"ARTHUR!" Elijah yelled as two more beasts crashed down on the rocks.

Regis immediately ignited his claws and fangs in destruction and leaped onto the sand in an effort to draw the beasts to attack him, but it didn't work. Even though they did feel his movements on the sand, they didn't sense any mana from him. These beasts possessed limited intelligence beyond basic animal instincts. They were attracted to mana, so when Arthur was running on the sand several came after him. However it didn't take long before a majority of the beasts realized hunting him was suicide. Instead they decided to focus on the other large source of mana on the rocks.

Curtis charged in as he ignited his swords and swung at the tentacles while working to push forward and attack directly. Feyrith maintained his work on defensive spells as if he were to stop the rest of his team would be in more trouble. Elijah took to the air and worked to try and eliminate as many of the beasts as he could before they reached them. Lilia wasted no time with her target, cast a wind drill and sent it into the beasts mouth and ripped it apart form the inside out.

Due to the heat casting ice magic was difficult, so to aid in that Kathyln activated her second stage. Her eyes and hair turned royal blue as ice armor that resembled feathers formed, as well as a set of wings under her arms. More beasts began emerging on another side, so she chose to face them. Without a word she swung her arms, and the ice feathers that formed her wings flew out and cut into two of the beasts.

Regis returned after seeing that his plan failed, and attacked the third beast on Kathyln's side. Destruction ripped through the beast as if it were made of paper, in no time at all it was dead.

Arthur god stepped right into the middle of everything with his aether sword ready, but was surprised when he realized they had everything under control without him. Tess and Elijah were picking off the beasts that had yet to arrive, and the others were taking care of the ones that had already arrived.

However, as is the nature of the relic tomb, not everything is as it appears. As things appeared to be under control, many of the beasts both dead and alive started convulsing violently. Everyone backed off and got closer as they tried to prepare for what might happen next. Both Lilia and Feyrith cast a barrier around the group as a precaution. In a matter of seconds all of the beasts started exploding, sending flesh,blood, and organs everywhere.

"Thank you for those barriers," Claire commented as she pinched her nose, the rancid smell of the dead beasts reaching them inside the barrier. "The last thing I'd want would be to be covered in all that."

They thought the worst of that floor was over, but as the barriers were lowered a deafening screech was heard. They raised their weapons to prepare for what came next. Out from the corpses of the dead wormlike beasts, came five smaller bipedal ones. They had the same kind of beak, though smaller, and were half as tall as Lilia. In retrospect they looked like a smaller version of the worm beasts head with a short stubby tail and two legs and feet that resembled a dinosaur's.

"Did they just give birth?" Curtis questioned.

"I don't know," Arthur replied with a look of bewilderment. "Maybe?"

The new beasts proceeded to eat the flesh of the worms they emerged from.

"Hey, if they're babies maybe we can tame them?" Elijah suggested, and began to approach them.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Feyrith replied nervously. "You should never approach a wild beast while it's eating."

"Don't worry, I know how to be careful," Elijah replied as he crept closer.

Slowly he reached out his hand to the beast, but before he could touch it it spun around and snapped at his hand. Elijah managed to pull his hand back fast enough, but at the same time launched a sharpened stone the length of his forearm, hiting the beast just below it's beak before coming out of its top. This action caught the other nearby beasts attention.

"SHREEEECH!" They called out as Elijah jumped back to the others.

Upon completing the cry all of the beasts both on the rock and sand came charging towards them.

"I told you!" Feyrith yelled as he conjured three spheres of water and shot them.

"Tess, Elijah, get in the air and try to thin out the numbers of the ones charging from the sand!" Arthur ordered.

With a nod Tess and Elijah shot up into the air and began casting spells. Elijah was about to conjure his stone snake golem, but instantly felt reminded of Nico, so he created a few stone knights instead. Tess on the other hand created several small dust devils that began swirling through the beast's ranks. For most beasts they would have been in pain as the swirling sand cut into their flesh or at minimum blinded by the swirling sand. These beasts however didn't have eyes to be blinded, hunting solely by sound and sensing mana, and as they lived in the desert their hide was as tough as leather. However as Tess was a white core mage they didn't move through unscathed, even though she was holding back to conserve mana, the powerful winds lifted the beasts and threw them around violently. They would crash into one another, breaking their beaks or legs, their bodies may have been resistant to blades, but blunt force still worked rather well.

