Mika and the Spiral Abyss ( Mika's Diary )

level one of the abyss: GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!

We landed in a colossal arena that radiated an unfriendly aura.

"See, this is what I was imagining," I announced. "But, I admit, it's also the opposite of what I was imagining."

Kaeya raised an eyebrow. "My mind hurts just trying to follow that sentence. Didn't you either imagine it correctly, or not imagine it correctly?"

I rolled my eyes, about to retort when I noticed the others looked confused too. Great. How do they not understand that sentence?

"We should get moving," Lumine interjected. "Also, did you guys have to pick an upgrade? Or was it just me?"

I looked around. Except for the endless void and the arena, I didn't see anything.

"Something tells me you had to pick it for all of us. What did you pick?" Childe asked, glancing at his health bar.

I should probably tell you now that, yes, we have health bars. Sorry, sorry, don't hurt me!

"I gave us +15% defense," Lumine said. "And it only lasts this round."

Childe stared her down, then sighed. "Not what I would have picked, but it'll have to do. Let's go."

We walked to the middle of the arena, and a giant key materialized. I took a deep breath and reached out to touch it. It shimmered, then vanished, and behind where it used to be, monsters spawned. The first round was hilichurls, which seemed easy enough. Or so I thought.

"Leave this to me!" Lumine shouted, before blasting water at them. She followed that with a quick jab with her sword and used her dendro ability to finish them off. Only then did I realize that there was a new element in my vision: a timer, counting down.

"It's timed!?" I shouted, feeling dizzy.

Childe nodded. "It would be too easy if it wasn't," he told me, then turned to Lumine.

"Try to attack them all at once! If you turn your back on them, they'll get a hit on you!"

Lumine got hit.

"You know, how about you help me?" Lumine shouted, frustration building in her voice.

Childe smirked. "Giving up so soon?" he asked, before whipping out his bow and killing three of them with such speed, I didn't even see his hands move.

Lumine clearly wanted to snap something back at him, but refrained, most likely just feeling too relieved at the moment.

I jumped into action, yanking out my spear and whacking a hilichurl in the face. I dodged its retaliatory attack and quickly pulled out my crossbow, hitting it with an ice arrow right in its chest. I sprinted around the hilichurl, then hit it from behind again. The hilichurl, naturally, got angry. That's when everything went wrong. It hit me squarely in the chest, knocking me back. I had been hit by plenty of hilichurls when I went on patrols, but this felt different. I sprinted away and looked down at my health bar. At least one-fourth of it was gone.

"My health bar went down!" I shouted, alarmed.

"That's completely normal," Kaeya shouted back at me, not appreciating the fact that I had interrupted his concentration.

"No," I said, "if I take three more hits like that, I'm a goner."

Childe froze, then cursed under his breath.

"We're abandoning the challenge! Now!" he shouted.

My vision turned white, and all of a sudden, I was standing before the portal, struggling to catch my breath.

I turned to look at Childe. "What did you do that for!?" I asked, unhappy.

Childe, to his credit, held my stare. "I forgot to mention, but if we want to get through there alive, we have to level up. Well, you do, not me. You're currently level one. We have to at least get up to level 40. Have you collected treasure chests lately?"

I nodded.

"Good. Blink quickly twice, and level yourself up," he told us.

I blinked twice and found myself staring at a level-up button. I pushed it and added all of my level-up materials to it. I then ascended and leveled up again until I was at level 40. I pushed the X at the top of the screen and looked at Childe.

"Everyone done?" he asked.

Everyone nodded.

Childe grinned. "Let's do this!"

Then we went sailing into the abyss again.