Screw the system. So it told me there was a way to use this ability, but then wouldn’t give me even a hint? At least I knew I had a way forward. Hmmm… maybe it had given me more than I thought at first. If the path of evolution followed by mammals was insufficient, then that meant, I needed to think of something else. I started wracking my brain for the results of years of public school science classes.

  I allowed my perceptions to spread out. I didn’t have a true tremor sense, but with this passive active, I could definitely feel the space around me better. That got me thinking. I forgot which base it was, but one of the base housing we’d lived in had a mouse problem. They drove my mom crazy because they could seem to fit through the tiniest of spaces. I’d gotten curious and researched why that was.

  Collapsible ribcage.

  Something like that at least. They could shift those bones to allow them to fit in spaces that couldn’t normally accommodate their bodies. They weren’t the only mammal which could do that. I sent my senses out again and focused on the spaces, doing my best to form a mental map. Then I plugged it into my Mini-Map ability and focused on pulling it in as close as possible on me.

  Sure enough, there was a twisting, narrow path out of here, but a simple collapsible ribcage wasn’t going to be enough. There were at least two spots which were too tight for that even with the most optimistic of measurements I was able to take in my head. That was why the system had told me that the mammal evolutionary tree wasn’t my ticket out of here.

  So, I started thinking about other creatures which might be able to do it. If I remembered correctly, cockroaches could fit through spaces as narrow as an eighth of an inch, which was half the space a mouse could fit through. My overall body was bigger, but factoring that change in size, if I was able to imitate the flexible exoskeleton of a cockroach, I’d be able to get past one of the two sticking points, but the other one would probably still be too small.

  I couldn’t just try this blind. Once I started moving, the rocks would settle and my path might become even tighter. I needed to have a plan, and I didn’t even know if I could claim such wildly different vestigial forms, or if I even wanted to. The thought of taking on the traits of a cockroach made me a bit uneasy, so I kept going through anything I’d ever seen or read, trying to come up with another option.

  Maybe my mind was starting to suffer from the decreased oxygen, but all I kept going back to was, what would Rimuru do? Of course, he would just change into his slime form and easily slide out of here. Too bad slimes weren’t real Earth creatures. But then I remembered something called plasmodium. Collections of what were often single-celled organisms. Slime molds I think they were called.

  Yes, that type of form would be perfect. But could I manage it? The longer I thought about it, the more I realized it was either that or let Samvek rescue me.

  I focused inward, pushing my mana towards the portion of my class core, which I sensed represented the vestigial hunter shard. I felt all the nature of life in there. I began to understand the shard better and just how it was shaping my class. All of my classes tied around life, whether that be bio-electrical energy, or the raw power of force, or even the flip-side of life, which was death. But more than any of the others—vestigial hunter resonated with the possibilities of life. It spoke to what I could become, even if only temporarily.

  That power flowed through me, and I immediately put all of my clothing and gear into my spatial storage. Then my body began to soften. Bones became pliable, my skin started stretching, muscles and organs phased into a singular form; and I started to move.

  I was pushing myself forward through the spaces, bending and twisting in ways that no human body could have ever managed. Heck, this was beyond what any vertebrate could manage. Bit of my body was taken off as the stones cut into my now soft form. I left remnants of me everywhere and my HP reflected that as inch by inch I moved, but I also lost HP for each bit of ground I managed to cover.

  The sensation of transforming was otherworldly, a blend of excruciating discomfort and a bizarre detachment as my form dissolved into something wholly inhuman. My consciousness, somehow still tethered to this mutable mass, directed the movement with an instinctual understanding I hadn't known I possessed. The air around me, laden with dust and the heavy scent of stone and earth, became more pronounced, each particle seeming to guide my path through the labyrinthine confines of the rubble.

  As I inched forward, the sensation of the rocks against what could only be called my outer membrane was peculiar—abrasive yet not entirely unpleasant. The sharp edges that would have lacerated flesh merely parted me, allowing passage at the cost of myself, a literal trail of my very being left behind. This was the cost of survival, measured in drops of my essence.

  The path was not straight; it twisted and turned, obeying the chaotic aftermath of the collapse. I could sense the vibrations through the stones, the distant echoes of my team's movements and the faint, reassuring throb of life beyond my immediate prison. These vibrations became a beacon, guiding me when the path forked or when obstacles seemed insurmountable. My form, adapting instinctively, pushed and pulled, flowed and condensed, driven by a singular goal—freedom.

  The journey through the stone became a blur of focus and exertion. My mind stopped running through scenarios and possibilities and was singularly fixated on the task at hand. There was no room for doubt or fear, only the next movement, the next inch gained in this desperate crawl towards salvation.

  Time lost meaning in the oppressive confines of my passage. My body, or what it had become, felt the strain of sustained transformation and movement. I began to worry that I wouldn’t be able to hold on to this shape long enough. Every part of me was fighting to return to my human form. My body wanted it almost more than a drowning man wants air. It took every ounce of willpower that I had.

