It happened too fast.

  One moment they chatted about essences and going back soon, and the other – absolute pandemonium.

  Tears ripped through the space around them. A fissure split the room. The sound of shattering glass and an avalanche of salt muffled the symphony of screams.

  Dusk and Minn fell on one side of the room, everyone else on the other.

  The twins instinctively clung to onto the closest object and squeezed their eyes shut and prayed to every god – except Oln, fuck that guy – that this insanity would stop!

  But it wasn’t meant to be. The floor below Dusk and Minn cracked and then shattered, plunging the two into a chasm filled with jagged glass.

  They screamed, thinking this would be their end.

  But Minn had other ideas.

  She pulled out a card, which turned into energy that coalesced right under them, creating a platform.

  Dusk landed on it with a “Gweh!” but immediately latched on and held on tight.

  Meanwhile, Dawn felt something cold and slimy wrap around her body and she yelped before realizing what this was.

  Turning her head to where the entrance to the room had been, she flinched at the sight. Slime Queen’s giant minion had been sliced into pieces by the tears in space. Yet somehow, one of the pieces lived on and moved to curl around them as protection.

  The rift lurched again as the slime enveloped them whole and created a cocoon around each of them to avoid smothering. Then it reached out to Dusk and Minn–

  The room above tilted and spilled all the salt and glass weapons on top of the two. Dusk immediately stood up and brandished his shawl to block–

  The platform below them disappeared and re-appeared above them to block the avalanche.

  “Why?!” Dusk screamed as the two began falling again due to the platform’s repositioning.

  Minn replied by flailing and screaming in panic.

  Not knowing what else to do, Dusk hurriedly grabbed Minn into a tight hug – pushing her face into his chest – to prevent them from separating further as his eyes darted around, looking for a way to save themselves.

  There!

  Still gripping the panicking wolfkin, Dusk’s tail whipped out and curled around a protruding piece of hardened salt in the ground. Miraculously, the thing didn’t crumble the moment the tail tightened around it, allowing Dusk to land on the wall with his feet upside down.

  Still, the abrupt stop nearly dislodged Minn from his grip.

  “Calm down!” he yelled, both for himself and for the wolfkin. “If you keep struggling–”

  Crack.

  Dusk’s tail suddenly lost its grip as the hardened salt snapped and the two were sent hurtling into the abyss.

  * * *

  The cocoon around Dawn expanded and then merged with the other ones, uniting her with the rest of the party again. The sudden rush and compression of air filled Dawn’s lungs with caustic, slimy air.

  “–op! Minn is still…!”

  The slime didn’t listen though. Seemingly giving up on the two who were still falling down, it leaped away from the growing pit, dodging all the scars in reality. Her awareness of her twin’s location was the only reason why she could tell down from up despite feeling like she’d jumped into a waterfall.

  “Tepp, calm down!”

  “You emperor-damned oversized piece of snot! Let me go!” Tepp continued to scream and curse as she punched and kicked the slimy membrane protecting them from the rift going haywire.

  “They are fine!” Dawn found herself yelling, drawing eyes, even as the world continued to bounce around them.

  “How can you know that?!” Tepp demanded.

  “I can see–” Dawn stopped herself before she could reveal too much. “We have a connection. I know Dusk is safe. And he knows Minn is safe. They just landed in the underground. They are hurt but Dusk can heal.”

  The others stared at her.

  Leejay then clapped his hands.

  “Okay, great! Dawn can keep an eye on those two then! We gotta figure out what’s going on and how to rescue them!”

  “Agreed.”

  “...Fine. He better make sure nothing happens to Minn!”

  “Of course.”

  With that – somewhat – resolved, the party refocused on what was happening around them. They could somewhat see through the red goo surrounding them and they could tell that the rift had somewhat calmed down during their harried panic.

  The spatial tears remained and the topology hadn’t restored itself to normal, but the tremors seemed to have stopped – a bit hard to tell with the slime still moving and jumping around – and it seemed like the worst was over.

