Far into the battlefield, hidden by the short walls of bug corpses left in the wake of the man that had slaughtered through them, Fon tugged at a mutilated Spawn carcass slumping out in the open. The fight had reached its final dregs a dozen minutes ago, not long after Brock had disappeared while giving chase to the new variant of insect that had appeared.

As always, a brief funeral followed, and the town mourned the deaths of three of their selfless warriors, protecting everyone at the cost of their own lives. There was talk of a memorial plaque being set up after Brock had dealt with the cause of the issue, to remember those that gave their lives, and it made Fon bite her lip.

Brock had a lot of hope riding on him, and he better deliver. Or she doubted Sanctuary would make it through the fallout.

The corpse wasn’t that heavy, especially since it was missing two of its arms and a considerable amount of innards, and she managed to drag it along, casting divots in the sand. The silent hustle of people as they brought the dead to the walls was faint from where she was. She was probably a hundred meters from the wall, if she had to gauge the distance.

This… probably wasn’t the best idea. She thought. Licking her dried lips, she glanced at the distance once more and groaned.

She studied the corpse and adjusted her grip to avoid the dark mist that flowed out from the wounds it had sustained before tugging it along with renewed vigour. She had long learned to ignore the strange energy that Brock emitted for the most part, albeit with some concern for its presence. It didn’t do anything when she came into contact with it except make her skin exceptionally cold, but still, she’d rather not touch it.

In fact, the fact that it didn’t do anything only served to make her concern about the energy grow further. She had come to realise that the amount Brock passively emitted had grown as he levelled, and on the one time she had decided to mention it to him, the energy had finally done something.

It had screamed at her. Over and over and over, until her brain felt like it was about to turn to mush.

Thousands of hushed whispers had formed a cacophony of deafening quiet that had threatened to drive her to the depths of insanity. It was only when their noise was so consuming that she let go of the initial thought that they eased up, leaving her rattled and afraid. Never again had she tried to tell Brock of that which wafted off of him.

Even now, as she worked, she felt something deep inside the mist watch her carefully, studying her every movement and scanning her mind for every thought. If Wisdom improved mental fortitude like her overseers had really said, then it was doing an awfully good job, as the presence of the gaze didn’t unnerve her as much as she thought it would.

“I need to invest some of my free stats in Strength…” Fon gave another grunt as she dragged the insect carcass along, her arms groaning in protest at the sudden motion.

Fon took a step back, and the corpse followed. Then another. And one more. And-

She back into something, something hard and solid. Finally, she managed to detect the presence behind her, although it was muted and scarily easy to miss. She dropped the corpse and moved to spin around, but a rigid blade dug up against the flesh of her throat, and she froze.

Fon didn’t know how she’d fare against having her throat slit, and she didn’t really want to find out.

“Call him. Now.” A voice resounded beside her ear, muffled and distorted to the point she couldn’t discern the gender of the speaker. When she didn’t react, the blade pressed delicately into her throat and a dribble of violet leaked out, “Call Brock Carter. I’d recommend you listen.”

Instinctively, Fon felt at her pockets, though she quickly remembered Brock was the only one with the phone. She chewed her lip for a second, quickly racking her brain for a way to escape and run to Harry for help, “I… don’t have a phone. He has the only one.”

A lightly armoured hand snaked around into her vision from behind her, a flip phone held within, “Here.” The blade dug in a slight bit deeper, and more blood dripped out of the stinging wound, “Hurry up.”

“I don-”

The voice cut her off halfway through, harsh and spiteful, “I know you know the number. I watched you check it several times. Don’t waste my time.”

Gulping down a glob of spit, Fon clicked her tongue as quietly as she could and began to type in the number of the phone they’d been gifted number by number. She felt the weapon ease up against her neck, though she knew it was just silent encouragement from her captor. She pressed the call button and waited.

It buzzed once.

It buzzed twice.

It buzzed thrice.

No response.

Fon realised that she had technically failed what was asked of her, and she gritted her teeth. She let out a small growl as she drove her elbow back, though it met nothing. Furrowing her brows, she turned around slowly. There was no one there. After a brief moment of confusion, Fon let out a relieved sigh.