  The loss of mass, evidenced by the trail I left behind, was a constant drain on my vitality, a tangible representation of the effort required to escape. Yet, despite the toll it took, there was an exhilarating freedom in being unbound by a physical form, in overcoming the impossible through sheer determination and adaptability. Some of the delight came from denying what was meant to be. I was using the system’s tools to break the trap it had placed me in.

  Finally, the oppressive weight above me began to lighten, the tight confines around me broadened, and fresh air, cooler and laden with the scents of the outside world, brushed against what remained of me. The light, dim though it was in the shadowed underbelly of the collapsed temple, heralded the end of my ordeal.

  With one final push, my form, now barely holding together, spilled out into the open, a mass of life-force at the brink of cohesion. The transition from darkness to light, from confinement to open air, was disorienting. My senses, so attuned to the vibrations and textures of my escape, now struggled to adapt to the vastness of freedom.

  I lay there, a quivering mass, on the edge of the rubble, breathing in the freedom with what felt like a thousand mouths, yet none. The sounds of hurried footsteps reached me, the voices of my team, tinged with concern and disbelief, filled the air.

  "Silas?" Dori's voice, incredulous and filled with a mix of hope and fear, cut through the haze of my transformation.

  I wanted to respond, to reassure her and the others, but my form had not yet coalesced into something capable of speech. Instead, I focused on pulling myself back together, on returning to a semblance of the person they knew. For a second it didn’t work, but then I realized, I simply had to let my body do its thing. It wanted to be whole and normal. I just had to pull away the mental restraints I had forced onto it.

  Bit by bit, muscle and bone reformed, skin knit itself over my frame, and I took my first deep breath as a human once more. The pain of reconstitution was sharp, but a small price to pay for avoiding death. My mana was draining almost as quickly as ever before. I realized then that it was being used to heal my body and restore the mass I’d lost on my trek.

  Finally, once I was restored, I sucked in a deep breath. Then I held up my hand and stared at it like it was something new. I shook my head and regained my focus. “I’m okay. Sorry, took me a minute there to adapt.” As I spoke, my voice was hoarse, but unmistakably mine.

  Nevin said, “Stars above, I have so many questions for you now.”

  Samvek stepped in and said, “That’ll have to wait. We can spare a short time for Silas to regain his strength, but then you need to finish off that lich. Destroying this body was only the first step.”

  Crag groaned, but none of them protested, so I assumed he must have explained to them what I’d already figured out.

  “About that,” I wheezed, “I think I have a way to track down his phylactery.”

  Chapter 41- The End of Life

  Earth Countdown: 387 days, 6 hours, 1 minutes.

  Time on Darje Mission: 149 days, 2 hours, 11 minutes.

  It ended up taking me longer to get back into fighting shape than necessary. Magical healing didn’t even reverse the shock to my system that devolving and then re-evolving had caused. It took fourteen hours of sleep, the best food that we could manage to make while in this dungeon, and some stamina potions to get me there.

  The throbbing headache didn’t disappear until after what I was calling breakfast. It was possible to track time in here because of the countdown, but there was no sense of day or night, so breakfast was just the meal we had after we woke up from sleeping.

  Samvek was unusually talkative this morning. “I hope you now all see the value of my training method.”

  It wasn’t a question. He knew we did. “You should also have learned something about the difference between tiers. I can almost guarantee that this Darje necromancer had no idea how to properly evolve his class, and even then, his rare class was too much for the four of you to handle.”

  Crag said, “Bah, he was a boss monster. That isn’t the same as a normal rare.”

  Nevin chimed in, “He makes a valid point. I’ve read and experienced to a lesser extent the difference between the power of higher tiered people, but rare classes are well, for lack of a better word, exceedingly rare on Galen or at least in the Anwich District. I suspect that in the capital there might be more rare classers. Of course, a higher concentration of adventurers would obviously result in an increase of the average…”

  Dori coughed. “Were you making a point, Nevin?”

  He looked flustered for a moment then shook his head. “Yes, uh well, I suppose the question is how much of the monster’s increased power was because of his tier and how much was because of his status as a boss?”

  Samvek shrugged his shoulders. “That isn’t the only question. You would also need to factor how much of his independence he lost when he was merged into the dungeon by the system. Surely, you’ve noticed that in general, monsters are easier to fight in terms of tactics while tending to have higher stats and more raw power.”

  I watched as all the Galenians nodded along. Samvek continued, “My guess is that the construct was a very low grade rare, which was pushed over by the overflow of mana in the dungeon and the corruption of the hell mana. It’s what we call a dirty rare, although technically the term could be applied to other ranks.”

  Dori said, “So he lost some of his creativity and tactical versatility, but gained significant physical power while barely being qualified to be called rare.”

  “Just so. But consider what that means, if you had to fight a true rare tier.”

  I stood up. “We get it. We aren’t strong enough. I know this is probably where I’m supposed to protest that we were able to defeat uncommons while we were common tier. I’m familiar with the concept of an ever-increasing difference in power between the tiers. I got the vaguest sense of what your father and even Priest Bahran were capable of. Even their guards had an aura so dense that it threatened to crush me. I presume they were epic tier.”

