Waves of prismatic light washed over the golem from all sides, almost blinding Faust. The two golems lost sight of each other as the transportation ended.

Faust gritted his teeth fighting through the nausea to keep his golems moving. This was the right move. The moment they came out of the gate, a dark long tunnel opened in front of them.

Along with the feet of multiple monsters marching forward and threatening to walk over the golems.

Faust’s real body tried jerking left and right at once as he moved the golems in a careful scuttle between the marching monsters.

What is this place? 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The tunnel was dark and long with the gate at its end. The ocean of lights revealed monsters. He directed both golems up the walls to hide in the shadowy recesses of the ceiling.

As they crawled forward, Faust could help but cringe at how disorienting this was. The two golems had been teleported into two separate tunnels.

One of the tunnels had blue stalagmites and Kobolds. Their howling and barks sent mist into the frigid air

The other tunnel was dry and cracking. Goblins moved through its interior. Their snarling language accompanying them.

This was two different places. Two different climates. The first underground tunnel seemed to be in an icy tundra, while the other seemed to be in a dryer climate.

He moved through the tunnels for what felt like twenty minutes. They curved upward, rising slowly, so he guessed he was underground. Frustration gnawed at him. His body is cramped in the real world. What if this place was just empty? What if he was just wasting his time?

Then a loud crash in the real world jolted him.

He commanded the golems to hide in the shadows, disconnected his vision and opened his eyes.

Oh.

He was surrounded by almost six monsters trying to kill him.

Nirvana, Spider and Zen fought them off, while Thalia supported them with a stunning spell.

Zen had crashed into the ground beside Faust, using his bow to stop a Midnight Lynx from ripping out his throat. He glanced back at the awake Faust.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," he grunted, strength failing him against the giant black beast. "As you can see it still sucks."

Faust rose to help him, but Spider tackled the monster off Zen. "Get off him!"

She rolled with the creature, fighting it with her two human hands and a grasshopper hand sprouting from her back. She glanced left at Thalia, who was busy stunning a Goblin assassin.

"On your left," the dark-skinned girl said without turning.

Spider kicked off the monster to her left and it skidded across the stone right into one of Thalia’s traps that froze it in place. With a growl, she shot off the ground and ripped out the trapped Lynx throat with her grasshopper arm.

Breathing hard, she turned to Faust with angry eyes. "What the hell did you do? Why is every assassin in the damn event coming here?!"

"I said the system might try to stop him," Zen shrugged. "This looks like it’s trying to end him."

Faust had paused mid rise. He slowly lowered back into his seat, murmuring. "So there is something important in the tunnel...."

"You found something?" Nirvana yelled, while duelling a goblin.

"I need to get back," he decided and closed his eyes again.

Drowning out their complaints, he reconnected to the golems and found himself in the dark tunnels once again. Determination swelled within him. There, he met the same marching feet and endless darkness, but now Faust was sure he was doing something.

Because the system was trying to make it harder for him.

He pushed the golems into a run, blending in the shadows and the thundering feet to find the gate’s weakness.

The search went on for what seemed like ten more minutes before he found anything. Occasionally he was disturbed by the furious battle around him in the real world, but he stayed focused.

And soon he was rewarded.

A wide cavern opened at the end of the tunnel. The main hall of this place was a gothic structure carved from black stone. Rows of Goblins or Kobolds, depending on which golem was watching, knelt at an altar.

Shamans moved among them, drawing blood from the bloody misshapen corpse of some monstrosity. Using it to draw strange, shifting runes of the bodies of the kneeling monsters.

A strange throaty hymn was sung in the Goblin temple, while in the Kobold temple, what sounded like bagpipes serenaded the congregation.

This is creepy. Feels like a bad horror movie’s prologue.

Faust hated bagpipes already, he didn’t need monsters to hate it more. What was next? Trolls that made sea food?

He turned the vision of the Arachne eyes to check the other end of the main hall. There he saw a wide open door and more monsters streaming in. Some monsters were stopped at the door by shamans. They directed the special ones to the altar to be marked by shamans.

Others were dragged away, screaming and snarling, down another tunnel where a rumbling roar could be heard.

Wait. I can hear everything?

He wasn’t just seeing with the Arachne eye, but also receiving auditory sensations. They were truly good items. Fear of losing them here stirred in his belly.

Putting that aside, he crawled up to the roof silently and made his way to the door. The shamans glanced around occasionally so he had to pause in a shadow and wait.

For some reason he did not believe he could escape here if he was seen. Call it instincts, but he had a feeling the monsters would have magical protections.

Soon he came to the door and crawled over the head of the tall entrance till he arrived outside. His jaw dropped.

A whole world spread outside.

A barren world of death and cruelty, but nevertheless another world.

The Goblin world was blindingly white from the relentless and unforgiving glare of a sun that seemed to be too close to the planet. A vast sea of dry red stone stretched from the entrance to the temple to the horizon.

And monsters trekked across it mindlessly.

They all converged on the temple, walking to the entrance with blank eyes.

It was different in the Kobold world. An icy tundra stretched as far as could be seen. There was no sun. Maybe it was hidden beyond the heavy black clouds that covered every inch of the sky.

Faust willed his golems past the doorway and up to the top of the temple. It was a small building with three spirals. He climbed the tallest and searched the desolate worlds.

There were no buildings. No other creatures besides them. Just an endless march of monstrous creatures.