I am an Eldritch Entity

Valentina coughed, the dust from the debris of the fallen maze making it difficult to breathe.

She had at least been saved though.

Honestly, she had known she had to get out of there when she saw how big of an explosion her last skill had created.

She had named it Explosion of Duality.

Valentina had never used this skill before that day, at least not at maximum power.

The last time she had revealed it to Eryndor, it had been using ants and only the bare minimum power.

She had had no idea that this skill was so violent, unlike the Yin Yang Detonation.

Yin Yang Detonation was silent, creepy, not-flashy, dichromatic, and it only formed a sphere around the target, absolutely annihilating it within it.

But Explosion of Duality? It had been loud, violent, and flashy, literally going boom when it had activated.

As soon as she had witnessed the explosion, she had immediately known she had to run away—so she had.

Her snakes would've been faster, but it would've taken time for them to enlarge. So she had immediately activated her movement primordial art to escape.

The thought about Eryndor using Telekinesis to save her had briefly crossed her mind—he had been the one who had brought her there, after all.

But she had also known that he could have been low on Energy of Consciousness after controlling the Ice Ox and everything else.

Had she been disappointed that he hadn't saved her? Yes, a bit. But had she blamed him? No.

Her movement skills had not been enough to get out of the way quickly enough. Just when she had thought she was about to be injured by the heavy falling walls, they had stopped.

Telekinesis? So he did plan to save me.

There hadn't been a moment of lag as she had immediately escaped to safety with that thought.

******

Eryndor gritted his teeth and persevered as he tried to maintain his consciousness.

He couldn't fall unconscious, not now. Not at this stage.

As he struggled with it, he heard Valentina's loud voice, no doubt for everyone to hear.

"The Active realm beast has at least been critically injured if not dead, but the horde has already crossed roughly fifteen percent of the maze.

"I ask everyone to delay the horde for as long as possible while I make sure that the Ice Ox stays dead."

It was Paulina who replied.

"Alright, we'll try our best. Eryndor, you don't need to move out, just stay where you are as a backup."

Everyone immediately moved around the maze, taking their spots in emergency pockets to delay the beasts.

Eryndor's eye twitched when he heard Paulina's command.

Did she sense that I was injured solely through my voice earlier?

He didn't know if Paulina had really sensed his condition, or that the command was simply what it meant and he was just looking unnecessarily deeper than its face value, but he appreciated the thought regardless.

He managed to stay conscious through the bout of dizziness and extreme tendency to just fall and sleep.

Holding his head, he stood up, and used the nearby maze wall to stabilize himself.

Jeez, I feel blind without extended vision.

He had eyes, they were uninjured. But during these few days, he had gotten rather used to keeping his extended vision on at all times for the sake of safety.

Going from a high vision of such a large area to suddenly just his eyes felt vulnerable for some reason.

I can't use my extended vision for some time now, until I recover enough Energy of Consciousness that is.

His extended vision used Energy of Consciousness after all, although not a lot.

I can't rest here. The Energy of Consciousness will recover anyway, I should head towards the front of the maze as well to help my allies.

Every extra person means more time bought for Valentina to do her job.

He didn't waste a second as he immediately set off.

It felt like he had no energy to even move, but he pushed through.

Extreme fatigue and headache were the symptoms one faced whenever they overused their EoC.

And if they really crossed that one final line, they might even be knocked unconscious.

Eryndor knew he couldn't afford to sit back and rest like Paulina intended for him to.

When he reached his spot, he immediately began manipulating what little was left of the traps, pushing through the weakness which ran through his entire body.

Divisions were quickly made across the horde as they entered different routes due to Guide Piercers, and deliberate diversions.

Sometimes the path would split up in the middle, dividing the incoming horde in two different paths, making it easier for traps to act on them.

Beasts fell one by one into various pits of chokepoints, and detours still worked as great as ever.

The existence of Frostspike Totems finally shined.

Before, the Active realm Ice Ox was just a single beast, and it didn't pay much attention to destroying the walls, only wishing to kill the humans it sensed earlier.

Despite all their efforts to split the Ice Oxen into smaller groups, a significant number still charged through the passages.

Some of these paths had been deliberately narrowed in anticipation of this scenario.

Wherever the team expected heavy movement, the walls were constructed from Frostspike Totems—far sturdier than their regular barriers, and lined with jagged spikes that tore into anything that got too close.

Several beasts had already perished when caught in those narrow, spike-lined channels.

Just imagine the fate of the Ice Oxen at the rear or edges of the horde—dragged forward by the unstoppable momentum of their kin, unable to stop or turn.

Their armored hides were shredded, skin peeled away, innards ruptured, and limbs broken or crushed as they were forced through the merciless gauntlet of ice and spikes.

The wall stood tall, with blood, organs, and even bones found along the bottom of them, with some hanging off the spikes.

Despite trying everything, the team could only slow down the beast horde by a bit.

They had already crossed the forty percent mark and were approaching Valentina's location.