Chapter 3598 Standstill (Part 1) 'Is everyone ready?' Nalrond asked, and the others nodded in reply while taking out their equipment and weaving their spells. 'Good. I can't bring more than two people at a time with me, but we don't have the time for multiple trips. How long can you hold your breath?' 'Indefinitely.' Solus disappeared inside her stone ring. Lith took it off his finger and handed it to the Agni while Menadion slipped inside his shadow. 'Breathing is overrated.' The First Ruler of the Flames said. 'Take good care of Solus, and they will take good care of you.' Lith said while giving Nalrond a meaningful look. 'Who's they?' The answer to his question came in the form of four more Demons merging with his shadow. 'Gods, I love it when you're paranoid.' 'I'm sorry, but I don't swing that way.' Lith had conjured his Demons since the visit to the first geyser, in case they needed reinforcements against the enemy. 'Now get in and open a Spirit Warp for us.' 'Will do.' Friya clung to Nalrond while taking a few deep breaths to fill her lungs with air. 'What? If you want to avoid triggering dimensional traps, you need a dimensional mage.' 'I can't argue with that logic.' The Agni sighed and dived into the ground. 'Great Mother almighty!' It was the first time since Nalrond had fused his life forces that he used his abilities to scan the defensive system of an underground facility. Not only did Life Vision make magical formations visible to him, but his mystical senses were leagues better than those he had back when he was still a Rezar. Earth Vision had evolved beyond his wildest expectations. He could sense changes in the density of the earth, listen to the vibrations produced by underground creatures no bigger than a worm, and locate air bubbles and empty spaces with ease. His heart had turned into a mana radar, releasing a small wave with each one of its beats that Earth Vision converted into detailed information. The two combined effects briefly allowed an Agni to detect anything magical from a great distance. Nalrond located the mystical metal veins and studied how the different arrays overlapped as he advanced. He timed his movements with his heartbeats, using them to identify the areas with the lowest mana density that marked the arrays' blind spots and cross them unnoticed. Friya kept her eyes closed the whole trip to avoid a claustrophobia fit, clinging to Nalrond and talking to Solus for company. Nalrond needed all the air he could get to move fast, and with her lungs burning for air, Friya couldn't waste energy using Life Vision. 'We are almost there.' Solus said from inside her stone ring, sharing her mystical senses with her friend to make the trip less scary. 'Scratch the almost.' A block of granite rippled, and Nalrond slipped inside a side corridor. He tapped on Friya's shoulder to signal her she could breathe again, and she happily obliged. 'This is no metal mine.' Solus took her human form and used the Eyes and Ears to scan her surroundings. 'This is a natural cave.' 'I know.' Nalrond nodded. 'A natural cave the owner of the mines never found or cared to look for. I chose to emerge here because it's not covered by the dimensional sealing arrays and is close to my ancestors' safe house.' 'Good thinking.' Friya activated Fire Vision, painting the darkness surrounding her with hues of red and blue. 'Solus, I need your help. I can't use Life Vision because of the geyser, and to assess the dimensional coordinates of this place, I need to see. 'Fire Vision allows me to see walls and obstacles but not the empty space where to open the Spirit Warp. Can I borrow the Ears?' 'You do that. We are going to take a look around.' Menadion and the other Demons turned into two-dimensional blots of darkness that spread along the corridor connecting the natural tunnel to the rest of the mine's network. 'Take the Eyes too.' Solus established a partial link with the geyser and used the flow of world energy to fuel the two artifacts, lowering the burden on their users. 'Good gods, if I hate you.' Friya said. The Eyes measured the space in the cave precisely and identified the only spot where the others could arrive without tripping or bumping into each other. At the same time, the Ears mapped the beat of Mogar's core itself, giving Friya the ability to see dimensional coordinates without the need to calculate them as usual. She pointed the index and middle fingers of her left hand where she wanted the Spirit Warp to appear while she placed those of her right hand against the nearest wall. Her mana travelled back to the surface by following Nalrond's path and avoiding the arrays' detection fields. Once it reached the surface, she used Spirit Magic to connect the two different points in space. She bent, curved, and twisted the two sets of dimensional coordinates so that no alarm was triggered when they overlapped. 'Fuck me sideways!' Lith walked in last to admire Friya's work. 'Warp Steps are supposed to form a straight line between their entry and exit points to avoid creating spatial distortions. This thing was supposed to blow in our faces.' 'True.' She nodded. 'But dimensional mages can bend the rules of the game, and with the help of the Ears I can practically cheat.' For a moment, Lith regretted gifting Menadion's artifact to the Fire Dragons, wondering what Friya could achieve with its help. Then, he reminded himself of Valtak's sacrifice, and his curiosity faded. Meanwhile, Nalrond brushed his scaled hands against the rock walls, sensing for vibrations that could point him to Salman's position. 'There's something this way. Follow me and step only where I step.' He shrunk his size to that of a human and took point. He used Light Mastery to leave glowing footprints and make the mana treads of the magical formations visible to the naked eye so that everyone could avoid them easily. 'The good news is that we can use the Menadion Set to its full power.' Solus said while they advanced. 'The bad news is that I can't imprint the mana geyser. There are too many arrays, and too much of the geyser's power is absorbed by the mines. 'I can take over, but it's going to take a while.' 'You'd better start immediately, then.' Lith replied. 'Way ahead of you.' Solus smirked, telepathically sharing her progress with him. "Be careful, you idiots!" A silvery voice snarled with rage in the distance. The echo made it hard to understand the direction from which the voice came, but the Ears easily followed the vibrations back to their source. Lith recalled the Demons from the side corridors they were exploring. Without Earth Vision or mana sense to guide them, they had taken random directions that led away from their goal. Now, they moved ahead of the group, acting as scouts under the safety of their shadow forms. "I need him alive. If something happens to the Rezar and you waste all my efforts, I'm going to kill you slowly and painfully!" As they approached, they could hear small rumbles of spells and clangs of weapons.