The Foxfire Saga

The tunnel narrowed around them, walls pressing close in faintly luminescent ribs. Thin threads of water-aspect mana traced through the stone, curling in intricate loops that seemed almost to shy away when Akiko's foxfire brushed them.

It was claustrophobic. The water was heavier here, pressing into her suit with a slow, deliberate insistence. Even her tail felt boxed in, flicking uselessly behind her. The mining laser hummed low in her grip, regulators adjusting constantly as if uneasy with the ambient mana flux.

Ahead, the tunnel split. Two narrow throats of stone yawned side by side, each vanishing into a faint greenish haze.

Raya's hand squeezed hers. "Left?"

Akiko twitched her ears once. "Left."

They drifted forward, careful. The water was almost too still here. No helpful currents, no stray lifeforms. Just quiet that clung to them like cold cloth.

The tunnel opened into a slightly wider chamber, the walls bowed outward in a slow organic curve. At the far end stood a massive sealed door, intricate mechanisms embedded in its face. Valves, levers, even a strange rotating collar studded with mana conductors.

Raya drifted closer, brushed gloved fingers over the nearest mechanism. "It's all linked. When I turn this, I can feel vibration through the walls. But nothing here changes."

Akiko's claws tapped irritably against the mining laser's side. "So it's affecting something back down the other fork."

Raya gave a small shrug. "Could be. Or it's a pressure equalizer, or some automated valve system. Hard to tell without tearing it apart."

Akiko's tail snapped in a short whip. Her voice came out harsher than she meant. "We might not have time. Every second we're down here is another second that thing in the vent could be tearing at the Hold's systems. Or at its people."

Raya fell silent, hands drifting back to her sides. Trusting her.

Akiko exhaled sharply. Kaede always said: never brute force a dungeon. It notices.

But the memory was thin, half-formed. Kaede's voice echoing out of old years that felt more like another life. And this was her world now, not Kaede's.

She shifted her grip on the mining laser. Foxfire coiled along her arm, snaring into the laser's integrated channels with a greedy pull.

Applied Spellform: Foxfire Pulse Vector (Tier II) — Channeling through [Modified Mining Laser]

The beam cut into the door with a shriek that rippled through the dense water. Stone and metal vaporized under the fusion-hot line, currents swirling violently as boiling pockets expanded and collapsed. For a moment it felt triumphant, raw power forcing a path open where patience wouldn't.

Then everything shuddered.

The door didn't break. Instead, the mana conduits threaded through its surface flared, lines of water-aspect light twisting in sudden, angry spirals. The walls themselves seemed to inhale. Akiko's ears pinned flat against her skull.

Kaede would be so fucking smug right now.

Pressure spiked. Currents reversed. The water all around them tensed, then split in a violent rift that tore open the floor of the chamber.

From that wound something surged upward, a shape far too massive for the space, jaw gaping wider than Akiko was tall, rows of needle teeth glittering with water-aspected mana threads.

A shark. Or something once like a shark, swollen by the dungeon's mana into a monstrous, distorted predator.

For a moment it didn't make sense, didn't fit. The creature's bulk was wrong for the chamber, pressing against stone that should have contained it.

Then the floor gave out.

The entire chamber seemed to collapse in on itself, stone floor fracturing under a sudden violent pressure. Water tore downward in a spiraling vortex, pulling them with it. Akiko barely had time to snatch at Raya's arm, foxfire flaring in terrified reflex around them, sending bubbles of scalding water jetting out from them.

They were yanked through the shattered floor, spun through a cyclone of debris and jagged crystal. The water went from confined and close to impossibly vast, an open void that swallowed them whole.

Akiko tumbled, trying to right herself. Ahead, the monstrous shark twisted in slow, predatory arcs, perfectly at home in the new space. The arena was enormous, a cathedral of water cut by enormous crystal pillars that glowed with inner mana. Each movement of the beast set eddies spinning off into the distance.

So this is your stage, she thought, breath jagged. Big enough to drown us a hundred times over.

The water was a vast cold press all around them, tinted by streaks of mana that pulsed like veins through dark flesh. The shark swept past in a blur of impossible mass, its scales slicing currents that battered Akiko and Raya from dozens of yards away.

Akiko gritted her teeth, claws flexing. Instinct told her to strike now. Her core roiled with foxfire, desperate for release.

She snapped her hand forward, calling up the first matrix that had ever felt like her own.

Applied Spellform: Foxfire Flare (Tier I)

A lance of blue-white fire cut through the water. Or tried to. The dense liquid drank the heat greedily, turning it into a short, sputtering beam that boiled a shallow channel before collapsing into clouds of scalding steam. Visibility vanished in a hiss of roiling bubbles.

She hissed a curse, tail lashing. Tried to pivot to something bigger, something with more force.

