"That thing is no golem, it's alive." Lith yelled without averting his gaze from the fungal creature in front of him. Life Vision and mana sense kept scanning the surroundings, trying to make sense of the creature's odd behavior.
'Hope? What kind of fool would look at his sworn enemy with hope?' Lith thought as a black aura enveloped his body, protecting him from the deadly spores.
'Maybe you're looking at the issue from the wrong angle. Why would a seemingly immortal creature bother to defend this place? The Odi are no more, and if Mogar's fungi are like those on Earth, killing one is nigh impossible.
'Especially if the spores share a hive mind. One of them is enough to regenerate the whole creature from scratch.' Solus pointed out.
'It shouldn't care. Unless it's bound to this place, of course.' Lith thought.
His train of thoughts was interrupted by the creature using earth magic to make a hail of stalactites fall from above. Lith had no problem dodging them, but the creature grabbed and used them as clubs.
The spores arranged themselves in tendrils capable of freely attacking Lith from every direction. The pseudo arms had no bones nor joints, so they could change their trajectory at any time, forcing Lith to Blink away before being trapped.
"We need to help him!" Calil, Professor Syndra's assistant, was tired of waiting on the sidelines. Unlike the others, he wasn't just a theoretician. One of his specializations was Battle Mage.
A wave of his hand unleashed the tier five spell, Fire Arms. A volley of flaming hands the size of an adult intercepted the clubs and clawed at the enemy at the same time. Each one of the magical hands was made out of air and cyan flames.
The wind element allowed them to grab anything without inflicting harm or could boost the flame's intensity at any given time according to the situation.
'If it's a sand golem like Professor Gaakhu says, my spell will turn it into glass. If it's a living being like Ranger Verhen says, then Fire Arms will kill it. No matter the species this bird belongs to, mine is the right stone for the kill.' Calil thought.
"Don't use fire, you idiot!" Lith said, crashing Calil's heroic dreams.
The spore cloud exploded with a series of small thumps, spreading the mushroom creature's minuscule limbs past the door.
Only those like Phloria who had blind trust in Lith had prepared a darkness barrier to protect themselves. All the others resorted to air or earth magic, but such elements couldn't do anything against a pollen sized attack.
Calil took the brunt of the spore wave, coughing madly while he started to bleed from all of his orifices due to the mycotoxins the creature released as it grew inside his body.
The infection spread so fast that it took it seconds to entirely cover the youth's skin.
"Light magic is useless!" Professor Syndra said after his attempt to save his assistant's life only accelerated the spreading of the disease which was now also covering Syndra's hands.
"It's a fungus!" Lith yelled with his last breath as the creature now enveloped his body withing its own, pummelling at him non stop with its appendices. Lith could kill the nearby spores with darkness magic, but they were just expendable.
The entire Kulah was covered in them, giving the creatures almost infinite mass to draw upon. Lith turtled up, infusing his Skinwalker with mana so that the Orichalcum protected him from head to toe.
The spores couldn't touch him anymore and the stalactites were just normal weapons. Thanks to the Thunderbird's plume, the Skinwalker was immune to blunt attacks. At least until he had enough mana to keep the armor in its boosted form.
'Any ideas?' Lith asked while searching for a way out.
'Working on it.' Solus replied. 'There must be something that forces the creature to stay here. Now that I know the creature's energy signature, I should be able to locate its core from a distance if I focus hard enough. If it has one, though.'
Phloria and Quylla had their own battle to fight. Aside from Morok and Yondra, the rest of the expedition was dying. Quylla could only treat one person at a time, whereas Phloria was racking her brain to find a spell that could turn the tides of the battle.
'Think, Lith. Think. How do you coerce a plant to do your bidding? A hostage? Nonsense. With a hive mind, one is all and all are one. A slave ring? Even more idiotic. How do you put a ring on a bunch of spores?
'They would just need to cut off the f- That's it! The hive mind is the key. The Odi must have infected part of the spores with some kind of slave agent. It would be enough to take control of the entire creature due to the consciousness the spores share.
'If I'm right, the enslaved spores must be somewhere nearby. A place where they are protected by random harm but have enough resources to survive. If it was a sealed container, over time they would have died of starvation.'
'On it!' Now that she had at least an idea of what to look for, Solus could restrict her search parameters.
Even if his intuition was right, Lith had yet to find a way to escape from his predicament. Most of the spells he had at the ready weren't suitable against such a creature and Origin Flames were now an even worse option than they had been before.
Even though they were mystical, they were still made of fire, and to make matter worse, they would hurt Lith along with his enemy. He had avoided using them because an explosion made by Origin Flames might have wiped out both the expedition and Kulah.
"If we get out of here alive, I'm going to ask for a raise!" Morok complained while cleansing another Professor from the spores. He wasn't much of a caring guy, but he was aware that as soon as the fungus was done with the fossils, he would be its next target.
"This is never going to work!" Quylla blurted out in desperation. With only three healers and 14 patients, some already in critical condition, fighting the spores as if they were not sentient was a losing battle.
She stopped treating Professor Phesta and started to spread short and weak pulses of darkness magic all around her.
"Are you insane? Your spell is going to affect us too!" Morok said.
"No, she is a genius just as you are a moron!" Yondra said. "The pulses she emits are strong enough to prevent the spores from spreading but weak enough to be stopped by our armors. She's buying us time by acting as a human array."
'A reckless genius.' Yondra thought while treating her next patient as fast as she could. 'You can't improvise spells, which means she is using first magic. Covering an area that big while keeping such fine control over the pulses must put an immense burden on her body.'
Yondra was right. Unlike Awakened ones, fake makes were unable to stimulate their cores to produce more mana without the help of magic words and hand signs. Even producing the effects of a tier one spells with first magic would endanger their lives.
In the meantime, Phloria had never felt so helpless. The sword and spells she had practiced so hard were useless against the monstrous fungus, especially now that it held Lith inside its clutches.
