The gelatin sensation passed, and suddenly my lungs stopped working.

Not because of panic. Because the air itself felt wrong.

Thick. Heavy. Like breathing through wet cotton soaked in copper and ozone. I coughed once, twice, my chest heaving as my body tried to figure out what the fuck was happening.

"Easy," Misato said from somewhere ahead. "First-time gate shock. Your body’s adjusting to the mana density. Breathe through your nose, out through your mouth. Slow."

I followed her instructions and the pressure eased. My vision cleared.

And I saw where we were.

"Holy shit."

The words came out before I could stop them.

We stood at the mouth of a massive cavern that stretched upward into darkness so complete it felt alive. Stalactites the size of skyscrapers hung from a ceiling I couldn’t see, their surfaces glowing with veins of blue-white light that pulsed like heartbeats. The floor beneath our boots was smooth black stone shot through with mineral deposits that glittered when light hit them. Everything glowed. The walls, the ceiling, the ground. Bioluminescent moss grew in patches everywhere, casting purple and green light across surfaces that shouldn’t exist.

"This is E-rank?" Belle whispered.

"Tier 2," Misato corrected. "Different classification."

"It’s beautiful," Naomi breathed.

She wasn’t wrong. The whole place looked like someone took a fantasy RPG dungeon and cranked the budget to infinity. Crystals jutted from walls at random angles, refracting light in ways that hurt to look at directly. Water dripped from somewhere high above, each drop echoing like a bell strike. The air tasted electric and sweet and wrong, like licking a battery mixed with honey.

Jordan turned in a slow circle, his shadows already spreading across the ground like spilled ink. "Anyone else feel like we’re inside something alive?"

"Focus," Misato snapped. "Formation. Now."

We moved into position. Naomi at point with her staff held ready. Belle and Jordan on flanks. Me center rear with my spear. Misato floating between us.

My HUD flickered to life, courtesy of the tactical suit’s built-in scanner. Distance markers. Threat detection. Mana density readings that climbed steadily the deeper we went.

"Movement," Misato said. "Three o’clock. Forty meters."

Jordan’s head snapped right. "I don’t see anything."

"Neither do I," Belle added.

"Trust the suit." Misato gestured forward. "We move as one. No breaks in formation. Belle, what’s your range?"

"Fifteen meters base. Twenty with the buff still active."

"Call everything."

"Copy."

We advanced into the cavern, our boots echoing against stone. The glowing moss provided just enough light to see by, but it created shadows that moved wrong, stretching and contracting with the pulse of whatever made this place glow.

My Treasure Sense pinged.

Not loud. Just a quiet hum in the back of my skull that said something valuable nearby.

I activated it properly, letting the ability spread through my awareness like radar. Fifteen meters. Twenty. My range had improved since stealing Belle’s ability, and combined with my own natural progression, I could feel items up to twenty-five meters away.

A shimmer appeared in my vision. Not strong, but present.

"Belle," I said quietly. "Three o’clock. Wall section. You getting anything?"

She paused, her head tilting slightly as her own Treasure Sense activated. With the Silver buff running through her system, her range extended past mine.

"Yeah. Something embedded. Multiple somethings." Her voice carried curiosity. "Mana crystals, I think. Raw ones. In the wall."

I glanced at the section she indicated. The stone there glowed brighter than surrounding areas, with blue-white veins running through the rock like lightning frozen mid-strike.

"How much are we talking?"

"Two, maybe three thousand credits worth." Belle’s amber eyes gleamed. "Each."

Jordan turned. "Each? As in, multiple?"

"I’m counting six clusters."

"That’s eighteen thousand credits just sitting there," I said, doing the math automatically.

"Too bad we don’t have pickaxes," Belle added, her tone heavy with regret.

Misato cut through our excitement. "We’re not here to mine. We’re here to clear. Eyes forward."

She was right, but damn. Eighteen thousand credits embedded in walls we couldn’t access felt like finding a winning lottery ticket behind bulletproof glass.

We kept moving.

The cavern branched into three separate tunnels ahead, each one descending at a different angle. The left tunnel glowed red from some internal light source. The center passage remained dark. The right tunnel pulsed with that same blue-white glow from the crystals.

"Belle?" Misato asked.

"Center’s got the most monster signatures. At least twelve, maybe more. Left tunnel has three, spread out. Right tunnel..." She paused. "Empty. But there’s something big at the end of it."

"Define big."

"Like, boss room big. Fifty-meter signature. Single entity."

Misato considered. "We take center. Clear the numbers first, then circle back for stragglers and the boss."

"Standard sweep pattern," I confirmed.

"Move."

We entered the center tunnel.

The darkness swallowed us immediately. Our helmet lights clicked on, cutting white beams through air thick with dust and something else. Something that moved.

"Spores," Naomi said, watching particles float through her light beam. "Don’t breathe them."

"Little late for that advice," Jordan muttered.

Belle stopped. "Contact. Twenty meters. Multiple hostiles. They’re..."

A screech cut her off.

Not a howl like the Crawlers. This sound hit higher, sharper, like metal scraping across glass mixed with a bird’s death scream.

"Bats," Misato said. "Fuck."

"I hate bats," Jordan announced.

"Everyone hates bats," I agreed.

The creatures dropped from the ceiling in a wave of wings and teeth and glowing red eyes. Twenty of them at least, each one the size of a large dog with wingspans that had to be six feet. Their skin was grey and hairless, stretched tight over visible bone structure. When they opened their mouths, I counted three rows of needle teeth.

"Scatter pattern!" Misato’s clone burst into existence beside her. "Don’t let them cluster us!"

The bats screamed and dove.

Naomi fired first. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Her Wave Motion blast hit the lead bat square in the chest, blue-white energy detonating on impact. The creature exploded into gore that splattered across stone. The others scattered, splitting their formation and coming at us from multiple angles.

Jordan’s shadows snapped out like whips, catching two bats mid-flight and slamming them together hard enough that bones crunched. Belle raised her crossbow and fired. The bolt punched through a bat’s wing, sending it spiraling into the wall where it hit with a wet smack.

I raised my spear as three bats dove straight at me.