Wind rushed past Nar's face, his stomach dropping as gravity took hold of him, Row and Rel, and his heart dropped as the gap between him and the ma'bat grew… Then Eum's hands closed around his left, Gad's doing the same over his right, and the two of them yanked him and his two passengers aboard the beast.

The five of them collapsed in a bundle, but the beast was still in free fall.

There was a sudden, piercing cry amidst panicked growling, and then, they were righting themselves above the red hazy clouds, just before they plunged into them.

"Is everyone here?" Kur shouted.

People started shouting their presence, the party chat forgotten in the panicked rush of their escape.

"Yes!" Nar shouted, collapsing against the beasts, soft back, panting.

To his relief, he caught sight of Medis and Jul safely aboard their ride as well, and he allowed himself to remain collapsed, half over Gad, half over Eum, their arms wrapped tightly around him, just as he hung on for dear life for Row and Rel.

"We're good!" Row shouted, patting his arm. "We're good! But fuck… Thank you so much!"

"No worries!" Nar said, as he eased his hold over her and Rel.

Gods! This dungeon is insane! He muttered to himself.

"We're not out of this yet!" Sej said, through their minds. "Those things jumped after you and one of them got this guy's wing!"

And as if to prove her point, the ma'bat banked dangerously to the left.

"No! No!" Nar heard Sej shouting from behind, right by the beast's head. "To the right, big guy! To the right!"

"This isn't good," Eum said, as the air around them grew steadily redder and hazier. And stinkier.

"Ugh!" Rel said, covering her nose and mouth. "Are we going to crash in that fucking jungle?"

Please, no, Nar thought, gazing down at the enormous thorns they now flew over.

"Ranged!" Sej called "Get ready to fight! We're too low!"

"What's coming?" Kur asked.

"Everything that can fly!" the guide shouted back.

"Taunting?" Leon asked.

"Useless! We're about to be swarmed!" Sej said, and then, reverting to her voice. "Come on, buddy! You can do it! Get us back to your family and I'll make more yummy-yummy for you! I swear!"

Nar shook his head at the absurdity of their situation and tapped both Eum and Gad to let him go. He raised to his feet and stumbled precariously to the edge of the beast's back.

The spires in the distant haze had crumbled, and though he couldn't tell if any of the broken spires had been the one they had launched from, the sight of it clenched at his heart. Hopefully, as Medis had sensed, everyone had made it out alright. As for any apprentices still left in the Jungle Tops, and headed to the Hungry Jungle, the spires would be rebuilt by the dungeon guardian soon enough, so there shouldn't be anyone left stranded.

Hopefully no one was caught in that Grounding, he thought, clenching his jaw.

He tried not to think about who might have triggered the Grounding. There were mostly apprentices in that jungle, but there were still a good number of local delvers working around the place. In fact, they had stumbled upon an egg harvesting operation, makeshift rusty fences and derelict buildings standing precariously in the middle of the jungle.

Was it bad that he hoped it had been someone else triggering that Grounding, hoping against hope that no apprentice parties had been whipped in that torrent of wrath and claws?

He sighed. At the end of the day, we're all just looking out for our own…

But the warning that not all of them would make it to the end of their apprenticeship with the Scimitar weighed heavily upon his heart as the ma'bat's wings beat with ponderous booms. It was true that those who had stayed in the Scimitar had done so with the full knowledge of the risks in doing so, but, as with Kur's party, how many of them had done so in fear of being too weak to survive in their new reality outside the B-Nex?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, Nar thought bitterly.

"Heads up! To our left!" Sej warned.

Nar turned around and found a cloud of dark shapes quickly rising up from one of the rock formations jutting from the thorns to their left.

Bugs… he thought, lips twisted.

"I got them!" he said, his sword already out in his hands.

"Rel, Jaz, Cen, to the left and front with Nar!" Kur shouted. "Calli, Medis, Lim and Cor, to the right and back! And fire at will! As long as those things are far enough, I don't care about any clashes!"

"And me?" Tuk asked.

"Stay put for now. You will be our last line of defense," Kur said, his tone grim. "There's a lot of things that can fly in this place."

The horizon darkened as the wounded ma'bat continued to descend despite Sej's promises and encouragement, and Nar's blade glowed searingly bright as prepared to unleash as large as an explosion as he could with his [Aura Blade]. Good thing his [Mastery 10] now allowed him 749 points of aura use at once.

At his side Cen raised her hands forward, and her five [Aura Projectiles] materialized around her, ready to unleash their devastation.

In the distance, the now distinguishable bulks of hundreds of large, flying insects became clearer as they flew through the red Miasma, their translucent wings shimmering. The beasts were headed straight for them, dispelling any remaining illusions about whether or not they had been spotted.

