12 Wreckage

Hours passed and the midnight dungeon reset was now quickly approaching. In the time from fighting the ice bats and encountering the serpopards, not a single monster had been seen since then.

Even when the team turned into the tunnel the monsters ran through, nothing was at the end. Nothing was around anymore, not even other teams.

They hadn't found a single human or monster in hours, giving everyone a bit of anxiety. Even Frederick was starting to worry about how the tunnels were. He had messaged the event coordinator who wore the blue suit a couple of times, but he said that most teams checked in and was not have such issues, team H was just unlucky during the competition.

With the night almost ending, Frederick broke the silence. "All right, you guys have half an hour before the dungeon resets, the event coordinator wants all the facilitators to make the teams return back to the surface beforehand, otherwise a penalty kicks in due to overtime."

"Maybe we should head back now, I doubt we will find anything for us actually the competition in the next few minutes." Said Trista, refusing to admit that she didn't wanna be there anymore. The silence was far more concerning than any monsters she had faced before.

Everyone agreed with her. Unless they ran into a giant pile of mana orbs, the game was definitely set for another team to win.

When they turned around the corner, they found something completely different from a mass a loot. It was a mass of absolute monster carnage and the stench of blood hit them like a stone wall.

A few gags came out of the team before moving on, they weren't unfamiliar which such ugly messes because they had create such messes fighting strong monsters in the past.

Everyone assumed it was just a fresh battle they just missed and carried on through without looking too closely, it was what most adventurers did. Once a monster's body died, only the mana orbs and potential drops were of any value, so their was not much reason to stick around for the melting decay and gross smells.

They just kept walking when suddenly, Mycroft stopped dead in his tracks. He was completely bug eyed and staring down at a bloody stick raised from a mass protuding out of the carnage, nobody understood what he was so flabbergasted about. It could have been a spine, thorn, or random appendage to any of a dozen different monsters in the dungeon.

But he followed with muttering a single word that made everyone freeze as well. Mycroft let out a breath that sounded like "Hammer."

Sitting upright against a torn up torso, was a war hammer with the four-foot long handle, the rest of the team had finally recognized at a second glance. It was Casmus the berserker's hammer, smashed into his own sternum and caked in his own intestines. His body and face was so mangled, they didn't even think the body was human.

Everyone began looking around the room more closely and found it very hard to breath now. The monster organs were not melting very quickly because none of it was fresh monster, it was all of Team C's remains.

Gags quickly turned to vomit from two of the adventurers standing in the tunnel.

The carnage of a recent battle appeared to be horrendously one-sided, only the bodies of adventurers were scattered widely across the floor, no traces of monster parts melting.

Under the mess was three bodies that looked to be somewhat in one piece, only missing a few limbs and lots of blood.

"Is-Is anyone alive?" Stuttered Rosetta in fear of the definite answer she would receive.

"Give me a sec." Galahad was the only one he didn't seem effected by the gruesome discovery. When he stepped forward, he attempted to cast his mana tethers on the three bodies that weren't completely mutilated.

All three attached for a few seconds, then two of them snapped and rippled back into his chest. He pointed at the small blonde girl attached to the intact one and said "Her."

Rosetta tried to focused on the pale face covered in blood without getting sick again, saying "That's Venora, the count's daughter she must have been towards the rear during the attack."

Her theory would seem accurate because the carnage lessened towards the back of the group. The bodies of the last three females were only dismembered and not completely mutilated like Casmus. The poor bastard was spread across the rocks like a chunky paste.

Frederick quickly knelt down and tried to check Venora's vitals. She was extremely pale with blood trickling from a cut on her temple and her breathing was dangerously shallow, he didn't know for sure which one was going to be her last.

Galahad was pushing as much magical support as he could into Venora, but he had to start chugging his last two vials of mana potion to keep his healing skill strong enough to prevent her from dying right there.

The only good news was the weak pulse and shallow breath meant life. Frederick gave a quick look around for anything to help besides Galahad's tether trying to heal injuries that were definitely too extensive for him to handle.

The bow she used was completely shattered a few feet away along with some of her right hand fingers. The armor around her stomach was ripped into scattered pieces and four long gashes were running parallel along her abdomen, exposing her muscle tissue and emptying the blood from her body. Frederick pulled a yellow blanket out of his bag after finding nothing else to help her from the tunnel.

He chanted the command spell that was infused to the blanket as he draped it across her open wounds. Her skin earned back some color, but not a lot to relax.

"That will temporarily stop the bleeding, but she needs medical help right now."

Frederick pulled out his Karmic Plate and tried to call his associates on the surface but only a static came out when he tried to connect with anyone.

"Shit, its low level mana disturbance. We aren't going to be able to call for anybody to come help us."