As if they never stopped fighting together since their time as adventurers, Arthur, Curtis, Claire and Theo took up a defensive stance around Kathyln, Lilia, and Feyrith to protect them as they cast their spells. Regis ran through the beasts trying to take as many of them down as he could before they could get to the group. It took more effort than Curtis and Claire were used to to cut into the beasts, but by increasing their mana output they were able to overcome. Theo's punches provided plenty of damage to the beast without using gravity magic, so as he did use it he shattered beaks or killed them instantly with a single punch. Arthur's aether sword sliced through the beasts almost effortlessly as the pile of corpses formed around them.

The fighting was beginning to come to an end as only close to a dozen beasts remained. Tess and Elijah started to lower themselves back down to the surface, but as they did Tess noticed something weird at the edge of the formation on her side.

The beasts were only coming from one side now, so the augmenters formed a line between them and the conjurers. Kathyln had released her beast will and was almost completely worn out from the battle, having done like Arthur and maintained her will as long as possible. Lilia and Feyrith were better off, but now they were reserving themselves to defensive spells to conserve mana, even the augmenters were holding back and just strengthening their bodies instead of adding their elemental affinities into their attacks. Arthur and Regis both had more than enough strength to handle these remaining beasts of their own, but held back so the others could get a real idea of how dangerous the relic tomb could be.

Despite how worn down Theo was you wouldn't have guessed it by watching him fight. Even though it was now taking him three hits to take down a beast, his movements were still smooth and precise as he had gotten used to fighting them and knew exactly how they attacked and how to take them down. As if the beasts saw him as the main threat, they were ganging up on him. He had grabbed one by the beak with his right hand and pushed it to the side as he delivered a left hook to its side, but before he could deliver the killing strike another two jumped up at him. With a jerk of his right arm he threw the first to the ground then stomped down on it with his right foot, then jumped up and delivered a kick with his left leg to one of the beasts. The one he struck was hit into the other one beside it, and both were sent tumbling to the left. Once back up the two then charged at him. As the first got into range he grabbed it by the beak and swung it around, knocking the other back to the ground before releasing it into the air, where it landed by Regis who was happy to finish it off.

The one that got knocked down recovered as Theo released the other, and decided to redirect to a different target, Claire. She was pulling her reaper out from a beast as the other came charging at her right.

"Claire!" Theo shouted as he caught sight of it and channeled mana to his legs to move as quickly as he could.

Claire turned around to see it with its beak wide, ready to bite down on her. She stated to swing her blade, but the beast was too close, she wasn't going to be able to avoid at least an injury. Before the beast was able to reach her Theo caught up to it and hooked his left arm into its beak and jerked it back. Before he could finish off the beast or pull out his arm, the beast bit down, severing his arm in the middle of his bicep and forearm.

"Grahhhh!" Theo cried out in pain as he fell to the ground, part of his arm fell to the ground and the beast tried to swallow the other.

"THEO!" Claire screamed as he reaper went ablaze with a blue flame and sliced the beast in half.

"Shit, that is one unlucky bastard," Regis commented.

"We need to finish this now!" Arthur shouted, ignoring the comment.

Regis and Arthur stopped holding back, and quickly finished off the remaining beasts as the others rushed to Theo.

"Why would you do that you idiot!" Claire shouted at Theo as she applied pressure to his stump of an arm.

Theo looked up at her seriously as he also applied pressure. "You already know that answer."

"We need to carturize his arm before he bleeds out," Elijah called out before Claire could say anything.

"No!" Arthur shouted in response. "Get me the pieces of his arm!"

Curtis looked down and grabbed Theo's hand as Feyrith grabbed his elbow.

"Wait, can you heal him?!" Claire asked.

Arthur didn't reply as he took the severed pieces and positioned them at the stump. Placing his hands over the areas where the arm was cut the god runes for the healing branch of vivum burned gold as a purple light emitted from his hands. Theo's arm moved on its own slightly as it realigned before everyone could see the pieces stitching themselves back together. After a few seconds the arm was healed and the glowing subsided.