"There's something from our side too!" Rel said. "They're small, but there's a lot of them!"

"Pucks!" Sarke said, her usually neutral tone growing taunt. "Whatever you do, don't let them get close to us! They'll snatch us mid-flight and you do not want to end up in their nests!"

"We don't want to end up anywhere!" Jaz shouted, getting his bow ready.

"Eum, to the right side," Calli commanded, her tone firm and steady. "Mach, on stand-by for now. You might need to help Tuk. And melee, be ready to be moved wherever you're needed the most!"

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The screeching that erupted from behind Nar drowned out their responses. That could only mean that the number of pucks coming up for them had to be truly humongous! However, he kept his focus on the insects coming for them from his side of the ma'bat.

T'Nothit, he recalled with a grimace.

He had a feeling those shimmering wings belonged to the dreaded insects they had read about during their prep work, but as the beasts devoured the distance, he became sure.

The t'nothit were an insect species that made the Hungry Jungle their home. Carnivorous, like everything else in that red and black jungle, the t'nothit were an incredibly territorial species of beast that lived in massive, underground complexes that reached up to the very skies in towering spires. The bugs fought, killed and ate pretty much anything that dared trespass into their territory, ground or air, including other t'nothit.

The beasts came in a variety of shapes and roles, with the ones now loudly buzzing towards them being of the obvious flying hunter type, given that the flying scouts were meant to be a lot smaller than those 5-foot, red-eyed, yellow monstrosities.

"You go first!" Nar shouted at Cen. "They're still too far for me."

Cen nodded and flung her hands forward.

The [Aura Projectiles] darted silently towards the swarm, streaking gray light behind them. A few moments later, the red clouds parted before the five mighty explosions that swallowed up the swarm heading their way. It was a reduced contingent that emerged from that raging aura, and before they could fully recover, Jaz's prankster skills began to wreak havoc amongst them.

However, the insects reacted to their resistance.

"Kur. We've got more of them coming up!" Nar warned, pulling on his [Sight]. "A lot more!"

Indeed, the second wave took form into a much larger cloud of shimmering translucent wings coming from the nearest spire.

"Just do what you can!" Kur said. "The further we go, the less jungle we'll have to fight our way out of!"

Damn, Nar thought. I guess we really are going to crash down there.

He glanced down at the caster as Cen prepared another wave of projectiles. She had become much more versed in using her dreadful [Scattering Drops], at now level 2, as well as her [Orb of Erasure]... In her own words, the jungle demanded it, and it was infantile to not use her most powerful skills. But now, faced with those winged horrors, he doubted Cen would have such issues.

"Too far," she said through gritted teeth, as though reading his mind. "And we're moving too much for me to control them! Damn it! I need a steady ground!"

Nar gave her a sharp nod.

"We won't need it. Don't worry," he said, and hoped he wasn't lying.

His blade thrummed with contained aura, all 749 points allowed to him, and his [Aura Blade] stood ready to be unleashed upon their assailants.

From behind, he heard an increase in the shrieking and grimaced. The pucks were a creature they had been especially warned about. They appeared as tiny, chubby, red-gray humanoids with stubby, fleshy wings, who made their nests amidst the tallest reaches of the thorns covering the Hungry Jungle.

They were known for their exceptionally sharp teeth and claws, and worse, for the endearing detail that they subsisted almost exclusively on blood. Therefore, the pucks dangled their victims upside down, leaving them to suffer across several days as they slowly sucked them dry from minute cutes, several pucks latched onto them and sucking at once.

Somehow however, that still felt preferable to being dragged down into a t'nothit hive to become living, breeding shells for the insects' young.

Crystal. Why does this place have to be Crystal damned nasty, he thought with a grimace of disgust.

But unfortunately, the second insect wave buzzed past Cen's explosions, Jaz's loud and bright distractions and Rel's red streaking arrows, and his turn finally arrived.

"Go!" Cen said, holding off on her next volley of [Aura Projectiles].

Nar, holding himself as stable and upright as possible, touched his right hand almost to his left shoulder, twisting his body sideways as much as he could. He was going to need a big explosion, and that meant a big slash, without any attempts at controlling the blade coming off his sword, as he had been training to achieve.

He uncoiled his body, core, back, arm and leg muscles all working in tandem to lend even more [Strength] to that sword cut, and a long line of aura, the longest he had managed thus far with, cut through the Miasma, splitting the clouds in an unnaturally straight line.

The sharp edge of light snarled forth towards the incoming insects, and Nar triggered his control.

"Gnhh!" Nar growled, doing his best to hold onto the blade as it roared past the 100-feet mark.

150.

200.

230…

250!

