Darian and the others were currently falling into the hole created by the Krukmongbee under the city.
"ANYONE DO SOMETHING!!" shouted Liro, terrified. One of the Krukmongbees had smashed its hand into the ground; the moment the Krukins noticed the humans falling, they both got ready with their stingers.
"I'll do it!" shouted Lily. Suddenly, two shards were shot at extreme speed and were about to pierce Darian and Vane. Both of them covered their bodies with their hands, even though they knew it was completely useless.
"We'll die!!" shouted Darian while closing his eyes. Suddenly, he felt his body land on something. 'What's this? I don't remember the Krukmongbee creating anything solid…' The moment he opened his eyes again, he found himself on roots created by Lily right as they were falling.
Vane, next to him, was still shouting in fear. "AHHHH I'M DEADDD!" Liro and Darian, hearing Vane shouting like that, laughed softly, but Lily immediately reminded them that the danger wasn't over yet.
"My wall will not be able to hold much longer!" she shouted. The stingers thrown by the Krukmongbees were slowly destroying the wall from below, Lily was gritting her teeth as she kept making the wall harder. At first, it was going well, but as the seconds passed, the Krukmongbee's stingers were able to create small holes in the roots' wall.
"Lily, you can't make us go back up, right?" asked Darian as he avoided the points where the Krukmongbees were shooting. Vane, realizing that he was still alive, got back on his feet.
"I will not be able to hold the wall… they'll kill us," answered Lily. Her body had just started to bleed; the more she hardened the wall, the more soul she would use.
Liro, watching the situation, positioned his hand over the wall. "They're only shooting in the middle; everyone get to a different side!"
Everyone nodded their heads and moved to a different side. Darian charged up a shard with his hand pointed in front of him, which was aimed at Liro. "Don't miss, Darian…" whispered Liro playfully, even though he knew that if Darian missed the hit, he would be the first one to get struck by the shard.
Vane, seeing Darian charging up his attack, was about to transform into the buffalo too when Lily stopped him. "The wall won't be able to hold the buffalo as well!" she pointed out, as she was about to remove the wall under them.
"Tch… guess I'll turn mid-air." With that, Vane gave the impression that he was ready, too. In a few seconds, the wall under them would completely disappear and they would fall right in front of the Krukmongbees.
The first thing that disappeared was the middle of the wall. Multiple stingers came out of it and were shot into the sky, while others fell to the ground. Suddenly, when the entire wall was removed, everyone fell. But while Darian and Lily found only the floor under them, Vane and Liro weren't as lucky; in fact, under them were the Krukmongbees with their stingers still pointed at the middle of the wall.
"Dammit!" Vane was lucky enough to turn mid-air into an eagle and was able to stop at the last moment. Liro wasn't as lucky, and his body landed on top of a Krukmongbee, who clearly didn't expect it.
"AHHH LET ME DOWN!!" shouted Liro as he started to ride the Krukmongbee, which tried to do everything it could to push Liro off.
Liro, on the other hand, was holding on tight. The Krukin was trying to launch him away and even tried to grab him with its hands, but its arms were too short and couldn't reach Liro.
"I'll help you!" shouted Vane as he dived down to help Liro, but he was too high, he would never reach him in time, especially because the other Krukmongbee was about to smash its fist toward poor Liro, who couldn't do anything to defend himself.
'I can't jump to either side…' Liro started to analyze everything around him. 'The Krukin will hit me regardless of the side.' Liro noticed that the Krukin was ready to grab him with one of its hands depending on which side he jumped to. Liro wasn't physically strong, he couldn't even arch back his body, especially because he wouldn't have the time.
Suddenly, just as the hand was about to strike Liro's face, Darian created a powerful ice shard that rushed directly toward the Krukmongbee that was about to hit Liro. "ICE SHARD!!" The moment Darian shouted, a powerful shard came out of his right arm. The shard was so powerful, and Darian had loaded it for so long, that the temperature around them lowered by a few degrees, still, it wasn't dangerous for any living creature.
The shard was shot at such extreme speed that the Krukmongbee couldn't do anything. The shard hit the enemy on its hand, completely destroying it. The Krukin looked at the place where its hand had been, only to see nothing; its arm was bleeding and was pinned to the wall at its side.
The Krukmongbee emitted a loud sound of pain. In this exact moment, the Krukin with Liro on top got distracted, so Liro didn't miss his chance. "Liro, come here!" Vane was passing nearby in the form of an eagle; Liro immediately ran along the Krukmongbee's body and grabbed Vane's paws mid-air.
"C'mon, Darian!" shouted Liro. Darian, who was currently charging up another shard, didn't lose time. "I'll block them!" shouted Lily. From the walls, multiple roots emerged and began to block the Krukins. The moment their bodies were stuck by these roots, they tried to do everything they could to free themselves, but the roots were too strong.
"I'm going too!" The moment Vane left Liro behind Lily, he traveled toward the Krukmongbee still in the shape of an eagle, then changed mid-air, turned into a polar bear, and jumped at the Krukmongbee.
Just as Vane turned mid-air, Darian shot another powerful shard, which aimed directly at the head of the Krukmongbee that hadn't been hit by Darian before.
