"I'll cover you then."
Shizu gave Riku a trusting nod, and it took all that he could muster not to give her a smirk before jumping right into the fray in front of them. His knife poised high, he cut through the fodder like butter, his companion's buffs giving him more than enough power to plow through them with relative ease.
"[Fate's Edict! The Hermit: Upright Position]!"
Shizu's usual barrier went up at her command, keeping her from being swarmed as Riku used the knew cover they now had to dart in and out of the mob. The smell of burnt wood and insect guts filled the cave around them, a sizeable amount of smoke starting to fill the small pocket room they were currently in as the former assassin made short work of their enemies.
All the while, Shizu occasionally helped out with a few thrown cards on some of the enemies that got to close to him. She was still parsing through her cards, however, determined to find the one card that would get rid of their problems altogether.
"Don't mind me here. I'm just gonna watch," Nyx chuckled from where she stood as she had seemingly summoned a chair made of Chaos. "You two are doing great!"
Riku scoffed at his goddess's encouragement even as he did his best to keep things in order for Shizu to concentrate. Despite his best efforts, the swarm just kept on coming with all of them clawing at the barrier protecting them. The barrier held for now, but even he knew it had its limits, and the sound of faint cracks appearing in between all of the shambling and the skittering only made him move faster as he let his knife do the work on his enemies.
"Come on... Where the hell is it?"
Shizu's frantic mumbles filtered into his ears just as he darted towards the other end of the barrier and thinning out the herd there. From each and every path, it almost felt like the swarm would never end, something that he didn't really expect the moment he entered this massive root system of a Realm.
"I got it!"
"Use it then!" he screamed out.
Shizu smirked as she quickly threw the card up above her. Like usual, the visage of the card she just used appeared over her, an upside down depiction of an emperor sitting on his throne shining overhead as both she and it glowed with the power of Fate.
"[Fate's Edict! The Emperor: Inverse Position]!"
Riku didn't know what to expect upon seeing the new card, but what he didn't expect was for all of the scarabs and ents to simply stop move. They all stared up at the massive card glowing above Shizu, mesmerized like the simple being like they were.
"Finally..." she sighed as she suddenly fell to the ground, the light of her card still illuminating the entire area as she panted. "I thought... I'd never draw this thing again..."
"What does it do?" he asked.
"It... distracts..." she weakly stated. "I... can't keep it up for long though...."
The former assassin blinked as realization dawned upon him. Giving Shizu a nod, he quickly went back into the fray, going in with reckless abandon as he quickly dispatched of the scarabs and ents staring dumb at the card giving them pause. Forgoing defense, it didn't take long before Riku was done with his work, the corpses of their enemies now encircling around them as he sheathed his knife at a job well done. He also earned a ton of bonus
"You can drop your ability now."
At his word, Shizu weakly raised her arm up at the card shining above her. With a flex of her wrist, both it and her barrier shimmered away, leaving them defenseless once more as the fortune teller promptly collapsed onto her own arms. Quickly, Riku bent down to support her.
"Are you alright?"
"I'll... I'll be fine," she weakly smiled at him as she clung onto his body for support. "Just... been using my power nonstop for a while now... Did my best not to draw power from Tyche too..."
Nodding, Riku slowly hoisted Shizu up, using his body to support her as she wrapped her arm around his neck to keep herself upright. For a few minutes, she remained reliant on her before she could finally stand up on her own.
"T-Thank you," she thanked him with a weak smile, her legs still shaking as she stood on her own. "I'll be fine now. Just need a bit of time to recover."
"We can stay here for a bit longer then," Riku suggested. "We're not pressed for time anyway. There's still a lot more to this Game than being first, and your recovery is more important than being first but still be too weak to defend our position anyway."
Shizu blushed yet again, to which Riku honestly didn't know why. Instead, he simply nodded back before turning his attention to his goddess who was already eyeing all of the corpses around them like the hungry freeloader that she was.
"So.... Since we're staying here for a while, why not try to make something with all of this?" Nyx eagerly suggested. "Again, I can give you some cooking equipment here to use. It's not like they'll be permanent anyway. I'm sure Big Brother Ymir wouldn't mind."
"Then by all means, go for it," he chuckled as he shook his head. "It's not like I can stop you anyway."
"Yay~"
Nyx's yelp of joy almost made him laugh out loud at both how cute and out of image it was of her. Then again, what did he expect from the most unpredictable god of them all? She was literal Chaos, something that shouldn't even be bothered to be predicted.
"Is this wise?" Shizu asked him as she sat by the nearest root wall. "We might go down in terms of standing."
"It's proven that we can climb back up anyway," he shrugged. "Besides, it's not everyday we get to see a place like this. We might as well make the most of our time."