Once the two returned, Epsilon particularly felt like he was being targeted by a strange malice. When he checked behind himself, he was confused to see it was Gracia.
"You aren't.. doing anything with her.. are.. you?"
"What do you mean?"
Seeing his cluelessness, she quickly dismissed her thoughts.
"Nevermind."
The second he got a little bit of a break though, Galahad springed on top of him, with his weight pushing Epsilon down a little.
"Fight me, now!"
He gladly rejected the proposal.
**
After half a day of preparing, Smile Of Heaven took off ahead of the others to scout. Annyoingly, the cave system was much more complicated than they had thought, as new paths seemed to appear the further down you went.
Thankfully, either Sylas or Anvil had conviently left traces of their battles, or markings on the wall for them to follow with some being crossed out, and others indicateing the path they currently were on. All they needed to do was follow those, and if they were fast enough, they might meet up with them eventually.
"Wait a damn second."
Epsilon looked at Galahad unnervingly,
"You never said why they left you behind in the first place."
He looked back at him with a clueless expression,
"They only left to go scout."
'And this moron didn't say anything about that?!"
And then, something else clicked in his head too.
"So... they left to scout... almost 4 days ago... And it didn't occur to you that mabye something went wrong??"
"Huh... Well, when you put it like that, you might be onto something! You're quite clever aren't you?"
He said it all with a genuine smile on his face, without a hint of negativity or shame.
'This guy is a complete Buffoon.'
**
Although he may be stupid, his strength was still no joke. He was a legacy clan member, and not just that, but he was of a band of people that lived secluded in the mountains, practising their mastery over all weapons to perfection, far before the time of the Nightmare Spells descension.
When it came to sheer skill, even amongst legacies, Galahad was the was the creme of the crop.
A small, but armoured reptelian creature that crawled on all fours quickly approached them. Just from a glance, Epsilon confirmed it was merely an Awakened Beast, but it's hard carapace would prove troublesome to cut through.
Thankfully, they had someone skilled in blunt force weapons with them.
Galahad immediately rushed forwards, sweeping the creature off it's feet with a well placed hit. And then carrying that momentum, he swung his staff in a full rotation like a golf club as it crushed the creature, slamming it against the wall.
It's carapace easily burst, as a strange white fluid squeezed out from its corpse.
It died on the spot.
"Hahahaha! Impressive no?"
"Yeah but, there's still more."
Further up ahead, the sound of several tiny feet scuttling towards them echoed down the cavern. Growing brighter, Gracia lit the way ahead, exposing a swarm of around 15 more of the reptelian creatures. Some were running on the ground, others were walking on the caves wall, and even crawling on the ceiling.
Smile of Heaven ordered,
"Epsilon, Glahad, you two hold the defensive line. Ki song, and I will—"
Before she could finish, Glahad rushed forwards while swinging his staff like a frenzied mad man.
"Why are guys hesitating? If there's a Nightmare Creature in front of you, then kill it!"
"Are you an idiot? You're going to get yourself killed!"
Mabye this was why those two left him behind.
Gracia quickly flew forwards to make sure he didn't die in a stupid way, leaving Epsilon and Ki Song to fend for themselves.
Soon enough, the yellow creatures split of into two even groups. One attacking Galahad and Gracia, with the other attacking Epsilon and Ki Song.
Activating his dormant ability, Epsilon summmoned an orb of white energy. Then Activating his innate ability, the white light it gave off intensifed.
'Just one week...'
He fired it straight towards one of the yellow reptiles at the front, easily making contact and exploding, blasting it off it's feet. Although it survived the hit, a large crack formed on its Carapace.
Then running up towards it, Epsilon concentrated,
'Bob, left arm.'
"You got it."
Epsilon could feel a rush of his Soul Essence flow to his right arm, and then enchancing himself with his dormant ability, he felt a tremendous power dwelling within him.
He threw his fist right at the crack, easily destroying it. And then with his sword in his right hand, he thrusted it right into the creature before twisting it, messing up it's internal organs.
[You have slain the awakened beast, Yellow Tail.]
His dormant ability on its own was weak and not enough to destroy their shells. But rather than using a large amount of his life force at once, just using a tiny amount was enough for these things.
Another one of the yellow tails tried to pounce right on top of him, while Epsilon was distracted fighting another, but Ki Song quickly stepped in and swatted it away.
Unfortunately, her own dormant ability wasn't very useful here, so the most she could do was buy time for Epsilon to recover.
Rinse and repeating those steps, Epsilon and Ki Song were able to kill 2 more of those creatures.
'This isn't good.'
But just that was enough to almost deplete him of all of his Soul Essence. At this rate they would loose.
Galahad with his staff swept several off their feet. He was quickly able to take out one, but all the rest recovered before ramming him straight in the chest.
The chest piece of his armour cracked, but rather than growing warry, he found it rather delightful.
Right then, Smile Of Heaven noticed something odd about them. Although their back and legs were a dark yellow colour which highlighed their Carapace, their underside was incrediblly light in contrast.
Then, she called out to the other two,
"Flip them on their backs! They don't have armour on their under belly!"
Hearing that, Epsilon still enhanced by his Dormant ability, kicked the right side of one of the creatures. It wasn't enough to completely flip it over, but it was enough to expose its underside just enough.
Then rushing up towards it, Ki Song thrusted her Sword right into it, killing it on the spot.
'This could work.'
**
The battle after that didn't take too long, since all the Yellow tails had been killed. Galahad tried to sneak off to find more Nightmare Creatures to fight, but Epsilon just knacked him on the head before he could escape.
"So..."
While in his body, the only one who could hear Bob was Epsilon. He didn't need to speak either as Bob could just read his thoughts.
"When exactly do you plan on turning back around? Ya know, if you don't follow the contract, there are some pretty terrible consequences..."
Epsilon thought for a moment, before replying,
'I want to help the others reunite with Sylas first. Then I'll deal with this stupid thing.'
Picking up one of the Yellow tails by the leg, Epsilon thrusted his blade into its underside, before tearing it open. Then reaching inside, he ripped out it's Soul Fragment.
'How can you do all this stuff anyway, is it your Aspect or something?'
"No, it's something I was reborn knowing I could do. Even then, I didn't have many details, but this Nightmare Spell thing explained it to me nicely. It's pretty nifty huh?"
Epsilon paused for a moment, taking the time to understand what he just said. It was a little shocking.
'What? You were infected too?'
"Yep. Once I made that contract with you, it just appeared out of nowhere. Anyhow, Whats a memory?"
Right before Epsilon could explain anything though, the cavern up ahead began to rumble and shake.
Flying forwards, Gracia lit up the way once again exposing another one of the yellow tails.
However, this one was much bigger, as it was almost the size of a boulder. It was curled up in a sphere, hiding it's unprotected underbelly, and it was rolling straight towards them.
"It's an awakened monster, we just need to be a little more careful."
But of course, Galahad had other ideas. He was already rushing right towards it.