Moving in the semi-darkness of the dungeon, we lit the way with the "flashlights" on our phones. When the marked place was about a dozen meters away, I told Chris to follow any of my commands.

The girl nodded in agreement, at the same time squeezing my palm even tighter.

And so, standing exactly where the marker was, I saw no one and nothing. Checking the walls and the surrounding space with "flashlights", we found nothing.

Mentally analyzing the situation, I suddenly realized what our situation reminded me of - it was just like a horror movie!

So knowing the laws of the genre, I quietly turned to Chris:

"Chris, on my command, put a barrier right above us, okay?" Saying this almost in a whisper, I simultaneously charged the 'air bomb'.

When the charge had gained enough power, I launched it into the ceiling, at the same time, I shouted to the girl:

"BARRIER!"

To my praise, she reacted instantly, and just a moment later, the popping explosion from my bomb was heard, even stronger than the one I had previously received at the station.

'Hmm, and my skill has somehow even grown too fast'- The thought flashed through my mind, but it slipped away as quickly as it had appeared, for it was clearly not the time for that.

A barrier in the form of a lens appeared above us, and concrete crumbs clattered on it, and a couple of meters away from us, with a wet sound and out of the light zone, something slammed into the path.

The directed beams of flashlights plucked a shapeless something out of the darkness. That's what it looked like in the beginning, but soon "it" began to move and stood on its "legs".

No, it was more like tentacles, like a jellyfish, and the creature itself resembled something like a "Portuguese man o' war".

Suddenly, one of the tentacles swept toward us, but somehow I reacted ahead of my thoughts and pulled Chris toward me, and then we both fell to the ground, while the lightning-like tentacle swept right over us.

Without wasting time thinking, on instincts I had never known before, I launched another bomb at the "jellyfish".

There was a familiar pop, then a slap, and a gust of wind mixed with dust and small debris blew over us.

In the dim light, I could barely see the monster's carcass fly aside and hit the wall, but the monster, apparently, it did not do any harm, and it rose to its feet again.

"Barrier, in front of us, now!" Good, the girl again reacted quickly, and barely put her obstacle, immediately crashed into two tentacles.

After that, the monster, continued to stubbornly and relentlessly hit the shield, and his blows became stronger and faster, under which the barrier began to quickly cover with cracks, but I was desperately looking for a way out of the situation:

'Okay, my air attack is more like an AOE. And the creature is definitely soft-bodied and takes either no damage at all or very little. Therefore, we need something that penetrates? I guess it's time to try out my new-early idea!'

The excitement of the explorer was back in me, and I was eager to test it out.

So while the barrier was still holding, I told Chris that as soon as it broke, the girl should immediately put up a new one. At the same time, I had already started preparing an experimental technique, after all, I hadn't even practiced it yet.

Right in the palm of my hand, I gather air into a small, very dense ball. Behind it I make two bigger balls, located next to each other.

I call this technique 'air cannon'!

And even though I'm not up to it right now, I suddenly realized that I'm having a lot of fun!

'Vano, what's wrong with you today?'

Meanwhile, while I was having fun and having strange thoughts, the barrier was almost falling apart, and my hands were already shaking from the tension, so I shouted to Chris:

"Get down and be ready! - Chris collapsed to the floor, even letting go of my hand at last.

With sparkling sparks, the shield crumbled under the monster's onslaught, and I detonated two large - launching balls.

My arm was yanked away, and I was nearly blown away.

The air wave, directed from two vectors, at high speed launched a small charge exactly into the target.

Immediately after my attack, a new barrier appeared and took on a fresh line of tentacles. But my projectile had already hit the body of the 'jellyfish' and exploded inside.

The monster burst like an overinflated balloon, and its frighteningly powerful tentacles collapsed and fell to the floor.

Barely restraining the joy that burst out, I wanted to jump, but once I set myself a serious image, for some reason I really wanted to stick to it, and yet:

"Well done, Chris, we've defeated the monster!" I stood up and smilingly extended my hand to my partner.

In the dim light of the technical lighting and the phones lying around, even though my eyes were used to the semi-darkness, I couldn't see her face properly, but she was probably smiling too.

"Thanks, but it was scary, a lot. This is the end, isn't it?" she said everything she was worried about.

"Good question, we'll check it out now"

"How come he didn't crash in all the commotion?" - I thought, picking up my smartphone from the ground.

And when I looked at the screen, the excitement somehow disappeared by itself, my hands went cold, and my lips were distorted by a crooked, nervous smile.

"Chris, get ready, and quickly go to the station, this is not the end ..." I said grimly.

Even if the mission said only one spy, but now from the same tunnel, judging by the map, we were approaching at least a few dozen more red dots ...

From that moment on, time seemed to slow down for me and a strange feeling appeared: I was scared at the same time, because there were fifty jellyfish, but at the same time I was in some strange anticipation.

My blood starts to boil from the anticipation of the battle!

'No man, there's something wrong with you today...'

And while I was once again immersed in strange thoughts, we ran towards the station, because of the semi-darkness I couldn't see the expression on my partner's face.

But there was definitely a half-crazed maniacal grin on mine.

But that didn't mean I was being stupid, because I was thinking about our actions and chances:

'Although the tentacle attacks are fast and powerful, but the monsters themselves didn't seem very fast, but they can move on the ceiling. Our options are my air bombs and Chris's barriers'

Wait a minute, what if we combine them?!

'I think I've got some brilliant ideas!'

"Hehehe, we'll mince them..." I blurted out, and it sounded a little too ominous....

"What?" I guess the girl didn't hear me, well, it's good now.

"I've got a couple ideas, but how many barriers can you make?"

"I'm not sure, but I think quite a lot, I'm not tired yet" She said thoughtfully, almost stumbling as she ran.

