Twenty

They stared down at the hole that Kon had been dragged into. The last hour had been spent harvesting the insects they had killed and retreating to the Puca to replenish their supplies. They'd spent only a few minutes replacing the small air canisters in their helmets before venturing back out into the dead station.

Benny hadn't contacted them yet, but neither of them worried about the old man. If there was anything strong enough to trouble him, then they had no doubt that their deaths were guaranteed. Instead they had double checked the armory, Diur grabbing a spare laser rifle as her own power was waning. The weeks spent in space had whittled her reserves to nearly nothing and her exertions had taken a toll on her. She was trying to recover now, the station having an E-Grade rift somewhere on it that she could comfortably cultivate with.

It would still take her days if not weeks to fully recover herself. Kon was starting to realize what an advantage Knights had over cultivators. Flaring her power a cultivator could overcome a Knights technological advantage, but with traveling though space all a Knight had to do was consume a few cores to stay topped up. A cultivator was forced to slowly wither in the void until they found a new source of power.

"Is there anything we can get to help you out with this?" Kon asked as he stared at his battle buddy. She shrugged and waggled her hand.

"There are arrays that can break down monster cores and filter most of the animalistic fury. I have never heard of one that works perfectly though and it's not advised to rely on them. I can see about securing one or if Benny knows how to build it. If we are to spend more time traveling than on a planet, I will need to do something to keep up with you," Diur said.

"Keep up with me? You're ahead of me," Kon said as he crouched down and peered deeper into the hole. His headlights hardly gave him information, too narrow to fully highlight the depths of the storeroom. There was little chance that another of the monsters had taken residence in the room after he had slain the last one.

"For now. But you are growing at preposterous speeds. Another node or two and you'll be fully in the E-Grade. By the time you finish your first round of training and realize a complete rune, you'll be beyond me. That's without the body cultivation as well," Diur said calmly. Kon thought he heard a hint of envy in her words though.

"Still a long way off. Got two or three nodes before I cap it off. And the body cultivation I don't know where to start," Kon said, trying to shrug off her praise.

"That's what I am here for. I have been researching. I think we should begin the second layering before you place the full rune upon yourself. If it works as you say and your runes consume energy like Alice said they do, it'd become nearly impossible to finish the second layering after the first rune is laid down," Diur said.

"Alright, then after the next nodes but before the full rune. Got it," Kon said.

"Enough of this. We have monsters to slay," Diur said with finality, standing and jumping down the ragged hole, arms tucked close to her side. Kon followed after her a moment later, landing lightly as he followed after her.

Harvesting the tentacle monster took only a few seconds, Kon peeling back the creature's ribs with ease and plucking his bloody prize with ease. He added it to his bloody, but empty bag on his hip. Having the stone in his hand for a moment he'd realized he could feel the difference in power between that and the monsters above them.

"This was a peak F-Grade monster. The ones above were upper or middle F?" Kon asked Diur.

"Your energy senses are getting better. It is hard to tell different steps in the same realm but you're getting good at it. This means there's at least three rifts on the station," Diur said as she watched the doorway while Kon finished his work.

"Thank you. Want to take the lead or me?" Kon asked as they stacked on the doorway. They could both feel the mass of energy beyond, pressing against their senses as they prepared to charge in.

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"I'll take the lead. Just be ready to switch out," Diur said as she readied her sword. Her aura began to gather around her tighter to her frame than he'd ever seen, but just as dense as it normally was.

"Regardless of what's happening, it's good training being so restrained," Diur said as she stepped out of the room and into the hall.

The hallway exploded into splinters of steel as monsters poured froth from the walls, writhing tentacles consuming the entirety of the passageway. Kon gasped and stepped back, startled by their sudden appearance. Diur stepped forward, thrusting her blade forward into air.

Energy slid from her body around her blade, growing even thinner, sharper, beading at the point of her sword before lancing forward in a needle of blue energy. Flesh parted in sprays of blood, limbs falling wetly to the ground as Diur's technique severed dozens of the tentacles.

In the limited light of their headlamps all Kon could see was spraying blood and flesh. Diur stepped back, her aura thin and wavery again as she breathed heavily. She waved a hand at the mess in front of them and spoke with a bit of humor.

"Your turn." Kon stared at her for a second before setting his shoulders and stepping past her and into the hallway. His boots tried to slide on the blood slick floors as the monsters attempted to retreat, their ambush foiled with a single attack. Kon didn't give them a chance.

He grabbed the closest of the wriggling tentacles with his armored hand, fingers crushing flesh as he dragged the monster out of the room it had been hiding in. Its interior tentacles tried to protect the more vulnerable body from the jagged metal shards.

A stray tentacle sapped him across the helmet, snapping his head back and causing him to bite his cheek. Blood filled his mouth and anger filled him as he drug the wriggling monster before him. Its large teeth had scraps of flesh stuck between them as he struck it, killing it with a single strike.

Some of the mass of interlocked tentacles stopped moving and Kon realized the dumb beasts had tangled themselves in the tight confines of the hallway. He laughed as he reached out to grab a still living tentacle and began to repeat the process. Over and over he drew the small monsters out of the cubbies or closets they'd stuffed themselves into, most of them injured or bleeding from Diur's attack. They all died with only a single strike, but the more he killed the more it opened up the mess, the knot coming undone.

Halfway down the hall the knot finally fell apart and three of the creatures came out of their hiding spots without his help, all of them bleeding and missing some of their arms. Kon wasn't even breathing hard yet.

He surged forward, sliding under several attacks just to pop to his feet and club the closest one with his mace. In the low gravity the creature rocketed backward, bouncing off a ruined bulkhead and falling limp to the ground. One of the beasts turned to run but a scarlet laser beam scythed by Kon's head and struck it in the back, sending it to the ground in a smoking heap.

"Thanks!" Kon shouted without turning his head. The final beast attacked him in a flurry of blows, slapping his armor and trying to throw him this way or that, but Kon gritted his teeth and dug down, grabbing the limbs as they hit him until he had three of them in his hand.

Twisting his wrist he wound the tentacles around his wrist and forearm, drawing the creature closer as it thrashed like a fish on a line. Kon smiled grimly as he brought it closer, standing tall to bring his mace down with finality. Silence filled the hall, his breathing slow and even as he looked over the mess he'd created.

Diur had been harvesting as he worked his way down the hallway, reaching inside of the broken monsters and simply plucking the cores free with ease. The bag on her hip was already bulging as she got closer to him, only a few of the monsters left.

"Just me or were those things weak?" Kon asked, holstering his mace and reaching down to help her.

"Grade just has to do with energy inside of them. Doesn't have to correlate to physical strength. We'll find their rift soon enough and we'll probably understand why they're built like this," Diur said.

"Still seems too easy. Go back and drop this off or keep going through the facility before we regroup?" Kon asked as they reached the stairwell that connected the facility.

"Let's find the rifts at least. There's still the E-Grade and I have no doubt that there'll be plenty of strong foes there. But if we can avoid fighting for a few hours I can try to recover a bit more so I can be helpful outside of simply shooting our enemies," Diur said.

"Benny said we'd be here for a while. Might as well take our time," Kon agreed as they went up the stairs a lot more carefully than he had last time. He saw that several of the stairs were destroyed from his ascent. He looked at the rusted out remains of the staircase before looking back at Diur.

"None of those monsters had corrosive abilities, did they?"

"None that I observed," she said, leaning in to look at the damage.

"I think I have an idea what we're going to be fighting from the E-Grade rift," Kon remarked drily as they continued up towards where they could feel the rifts were.

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