The room Rethys had decided on entering featured an creature with an unbound core similar to the first one he had encountered, except attuned to the ethereal element of Malice. He had specifically chosen this one creature in particular, hoping that his resistance against both pain and attacks of an ethereal nature would guarantee an easy or at least favorable battle.
He still had to make concessions with the location of the room however, being particularly far away from the exit towards the rest of the catacombs. He could've targeted a Mind-attuned creature that would've presumably been helpless against him, but it was too far away from the exit to truly be a safe target.
He already risked running out of time before he could get out safely, and could only make due with what he thought was his best option. He could only hope that this risk would somehow pay off, one way or another.
Despite his overthinking however, his mind remained calm as he finally approached the metal door leading towards his decided target. The door itself was not at all enchanted or secured, being a normal, unlocked door, and pushing it open, he hurried inside before locking it behind him.
He then saw it, a creature completely identical to the one he fought previously, featuring a hunched back posture and wearing a large, worn robe. The robed creature was sitting limply on a chair and staring listlessly into some corner of the room, seemingly unaware of Rethys' arrival.
He knew however that, unlike those that kept constantly moving around, the creatures standing idle were in a sleep-like state. And he could tell that the one before him was slowly waking up from its centuries-long torpor, as the ether around it began noticeably shifting.
Rethys didn't wait, and lunged forwards as fast as he could. But he couldn't get to it in time, as not only were the rooms of this place very spacious, but the mess that it housed made traversing it difficult to say the least. Even Rethys, experienced as he was with dealing with this kind of chaos, struggled to find sufficient footholds to move around.
In the end the creature managed to turn around towards the young man awkwardly hopping between overturned tables and spilled vials and sacks, fixing him with a many-eyed pink stare full of Malice. In fact, the creature had so many glowing eyes underneath its hood that Rethys counted at a glance at least ten of them.
Before Rethys' fist could connect with the creature's head however, it released a massive burst of its ether outwards in all directions.
The wave of pink ether washed over the creature and all of its surroundings, drowning them in concentrated, malicious intent. Tables, metallic tools and glass vials alike burst apart like overripe fruit, showering the whole room in wooden splinters and glass and metal shards.
Thankfully for Rethys, more than enough time had passed since his last use of infusion magic, and he had since regained his ability to cast spells again. And as the wave of Malice ether washed over him, it was met with his Barrier spell, entirely blocking its advance and scattering it into the ambient ether.
The spell cast by the robed creature continued on, covering the entire space of the large room and showering it with the eerie pale pink color of Malice. The burst of ether was of such intensity that Rethys' senses were overwhelmed for a moment. And if not for the fact that he had timed his entrance with the creatures' patrols, something outside might've detected the spike in energy.
But though he was safe from the spell itself, Rethys was still subject to its aftermath, as he was pelted by all sorts of small debris. Quickly sparing himself a look, he noticed that his left side was riddled with wounds from sharp glass and metal flakes that stabbed into his skin. But as he felt no pain or obstruction from his injury, he ignored it and looked ahead.
"What the hell is that..." He exclaimed outwardly in surprise as he was met with the sight of the now unrobed Malice mage.
The creature now stood almost completely naked, its robe having also been torn apart by its spell, reduced to mere rags. And looking at it, Rethys saw features similar to what he had seen with the ice-wielding creature, except for its frankly horrifying face.
Gazing at its full visage, a face covered in nothing but eyes, all shining with malicious intent, Rethys felt their stare almost tangibly digging into his soul.
No, it wasn't almost. The creature's stare indeed was afflicting him with something, though he couldn't tell exactly what.
He wouldn't wait around to find out however, and charged towards it to get within striking distance.
But the many-eyed creature didn't want him getting close to it, and, without taking its eyes off him, used its strength to throw anything within hand at him while running away.
"Oh no you don't." He growled as he kept dodging projectiles hurled at him while trying to keep up with the creature.
First it started with throwing random tools and curios lying around and then began hurling broken tables at him. All the while, it used its long, spindly legs and arms to navigate the messy workshop better than Rethys ever could, allowing it to effortlessly keep its distance from him.