The two Krukins were trying to free themselves. The one who had lost his arm understood that he could still move his lower body. Realizing that he could not cut his own roots with his stingers, he looked at his comrade who was trying to free himself, cut down his roots, and freed him.
With his last remaining strength, he was able to push the other Krukmongbee away at the last moment. If the Krukmongbee had done it a millisecond later, they would have both died. While Darian's shard was only able to hit the wall, Vane didn't miss his target. Before he jumped on the Krukin, he was sure he had seen the enemy with a happy face, as if he had done something worth risking his own life for.
Vane jumped on the enemy and started to eat its body, completely destroying the enemy Krukin.
The other Krukmongbee emitted a loud sound until he saw a wall made of roots in front of him. 'Hey, I didn't do it…' thought Lily. Seeing her magic in front of her made her confused for a moment, then she realized that it was an illusion created by Liro.
'If I'm correct…' thought Liro, as he was sure that his plan would work somehow, or else someone had to think of another plan. Knowing that the Krukmongbee had already shot its stingers at the wall and they weren't able to destroy it, '…he must use his hands!' he thought as he saw the fist of the Krukmongbee coming out of the illusion, realizing that the creature had fallen for it.
The Krukmongbee had thrown a really powerful punch, knowing that with its strength it would be able to smash the wall. But after its fist passed right through it, it lost its balance and the Krukin realized that it couldn't defend itself in any way. It looked for one last moment at its old comrade, who was being destroyed by Vane, before real roots grabbed its body.
"You won't free yourself anymore!" shouted Lily as she created powerful poisoned roots that started to squeeze its body from multiple parts.
The Krukin's body parts exploded almost instantly, leaving multiple traces of its blood on the wall. On the ground fell only its lowest part with the stingers.
"We did it…" said Darian as he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Damn, I didn't think they would work together this well," said Liro.
"Yeah. By the way, great illusion. How did you think it would work?" asked Lily, while next to her Vane had just returned to his human form; he spat out some blood from the Krukmongbee he had just destroyed.
"Oh, well, it's simple—" Liro began to explain his plan when suddenly the light above them became weaker. All four humans looked up just to see the Bladekruk from before covering the hole above them with a big boulder.
"Dammit!" Lily tried to use her roots to cover the last part of the hole that remained, but it was completely useless; the Bladekruk easily cut them down. Darian tried to shoot a shard, small enough that it would pass through the hole, but the moment the shard hit the Bladekruk, it didn't even feel a single scratch on its body.
The Krukin gave one last amused look at the humans, then the light completely disappeared. "NO!" shouted Darian as he created a powerful shard directed at the rock. The shard wasn't strong enough to even create a small scratch on the boulder.
"Dammit, he got us…" Vane murmured, annoyed at the sight of the only entrance around them being completely closed.
"It seems too hard to break…" said Darian. Snowy stepped out of his body and remained on the ground next to Darian's feet.
"By the way… where are we?" said Liro while looking around. Even if the light was extremely weak, they could still see something, although the more they looked inside, the deeper it appeared.
While picking up Snowy, Darian glanced around to spot something, only to see a small blue sign with an arrow pointing in the direction of the path in front of him. Next to the arrow, there seemed to be a word that had been completely lost with time.
But Darian didn't need the word next to it to understand where he was. "Guys, we're in a subway," said Darian as he turned around. The others looked at him, confused.
"Wait… I'm sure I've read about them… they connected multiple parts of the city underground, right?" asked Liro, who was the only one who had seen its name somewhere.
"Exactly. Well, yeah, it is something like that," answered Darian.
"Wait… then if it connects multiple parts of the city… it means there must be some entrances too, right?" asked Lily.
Darian nodded his head. "That's right… c'mon, we will find one of them." With that, the group began to head in the direction pointed to by the sign at the start of the path.
Lily was followed by a small root that could create a small light so that everyone would be able to see around them.
Everything around them was completely destroyed. There were some old shops in this subway, but they were completely ruined; it felt as if the Krukins who passed through here had completely destroyed everything.
"What's that?" Vane suddenly smelled a strange scent coming from one of the shops. "It's so gross," said Lily while covering her nose. Darian and Vane walked in front, with Lily and Liro behind.
Once they arrived at the source of the smell, they saw a lot of old fruit, or at least what looked like it. It was covered in moss; it was impossible to tell what fruit it had been in the past. Next to the fruit was a Krukin's body in decomposition, with one of the mossy fruits showing a small bite.
Liro couldn't stand the sight and the smell of it and felt like throwing up, so he moved away. "I… I can't," he said as his body was about to heave. The strongest smell wasn't the moss on the fruit, but the lifeless Krukin body, which had been here for at least 100 years.
"Is this fruit, Darian?" asked Vane. He had already noticed that the pile in front of him was all moss. He had already seen it on some of the fruit in Therya, but seeing this much made sense to him.
"I guess so…" said Darian while looking at the scene and then picking up his phone. "Well… at least we'll remember it somehow." Even though he didn't want to, Darian took a picture of the whole mess.
"Hey, why did you take a picture of that?" said Liro the moment Darian and the others came out. "Well, we need to use this phone somehow… so better taking as many pictures here as we can, right?" said Darian. "C'mon, Lily, I need more light there."
Lily nodded her head and followed Darian. "At least don't take pictures of trash things like that one…" With that, the group started to head deeper into the subway.