Applied Spellform: Foxfire Nova (Tier I)

The foxfire burst outward in a tight halo, instantly meeting the crushing weight of the surrounding water. It didn't even properly detonate. The pressure folded the nova back on itself, warping it into a violent swirl that slammed her sideways. Heat bit at her skin through the suit, and her vision danced with warnings.

Stupid. Stupid. This isn't vacuum, it's a damn pressure tank.

A sharp pulse of mana flared nearby. Raya, reinforcing a barrier. The shark swept by again, jaws narrowly missing them, its massive tail creating a cavitation wake that snapped against Akiko's armor like a whip.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Raya's breath crackled over the comm. "Akiko—!"

"I know!" Her claws dug into nothing, foxfire sputtering against the water's unyielding cold. Her usual fallback, the Pulse Vector, was already ruled out. Too direct, too liable to scald them both alive.

So what was left?

Her frustration spiked, foxfire flaring uncontrolled along her arms. In the next moment, the shark turned, those shimmering scales catching the dim light in jagged reflections that seemed to grin. It began to close, slow and inexorable, as if savoring the inevitability.

The shark wheeled through the water with terrifying, lazy confidence. Each slow beat of its tail sent pressure waves rippling through the dark, battering Akiko's armor and making her tail curl reflexively.

Raya's barrier flared again as the shark swept close,. The barrier flexed, barely absorbing the collision of displaced water. Akiko felt the vibration rattle through her bones.

This is getting us nowhere.

Then her HUD blinked. An anomalous mana signature.

Foreign Focus Interface

Akiko squinted, heart stuttering. The creature twisted slightly, and there, embedded deep in its flank, half-swallowed by corrupted tissue, was the shaft of a trident. Ornate and faintly glowing, water mana pulsed along its tines in slow, rhythmic breath.

Her eyes darted to the mining laser strapped to her arm. Her one sure tool in this place. The device that had kept her alive through half a dozen battles, that still fed her suit's channels through carefully tuned regulators. Her claws flexed against its grip.

Damn it.

She made the decision in a single ragged breath. With a thought the laser released her arm with a soft hiss. It drifted up into the gloom, lights blinking in uncertain cycles. Exposed regulators hummed, trying to keep it neutrally buoyant.

Raya's head snapped toward her. "Akiko—?"

"Focus on shielding!" Her own voice sounded raw over the comms, foxfire crawling wildly along her arms. "I'll get us an actual weapon."

The shark turned again, slow and sure of its kill. Akiko kicked off the nearest crystal outcropping, claws gouging into it for traction. Her foxfire flared at the edges, raw entropy violation forcing the water aside in a violent snap that launched her.

She tore through the water in a rough, unstable vector, heat biting at her skin as the surrounding currents collapsed around her. The shark's eye, huge, pupil a vertical slit surrounded by mirror-scale facets, tracked her in cold calculation.

But it was too slow. Or she was just reckless enough.

Akiko slammed into its side, claws driving deep. The shark convulsed, a ripple racing down its length, but she locked on and twisted, reaching for the trident's shaft. Her fingers closed around smooth metal, mana thrumming under her touch like a living thing.

She wrenched. The shark's roar was felt more than heard, a pulse that slammed through the water and rattled her teeth. Flesh tore.

And then she was free, spiraling back with the trident clutched in both hands. Its water-aspect flows coiled around her instinctively, trying to find purchase in her foxfire like two wild animals scenting each other for the first time.

System Update: Equipment Acquired

— [Tidepiercer, the Bound Trident] recognized.

— Elemental Affinity: Water

Akiko sucked in a sharp breath, ears flattening.

Alright, she thought. Show me what you can do.

The trident thrummed between her hands like a living thing. Water mana curled up the shaft, slicking over her wrists in cool rivulets that made her foxfire shiver uneasily. It was wrong, alien, but it also made the dense water slip around her body, less like a choking mass and more like a yielding current.

She took a breath, trying to center herself.

Then the shark turned. Its tail flexed, massive muscles bunching, and it exploded toward her. The speed was monstrous, a blur of mirrored scales and gaping jaws that seemed to swallow the water ahead of it. Akiko didn't think, she let the trident's mana guide her, twisting it sideways. A rippling vortex caught her like a hand and hurled her off line.

The shark shot past in a violent surge that yanked at her limbs, nearly spinning her again. She snarled, claws digging grooves into the trident's grip as she tried to steady herself.

Jousting. It's like jousting. Long lines, wide arcs. No abrupt turns. Commit, then correct on the next pass.

She took a slow breath, cycling her foxfire down to a simmer so it wouldn't fight the trident's water flows. The shaft vibrated, almost approving. Ahead, the shark turned in a broad curve, using its sheer bulk to swing its head back toward her.