At… least they let me keep the phone…

**

Brock sensed a retinue of guards as he prepared to retrace his steps back to the surface, probably one of the two troops he had dodged before, and clicking his tongue, he stepped out onto the cliff and grappled onto the rocky wall beside it. Hiding was relatively easy considering there were so many footholds to be found, although he did fear the wall coming loose and letting him plummet down below.

He might survive the fall, but it didn’t mean said fall wasn’t gonna be scary as hell.

Brock hugged the wall tightly as they passed by, silently thankful that the multisided eyes of the Tyrant appeared to be closed and that its babies were clueless little dickheads. Maybe when he returned to Sanctuary he could enlist the help of Erin to cave in the ceiling of the cavern.

He felt like she’d enjoy doing so very much.

Dun dun do dun dun dooooo

Brock blinked in shock, and slowly looked down at his spatial necklace as the familiar sound of a ringing phone echoed out from within it. What… the fuck…

[Following the latest firmware update, communication items now remain functional within the bounds of spatial pocket dimensions.]

Dun dun do dun dun dooooo

Brock forgot to breathe for a second as he grabbed his phone from his spatial ring and smacked it against the stone over and over until it shut the fuck up. Almost reluctantly, he looked down at the hundreds of eyes staring right at him. The oppressive aura of the Tyrant fell upon his shoulders, and its mandibles chittered ominously as its baby production ceased.

Opposite the wall, the aura signatures of the guards stopped dead in their tracks.

“Oh, fuck me.”

Brock didn’t even try to hide as he flipped the finger to the creatures below and dove back onto the cliff he had hidden from. He hit the ground rolling, and a second later, the monstrous scythes of the Tyrant clawed through the wall he had been clinging to, effortlessly carving into the tunnel and dicing apart the guards that were just about to give chase.

Speckles of dirt and stone whipped at Brock’s body, and he hissed in pain.

Despite that, he allowed himself a chuckle at the unfair demise of the guards. Then the fallen debris covering them began to be tossed aside and the surviving guards climbed out. His face fell and he was forced to wince as they screeched at him in bestial fury.

From below, he could detect hundreds of auras rapidly ascending to his position from a dozen different directions at once. From the opening the cliff provided him, he saw the name flicker above the Tyrant as she reared all eight of her arms up ready to strike once more.

[F] Iz’ Takon, the Tyrant of the Swarm (LVL 67)

“I… think I fucked up here…”

He was already a dozen meters away before the first strike even landed, his blurring form illuminated only by the dim orange glow that surrounded him as the tunnel shook and dribbled magma. The Tyrant screeched out loud enough to make Brock’s eardrums shudder, and idly, he noticed the magma around him briefly increase in brightness.

Behind him, the guards chittered angrily, rapidly growing in their troop as more and more of their brethren of different variants streamed out of the side tunnels and joined their avid crusade. Over his shoulder, Brock sent a blast of Sparks, instantly rewarding himself with wisps of red energy as they left his body, the enemies it had slain too low level for his Ascendancy to accept.

The magma once more brightened, and Brock could recognise a bad sign when he saw it. Afterwards, he shifted to wind blades from his Augment of Skies. Thankfully, the magma didn’t respond, although it was far less effective in killing ability. It sure did stir up a lot of dust to obscure him though.

As he swiftly retraced his steps to his original entrance, Brock’s path was cut off as a grouping of a dozen guards stood steadfast in the way. Cursing, he skidded off into a side tunnel and razed the ceiling with his air-based Augment, collapsing it down atop them. He felt himself gain a level.

Brock was forced to dive down to the floor, barely avoiding a small pool of lava, as a gargantuan blade bisected the tunnel directly and passed him by overhead. Pieces of dirt and stone fell down around him, and from the new cracks and gashes magma readily flowed, swiftly pooling at the floor of the tunnel.

Well… that’s not good…

He once more got to his feet and sped through the tunnel, hopping past dribbles and pools of the super-hot slag, and catching his fair share of droplets onto his jacket. Luckily, the speed he was moving at was enough to shrug them off with minimal damage to the black leather.

