Mark watched as a screen of silver bubbles washed across his construct, suspending them in a world of vibrant colors bleeding into one another. Their group continued to fall toward the bottom until Mark's construct met with the ground, sending up a wave of silt into the surrounding area.

The light coming off the walls made it easier to see what was going on down here, and it was like they had stepped into another world.

The massive chamber was littered with algae and all manner of plant life they had never seen before. The bright blue and reds made them look all the more deadly and alien. But what caught their eyes first was the mass of moving limbs near the back of the chamber. At first, Mark thought it was a blob of black ooze, but it didn't take long to make out that it was hundreds of corrupted bodies heaped together.

Their chitinous bodies writhing over one another.

The next thing to arrive was a mental assault so powerful that every other attack prior may as well have been child play.

Marks groaned but his construct showed no outward signs of attack then the strike came again, with little downtime. This one was even more focused on a central point. Like a sharp pickaxe driving into stone.

"Guys, kill whatever that is, I won't be able to hold it off for long!" Mark growled.

Sam didn't need any convincing; she touched her index fingers together above her head, and as she drew them apart, an arc of plasma chained between them, forming a radiant halo. Then all it took was a flick and the snake of lighting jumped to the water and expanded out, trailing toward the mass of Corrupted.

They had only been down here for a second but Mark was shocked by the fact that the Corrupted had not rushed to attack yet.

Instead, as Sam's spell rushed towards them they interlocked their bodies and directly took the hit like one collective organism. Dozens died, but the electric charge was dispersed evenly against their natural armor.

Jason and Wesley prepared their own ranged attacks, which came in the form of a heavy amber growing along the bottom of the chamber floor and an Aura projectile.

Both attacks hit, but again the mass of Corruptoed blocked them. The wave of Amber was halted by a line of ants sacrificing themselves to it. While the line of weighted Aura crashed into their bodies directly. This crushed another dozen or so but did nothing to lessen the mass of limbs.

All the while mind-breaking attacks peppered Mark's construct. Mark kept a torrent of power flooding the spell and while it was a large cost, Mark still had plenty of energy. The problem was, that the attacks connecting with his shield left a sort of imprint. A connection that he could normally shirk off, but these connections weren't dissipating this time.

They latched onto the shield and assaulted Mark with a stream of nonsense images and sounds, that only got louder as the connection deepened. It was more like a mental poison, as it tried to disrupt Mark's concentration and open weaknesses in his will.

Luckily he could handle the assault as it was still outside but he didn't want to imagine what would happen if that connection managed to land.

They continued to attack and yet the squirming mass defended against every attack. If nothing else these Corrupted were certainly devoted to their cause. Countless corpses already littered the waters around them and they show no sign of giving up yet. The only thing their team they had to show for all their effort was a couple of gaps in the outer shells of Corrupted.

"People we need to do something now! We can't win a defensive battle. This thing is trying to outlast us" Sam yelled. "I'm going to hit them with everything I've got, there will be a window, use it!"

Mark glanced over at Sam with narrowed eyes and she saw his look. A smirk appeared on her face

"Oh don't be like that. Unlike you two, I'm not suicidal."

Sam then began to cast, but it was not a magic that Mark was immediately recognized until the stars began to appear in her hands.

Mark's throat closed as the familiar energy made itself known, it was Cosmic Magic.

"Sam, don't. Last time you didn't wake up for hours!" Mark yelled over the sound of battle.

Sam opened one eye, her lips curling into a faint smile as she glanced at Mark.

"Relax, I have a better handle on it now. It shouldn't happen again. Now let me concentrate."

Mark was about to say something else when the mental assault outside suddenly got more desperate.

Mark focused on his spell and shored up any weakness. If Sam needed time then he wasn't about to let this thing in before then.

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Mark could feel the Mana blowing off Sam like a gentle breeze as it began to ripple. Then like gathering space dust, two suns exploded to life in her palms.

Bringing her hands together like she was cupping water the two suns began to orbit one another and as they did the surrounding temperature began to climb.

Mark was the first to start sweating and then bubbles started to form on the outside of the dome. The faster they spun, the more Mana rippled from Sam until the suns were locked in perfect orbit.

At this point, she staggered and while Mark was already holding up Jonathan, he could offer a shoulder to hang onto.

Sam snorted at Mark as she leaned up against him and charged her remaining Mana into the two suns.

Then without care for herself, Sam brought her hands together over the spell causing them to scatter in a cone towards the mass of Corrupted.

The two stars bloomed into a spray of slow-moving neon sand and traveled ahead in an ever-growing cloud. Spreading through the water without boiling it or even creating waves.