Theo sat up and began moving his arm. "Wow, feels good as new." He then saw the portion of his gauntlet that covered his forearm was also cut off. "Don't suppose you can fix equipment too?" He joked as he held up his arm.

Arthur rolled his eyes as he picked up the plate and tossed it to Theo. His runes glowed golden once again as amathist emotes swirled in his hand before flying off the Theo. They swirled around the broken piece and pulled it out of this hand and placed it perfectly on the rest of his gauntlet, and absorbed into it as the repairs were made. Everyone just looked at Theo's arm and gauntlet with amazement at what they had just witnessed.

"Thank you," Theo said as he stared at his arm with wide eyes.

Claire grit her teeth as she threw a fist at his chest.

"Ow," Theo stated in confusion.

She then grabbed his head and smashed her lips against his as tears poured from her eyes.

"Damned idiot," she muttered after breaking the kiss and whipping away her tears.

"Oh, I get it now," Regis commented with a smirk and knowing nodd. "You got hurt on purpose to get a kiss. Smooth."

Claire and Theo just blushed as they looked away from one another, as a few of them watched them with knowing smirks.

"Alright you two can talk about your things later, we should get out of here before anymore beasts show up," Arthur stated.

"Arthur," Tess said as she gestured behind her. "Before we go, I saw something I think you need to see."

She then led him to the edge of the rock formation and pointed down. Arthur looked to see where the rock had broken away, there was a hole with a dim purple glow inside.

"Everyone wait here," Arthur replied then jumped down.

Inside was a white marble room that felt like a refrigerator compared to the surface. "Come on down, Regis stay up there and keep watch," Arthur called out as he didn't see any threats.

"Oh come on!" Regis complained. "I can smell a nice bit of aether down there."

"Yeah, but I don't want to get jumped by a bunch of aether beasts that might show up while we're down here, and the heat doesn't affect you."

"Humph."

As the others jumped down one after another Arthur continued to examine the room. There was some kind of black table off to one side with a series of runes engraved into it, that looked like it was grown out of the ground. On another wall was a screen covered in squiggly lines, and in the center was a pedestal that had a round wide oblong top before a raised purple crystal in the center. Around the pedistal was a ledge of sorts with twelve smooth black stones with identical runes engraved into them placed evenly around it.

"What is this place?" Curtis asked now one in particular as he jumped down.

"Maybe some kind of ancient mage control room?" Elijah guessed.

"What are these?" Lilia asked as she kicked up one of the stones.

"I'm not sure," Arthur replied as he picked up another. "But they appear to go with this," he stated as he saw several oval grooves in the oblonged portion that were a perfect fit for the stones.

"Do you think they're some kind of artifact?" Kathyln asked as she began to examine another.

"They appear to be holding a little bit of aether so that would be my guess," Arthur replied. "Let's take them. It'll give Gideon something to tinker with." He then started storing all of them in his rune.

"How much room do you have in there," Lilia asked as she gestured to his storage rune.

"Plenty more," Arthur replied with a smile.

"What do you think this is?" Feyrith asked as he rubbed his eyes. "This thing is hurting my eyes."

Arthur walked over and began examining the screen. There were a series of lines that were constantly bending and shifting, along with a blue dot and a red blob.

"I think this is a topographic map," Arthur stated.

"But it keeps changing," Feyrith replied.

"I think it's changing in real-time. Remember we're in a desert, the whole landscape can change drastically if there's some wind."

"So then what are these dots? Do you think one of them is the gate?" Tess asked.

"I think the blue one is. I'm guessing the red blob is actually all of us together."

"Well at least it doesn't look like it's too far," Curtis commented as he tapped the screen, an a golden circle appeared around their dots. "Whoa!"

"Hmm," Arthur replied. He then tapped the gate. Another golden circle formed around it, as well as a line connecting the two with some writing. "Looks like the gate is about five miles away. Everyone drink some water and cool off as you rest, we'll leave in twenty."

"What about wanting to avoid aether beasts?" Regis called out.

"I don't see anything else on the map, so assuming that the beasts are tracked, we should be ok. I also want to take a little bit to check everything else out down here."