a dagger that had no business being so feather-light when it was so deadly —then who was he to judge?

“You look like a kid in a candy shop,” Inanna drawled. “A rather amusing notion, considering I haven’t the slightest familiarity with such an establishment.”

Lukas rolled his eyes. The goddess had been picking up urban vocab at an alarming rate, even though she didn’t get half the references. A part of him found it hilarious that such a prim and proper-looking goddess was trying to use slang from his world. Still, it was slightly disturbing how quickly she was assimilating his knowledge— an ever-present reminder that she truly resided in his mind.

He chose to focus on the comedic aspect.

Still, the battle was his hard-earned victory. The thoggua was slain, and he was spending his time hacking out long strips of hardened slime for himself. After all, one could never have enough rope, especially someone who was thrown into a different world for what was a glorified underground spelunking mission.

One filled with all kinds of nightmarish beasts, no less.

The flesh would probably last him days before it began to rot. Lukas had no idea whether organic matter here rotted at the same rate as back on Earth, but there was no point in taking unnecessary risks. From what he’d observed, the monster had jumbo-sized fat reserves underneath its skin. And fat wasn’t necessarily just food.

It was a prime fire-starter

Flint and moss were one thing. But animal fat? Even a little bit could start a bonfire within these walls. It was exactly the kind of edge he needed to survive in this place.

“So what am I supposed to do next?” he asked out loud, stabbing into the thoggua’s hardened skin again.

“Depends on what you wish to gain.”

“What if I wished for… more strength?”

“Then you go deeper and deeper to face larger, more powerful monsters. Some, you shall fell. Some, you shall flee from. And eventually, one of them may just kill you.”

He rolled his eyes, patiently waiting for her to continue. Inanna was just being… Inanna.

“But such a path remains long and tiresome, and your rise in strength will be gradual. What you truly need is—”

“Discount tips?” he helpfully suggested.

The goddess ignored him. As usual. “We need to accelerate your development. It is possible that the world outside is not my sister’s domain. At your current rate of growth, it is rather likely you will perish.”

“And…” Lukas trailed, “if it is your sister’s domain?”

"Oh,” Inanna replied brightly. “In that case, you will definitely perish.”

His eyes twitched. “And how,” he pressed, doing his best to keep his composure, “can I avoid that?”

Inanna smiled at him. It was probably a coincidence that he felt an icy cold shiver run down his spine at that exact moment.

At least, that was what he told himself.

“There are certain… methods to accelerate your growth beyond natural means.”

Lukas wondered how it was possible to make an absolutely regular word like method sound so sinister.

“Methods available to those with a specific bent of mind. To those that practice the path of psionics.”

That caught his attention.

“I should warn you that this process is dangerous, mortal. Fast. Terrible. Intense. It is a path taken by few, and with due reason. But should you manage to pull it off, you would gain immense strength within a very small window of time. Enough to even survive with your head attached to your shoulders once you leave this place.”

Lukas arched an eyebrow.

“For some time.”

He coughed. “How much time?”

“Well…” Innana seemed to measure her words. ”You certainly will not die immediately. Perhaps you will be able to see the face of the huntsman my sister sends before he rams a scythe up your throat.”

Lukas exhaled. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” he replied, doing his best to stave off the incoming headache. “You’re going to teach me something through incredibly dangerous means, something that will likely leave me hanging to life by a literal inch as I wonder what the hell is going on because you never tell me everything. All that, just to eventually get killed by some random creature more powerful than me?”

The goddess remained silent for a moment. “I’m impressed, mortal. That actually sums it up quite nicely.”

Lukas sighed. “Yeah, I figured it was something like that.”

Cracking his neck, he looked up and met Inanna’s gaze with his own.

“Alright. Let’s begin.”

The entire place was in shambles.

They were standing right outside the entrance to the narrow passage— a misnomer, since it couldn’t really be called a passage anymore. The walls framing the sides fell over one another, right on top of several phaser hounds, and the entire thing was filled with rubble. By the light of their Continual Light bars, they could see black, gelatinous liquid slowly oozing out of the rocks.

Blood? Blood-slime? Slimy blood? Slime that acted like blood?

Tanya shook her head. It was obvious these hounds weren’t built to withstand physical force, instead mostly reliant on their ability to phase through walls and divide if faced with powerful cutting attacks. Not to mention induce a strong psychological scare factor in their prey.

She glanced at her own fingers.

They were trembling.

It took a moment to get her breathing back to normal. Breathing, she’d learned as a child, was an important facet in battle. The speed and tone of one’s breath could shift from defensive to calculated offense in the blink of an eye, and it was important in maintaining one’s mental balance.

Fear was a powerful, and apt, example. Most people instinctively forgot to breathe when caught up in a tense or anxious situation. The decrease in incoming oxygen that followed suit then only deteriorated their situation, leading to more anxiety.

A downward spiral, and a dangerous one at that.

“That,” she heard Zuken say, his voice a cross between a grunt and a pant, “was excellently done.”

Excellent, perhaps. But dangerous? Definitely. There was always the chance of the wall fracturing in front of them rather than behind them. Were that the case, they were the ones who would’ve been either trampled under the rocks or trapped with nowhere to go.

But she chose not to point that out, not wanting to throw away the looks of admiration she was getting. Who knew? Maybe they were impressed enough to give her a little more cash than their contract obliged. It’d certainly help with her extravagant manicure bills after this mission.

For now, she settled with flipping her hair proudly. “I know. Is there anything you’d like to say, Elena?”

“Hungry monsters are bad.”

And that was all she had to say about it.

This girl…

Tanya glared as she twisted her neck. “What are you still babbling on about?”

Elena blinked back. “I’m just telling you what to expect from them.”

“And what’s that—”

“Allow me,” Zuken interrupted. “I’ve had a chance to study Elena’s gifts more than anyone. If what I understand is correct, which it usually is, then a hungry creature is one beyond her ability to charm. It means the creature would attack anyone, even her.”

“Banksi,” Tanya groaned, her tone now exasperated, “I understand defending your girlfriend, but this—”

“Is completely legit,” Zuken finished for her. “I told you, didn’t I?” He gestured towards the brunette, who was bent down with her hands on her thighs, panting heavily. “Elena was able to make a manticore meow like a purring cat when a group of adventurers could do nothing. Monsters just don’t attack her.”

Tanya stared at him.

He stared right back.

Finding no weakness, she looked away first. “Fine. I guess I should’ve known that she exists to defy common sense. So what is it? Some kind of notice-me-not power that applies to monsters? Only Elena would end up having something as weird as that.”

Zuken chuckled at that. “Notice-me-not. What a weird name. I’d rather call it helplessness.”

“You guys realize I’m standing here, right?” Elena deadpanned, a single hand on her hips.

“The famed Zuken Banksi,” Tanya exclaimed, completely ignoring Elena, “bringing an inexperienced girl to a Class-3 anomaly because she was helpless to do anything.”

Zuken smirked. “What can I say? She was rather helpless to stop me.”

“Right,” Tanya drawled. “Good thing I’m not an Elena-esque girl.” She exaggeratedly shivered as grabbed her sides. “Who knows what might’ve happened to me.”

“Great!” Elena huffed. “Now I’m an adjective.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Zuken replied fondly. “You know I love you.”

Tanya noticed the sudden, subtle stiffness that overcame the changeling for a split second. She looked towards Zuken, who seemed happily oblivious of it all. For someone who was an expert in making people dance to his tune, it seemed he had a rather large blind spot when it came to the brunette.

It didn’t matter. This was a secret she was happy to keep.