The Dark Blowhole II [Mod]

[Layla Amare]

Just how deep did this hole go? Layla had been walking down the path for several minutes, and already the edges seemed to tower above her. But the bottom still seemed to be nowhere in sight. The fog and cloud cover casting most of the sinkhole into darkness, admittedly, did not help matters at all. But even so, all of this seemed far too large, deep, and sudden to be natural. Sinkholes did occasionally get this big, yes. Sometimes even bigger. But for something like this to appear, as she had heard, so soon after the lockdown, suggested that something had deliberately caused it when shadows took over the outer circle.

Well, that settled it, then. Even if it wasn't this trip, she would have to get to the bottom eventually.

[ChromaticTruthsayer]

A pack of Shadows appeared!

Doom Maya

• Death's Chill
• List item 2

Absorb: Repel: Dark Null: Rs: Wk: Light
Gloom Maya

• Garudyne
• Dormina

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Elec
Shroom Maya

• Poisma
• Bufudyne

Absorb: Repel: Null: Ice Rs: Wk: Fire

[Layla Amare]

After several more minutes of slow descent, Layla finally ran across more shadows. These were of the formless, crawl-across-the-ground type. All were already lying in wait as Layla approached, preparing various attacks. Summoning her Persona, Layla headed them off with a brilliant flare of light. The Mahamaon skill left one of the three badly injured, while the other two managed to hold on. They all retaliated at once, with the badly injured shadow engulfing Layla in a mass of darkness while the other two attempted to poison her and put her to sleep respectively. Both failed, and as the darkness faded Layla switched to summoning a lightning storm. The shadow she had already badly injured was of very little threat, so unless it resisted lightning she could freely finish it off while searching around for more weaknesses.

And sure enough, while the lightning finished off the first shadow, the second was dropped into critical condition by the lightning. It retaliated with a massive gust of wind, which nearly blew Layla off the path, while the third shadow again tried to poison her, and this time succeeded.

Layla immediately felt sick as the poison hit her. Pain spread through her entire body, but she managed to push through it and stay in the fight. It was only temporary, she told herself. She could heal it as soon as she was done. Calling on Vajrabhairava again, she hit both shadows with a second lightning storm, finishing off the wind user and putting the poison user in bad shape as well. Part of its body molded into hands, which it raised above its mask. The air around Layla froze instantly, and her vision went white as bitter cold cut through her body. Her body shuddered under the cold. Her movements almost completely froze up, preventing her from doing much of anything except to call on Vajrabhairava once again. As her vision started to clear again, it immediately went white once more as the remaining shadow was consumed by another flash of light, finishing it off.

[Erithania]

Behold.



The great glory known as victory.

[Layla Amare]

Whew. For such small, formless shadows, that fight had been rougher than it had any right to be. At least Layla now had no more reason to doubt the strength of the shadows in this area. After that, she was definitely not getting any deeper on this trip. She looked back up toward the top of the hole, then down over the edge of the path again. Nowhere near the bottom, and yet the edge of the pit still seemed so far up. This was going to be a long journey.

Not to mention a long journey just getting back out again.