Rethys at first swiped away anything small thrown at him and simply avoided anything too large. And when his own strength didn't suffice, he simply activated his infusion magic, figuring that it was pointless to try and match the creature in a battle of magic.
But it wasn't enough, and the gaunt creature continued to keep him at arms length and lob things at him. It seemed able to know exactly where to plant its hands and feet to secure its hold while it leveraged its mage strength to hurl even the heaviest things at him. All the while its unnerving gaze never left him, constantly applying some sort of pressure on him. He couldn't tell what this pressure entailed, how it would manifest and what it would do, but could tell that it was growing heavier.
He couldn't let things continue as they were. The creature clearly knew what it was doing, hampering him while cleverly keeping its distance, all to accomplish whatever its goal was, staring at him with its pink-glowing eyes as it did.
'I was wrong, I can't explore this place as I am now.' He concluded, still feeling bitter about it.
He wanted to just run away, but the creature would surely follow him and alert all of its fellow unbound mages of his presence. All hell would break loose at that point, and he didn't believe in his ability to escape unscathed from the potential storm of magic they'd throw at him.
However, now that he had decided to stop trying to further his exploration and instead retreat, he could be more liberal with how he took this encounter. And dodging what seemed to be half of a bookcase that the creature threw at him, Rethys charged forwards with full strength. Activating the strength-giving amulet, he made like a battering ram and powered through anything the creature threw at him.
His new behavior saw him sustaining many injuries, even shattering his left hand's fingerbones as he smashed through a whole bookcase that the skinny creature somehow managed to throw at him.
But his reckless abandon did eventually pay off as he managed to catch the creature in melee.
Wounded as he was however, he couldn't strike at it properly, instead resorting to suddenly clutching it between his arms in a tight hug and charging forwards as fast as his legs could take him.
The creature protested, lashing out amidst groans and growls, but Rethys wouldn't stop. And mowing through table after table, he eventually met something that wasn't wood, crashing into the stone wall with enough force to pulverize the gaunt Malice mage.
As both fell to the ground, Rethys felt his body growing limp from exhaustion, and his consciousness growing fainter. For though the lack of pain kept him from knowing when to stop, his body itself seemed to have reached its limit.
But he wasn't completely out of it yet, and pushing further, managed to force himself off the ground and limp towards the fallen creature. He thankfully still had enough energy to infuse into his muscles, allowing him to move despite the extent to which he had abused his body.
Approaching the creature, he saw how it squirmed on the ground, trying to move despite its wounds and broken bones, all the while still fixing him with its discomforting gaze.
But as he stared down on the wounded decrepit mage, he saw something else. An expression, or rather a shadow of it.
'It almost looks afraid.' He thought, seeing that the creature was in no shape to go anywhere or resist.
Turning away, he grabbed a large chunk of metal, probably torn from the frame of some table or workbench, and slammed it down upon the creature's head.
He then approached its corpse and tried to exorcise its soul, only for the exact same thing that the ice-wielding mage did to happen again.
"Why..." He asked as he fixed the creature's corpse with a complicated stare. "Do you really want to stay like this?"
Gazing upon the creature stubbornly defying any of his attempts to release it, Rethys kicked it violently before turning away.
It didn't feel like he won against it, it felt as if he was wasting time here. And as he drowned himself further in these negative emotions, he felt the coldness that permeated him dissipating, giving way to frustrations buried deep within. And as he pulled away from his defeated opponent, his mind was flooded with emotion.
He felt weak, disgustingly weak. Nothing he did amounted to anything, and even now he was once again still following Sevi's instructions to delve into some place he had no business being near.
The so-called core evolution he had went through also felt pointless, as he continued to encounter greater resistance. All the powers Sevi had described to him felt small and useless, after all, what could he ever do with them in this cursed place. He could go back up and bully the weaker denizens of the catacombs, but for what?
Their numbers were endless, and the stone halls sprawling. No matter how many he released, it would never get anywhere. He'd simply have to keep moving from one spot to another, clearing and clearing, and maybe one day, in the far far future, he'd have made some progress.
His only true hope manifested in the clues Sevi fed him, but those only lead to obstacles far too great for him to overcome. He was but one one man, given the task of raiding an area that contained an entire regiment of mages.
'Why am I even here...' He thought, disgusted with it all.