  “What is this anyway? The hunter’s guidebook said nothing about this!”

  “No clue! Never ran into something like this!”

  “It’s like the rift itself is collapsing…”

  “What the fuuuck, man?”

  Everyone yelped as the slime suddenly tossed itself to the side. The reason quickly made itself known as the spot it had just stood in exploded in brine.

  “Oh, dear Nix!” Leejay gasped and his skin turned the same silvery white as his feathers.

  Outside the slimy bubble of safety, a massive monster emerged. A snail with a gleaming glass shell, the rest of its body made out of corrosive brine.

  “T-That’s the first Elite!”

  “What?! But it’s dead! How–”

  Bright purple light, even penetrating the gooey walls around them. The slime around them vibrated, rattling their very bones.

  When the light subsided, the snail had a small crack in its glassy shell taking more damage as hunters flocked together to fight it off. The giant creature wouldn’t go that easily, however.

  Pop.

  The slimy membrane around them burst, depositing them onto the glassy ground and the party scrambled to get their bearings. As they did, their protector slime had joined the fray, punching and gnawing on monsters.

  Without the red goo blocking her view, Dawn could finally see the extent of the damage done to the rift. Even ignoring the rips in space, the place looked like it had undergone an apocalypse. The once majestic fortress had turned into glassy ruins as dozens – no, hundreds – of monsters swarmed the place in every direction. Worst of all was the darkness, only brief flashes of light penetrating it.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Dawn looked up, through the remains of the ceiling. The Sun itself had lost its color, parts of it flickering white but otherwise remaining black. Though somehow, it still hung in the middle of the sky as always.

  Her heart was beating out of her chest as looked back down, preparing random cards in her hands.

  Hunters littered the place. Both those fighting and those… unmoving. Impaled by glass spears, lifeless eyes poking out of a mound of salt, heads without bodies–

  Dawn forced herself to focus on the monsters instead as her muscles tensed like a coiled spring.

  Then a chill went down her spine as she saw a familiar monster. The Shattered Siren – the Elite who had broken out during the first spill – stood on top of a glassy spire, arms raised, ready to sing. Dawn’s heart stopped when she saw another one standing nearby.

  “THERES TWO OF THEM?!”

  “W-Why are there so many Elites?! Aren’t there only supposed to be three?!”

  “I-I don’t know!” Leejay shouted as flickering yellow lines appeared around him and proceeded to shoot into the closest glass knight.

  “Formation!” Oulo yelled, his voice cracking.

  Despite missing two members, the remaining party huddled into parody of their previous formation.

  Tepp shot monsters with her staff, Leejay used his yellow lines, Dawn shot [Tricky Trail] – dammit, why hadn’t we upgraded it?! – and [Transfrogify] whenever she found a chance, and Oulo protected the team from return fire.

  Their attacks barely did anything to the monsters.

  Luckily, they weren’t alone. Countless parties of hunters struggled the same as them. Some taking on the brine-spitting snail – Lightslinger chief to be among them – some culling down the inflated numbers of common monsters. Dawn spotted Elis in the chaos, but had no time to pay attention to him, much less say hi.

  “What the hell happened?!” one of the hunters howled as he vaporized one of the Bringe Sludges. “Why are the Elites multiplying?!”

  Out of nowhere, a building sized javelin tore through the air and punched right through the giga snail’s shell, making it vomit brine in pain. The javelin then grew two slits for eyes, then dissolved into goo, and began eating the snail from the inside.

  “Those fucking bastards!” a familiar voice howled over the battlefield.

  Something exploded right above them. Dawn tensed as she looked up, then immediately relaxed. Originating from where the sound had come from, a veritable storm of slimes rained down on the battlefield. As soon as they landed, they began attacking the saltglass monsters. It wasn’t enough to deal with them completely, but it slowed them down, making it easier for hunters.

