Adventures of the last Wild Dragon-Chapter 222: Heart of the Labyrinth

When they passed into the large open space the girls looked about in wonder. They had expected to maybe find open sky and a clearing, they had not at all been expecting what actually lay in wait for them.

Whilst it was indeed a wide open space, their was no open sky above them, no, instead they bore witness to what could only be described as a stacking terrace of mushrooms that continuously climbed higher and higher whilst eventually meeting in the middle of the space, forming a massive fungal dome.

The mushrooms where were all massive, easily eclipsing 20 meters to the underside of their caps, atop the caps more mushrooms grew, these too of a similar size. That same process repeated over and over again until all of the mushrooms met far above in the center of the large open space.

Yet that was not the only thing that caught their attention, for in the center of the clearing was a singular gargantuan mushroom, its flesh was speckled with every colour imaginable, softly glowing with an ethereal light.

It towered above any other mushroom that the girls had seen, rivaling the height of some of the giant trees that they had seen in the Emerald Lakes region they had passed through.

And living on and around this massive specimen was a hive of spiders, some no larger than a regular spider, yet others rivaled Luna in her beast form.

They scurried and climbed over the towering fungus, their webs translucent so as to not block the glow from its stem.

"Of course it’s more spiders." Muttered Susan as she held back an involuntary shiver at the sight of the mass of spiders. And their was indeed quite the overwhelming amount of spiders present, from a quick count Violet counted over 100.

With that number only including the ones of the same size as the first they encountered in the labyrinth or larger.

Granted Violet didn’t feel that any of them were individually overly strong, but with their numbers it would be quite the challenge to deal with them.

Still the girls knew that they needed to do just that.

"Alright, any ideas on how to deal with them?" Asked Luna as she looked at the girls.

"Ohh I have an idea!" Exclaimed Violet, with Luna’s nod she continued. "I can charge up my cannon and aim to take out the biggest ones right at the start, then when they come swarming over we can pick them off at range. Susan you can also start summoning all of your bubbles with Luna freezing them!"

"Works for me." Rhyana stated as she glared at the spiders that she had grown to strongly dislike after having been ambushed by them quite a few times.

"Alright then, let’s go with that, Violet start charging the spell up. Everyone else get ready." Luna ordered the girls.

And so they all began to prepare, Susan began to summon bubble after bubble whilst Luna spread out her Arctic domain in front of them. Whenever a bubble passed into the domain it began to freeze, yet stayed floating and under Susan’s control.

Behind them Violet began to charge her void cannon, the magic circle being carved out of reality itself. Mana surged through her and into the runes, with her new skill Violet actually began to understand some of the nuances of the skill. It was both simple yet highly effective, basically condensing her mana into a condensed beam of utter annihilation.

But she could still only understand around a third of all of the runes that were being automatically created with her skill. ’Guess I will just need to practice more to understand it all!’ She thought to herself.

Olivia and Rhyana positioned themselves in front of the girls but behind the Arctic domain, not that it would negatively effect them as it was under Luna’s control, but for the simple reason that it was really cold and they didn’t exactly enjoy the cold as much as Luna or Violet.

Whilst the girls were some distance away from the central mushroom, their activities did not go unnoticed. The vast amounts of mana that Violet was charging into her spell as she overclocked it drew the attention of those spiders with enough perception, they then raised the alarm and alerted the rest of the swarm.

Disturbing screeching sounds soon echoed out from the nest, a wave of spiders soon rushing out of it as they madly charged towards the girls and abandoning their nest.

Still that worked to Violet’s advantage, for she noted with glee that the two largest spiders were running in a straight line whilst mana more ran behind them. A wicked smile stretched Violet’s lips as she felt her skill finalise.

The world turned purple, all sound seemingly stopping for a brief moment, before an eruption of void mana shot forth with unstoppable force.

The blast entirely erased the majority of the two largest spiders, not even giving them a chance to close in on the girls. Yet the blast did not stop there, it carried on, erasing everything that it touched and ending the lives of dozens of spiders in a single moment. Even then the blast carried on until it impacted with the ’trunk’ of the giant mushroom.

Not even that could fully stop the entire void cannon, a clean hole being punched through the stem before the cannon blast finally died out.

The girls eyes popped open in awe at the power that Violet showcased, the spiders however, did not stop their charge, only increasing their speed and screeches of rage as they closed in.

Yet that did not help them.

Spears of ice, bolts of lightning, bullets of water and wooden thorns shot forwards from the other girl. Whilst not as individual powerful the elemental barrage was enough to cut into the swarm with devastating effect. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Dozens of the spiders dropped in the first volley, the second followed soon after, this time joined by Violet own bolts and spears.

More spiders died, yet they kept on running forwards relentlessly. Then they entered Luna’s arctic domain and the field of frozen bubbles.

The spiders slowed down as the cold seeped into their forms, then when they tried to push the bubbles out of the way they learn first hand how bad of an idea that was.

Pops soon rang out, each pop signifying the violent end of a spider as the explosion sent both force and jagged shards of ice flying out in a violent explosion. The ice shard shredding through their bodies.

And before the fight had even truly started, the last spider dropped to the ground dead. The closest that any of the spiders got was 3 meters from them.

The girls looked at the field of slowly dissolving spider corpses in amazement.

"That went much smoother than I though it would." Violet mused aloud.

Luna, Susan and Rhyana all sharply turned their heads in her direction, Luna practically shouted. "Why would you say something like that! Now something is definitely going to go wrong!"

"Eh? It will? But, but everything is dead?" Violet replied, her head tilted at an angle as she gazed over the battlefield.

The girls still glared at the void dragon, yet they did turn to observe the battlefield. They had to agree with her statement however, indeed nothing did appear, they slowly advanced forwards casually picking up any beast core that they passed by.

Yet their looting was interrupted by a luck crack that echoed out from the center of the clearing.

The girls jolted up in surprise as they gazed over at the giant mushroom, staying cautious. Then another crack echoed out and Violet noticed where it was coming from. "The mushroom is falling over!" She announced to the girls.

Indeed it was, be it from Violet’s spell or as a preordained event the giant mushroom was indeed toppling over.

One more crack echoed out before the giant mushroom leant over and crashed through the fungal roof, and for the first time in a while the girls saw the sunlight stream through the gaping wound in the roof.