The Ravenlight Party pushed deeper into the tunnel, the sound of shifting sand growing louder with every step, supplementing Deacon’s Blood Sense as he could see that the antlions were digging their way into their tunnel.

  “Here they come,” Deacon warned, already shifting Echoform Reliquary back into its dual shortsword form as a wave of antlions burst from a side tunnel a few hundred meters ahead. The passage flooded with screeching chitin and snapping mandibles as the swarm surged toward them.

  Jass surged forward beside him without hesitation, the two of them forming a moving wall at the front as wrapped his blades in searing heat and reinforced Jass’s weapon with enough stone to transform her glaive into a makeshift stone cudgel.

  Deacon’s blades carved reddish-orange arcs of flame as he struck downward and sideways, severing antlion heads and limbs with ruthless efficiency. He didn’t waste a single motion in how he kept a single one from getting past him while he continued to push forward – he was simply too used to killing antlions by now.

  It had reached the point where he and Jass moved together without thinking, tagging each other out whenever they needed a breather or wanted to unleash a massive wave of fire in Deacon’s case or raise dozens of earth spears to pierce the bellies of the antlions in front of them.

  The Ravenlight Party had fully adapted to tunnel combat over the past few hours. With Deacon and Jass holding the forefront of the push, neither of them spared a thought for the spells firing overhead and streaking past them as the rest of the Party supported from behind.

  Sam’s staff slammed into the ground behind them, unleashing dozens of Wind Spears down the tunnel. The volley threaded cleanly between Deacon and Jass before skewering twice as many antlion spewers at the rear of the horde — those launching chunks of sandstone from between their mandibles.

  Any that made it even close to either Deacon or Jass were intercepted by Esmerelda’s Manashields, whenever she wasn’t busy peppering the tunnel with barrages of Ice Arrows.

  Further back, Bonehead was hard at work, lobbing insecticide flasks and canisters deep into the antlion horde. Flasks shattered on impact, and canisters popped open once their fuses burned out, releasing clouds of green vapor that spread rapidly through the horde of antlions. The gas seeped into the antlions’ bodies, sending their nervous systems into chaos and dropping them in thrashing heaps as the poison took hold.

  While the insecticides were fatal to the antlions, they were as harmless as a cloud to the members of the Ravenlight Party.

  Time blurred together as the Ravenlight Party continued to push against the horde of antlions blocking their path.

  When a final Wind Arrow tore through the last antlion’s head, the tunnel fell quiet once more. The party allowed itself a brief moment of respite before pressing on.

  As they continued down the passage, the tunnel gradually widened, just enough for them to walk side by side if they wished.

  Rubbing at his eyes from the strain of constantly maintaining , Deacon closed them for a brief moment as he took a few steps forward — only for his body to suddenly feel as though it passed through a waterfall curtain of mana.

  His hand shot out instantly to the side.

  “Stop,” Deacon said sharply, causing everyone behind him to come to a halt as he held the head of the formation they walked in.

  “I just walked through a barrier,” he informed them, eyes narrowing as the sensation lingered on his skin — like passing beneath a waterfall that was made of liquid mana, pressure washing over him for the briefest instant before vanishing entirely.

  Along with the sudden realization that he passed through a barrier was the sudden change in what was in front of him – where the winding tunnel had stretched on just a second ago, was suddenly gone.

  In its place, the tunnel simply ended, opening out into a cavern that dwarfed even the chamber housing the teleporter pad they’d arrived on. It was illuminated by a soft, yellow glow high above and out of Deacon’s immediate sight, stretching long shadows across the massive sandstone cavern at the end of the tunnel.

  Sam and Esmeralda immediately pushed past Jass, staff and wand already glowing as they began casting diagnostic spells at the space between Deacon and the rest of the group.

  “Can you walk back?” Sam asked quickly. “Do you feel any different?”

  Deacon took a step backward without hesitation, passing back through the barrier without resistance, the same brief wash of mana rolling over him before fading. The moment he did, he was hit with spell after spell as Sam and Esmeralda scanned him from head to toe.

  “You’re… fine,” Esmeralda said after casting what felt like a thousand spells on him, lowering her wand. “I cannot detect any abnormalities or foreign mana clinging to you.”

  “Yeah,” Sam nodded.

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  Glancing back toward the unseen cavern, Deacon said, “I think it’s just a barrier meant to block the antlions out. Probably something shrouding the Hidden Temple itself, because we passed the barrier protecting the teleporter pad long ago.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Bonehead.

  Deacon looked forward again, eyes narrowing slightly at the tunnel suddenly becoming long and winding with no hint of a massive cavern being up ahead. “After the barrier, the tunnel ends. It opens straight into a massive cavern, and there’s a yellow light illuminating everything about a hundred meters from here.”

  After a brief exchange of contemplative glances, the party reached a unanimous decision to move forward. Deacon took a steadying breath and stepped ahead, passing through the barrier once more.

  The sensation washed over him again like a curtain of cold mana, pressing against his skin for an instant before vanishing entirely, leaving him staring at the cavern beyond.

  Sam followed immediately after him, then Jass, Bonehead, and Esmerelda all at once, the five of them regrouping just past the barrier.

  , Deacon complained to himself.

