Soul Merger

Fili looked over the Nostrame's spellwork as he finished what they'd come to call the 'breaching' charge. It was a mess of lines and signals that she could barely pull together, but from what little she could understand it was far more interested in calling power than controlling it.

The man looked up after he put in the last line. "Trying to learn some secrets?"

"No. I'm just interested in what the future of magic will be." She tapped a few lines. "Your spells just wouldn't work for me or most mages. We don't have enough internal magical control to be so careless with limits. I'd have to train for years just to throw this one attack. But if magic levels keep increasing eventually humans should be able to use this type of spellwork, right?"

"Indeed you shall," the man said with a smile. "Though I expect you will still teach your apprentices your restrictive spellcasting. While my techniques will grant greater power, I have to admit they can be hard on apprentices. Having more students survive to graduation is more valuable than the small amount of experience gained with the harder forms early. When I get some free time in a millennia I'll have to study the details."

Fili felt a certain pride that her school's teachings could impress someone who'd outlived entire worlds. Though it was still a little weird knowing the man in front of her was that old. Even if a chunk of his time had been spent waiting to reform, that was longer than she'd ever live.

On the subject of living however she'd better check her own preparations. With a deep breath she cycled through her spell chips, making sure she had the right combination of precision attacks and area sweeps. She'd quadruple checked her cartridges already, so there was no point in fussing over them again.

Further back from the portal Trevor was working with Rosalina and Clara. A number of the kids had decided to grab an armored horror merge, given their interest in close combat. Meanwhile a few had grabbed a siren merge, probably because they were tired of close combat. All in all they had a solid phalanx to burst through the initial defenses.

The problem was the secret stairs out. It was impossible for them to survive the full four floor experience so they'd need to take it, but a narrow stairway didn't allow for rapid movement. Someone would have to hold the bottom, and someone would have to breach and hold the top.

Fortunately, with Trevor, Maria, and Magniel, they had three powerful frontliners in addition to Ibaraki. Though Maria would be useless for anything that required teamwork. The crazy girl had gone off and hunted down a Berserker demon after Rosalina had patched her up.

"Fili."

She turned and found Alissa waving. Fili moved over for a hug, and Alissa let her into the woman's oversized cloak. They embraced, and Fili's heart proceeded to flop around like a happy puppy. "I have no idea how I got so lucky," she muttered.

Alissa gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Well it's a lot of things. But it helps that you're cute."

Fili felt her cheeks warm. She still had trouble believing Alissa sometimes. But the fact that the stunning woman didn't pull back from her slime or go cross eyed when she went off on a tangent did wonders to convince her.

Sadly they had things to do. "You going to be okay as a rear guard?" Alissa asked with a frown. "Holding off the entire bottom floor of a labyrinth won't be easy."

"I've got some good crowd control spells. Besides, charging into the top floor won't be easy either," Fili pointed out before sighing. "I do wish we could stick together but..."

"I'm still the best trap finder by a mile," Alissa finished. The succubus merge's enhanced senses put her ahead of everyone else to start. And then years of training solidified the deal. Alissa had to be near the front, or they risked ending up in a pit full of acid or some other horrible fate.

They stayed together for a little longer,until the strategy meeting broke up. Fili gave Alissa a final squeeze before stepping away as the group walked towards them. "Ready," she said, preempting their question.

"Good," Rosalina said. "Today we return to the surface victorious. And more importantly alive!" The dragon woman moved towards the portal and gestured them forwards. "If you'd do the honors."

"Indeed," Nostrame said, walking over. The demon began quietly chanting, the rings and runes of his spell rotating as it drew in power. And then he shoved his hand through the hole in reality, and the portal turned black. No, it was better to say it glowed black. Whatever was happening on the other side was something best avoided.

It was a good thirty seconds until the portal returned to its normal color, and Magniel hurled herself through. Nostrame followed at a more sedate pace, then Fili hopped through after.