  Samvek nodded. “The clan members were newly minted epic tiers. They are only a few years older than me, so I’m familiar with most of them. It’s common for new people at any rank to be taken on missions, so they get a feel for their new tier. The quest to close the portal was an epic tier quest, so it made sense. As for Bahran’s attack dog, I couldn’t know, but I will warn you that he is famous for having a short temper. I thought that he might have ripped your throat out for how you challenged his priest.”

  “Good to know. We need to move, though. I can feel the spiritual energy condensing again. Azirin or the dungeon core is probably making him a new body now,” I said.

  Samvek tapped his temple with two fingers. “Oh, I should have seen that coming.”

  Crag looked around as the rest of us grinned. “You know I don’t like it when you all talk about stuff without explaining it to me.”

  Nevin smiled since explaining was his favorite thing, but Dori put her hand on his arm and said, “I’ve got this.” Then she looked directly at Crag, “If I’m guessing correctly, this phylactery thing has been put in the same place as the dungeon core.”

  “Got it in one,” I replied. “More than that, I’m pretty sure he’s hidden it in the dungeon core, which means they’re likely fused by now and permanently killing Azirin without destroying the core will be nigh unto impossible.”

  We discussed the ramifications a bit longer and then headed out. I had stealth up on my active skills in place of Searing Arc. I made sure that Urg was in good shape, but he seemed unfazed by the battle. He also did something unusual. As I headed out in front so that I could practice my stealth skill, he hovered so close to me that it was like he was a second shadow while he practiced mimicking my movement.

  Dori was a better scout, but because it was my ability to perceive spiritual energy that was needed to find the phylactery, I took the lead.

  As we descended into the bowels of the dungeon, the air grew thick with mana, a palpable haze that clung to the skin and filled the lungs with each breath. This stale air hadn’t been breathed in by any living creatures in a very long time. The dim, flickering light from the crystal atop my polearm barely penetrated the darkness, casting long, ominous shadows across the rough-hewn walls of the tunnel. Of course, that was partially by design. Light would give us away so, I only used it sparingly. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the occasional drip of water and the footsteps of my companions. I wasn’t flying since I believed that my stealth ability would increase faster if I was having to be mindful of how I stepped.

  At each intersection, I paused, the weight of decision heavy upon me. I couldn't afford to sing often, the Spirit Singing would illuminate our path but at the risk of alerting every creature lurking in the shadows to our presence. Instead, I used it sparingly, a brief hum, barely louder than a whisper, to send out a pulse of spiritual energy. The echoes that returned were faint but distinct, a guidepost pointing us deeper into the earth. I imagined this must be like what echo-location would be like as the resonance of the dark spiritual energy would rebound back to me.

  We were easily twenty stories below ground when the first attack came. A clattering sound echoed through the tunnels, the unmistakable cadence of bone on stone. Skeletons, remnants of Darje warriors, emerged from the shadows, their empty eye sockets burning with a malevolent light. They moved with an eerie coordination, armed with rusted weapons that looked as deadly now as they had in life.

  Yet after fighting a rare boss, these uncommon monsters who were ten levels lower than me presented very little challenge. My bigger objective was to free them all from their tormented existence.

  The fight was brutal and swift. I extinguished my light and then moved rapidly between the monsters. My polearm chopped them down, cutting through bone with a new found ease. Behind me, Crag's hammer crushed bone with each swing, sending shards flying like deadly shrapnel. Nevin hung back because his spells were less than ideal for these tight quarters. Dori protected him, cutting down any of the undead who made it past the two of us. Through it all, Urg simply followed my movements without ever attacking on his own.

  No sooner had we dispatched the skeletons than a new threat emerged. Zombies, their flesh rotting and hanging from their bones in tattered strips, shuffled towards us with outstretched arms. The stench of decay was overwhelming, a physical presence that threatened to choke us. But we were prepared. Our weapons moved with the fury of destruction, cutting through the horde with practiced ease.

  Then came the ghouls, faster and more cunning than their undead brethren. They leaped from the shadows, claws extended, seeking to rend flesh from bone. Eyes gleaming with a hunger for carnage, they moved with a predator's speed, their elongated limbs propelling them forward with alarming agility. The air grew charged with their malevolence, each snarl and hiss a testament to their ferocity.

  Our formation tightened instinctively, a circle of steel and spell against the encroaching darkness. These ghouls were near level fifty or above. They weren’t a serious threat individually, but together they were enough that we needed to focus.

  I extended my polearm and provided enough light from the crystal for us to coordinate. Crag roared a taunt of challenge while he lashed out with his hammer or bashed the head of a ghoul in with his shield.

  Nevin fired off great gouts of flame which consumed any of the monsters who were in front of him. Dori took the time to practice with a bow that I’d only rarely seen her use. Her shorter blades simply weren’t very good with the distance we were keeping the monsters at, and she couldn’t break ranks with the limited space we had.

  As the first ghoul leaped, its claws aimed for my throat, time seemed to slow. I sidestepped, the air whistling as the claws passed inches from my skin, and countered with a swift thrust. I slammed the butt of my weapon into it, knocking it back before spinning the weapon around and bringing the blade down, splitting its skull. It fell, a look of surprise etched into its ghastly features, dissolving into shadows before it hit the ground.