  “Slime Queen! What the hell?! Who did this?!” a man called.

  “It’s those priests of Oln!” the voice echoed again, seemingly coming from every slime on the battlefield.

  “What?!”

  “They killed the shepherd!”

  * * *

  She let out a shaky exhale as the bones in her leg righted themselves and the bleeding finally stopped.

  Minn gave Dusk a grateful smile, though even he could tell how forced it was.

  “Sorry I took so long. I had to heal myself first,” he apologized with a clipped tone, part of his attention still locked on the chaos his other body was currently experiencing.

  “I-It’s fine. Sorry for panicking. It’s my fault we fell.”

  Minn pushed herself to her feet and the two looked around.

  They seemed to have fallen into some kind of underground dungeon part of the fortress. Bricks made out of hardened salt lined the walls, prison bars made of glass separated dilapidated rooms from the main corridor. What once must have been a sprawling labyrinth of corridors now only had one unblocked pathway forward.

  Cold stung their skin in a sharp contrast to the surface up above. The salt and tiny shards of glass littering the ground would have been hell on his feet if he hadn’t protected them with his shawl.

  Dusk looked up. wondering whether he could climb out through the hole they had fallen through. Unfortunately, even if he didn’t have Minn to worry about, the jagged edges and the uneven nature of the destruction discouraged him from trying. Especially since he couldn’t be sure whether the earthquake wouldn’t resume. Better to stay on solid ground.

  “What’s going on anyway? Why did everything suddenly go to shit?!” Minn suddenly snapped, then winced at her own tone.

  “...Someone killed the Shepherd and orphaned the rift. The rift’s core is going haywire,” Dusk drawled, repeating the explanation Dawn heard up above. His voice likely sounded a tad detached, but he was too busy making sure his other body didn’t die.

  His fingers twitched as Dawn threw her [Tricky Trail] at a maid monster.

  “Huh?! Seriously?!” Minn’s eyes opened wide in shock, then screwed shut as her blue tail drooped and her ears flattened against her head. “Great… So we’re gonna die in this place, huh? Great… Just… g-great…”

  A moment of awkward silence, only broken by the distant sounds of intense battle up above.

  “Hey… It’s fine. We’ll ge-AAH… We’ll get out of here,” Dusk said, accidentally reacting to an injury with the wrong body mid-sentence.

  “Y-You, okay?” Minn looked at him with wide eyes.

  “We have a connection. I can… see and feel what she does,” he explained with a clipped tone, feeling like he didn’t need to hide that anymore since Dawn had already revealed it too.

  Still, it didn’t help that most of his attention was elsewhere at the moment. He had to try really hard not to stutter while overfocusing on his other body. That could spell death for Dawn.

  “Oh… I see?”

  “We can make it out. We’ve been through worse,” he said, more resolutely this time.

  Then he winced as a glass shard nicked Dawn’s tail.

  “We? Heh… You literally joined our party today.”

  “No, uh… I meant Dawn and I had been through worse.”

  “...Right.” She finally turned away and looked out into the dark prison corridor. “I’m guessing you can’t help us climb out of here?”

  “Sounds a bit too risky. Can’t you use that platform to lift us up?”

  “No, it can only go down.”

  Dusk quirked an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on it. Skills did tend to have weird rules and limitations, after all.

  “Guess we have no choice but to find a way out…”

  “We could wait for Leejay or someone else to rescue us?”

  “I doubt they’ll have time with everything happening upstairs…”

  “Right.” Minn sighed and gave the hole above them a bitter glare.

  “We gotta get going. Before this place is overrun too.”

  Dusk took a slow step forward, gesturing Minn to do the same.

  “Hold on! It’s too dark. Do you have anything we can use as a lantern?”

  Dusk frowned and rummaged through his bag, pulling things in and out.

  “Not really…” he murmured as he pulled out his harmonica.