The other side was a charnel house. Nostrame's spell had apparently increased the local gravity a thousand times, which had reduced every monster in a large area to paste. She had to step carefully to avoid slipping.

The complete lack of sound was also disorienting. It wasn't like before where she could hear her own breathing and chants. There was nothing here, not even the reverberations in her head.

She forced herself to get out of the way of the people who were already arriving and survey the area. Nostrame's spell had eliminated all of the dangers in around two hundred feet, but it looked like a few siren and horror groups were forming up ahead of them. Fili started picking out targets, prioritizing the siren clusters for now.

The group's entrance was painfully slow. The portal only allowed for one person at a time, and even with reasonable haste that just made things take time. Fili was forced to throw a fireball at a group of horrors that rushed them. Fortunately the rest of the attacks were solo monsters easily cut down.

Finally Clara was through and the advance could begin. The kids formed a loose wedge, with Fili and Clara taking the back alongside Nostrame. Meanwhile Alissa, Ibaraki, and Magniel had already started charging, the angel leading the way.

Trevor had taken the point of the wedge, while Maria and another high ranking fighter took the flanks. They advanced at a steady jog, keeping a decent formation. Kotori hovered above, flitting back and forth before pointing Trevor towards problems, or just dropping a rock on a foe.

Of course the main thing was Ibaraki and Magniel smashing the defenders. The horrors sad formations broke when one of the two powerhouses hit it, and the staggered defenders were easy prey for the more organized attack that followed.

Fili forced herself to be careful with her spells, only targeting groups of sirens that were within ice attack range. A few ranged shots still flew in and hit people, but Rosalina was purely focused on healing, so injuries were cleared up fast.

Finally they reached the wall where the secret passage was. Alissa popped it open, then raised her hand. Wonderful a trap. Well that would only slow them down a little. Fili turned to make sure in the end that meant nothing.

Nostrame's spell and their breakneck charge had removed all the dangers in a straight line, leaving the main threats to the side for now. Still that would change as armored horrors flooded the area, trying to kill the humans that had invaded their labyrinth. Fili decided to take a risk and let Clara focus on the sirens while she setup proper defenses.

She let her cartridge system blast off one shot, then reloaded, desperately trying to keep the power inside stable. A second shot sent white hot pain through her head, but she pushed through. The spell chip was first in the block, and she knew it very very well. She'd been tinkering with it for years after all.

Forcing her blurry eyes to look over the terrain, she placed mental markers of the ends. Those would suffice as anchors. Then she imagined the shape A large pool with a tiny wavering bridge in the middle. "Lava Floor!" she cried out, slamming the staff down in a final effort to control the overwhelming power.

The pain faded, though the phantom agony lingered a bit, as the strange grass caught fire, then bubbled into dark black red lava. It was fairly cool as lava went, but the steam as one of the armored horrors ran into the pool and cooked itself showed the spell was sufficient.

She'd created a deathtrap all across the back area. And it had only taken the most powerful spell of her life to pull off.

A powerful hand helped her straighten up and she found Rosalina looking down at her with worry. Sadly she could not give the dragon cleric a smile and a shrug. Explaining the details was impossible with the silence spell up.

Rosalina gave her a stern glare and held up her open hands three times. Probably insisting Fili wait another half minute before casting anything else. That was probably a good idea so she nodded. Honestly that's why she'd fired it off early. Because right now Clara and the others could cover for her weakness.

As she regained her breath she looked over the situation. About a third of the troupe had started up the stairs, and the sides had been cleared of most Sirens. Ibaraki had apparently swapped with Maria, so the woman wouldn't go berserk in the wrong area. Smart. Which left armored horrors attacking from the left and right as the main worries. The stragglers trying to cross her bridge would quickly learn obsidian was very slippery.

Fili turned to the left and started looking through her chips. A lot of power was still going to that magma pool, so she'd have to use more simple spells. Steam was a good choice then. She grabbed her steam cloud chip and waited for good moments to use it.

They were going to get out of this labyrinth no matter what.