Hafgufas and other island disguising monsters usually have the same way of killing the unfortunate that step on them, they simply let themselves sink, taking whatever or whoever is on it, sending them to a most certain death.
To have a chance of survival, the expedition members would have to swim to an island, however the other islands were far away and the afflicted monsters were still lurking around, they kept their distance for now but would attack for certain.
"Everyone lend me some help!" loudly spoke Malmiere, not seeming particularily stressed about the situation, Vlas couldn't see him very clearly but he certainly looked like he was handling the situation well, he must have a counter of some sort, this guy was a ressourceful one.
Everyone did as they were asked except for a few since the help asked for was holy mana, EOTHO-1A couldn't help with that and instead kept an eye on the strange figure, the figure was still in sight, looking at the expedition with unknown intents, everything hidden behind the mass of orange energy that was definitely the same as what was afflicting the monsters.
Lando on the other hand didn't participate because he wasn't of any use in general, he was simply writing his observations with crazy speed.
As was common with about every holy attack, a bright light soon shone, the spell used wasn't what anyone would have expected, the effect wasn't common with holy magic.
The light shone, illuminating all, eyes sparked with an unknown feeling and something that shouldn't happen took place.
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Stepping down onto the ground of a port for the first time in a while, the young squire had finally arrived on dry land, after receiving the strange system message he had received, instead of immediately going he took some time to prepare and train.
He still wore is armor but had had it repaired and reinforced as it was cheaper than getting another armor altogether, he had gotten a new spear, a sword just in case, a dagger if it came to close combat and a round wooden shield.
The message had told him to come to this continent and to fight against an affliction and after his arrival, he soon found out that the affliction had already widely spread and that monsters who would usually be staying in certain areas and thus not cause any accident despite their dangerosity had started attacking to spread the affliction.
The situation on the continent was slowly starting to worsen but thanks to the effort of a certain Holy order and knight establisments, the affliction was maintained away from people but it was only a matter of time until a much more dangerous monster was afflicted and broke through.
The young squire knew that if he simply joined the efforts to contain the affliction, not much would change, so instead, he gathered some information and headed directly to the source while making sure to learn as much as possible on the powers granted by the affliction and other effects.
He was able to learn that the powers granted were very flexible, the flame was able to take the form of seemingly anything, the flame was simply its basic form.
The effect the flame had on the monsters and people afflicted wasn't quite as variable, they were either in constant pain or seemed to be able to control it without side effects.
One thing that seemed to be constant however, was that sapient species afflicted lost their minds in all case and that the burning left eye wasn't blinded at all.
The young squire entered the world dungeon for the first time in his life, he only knew that the affliction had first appeared here and that it most likely had something to do with the dungeon in some ways.
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Against its own instinct as a monster and the fire that consumed it, the hafgufa stopped sinking and rose back up, assuming once again the appearance of an island as the water once gain darkened hiding the monster's true appearance.
The surrounding monsters also went away and the hafgufa swam a bit letting the members of the expedition go onto another island.
The spell had somehow influenced the mind of the monsters, Vlasfimia could feel that the power of the fire had weakened a bit until a few minutes later when everything came back to normal.
Now that he thought about it, it wasn't surprising that the holy order would use mind control spells, not any partucular reason behind that thought, they just seem like the kind to use that sort of magic on monsters to try and convert them to holiness.
With their boats destroyed, they would have to get another one, it would probably take some times since they needed the space mage and he only came by every now and then, they are going to need another one much sooner than expected and they had already gotten supplies, so they would be stuck for a while, as such, Vlas decided to use this occasion to get some advance on them and prepare a surprise.
He swam between island for a while until he found the exit, nicely enough, it had been put opposite to the entrance, he soon found himself on the forty-third floor, as expected it was another ocean, it certainly like this one was the same thing as the previous one except that every single island was a monster posing as one this time around, Hafgufas, Lyngbakrs, Aspidochelones, Zaratan, they were the only monsters present on this floor, so as long as one didn't stop on one of them, this floor should be easy, the water didn't seem to have any effect and their didn't seem to be any traps, really it seemed like this floor was an attrition run, indeed the floor seemed much larger than the previous ones, the idea was most likely to starve the ones traversing it and lure them into trying to find food on an island but for the expedition and their space mage, it would be an especially easy floor as they would be careful of islands this time around.
Vlasfimia decided to get more advance.