Akiko lunged forward, trident angled to her side like a lance. The mana at its tip pulsed once, then again, each beat sending a surge of water past her legs that built her velocity. It wasn't clean, since she barely understood the magics that it provided. She had little nuance to her control. But it was fast.

They closed. The shark opened its maw, teeth glinting in the dim glow into a crown of jagged light.

Akiko waited until the last second, then twisted her wrists, shoving the trident's butt toward her and letting the tip dart up. The water around it bent in a tight helix, guiding the tines straight into the shark's lower jaw.

The impact was a sickening crunch. The trident didn't pierce cleanly. It wedged between jagged scales, mana flaring violently at the contact point. The shark convulsed, water exploding outward in a shockwave that knocked Akiko end over end.

She tumbled through freezing currents, head ringing. The trident's mana wrapped tight around her, keeping the worst of the cold from burning her nerves. When she righted herself, the shark was retreating, jaw hanging slightly askew, cloudy streams of dark fluid unfurling from the wound.

Akiko panted. Her hands were locked in a death grip on the trident. Her tail lashed once, hard, trying to stabilize her in the settling churn.

First blood.

She found Raya on the edge of her vision, barrier still bright, keeping stray shards of broken crystal from pinwheeling into them. Raya gave a short nod, hand rising in a quick gesture that said again.

Akiko's mouth twitched into something close to a grin.

Yeah. Again.

She angled the trident forward, feeling the water's thick embrace curl around her shoulders, and kicked off into another long, hungry line toward the wounded beast.

The shark was slower now. Rage and injury distorted its mana flows, sending ripples of disrupted hydrokinetic pressure peeling off its scales. Akiko circled wide, trident angled low, feeling the water coil around her shoulders like thick ropes.

She made two more passes, the first a near miss, the second catching the shark across its gill line, tearing a new spiral of dark fluids into the water. Each time the trident's mana pulsed through her wrists, growing more familiar, more hers.

On the third approach, something clicked.

Her Skill Layer spilled fresh overlays into her vision, swirling vectors, differential flows, pressure deltas all tightening into sharp, comprehensible spirals.

Subskill Acquisition (Hydrokinetic Mana Analysis): Convergent Flow Stabilization — 22.7% milestone achieved.

Akiko didn't hesitate. She poured mana through the trident. Not just a trickle this time, but a torrent, her foxfire weaving down the shaft and mixing violently with its water-aspect channels. For an instant, the weapon shone bright enough to outshine the cavern crystals.

Subskill Acquisition (Mana Manipulation, Adept): Complex Mana Flow Synthesis – 12.1% milestone achieved.

The water around her imploded.

Her aura's sheer density forced a sudden local cavitation, a hollow sphere of empty space where liquid should have crushed them. Akiko floated, weightless, her tail curling around nothing. Across from her, the shark hung in the abrupt void, jaws still parted in confusion, teeth catching false reflections.

Akiko's mouth curved in a slow, hungry grin.

She whispered, almost tender, "Got ya."

Her left hand fell away from the trident, claws curling inward. Foxfire surged down her arm, raw and unfettered, not forced to bleed through water anymore. The Pulse Vector ignited in a perfect line, cutting across the space between them without even a ripple to slow it.

Applied Spellform Initialized: Foxfire Pulse Vector (Tier II)

The beam struck the shark's jaw, burned through scales and thick meat like it was vapor. She didn't stop there. Akiko swept her arm left in a broad, savage arc, bisecting the beast from open maw through to its trailing fin. The cut was so clean it took a heartbeat for the two halves to begin drifting apart.

Then the water crashed back in.

It slammed around her in a violent, chilling hug, pressure reasserting itself with hungry claws. Akiko coughed, body jolting as her aura fought to re-balance. Across the way, the shark's halves fluttered downward, streams of dark mana and blood unfurling in gentle tendrils.

Akiko closed her eyes, breathing ragged. The trident still pulsed in her grip, a little wary, but now undeniably keyed to her mana's rhythm.

Raya floated closer, her pressure suit scraping lightly against Akiko's thigh. One hand rose to press against Akiko's shoulder, stabilizing them both. Through the comms, her laugh was soft, breathless, still threaded with adrenaline.

"So," she said, tilting her helmet until the faceplate nearly bumped Akiko's oxygen veil. "What have we learned about trying to burn through dungeon doors?"

Akiko's ears flicked sideways, embarrassment prickling under her armor. "That… sometimes it works out anyway?"

Raya snorted. Her visor caught a faint glow from the cavern walls, painting her smile in dancing blue. "Not the lesson I'd have gone with, but sure. You're lucky you're cute."

Akiko's tail twitched, betraying the pleased little pulse that went through her chest.