Pain broke across his brain, much more than he could withstand, and with a gasp, he let go of the skill.

The explosion was deafening, and startled cries rose from the others as furious gales hit them, destabilizing the wounded ma'bat. Even Nar himself half dropped his mouth in surprise at the bright display of aura that roared across the skies. He hadn't tested his newest [Mastery] yet, and usually, he had to be cautious of the others fighting alongside him.

"Damn, Nar," Jaz whispered.

"That's something…" Rel said, her face lit up by the towering, stretching line of explosions.

And that was just one month in this jungle… How much stronger will I be after three more? He asked himself, stunned.

"Don't stop!" Cen shouted, pulling him back to the now. "They're still coming!"

"How many of those things are there?" Mul grunted, staring at the encroaching swarm from behind the ranged.

"A t'nothit hive can contain upwards to fifty thousand combatants!" Sarke said.

"Crystal's fucking sakes…" Mul muttered.

"Keep shooting!" Kur shouted.

From the corner of his eyes, Nar realized that the command had been issued not at them, but to their right flank. He glanced around, even as he prepared another full-blown [Aura Blade], and froze. The skies on their left side were gone under a mass of quick, darting dots.

The pucks were smaller than his forearm, but they made up for it in mind boggling, sheer numbers.

If the insects can have fifty thousand, then how many do those fucking things have? Nar thought.

[Aura Projectiles], red claws, blue javelins, golden and fire explosions raged against the incoming mass of pucks, but even with Sej joining them, Eum, Cor, Calli, Medis and Lim were not enough to stop that endless swarm… Soon, they would be swallowed.

Nar half turned to check on the t'nothit again, and his heart plunged further. They insects less than a hundred feet away and closing in fast. Rel and Jaz shoot their arrows in a panicked frenzy, and Nar added his [Aura Blades] to the volley, rapturing the sky with momentous explosions once again. But it was not enough, they were about to be engulfed from the left side as well…

A bright orb of light glowed from his side, and he looked down at Cen.

"Cen!" Rel shouted.

"They're too close!" the caster groaned. "I'll have to risk it!"

And having said so, she unleashed the devastation of her [Scattering Drops], and insects fell by the dozens, their wings shredded to uselessness.

But in the blink of an eye, Nar found things flying at his face, the air filling with the droning of beating wings.

Cen cried as pucks latched onto her, surprising her from behind, and the bloodsuckers tried to lift her off the ma'bat. Nar leaped forward to take hold of her, and Mul, with a low, guttural growl, crushed the trio of daring pucks with flaming fists, their remains dropping to the thorns below.

Shit! Nar thought, as the temperature rose.

"Mul!" his sister cried in warning.

"I got it under control!" he grunted.

But if that was one crisis averted, the ma'bat suddenly cried beneath them.

"They're under him!" Sarke warned.

"Tuk!" Kur shouted. "Get them!"

"I-I can't shoot like that!" Tuk said, his tone panicked. "My [Awareness] isn't high enough! I need to be able to see!"

"Mach?" Leon asked.

"Same!" the feathered sapient said, as he launched claws of stormy air at anything that came at them from behind.

Well, fuck… Nar thought.

"We're going to fall!" Sej shouted, as the chaos grew to a crescendo.

The insects targeted the ma'bat, the delvers, and the pucks without discrimination, and soon, the two groups of beats were just as intended on killing each other as of bringing down their original prey.

"This guy can't last much longer now. Get back to the center, and hold on tight to each other! Maybe we'll survive this!"

Nar pulled Rel and Jaz with him as he stumbled towards the center of the ma'bat's back, Cen taking shelter with Mul under Gad.

The poor beast quivered in pain and exhaustion under Nar's feet, and his heart went to the majestic creature, respawn or not.

Soon, the Miasma engulfed them completely, and while some of the beasts followed their precipitous descent, thankfully, the bulk of them remained to fight each other.

The thorns grew impossibly tall and large around them, and Nar's eyes went wide as he at last realized their true size.

"Ugh!" Jaz gagged.

A coiling, acrid stench forced itself down their throats as the air suddenly became almost too thick and spicy to breath. But the Miasma was the least of their problems at the moment.

"Hang on!" Sej shouted in their minds. "We're going to crash! Hold on to each other! Whatever happens, don't let go!"

And at last, the ma'bat cried as it slammed against the thorns, his left wing ripped clear of its body, and it continued crashing through and smashing itself to bits on its final descent through the thorns.

Nar pulled Rel and Jaz closer to him, and they in turn held onto others with white knuckled, trembling fingers.

"Meullum-Herfthuri! Marty! Have mercy on us!" Rel pleaded.

Then, reality went red, and Nar flew.

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