Not willing to risk any more, Sai straightened his back and turned around. By sheer coincidence, his line of sight dragged across the battlefield littered with corpses.
Except… it wasn't littered anymore. There was no sight of any colorful slimes, burned hilichurls or even the remains of the abyss mages. The only proof that there once had been a fearsome battle in that hall were the pieces of the Ruin Hunter.
"The hell?"
But that wasn't all. Those pieces and fallen debris seemed to… move? They were moving indeed! Slowly, but surely.
Sai saw a cog rolling towards the closest side door, tooth by tooth. If he didn't know better, Sai would have guessed that there was currently a strong magnetic force that was pulling all that metal towards the door.
'That explains how they clean it each time. But where did the other corpses go?! How did they disappear so fast?'
He felt a chill run down his spine at the conjectures he had, but for some reason they didn't last long. A sense of destination appeared in his mind, and Sai finally stepped towards the blue circle.
His sight immediately captured pure white. A second later, the blue/transparent floating squares disappeared with him.
He could leave at last!
…
Or so he thought.
Sai was greeted by the familiar anteroom which had teleported him and Beidou.
Looking around, he realized he was alone in that room.
"Did she leave without me?"
A loud rumbling sound echoed, announcing the opening of the stone doors. Sai approached it, giving a final look to the magic circle imprinted on the floor.
"You sure took your sweet time!" Beidou's voice came from the other side.
Sai sighed with relief. Even if he managed to escape the domain, it didn't mean that he could get back to civilization safely.
"You could have waited for me."
"These doors don't take long to close, so I thought I would wait for you outside. Just in case."
He shrugged.
"Alright. Let's get out of this place then."
Sai tried to not look at the cubic mechanism that almost made him go crazy, and stepped down the staircase behind Beidou.
Down the corridor, they finally found the entrance. Its doors were wide open, but their path was blocked by stones. Not even a tiny bit of light entered through their cracks.
"Can you do something about those stones?" Sai asked hopefully.
"..."
Beidou gave him the artifacts, which made Sai feel another myriad of sensations, and summoned her greatsword.
She gathered energy in the slasher and fiercely attacked the mountain of rocks.
*BOOOM!*
Splinters and stones flew in all directions.
And she hit again.
*BOOOM*
And again.
*BOOM!*
And…
*Boom!*
And-
*Bang!*
*Rumble!*
"Huff! Huff! Huff!" Beidou struggled to breath through all that smoke.
A couple of minutes later, they managed to see the damage.
The floor was littered with rocks and pieces of stones, both charred and not. But their way was still blocked, this time by a massive stone. A scar ran across it, in the shape of a diagonal line, but too superficial to cause any real damage.
Sai saw all that and judged that their exit was only a matter of time and effort.
"That was great, captain! If you keep at it we will be out in no time!"
"Huff! That just now, I can't do it anymore." She placed a hand on her chest and confessed.
"Huh?! Why?"
"My Electro energy is not a good match for the Geo element, it barely even helps. Energy recharge also takes time. But the biggest issue is none of those." She paused. "Even if we assume that we don't have that much debris to clear, my digging efficiency will only decrease with time."
She pointed her sword to him.
Sai inspected it for a while and then frowned even deeper.
"Is it going to break?"
"Yeah. If I keep hacking at it, my beloved Blackcliff Slasher will eventually break. When it does, I won't be able to cause nearly as much damage to the rocks as I just did. In other words, we will be dead long before we reach the other side." Her tone was somber.
"F*ck!"
Sai could not afford to pay attention to her demeanor right now, but if he did, he would have become slightly suspicious.
Before desperation took a hold of him, the Brave Heart artifacts boosted his courage and determination. Sai rushed to think of another option, another path to salvation. He looked down to his arms.
"Wait! There might still be a way!" He exclaimed and looked up at her.
She refused to look him in the eyes, showing no reaction to his words.
"This mask is part of an artifact set called Archaic Petra. If we can get another piece, it might boost your damage against the Geo element or something. And also, there is this other artifact set that can be received from this domain called Retracing Bolide, which might give you another type of boost in strength. If we stack artifacts, wouldn't it be possible to-"
"No."
"...Then… we could use the bodies of-"
"Sai." Beidou had never spoken to him in that tone before. "Stop fooling yourself. There is way too much stone for me to get rid of even if I were five times stronger."
"H-how do you know?" Brave Heart shone in his hands again. "We have to try it regardless! No, we will make it! I'm sur-"
Before he could react, Beidou slapped his arms that held the artifacts. They all fell to the ground, the artifacts and Sai himself.
The pain on his arm and on his butt stunned him for a second.
"Those artifacts are clouding your judgement, kid. You are smarter than that, you know how deep we are into this hill. There's no way I can excavate us out alone."
Sai's eyes widened with recognition. He immediately realized that she was completely right. They had walked for at least a hundred meters into the hill, which meant that there might be even more rock above them than there are in front of them. No matter how much of it they took out, it would only get replaced by the ones above.
But what dreaded him the most was the feeling of being without the artifacts. Not because he felt weak without them, but because he instantly recognized the effect that they had on him.
'This… it must be the Brave Heart set… It indeed gave me courage and determination, but at the cost of my ability to think and reason! This isn't an artifact, but a curse instead!'
Sai hurriedly dragged himself away to create space between him and the artifacts.
"T-these artifacts…"
"It's dangerous to blindly wear artifacts, especially a full set. That's basic adventurer knowledge, you know?"
"Sh*t…"