  The tunnel on this side of the barrier was noticeably wider, large enough for all five of them to walk side by side if they wanted to, though habit and discipline kept them moving forward in formation regardless. Deacon remained at the head, Jass a half-step behind him, Sam and Esmerelda anchoring the rear while Bonehead kept to the center, his satchel clinking faintly with each step.

  Before they went any farther, Sam and Esmerelda exchanged a glance and began casting diagnostic spells onto themselves and the rest of the Party, layers of mana washing over them in careful sweeps to ensure that nothing had followed them through the barrier or latched onto them unnoticed.

  “When did you two learn diagnostic spells?” Deacon asked.

  “I asked Maybell,” Esmerelda answered, to which Sam gained a devious smirk and replied, “I also asked Maybell.”

  Hearing his response, Bonehead stopped and stared at Sam incredulously as he kept walking with the group. A second later, Bonehead leapt onto Sam’s back and shook his shoulders. “That’s my boy!”

  With a devious smirk still on his face, Sam glanced at Deacon, who looked like he was doing his absolute best not to burst out laughing, while Jass and Esmerelda both looked on the verge of throwing up and refusing to make eye contact with him.

  As more of the cavern came into view, Deacon found himself slowing despite his better judgment.

  At the very bottom of the cavern to the very top of it, carved directly into the surrounding sandstone, stood a doorway so massive that the word itself felt too small to describe just how large it was. Colossal pillars framed an arched entrance that dwarfed them completely, even from hundreds of meters away.

  The massive sand dune that covered the Bazaar of the Dune Sea looked like a normal-sized building in comparison to what he was looking at.

  Yet what confused Deacon was that there was no opening beyond it.

  The interior of the arch wasn’t hollow. It wasn’t dark, and it wasn’t choked with debris. It was… smooth and unblemished.

  “That’s one fucking hell of an entrance,” Bonehead muttered, his skull tilting upward as he tried to see the top of the arch.

  “Yeah,” Deacon agreed quietly, eyes never leaving the structure. “I’m beginning to think this Solomon guy was kind of a big deal.”

  Getting over his awe at the massive arch, he glanced back toward Sam and Esmerelda and gave a small nod.

  Snapping out of his awe, Sam planted his staff against the ground and slammed it down. Mana rippled outward from the point of impact, spreading in waves before coalescing into a steady, rising gust of wind that curled around their feet.

  Seconds later, the Party felt their feet lift from the sandstone floor and were beginning to be gently carried upward, drifting out of the tunnel mouth and into the open air of the cavern itself.

  Simultaneously, Esmerelda raised a hand and formed a dome-shaped Manashield around them.

  As Sam guided their descent carefully, easing them downward while subtly adjusting their trajectory to bring them to the foot of the staircase of the massive arch.

  The true scale of the cavern revealed itself with every meter they descended. Hundreds of tunnels honeycombed the walls at all heights and looked like they were dug by not only antlions, but many other subterranean desert creatures, judging by the sizes of quite a few of the tunnels lining the walls.

  When they finally touched down at the bottom, Deacon tightly clenched his fists.

  “Fuck me,” he muttered as he could no longer hold back his bladder any longer.

  Without another word, he immediately veered left and broke into a sprint, running parallel to the massive sandstone staircase that led up toward the sealed entrance.

  He didn’t stop until he reached a thick pillar jutting out from the side of the steps, where he turned his back to the cavern and hurriedly attempted to unzip his zipper before his bladder would explode.

  Unbeknownst to him, the rest of the Ravenlight Party ascended the sandstone steps and gathered several meters away from the massive doorway, all eyes drawn to the sheer size of it.

  As Esmerelda stared at the arch, her look of awe suddenly shifted into one of confusion as the sound of joyful chimes jingled beside her ear.

  She mouthed to herself in confusion as she listened to the words of the spirit communing with her.

  As the chimes began to jingle louder, Esmerelda slowly and tentatively held out her right hand, palm cupped and facing upward.

  Catching movement out of the corner of his eye as he gazed up at the arch, Sam turned and saw Esmerelda lifting her arm, her eyes suddenly beginning to twinkle.

  “Esme?” Sam asked, concern creeping into his voice as he turned toward her, grabbing the attention of Bonehead and Jass, who were nearby them. “You… good?”

  Golden motes of light rose from her palm and drew together above her skin, swirling as they began to form into some sort of 3D shape. Slowly, the motes coalesced and formed into a perfect icosahedron that hovered above her hand, glowing softly.

  The moment the shape fully formed, it shot from her palm and towards the doorway.

  At the same time, Esmerelda’s knees buckled.

  “Esme!” Sam shouted, lunging forward and catching her just as she began to fall, Jass grabbing her other arm to steady her as they helped her regain her footing.

  “…What?” Esmerelda murmured weakly, blinking as she looked between them. “What happened?”

  As the construct streaked across the open space toward the doorway, it hovered in the center of the massive arch before detonating in a brilliant burst of gold.

  “That’s what we were about to ask—” Sam began, only to be cut off as a sound like a sonic boom tore through the cavern.

  A rippling wave of energy surged inward from the arch, flooding the doorway with shimmering golden light before a shockwave of air blasted outward, rattling the cavern walls.

  Below, Deacon hurriedly zipped himself up and peeked out from behind the pillar, his eyes snapping upward to see that the once-empty doorway was no longer empty.

  “Is that a portal?” he shouted up at them.

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