The monster could sense it. Though it had no eyes, no ears, no nose, no brain, no heart, no blood, its collective consciousness, composed of millions of individuals, could sense that what fell into its embrace was something that could help it. It hungered for a life that was purer than what it had tasted thus far, and, though the mismatched being wasn’t exactly what it desired, the amorphous rift-beast could tell that it was closer.

As Araki fell into its body, the spread-out remains of the monster converged over the Crystala, forming a heavy, viscous bubble, intent on crushing the fleshy parts of the talentium lifeform through mass alone. Slowly, the spherical blob began to shrink, an audible hiss resounding as all the air and dirt that was inside was pushed outwards.
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Nodding at the pair and hopping into the cockpit of the winged airship, Escellar righted his hat, wrapped a green scarf around his neck, and then called out, [b]“Alright ladies and gentlemen, stay grouped up, keep the message relay consistent, and let’s start hunting! Aelitha, do the thing, if you please.”[/b]

Without a word, the fire mage placed her hands into two separate compartments within the secondary dashboard. A click could be heard, as the small anchors that grounded the airship were released, and it slowly began to float upwards. After it reached three stories high, a hiss could be heard as its tarpaulin wings spread out fully, held taut by magically reinforced wood. With a wing length that made it look more like dragonfly than any sort of majestic bird, it accelerated abruptly as hot flames ejected from behind it. Blue flames burned, leaving a hot trail as the airship cut through the sky, Captain Escellar tossing in a few sharp curves and turns just to elicit a few cheers from the mob surrounding the group.

Down below, a mage said rather plainly,[b] “Aelitha told me to tell you all that Escellar is telling you to start heading out. He’ll be going to scout ahead.”[/b]

Lucius made some sort of annoyed grunt at how overloaded that sentence was, but was, nevertheless, the first of the Sword Skills users to head out the broken ruins of the entrance.