  “Wait. Actually, I have a ◆Glow◆ essence. We can use that.” She palmed the card, then grimaced. “But no vessel for it, ugh.”

  Dusk hesitated. He didn’t want to deface their memento… but he also didn’t want to die from falling into a chasm they couldn’t see.

  “…My harmonica is made out of pure springsteel. I heard that’s a good conductor?”

  “Oh! Perfect!”

  “But I don’t know anything about inscription.”

  “I do! Let me see!”

  He reluctantly handed over the harmonica as the girl pulled out an inscription needle and quickly got to work. The geckin winced at his memento being defaced but told himself it was necessary.

  Then he winced again as Dawn managed to land a [Cliffhide Fist] hit on a monster, only to then step into a pool of corrosive brine.

  Meanwhile, Minn carved lines and circles into the instrument with her needle, her hands shaking. It took what felt like forever, all while Dusk stood around nervously, looking out into the darkness, still mostly focused on the mayhem up above.

  Lightslinger had just killed one of the Shattered Sirens when Minn let out an exhale and held the harmonica away from herself to inspect her work.

  “So?”

  “I don’t know. I hope this holds the essence for at least an hour.”

  “Alright. Do it then.”

  With a nod, Minn brought her Glow essence to the runes inscribed on the harmonica. The essence pulsed, turned into motes of light, and seeped into the object through the runes.

  A moment later, the thing lit up like the midday Sun, causing Minn to yelp and drop the thing.

  “Hey!”

  “S-Sorry! I think I messed up. It’s releasing the power too quickly! It’s too hot to hold!”

  Dusk gritted his teeth in annoyance and squinted at the way-too-bright object.

  After a moment of indecision, Dusk grabbed his shawl and bundled it around his hand like a glove before squatting down and picking up the harmonica.

  He still felt the heat, but this could work.

  “Oh. You have that passive, right?”

  “Yeah. Let’s… just go now.”

  “Right.”

  Finally, the duo set off, walking through the creepy glass prison complex while the battle continued to rage upstairs.

  Truth be told, Dusk felt like the improvised lantern made things worse than total darkness. The glass bars reflected the light, creating bizzare patterns on the walls and the floor. Sometimes, they jumped as their movement caused a new pattern to appear, thinking it to be a monster.

  Still, with how dark everything but the immediate surroundings was, they felt it would be pointless to scout ahead around corners, but they still tried to advance as carefully as possible. They didn’t want to be ambushed, after all.

  They were definitely grateful for that, because as they made their way to the end of one corridor and Minn peeked around the corner, she froze.

  “What is it?” Dusk whispered.

  “It’s… the Crystalline Warden.”

  Dusk’s expression fell.

  A Legendary-tier Elite? And only the two of them to deal with it?

  No way they could.

  “I thought they defeated it! Why is another one here?” Minn frantically asked.

  “Elites are respawning because of the unstable core,” Dusk calmly said even as his heart raced. “Let’s find a different path.”

  Minn started to nod, then let out a high-pitched gasp.

  “Wha–”

  “It’s coming here!”

  “Shit! Quick! We need to get out!”

  The duo turned around and booked it.

  A moment later, a crash resounded behind them.

  Dusk chanced a glance behind and saw it.

  It looked so innocuous. A humanoid figure made of glass wearing glass clothes and a wide-rimmed glass hat. In its hands, a glass trowel and a pair of glass shears.

  It saw them, raised its hand, and then chucked the trowel in their direction.

  The duo tossed themselves to the side and Dusk threw up his shawl around both of them.

  A moment later, the trowel hit the far wall and exploded into glass shards, showering its surroundings. Minn created a shield between them and the explosion, blocking most of the shards while Dusk’s shawl took care of the rest.

  Finally, once the dust settled, the duo raised their heads and, with horror, found that the Warden was rushing at them, glass shovel in hand.

  They scrambled to their feet and dashed deeper into the dark tunnels of the underground prison.