The creatures behind him weren’t so lucky, and many were crushed by falling stones or consumed by magma. The guards seemed smarter than the rest and waited for their lesser brethren to pave a way of corpses for them. A bit of distance was put between them, but they still refused to give up on the intruder.

Brock swerved into another tunnel, and upon seeing the open cliff face, he kicked up dust and changed his direction, hoping to lose his pursuers. His arm flicked out with fervour and his blade flew, puncturing through the thick armour of the Tyrant with the help of an imbuement from Skies. Brock sprinted the rest of the way and hissed out a breath.

Then he jumped.

He cursed the entire duration of his swung across the cavern, and twice he was almost cut in half by the massive beast’s blades, the strings of the mysterious substance quickly breaking from the queen’s movements and working to free it from its bindings. Brock send a slew of wind blades at its bulbous eyes as he tapped down on a cliff opposite from his egress and tugged the blade free.

The attacks skittered off harmlessly, although he could feel in the monster’s aura that it served to enrage it further. The insects following him stopped dead at the cliff, though they quickly moved to intercept him through the nearby tunnels.

Brock took a left and bolted, diving into a roll and getting back to his feet as a blade destroyed the path behind him. He knew his time was limited until he was cornered, and Brock was beginning to get desperate to find a way out.

All around him, the auras of the Spawns, Hunters and Guards were closing in on his position, although he felt a cool draft against his face, coming from the surface. Brock felt his stamina bottoming out, something he hadn’t felt happen since he was in the jungle city, and he had to say he hadn’t missed the feeling.

His chest felt tight as he ran, and his breathing became laboured and harsh. The air was far too thin down in the tunnels, and he assumed that that, coupled with the stress, wasn’t fairing so well for him. A Hunter screeched and dived out from the tunnel to his left, and Brock wasted no time as he grabbed its head and pulped it against his knee.

He stumbled but kept running, the brain matter and chitin sloughing off his leg as he moved.

Rapidly, the cool breeze thickened, and he knew he was getting closer. He was forced to dodge, duck, and dive as the Tyrant of the Swarm destroyed the tunnels around him. But finally, he approached the source of the surface air, and the tension in his shoulders eased up. The horde was already back on his tail, and they were closing in from all sides.

The diameter lessened and dodging the increasing dribbles of magma became exceedingly difficult as he bolted toward the turn off straight ahead. A hundred meters. Seventy-five. Fifty-

Brock spun around and drove his blade through the eye of another cloaked Hunter, ending it instantly.

Only twenty meters remained, and his fingers dug into the wall as he prepared to slow himself to turn. Only a single guard blocked the exit, and it was actively smashing its arms into the walls in an effort to collapse it. Brock clicked his tongue and didn’t hesitate to utilize his Augment of Sparks, needing the boost in power.

A radiant crimson flame melted the monster’s chitin to bubbling slag and charred the meat within, grievously wounding the beast but failing to kill it outright. Luckily, it distracted it just enough that Brock could slip past. He sped forward, and finally, he crested the exit and met the light of the sun once more, feeling the hard earth beneath as he collapsed onto it, panting.

He savoured the feel of the sun on his skin. He didn’t even know he could miss it this mu-

Giving himself a brisk slap on the face to keep him in the moment, Brock raised his hand and used his Skies to crumble the tunnel behind him and prevent any further chase. Then, while letting out a slow breath, he slowly got to his feet. That whole escapade didn’t go as planned, but he was fine, and at least now he had some sizeable knowledge on how they functioned, as well as how to tear their little hive ap-

The ground shook.

Far behind him, the earth exploded in a spray of stone and dirt, creating a plume of dust that stretched over fifty meters into the sky. Brock spun around and took a few steps back, watching as several monstrously large, bladed arms reached out and pulled a dark figure up into the smog. Hundreds of green eyes were glaring right at him.

“…Would you accept a heartfelt ‘sorry’?”

Its mouth opened and a terrible screech sent Brock reeling backwards. Guess not.