We jogged lightly, so as not to waste energy, so we reached the station in about a minute, and stopping at the entrance to the tunnel, I decided to check one more thing:

Squeezing the air into a standard balloon, which I carefully placed on the ground, and that balloon stayed lying there like nothing had happened!

'Hoo hoo hoo hoo. Now, the critters' reception can be made even hotter!'

After explaining our plan to the girl, and while the monsters were still far enough away, we began our preparations:

And lo and behold, some time later:

From the ceiling hung flat sloping shields, pointing toward the tunnel, in several layers. They were installed so that they half blocked the opening from above.

On the tracks I set a bunch of "air mines", which, when detonated, should scatter the rubble from the tracks like buckshot. Behind each 'mine' was a small shield-half-sphere in two layers, both to concentrate all the power in the right direction, and to protect themselves.

For added complexity, when the enemy advanced, I explained to Chris what 'Czech hedgehog' were, which she made very impressive and fantasy-like....

Well, and the most delicious thing I left for last - I asked Chris to make me a gun.

But not a regular one, but a mini version, because my previously tried-and-true method of launching a mini-bomb, not much warfare.

It's very unreliable in terms of personal safety.

The end result was a sort of huge, ghostly rifle.

'But it's even cooler than the original idea'

True, there was still the question of durability, but Chris confirmed that she could make a dozen more. However, her stamina was already severely depleted, the girl even had to sit down to catch her breath.

It took us less than ten minutes to get ready, by which time the jellyfish had already reappeared on the map, and after a minute the silhouettes of the jellyfish were visible in the darkness of the tunnel.

The creatures were clearly in no hurry, but that was to our advantage, so I decided to thin out their numbers and test the rifle.

When I started to load it, I heard a strong whistle of air sucked inside, right through the barrel, as there was no other opening. From the same air, three standard balls were formed in a special cylinder-box. When charging was completed, a dense mini-balloon was placed in the middle of the barrel itself.

'I'll call it an air bullet'

After making sure everything was ready and the monsters were in range, I fired at them.

First, three consecutive, muffled pops were heard. Then, with a monstrous whoosh, a charge of air bullets flew out of the barrel. My partner and I were almost deafened by the noise, and in the meantime it was clearly visible that something exploded in the tunnel.

But I didn't hear any sounds, for obvious reasons....

But a wave of pleasant shiver went through my body, from understanding the success of the idea, and I quickly began to load the "rifle" again, to thin the ranks of the enemy as much as possible.

On the third shot my weapon was covered with cracks, and on the fifth it burst with sparkling sparks, which even looked beautiful in its own way.

But the jellyfish were still inexorably approaching the barricade in a tight formation, completely ignoring my attacks and my destroyed comrades.

I had the impression that the creatures didn't care about anything around them.

But after shooting back, I could only wait patiently for them to enter the minefield before detonating all my mine bombs at once.

'Wait, how many of them did I put up there?'

One clap isn't that strong and it's not too loud, but what happens when there are about a hundred of them?

'You've got to think with your head!' - rushed through my head like a speeding express train.

Not inferior in speed to the 'express train', from the simultaneous detonation of all 100+ "mines" a monstrous rumble went up.

Followed by a hurricane gust of wind, generously peppered with concrete crumbs and small fragments of rubble. Chris and I were literally blown off the platform, not even by her reflexive shield and my physical enhancements.

For a while we were stunned by the noise and blinded by the rising dust curtain, but good thing the jellyfish were going to be hit much harder.

When the dust had settled and we had recovered a bit, I ran towards the scene of the massacre.

I don't think there were any survivors, but the task was still not considered completed, which meant that there were one or a couple of underdogs left somewhere.

Chris was resting on the platform, she was exhausted after all, and I was still fine for some reason.

'Maybe strength and stamina buffs increase?' - I thought, but on the other hand, my magic has no direct requirement for stamina. Which Chris's barriers didn't.

It didn't matter, though, because I couldn't find any surviving Jellyfish. Only tattered remains of carcasses, which gave me a bad feeling, and in the next moment I heard the shriek of Chris.

'Someone must have broken through, but how, there's only one tunnel on this side, isn't there?' - I wondered.

But turning back to the station, to which I had my back all this time, I saw the answer so obvious, but I had missed it:

A crowd of monsters coming from the other, opposite entrance to the tunnel.

But that wasn't enough, and one monster, not too fast, was already hovering over the immobilized girl.

My insides went cold, and on instinct alone, I jumped forward with all my might, thinking only of getting there in time to make sure my partner was okay.

But I had overdone it.

With this jump, like a rocket, I overcame all the distance between us, so realizing that I could not stop, I only had to close in front of me like a shield.

We flew on together until we crashed into one of the marble columns of the platform.

The monster literally burst from the force of the impact, splashing all over the place, but I was lucky, it cushioned me. It was only a little splattered with debris and blood, or whatever it was that he was bleeding.

'Okay stop, there's no time for that now!'

Chris still remained lying motionless behind me, causing a chill to run down my back, so I jogged back to her.

A quick inspection showed that the girl didn't seem to be hurt, but she looked extremely pale and wasn't moving at all, as if she wasn't even breathing....

'Um, what do you even do in cases like this? T-definitely! You need to check for a pulse or breathing!'

But before he could even touch her, the girl herself took a heavy breath and coughed.

"Phew... b-breathes!" I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that she was fine and that I didn't need to perform CPR or heart massage.

After all, I've never done any of those things in person!

Her amulet of protection seems to be working fine, but what do I do next?

I can't do much against such a crowd alone, so the only sensible choice is to retreat.

The monsters were slowly but slowly approaching, then in view of other options, I picked up the girl in my arms and rushed to the exit of the station.

But as I climbed up the dysfunctional and narrow escalator, a new obstacle awaited me.