The three of them walked for over ten minutes along the narrow path winding downward through the stone fissure.
The deeper they went, the narrower the fissure became. At first, they could still pass through normally, but eventually, they had to turn sideways to squeeze through.
Fortunately, despite the arduous journey, they did not attract the attention of the mutant creatures outside.
By the time Arthas, who was bringing up the rear, finally squeezed out of the fissure, the three of them had arrived in an even larger subterranean cavern.
Illuminated by fluorescent moss, the view ahead suddenly opened up.
Looking ahead, they saw a cluster of buildings constructed from a mix of stone bricks and wood unique to the Underdark. Now, however, these structures lay in ruins, looking as though they had been ravaged by war, with highly visible signs of corrosion in many places.
Although this was once a drow city, there was not a single trace of a drow to be found now.
“I really didn't expect that such filthy and vile creatures like the drow would exist beneath the Eastern Continent,” Christine muttered. He was using a slime to rub his chest, which was burning from being scraped against the rock while squeezing through the gap. Looking into the distance with a complex expression, he lamented, “In all the history of the Eastern Continent that I know of, there is absolutely no record of this.”
“Perhaps their history is even longer than that of the newcomers today,” Irene replied flatly. “The initial battlefield of the Twilight of the Gods was on the Eastern Continent. As the largest landmass back then, only this small fraction of land remained after the war.”
“Most of the surface dwellers probably perished in the war, leaving only the subterranean drow with a chance of survival. How could the creatures who repopulated the Eastern Continent today possibly know of their existence?”
“That's true.” Christine nodded in agreement, his gaze sweeping over the nearby buildings. “Most of the damage to these structures shows traces of magic, and the marks aren't very old.”
A smile bloomed on his face. “Perhaps we really aren't far from the Subjugation Army... Huh?”
Before he could finish, Christine was drawn by a powerful wave of magical fluctuations. Turning around, he saw Irene holding out an open hand, casting Transmute Rock to Mud on the fissure they had just emerged from.
The hard rock melted at a visible rate, turning into thick mud. Under the control of her magic, it flowed downward, gradually sealing the fissure shut.
This process was not particularly fast; relative to the size of the fissure, it could even be described as slow.
“To prevent those mutant creatures outside from pouring in,” Irene explained without looking back, justifying her action of cutting off their own retreat.
Seeing that the fissure was almost completely blocked, she slowly clenched her fist and switched to casting Transmute Mud to Rock. The viscous mud instantly began to solidify into hard stone.
Just as the passage was about to be completely sealed, however, the head of a dog-like mutant creature suddenly poked out from the semi-solidified mud.
Its crimson eyes locked onto the three of them, and a forked, tentacle-like tongue extended from its mud-covered mouth, greedily sniffing the scent of life in the air.
Irene remembered this mutant creature. She had seen it before entering the fissure; it had been lying closest to the gap.
Did the commotion I made wake it up? Well... what a bad dog. She muttered to herself. Without pausing her spellcasting, she grabbed the blue slime resting on her shoulder with her other hand.
Before the slime could even register what was happening, she threw it like a projectile.
“Mu—yi—!!!”
“Boing!”
Like a bowling ball, the slime scored a direct hit on the dog's head. The powerful impact instantly smashed the protruding head back into the mire.
Meanwhile, the slime behaved like a rubber ball. Its body caved in upon impact, and under the force of the rebound, it flew back with a whoosh like a boomerang, landing right back in Irene's hand.
At that exact moment, the mud solidified completely, sealing the fissure entirely.
“Done.” Irene casually placed the protesting blue slime—which was waving its two tiny tentacles in outrage—atop her head. Dusting off her hands, she said to the bewildered Christine and the expressionless Arthas, “Let's go. Time waits for no one.”
“Uh... alright.” Feeling a bit sorry for the slime on Irene's head, Christine took a step forward.
In the next instant, a thick, dark green mist surged toward him, enveloping his vision.
“Dodge!”
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