Sensing the danger, the Corrupted surged forward, breaking from their shell and diving forward in waves.

For an instant, the waters became a mass of frothing waves and hungry Corrupted, but when the spell and the Corrupted met only one suffered greatly. The dust swept through their bodies like they didn't exist and continued on to the next wave. Leaving thousands of needle-like holes in the corpses. The front-most bodies didn't even resemble ants anymore, they were more like ragged masses of minced meat and chitin.

The stars moved on tearing through the wall they tried to erect, more and more Corrupted broke off in an attempt to slow them.

Until it was more like two contesting streams fighting it out for dominance. It was only when the spell killed off more than three-quarters of Corrupted that it started fading out. The last waves of creatures ran at the stars all in an effort to block the final breath of the spell, leaving the room far emptier than it had probably been in a long time. The waters were a churning mass and everyone was panting at the stage. Sam was sagging and they prepared to finish off the final few.

Unfortunately, now that the mass of Corrupted was gone it had revealed something they had not expected. The two dozen remaining Wights could not hide the fact any longer. Near the center of the mass was a singular Corrupted. It didn't look all that much different in size from the others, and the exoskeleton was nearly identical save for its head which resembled a hammerhead shark in shape.

If the average Corrupted Wight was around the size of a large dog, then this one was around a minibus, easily dwarfed by the Queens they had seen in the previous change.

The most concerning thing about it was that seemed to hold a human-like intelligence as it tried to hide itself again. A chaotic attack bounced off Mark's shield, scattering and immediately identifying it as the culprit.

Mark's eyes widened as he had thought the attacks were coming from the other Wight's collective might, but instead, he could feel the attacks had lost none of their potency.

"Kill that thing now, it's the one causing all this!" Mark shouted.

Jason and Wesley tried to target it but the remaining Corrupted got in the way.

Then, filled with desperation, the single strongest attack yet, arrived.

It made use of all the residual connections to slam Mark's Construct enough that a delicate crack appeared on the screen and water began to dribble in.

Mark ground his teeth and tried to create a secondary one to block the presence, but it wrestled its way inside before he could react.

They were all assaulted with mental attacks. Mark's darkest agony floated up to the surface and Mark groaned in pain as images of Daphne flashed through his mind. The suddenness of it caused Mark to hesitate as the Wight deepened their connection. Jason and Wesly were the first to go down, dropping to their knees. Jonathan let out a pained growl beside Mark and he began to react.

Sam grunted and tried to seal the breach in the dome but didn't have the Mana required to do so and collapsed to the ground.

Mark gathered himself, pushing down the visions and emotions they wrought from him. He was about to repair the dome when a single person stood up while the rest of them writhed on the floor.

Jonathan's face was a mask of rage as he stared at the Corrupted and let out an ear-piercing growl that shook the earth. Suddenly he was charging beyond Mark's construct, moving more like an animal than a human.

The plunge into the water didn't seem to affect him as he charged into battle.

Sam screamed his name but he clearly couldn't hear her as the man arrived near the mass of creatures.

What few remained tried to block him but they were ripped apart with his bare hands. Jonathan tore their chitin apart and bit through their carapaces until they stopped moving.

He then moved on to the leader, and Mark expected the thing to put up some kind of fight, but if it did, Jonathan didn't seem to care. He ripped its limbs off one by one and moved to its head, crushing it by squeezing the life out of it. Its exoskeleton could not handle the force applied and crumpled, sending a wash of goo and brain matter into the nearby water.

The mental assault flickered out as the connection died and Mark breathed a sigh of relief as he sealed up the crack in the constuct.

"Mark! What going on!" Sam shouted her eyes fixed on Jonathan who was still ripping into the corpse and swallowing down as much as he could.

Mark ground his teeth as he remained transfixed by the savagery.

"I- I don't know," Mark said his brow furrowing.

The only thing he could think was that the attack had triggered Jonathan's fight or flight instinct, and knowing him he had immediately gone into fight mode.

By now the number of deaths had caused the already cloudy water to tinge with black blood that resembled the bottom of a murky lake. Because of this Mark lost sight of Jonathan as he continued to rage. Even the light was not enough to completely make out what was going on out there in the inky blackness.

But as it got harder to see out, their little bubble got easier to spot amongst the corpses as it glowed with Mark's energy.

They all glanced around as the waters went still, the death throes of the Corrupted long since faded.

Marks moved his Prana to begin healing people while he searched the veil around them.

It was only then that he spotted two glowing orbs of red gold staring at them through the fetid water.

Jonathan was watching them and by the look of things he was getting closer by the second.

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