Rosetta activated a scaled down form of fire like before and a little ball of fire appeared yellow and then orange in her hand. "What do you mean? I can still manipulate the mana just fine down here." She was still very nervous and now puzzled at Frederick's words.

Galahad interjected after tether checking the rest of the deceased Team C again and again. "Magician's magic doesn't operate on low grade mana, the scry calls or more basic functions of a Karmic Plate is more sensitive and are the first to become unusable whenever something powerful enough is giving off a sort of mana interference of its own."

Frederick nodded, "He's right, your spells will work just fine. The problem is all basic magic tools are useless this far down with monsters capable of doing something this. I need to see something real quick."

Frederick flipped over his Karmic Plate and pressed down his index finger, the magic array for generating the return spell began starting up at his touch. He let out a sigh of relief, "Good, the return function is normally the next thing to go haywire. Now I need all of you to listen carefully."

Frederick stood up and turned to the team after thinking for a moment. "I need to send Venora back now and tell everyone what's going on, I need you guys wait a few minutes before I can get medical help to move her safely off the Return Crystal."

"Do NOT remain here, we will send higher level teams to deal with the threat as soon as possible. Something that does this is not even close to your levels. We don't need a reckless team trying to act like heroes, so wait right here for three minutes at a max, got it?"

"We promise, three minutes; then we activate the return spell." Victor confirmed, he knew every second here was only decreasing Venora's chances of survival. He tried to keep his voice calm with a tone that was dead serious, but his pale face gave away his discomfort about the bodies around them.

Frederick took Victor's word and carefully moved one of Venora's remaining fingers to activate the return spell on the necklace she had holding the plate beneath her armor. A white light enveloped her frail body and Frederick activated his at the same time.

After twenty seconds, they disappeared in a bright flash of light; the rest of the team was left standing silently in the carnage of Team C. Heath collapsed on his knees while his brother could only stand there with no words to give.

Nobody knew what to say, these mangled corpses were once classmates they grew up alongside, and their lives were suddenly snuffed out without any warning.

"Is there anyway we can get their bodies back to the surface?" Mycroft asked. They couldn't just leave the remains scattered everywhere.

Galahad immediately gave an answer no one wanted to hear. "We can't, the living soul is what generates the mana used to perform the magical array on the plate. That's why my tethers didn't stay latched onto Kara or the others, they're… gone. I can't feel their souls producing anymore-"

Heath turned from the ground and started yelling. "How do you possibly know all about the plates and their sensitivity or this soul shit? Huh? Or are you just trying to act all knowledgeable about shit to sound cool Galahad?" He lashed out. This was the first time he felt this way and didn't know what else to do with his emotions.

"Heath!" Rosetta shouted. "He knows for his own reasons and you need to calm the hell down, now is probably the worst time to freak out. Don't forget the shift is gonna happen soon, even if we came back, we'd have no way to find them after everything changes."

"I'm not freaking out, just don't understand how he can try and act all stoic and shit." He muttered as he turned away.

"Quiet Heath!" She shouted, her nerves were getting to her as well.

"G-Guys… this isn't good." Before anyone could keep arguing, Trista interrupted the fight with a very concerned tone.

She had noticed something coming from the opposite end of the tunnel. She pointed a finger down the dark path as wisps of black smoke started emerging from the shadows. The smoke wasn't just a naturally floating gas, it moved like thick snakes in the air, searching for something to eat.

The team backed up into the other end of the intersection with all their weapons drawn, Rosetta began motion her arms for her flame whip, and Galahad already started boosting everyone's defense the best he could after exerting so much effort into saving Venora.

If they had to, they were going to throw a bunch of attacks at the hidden monster and use their crystals to make earlier to escape. Even if it risked landing in the middle of Venora being pulled off the main

Turns out all their actions were unnecessary.

Just as quickly as they emerged, the tendrils of black smoke shot back into the darkness. Leaving the six of them scared and confused once again.

Rosetta tried to calm herself and tried to act like the leader she was supposed to be. Too bad her thoughts wouldn't stop flying around in a panic. 'What should we do if the smoke came back? Could we just leave now? What happens if the mana disturbance gets worse and we can't leave?'

Too many thoughts were stopping her from thinking of something to tell the team, she felt like everything was breaking apart at the seams.

"Hold on, does anyone actually see Kara?" Victor turned and noticed only four bodies added up across the carnage around them.

Then Galahad realized someone else was missing. "And where's their facilitator?"

No one had the chance to think about it. Screams of agony starting ringing out of the darkness the smoke leaked out from. It was the shrieking of a female voice Galahad vaguely remembered, but Victor's next words confirmed it.

"That's Kara." They started moving without discussion. None of them wanted to stay, but if they could bring another person back, they'd stay with no regrets.

Without even realizing it, the plan changed from escaping to finding the last surviving member of Team C still in the dungeon. Although the sounds she made were telling them that she didn't have too much longer for a rescue.