"Ah, we were invisible during our evolution," I mutter upon thinking back.
She probably went to try and go find us, ȧssuming we left her behind.
"SHIT! And the dungeon evolved!" I shout, holding my face.
I gripped my face with my fingers, and it looked as if I was about to my skin off until Astra touched my hand slightly.
"What?" I ask her.
She hadn't changed much besides her two canine teeth, which turned into tiny fangs.
If I had to ȧssume, I'd say she's either a dampir or something lower than a vampire but is related to blood.
It was the same thing with Nell as well.
"It's okay. She couldn't have gone far,"
Nell nodded in agreement, so I immediately knew they had something up their sleeves.
"What is it? How do you know?" I ask, trying to gather more information.
"I smell blood… And it's human blood… I just can't tell if she's dead or not," Astra says, her eyebrows furrowing and her face crumbling in anger.
Her bloodlust began to leak out, and when it touched me, it felt as if it was suċkɨnġ the life out of me.
"I see… Well, how do you know it's her blood?" I ask though I knew it was already part of her evolution.
"Upon evolving, I turned into a monster, and my senses increased. And, for this monster, when I come in contact with blood, my senses are increased tenfold,"
What the hell… That's one hell of an evolution.
"But it seems like you don't have any intention of telling me your evolution,"
"Oh, uhhhh… I couldn't read the language. I just found this out now upon smelling what I distinguished was human blood due to everything else being smelly and gross,"
Oh, that's right. I didn't even realize the language was in that ancient language I couldn't understand when I first evolved.
"Okay, well, let's stop wasting time," Clio says.
Celestine and her didn't change much.
It's just that their eyes were a golden color, and they had two tattoos around their right wrist.
It was a simple white band, contrasted to their skin color.
It fit them pretty well and looked pretty cool, but obviously, I didn't want any tattoos.
Maybe I might change my mind later, but for now, I'm staying away from getting inked up any day of the week.
Tup Tup Tup
The girls picked out the first hole for us to enter with just a glance, and Astra led the charge.
Hmmmmm… We're not entering the hole that I saw the other crawlers enter before we all passed out.
I get an awful feeling from it…
A large golden crown appeared on my head.
It was encrusted with sparkling light blue gems and lined with silver.
FWOOSH
This time I wasn't going to ignore my bad feeling and swiped my hand up with the crown resting on the top of my head.
The hole was blocked off with a thick icy wall that even I would've had trouble breaking.
Also, though I didn't feel anything from the hole in the ceiling, I still blocked it off with ice as well since I didn't know what could come out of that.
"We should also check that out later," I muttered to myself before picking up my pace.
Tup Tup Tup
Astra led the charge as our feet pattered against the cold stone floor.
Our steps were lighter than before, so they were no longer echoing in the large cave.
"It's ahead. Past this turn," Astra informs us just before we turn the only corner at the end of the hall.
Sophia was there, covered in blood from head to toe.
One large laceration across her back caused her to bleed out fast, so Celestine and Clio immediately dashed next to her while we pushed back the humongous wave of crawlers.
We were at a dead-end, and I noticed this was a base of sorts as their webs were everywhere.
If we weren't careful with our steps, we could've been trapped on their highly sticky adhesive.
Ting
The skin on my arm was so thick that now it could deflect the sharp blades at the end of each crawler leg.
Upon deflecting the blade, I reached my hand towards it and unleashed [Small Quetzalcoatl's Fire (Snow)].
My grip crushed the crawler's head, and then I swiped to the left, destroying even more with the white fire being emitted from my palms.
Another crawler came from above, and since both of my hands were busy, I looked up and pushed the flames out of my throat.
I licked my lips from the flames, which were now extinguished, and went to check in on Sophia.
My consciousness flipped through each member of the hivemind so fast that only half a second passed with each round.
I was the only one who could do this due to my increased sens- wait… can't they do this as well now?
"Whatever," I muttered before scorpion kicking a crawler who tried to sneak up from behind me.
I didn't even need to use the hivemind for that one.
"No… W-where were you!" Sophia says, punching me in the leg as hard as she could.
She ended up spraining her wrist, so Clio healed that for her.
"You idiots! I hate you all! Why did you all leave me! Don't you know how scared I was! I thought you all died!" She shouts, ugly tears flowing from her face.
"Flat," She mutters, even more tears flowing from her face.
Celestine held me back from kneeing this girl in the nose, and my arms flailed all over the place.
"Let me hit her!" I shout, being dragged away from her.
"I hate you!" Sophia shouts before turning away and hugging Clio.
Huh… She's just as flat as me…
"Well, looks like this is almost done," Celestine says, staring at Mia and Ethel, who was soloing the entire horde with a sadistic smile on their faces the whole time.
"Scary," I mutter.
"The crawlers or them?"
"Them,"
"Yeah, they're definitely more monster than human now," Celestine mutters, her face paling a bit.
"Yeah…"
"Yeah… Anyway, you look much different now. If I ran into you on the street, I'd think you're Lucy's cousin or something… Also, why are your eyelashes and under lashes so bushy… It's cool, but kinda weird at the same time,"
"Uhhhhh… I don't know why, and thanks? I guess?"
It was kind of awkward between us as we hadn't chatted much.
Well, we had one intense conversation about dungeons a few years ago, but that's pretty much it.
"I guess our group is not as whole as we thought," Celestine chuckles before patting me on my back and healing Electra, who just had her arm broken.
She was crying like a pussƴ, and Nuala was next to her, rubbing her head, trying to console her.
They didn't look much different besides the completely removed highlights in their hair.
I also chuckled a bit.
I then looked back to where Mia and Ethel were and saw that they were finishing up.
Mia's flames had taken a purplish-pinkish color, completely opposite from her previous blue color.
Her flames burned brighter, harder, and faster, and when they mixed with her halberd, it created something akin to a chaotic dance.
On the other hand, Ethel looked like a war goddess of water, with her ears being slightly elongated and the tips encrusted with gold.
Her sparkling water looked as if it was pulled from the purest parts of the sea, and she used that to slice any crawler who got in her way.
"Hey, Clio, Celestine, did you also get a notification when you evolved that your blood kin evolved as well?" I ask the two girls in front of me.
"Yeah, I got a notification like that. I don't completely remember what it said, but it was similar to that," Clio responds, and Celestine adds a nod.