The earth swallowed me once more with its darkness, dampness, and the hollow sounds of being underground. I had mastered my fear, but the unease...the unease was as strong as ever. Tight spaces just had that kind of impact on me.

We had found a cave leading downwards, towards a web of openings, caverns, and tunnels, as far-reaching as my [Favorite Terrain: Mountains] let me sense my surroundings. Which was not very far indeed, as it cut off a certain depth below the surface, as it had cut off last time I had been lost to the caverns under a mountain - the Abyss below Ravenrock. There was a point the system arbitrarily decided that we were no longer in the mountains but in underground caverns, it seemed.

We knew the general direction we had to travel to, back to the forest which was south-east, and we had an immeasurably easier time navigating, thanks to Kara and her rock spirits and Grim‘s natural sense of orientation and direction. We would not get lost, this time.

Why did my heart flutter almost painfully in my chest, then?

Because it looked the same, as far as natural caves went. The tunnels, the flora, the insects, and darkness-dwellers. They all cast me back to the worst time of my life, reminding me of the insanity I had felt as I stumbled through the darkness all alone.

I touched the cool steel of Zero, still wrapped around my torso. He had been at my side for the last - and hardest - bit of it and had made my ascend not only easier but possible to begin with. He did not react, but I sent him thankful thoughts, nonetheless. He was kind of able to read my surface emotions, as far as I could tell, although he did not move in response. We were kind of sneaking, to be fair.

Without having made a noticeable error, we woke them of their slumber, and without missing a heartbeat, they fell from the ceiling and came around the corners with immediate aggression and hunger.

Insectoids they were, but giant ones at that. They were a varied bunch, small six-legged scuttlers reaching my waist and bigger, heavier armored variants, reaching my height. The small ones were fast and nimble, threatening to cut everything below my waist with their razor-sharp scything claws, while the bigger ones had long, heavy front legs to pummel their opponents into pulp.

With a hoarse scream, I drove the pack of scuttlers back, activating [Cutting Winds] and pressing the gust into the small tunnel with a push of my arms. The winds were strong enough that the smaller insects tumbled and slid back until they slammed into the bigger ones which were basically unfazed by my efforts.

Kara used the breathing room I had given her to call the spirits to her aid, which she had prepared in advance. [Shamans] were strong, in almost any situation, if, and only if, they had a few moments to prepare. The more time they had, the better informed they were, the better the spirits they had would be able to help them.

Loose stones and debris breaking from the smooth tunnel walls rose up in front of us as the rock spirits boxed the insects in the tunnel I had driven them back into and began hammering their fists onto the creatures in front of them. I took a step to the side, allowing Grim to have a free field of fire.

The insects were beyond mindless, only regaled by their desire to feed. They were easy to predict but vicious and fast, and never stopped attacking, even with limbs cut off and beaten to an inch of their lives.

Precisely placed arrows began to weave through the moving stones, breaking chitin and hitting eyes and weak spots, while I began swinging the Ravenbeak, the space being too restricted for Kingsbane. Besides, a hammer was the perfect weapon to break the tough armor of the insects.

I felt Zero slipping off from me and lost sight almost immediately in the chaotic light of the cavern, only illuminated by the lantern and torches placed behind us, which made our shadows dance across the screeching mass of enemies.

I trusted him to find his own quarrel as he slipped into the melee, having realized that I would not be able to swing him in the restricted space effectively either, so he did what he could on his own.

Behind the spirits, I played the role of the backup frontline, catching the scuttlers that made it through the first line of defense and protecting Grim and Kara behind me, both of which were busy with the fight at the front and ill-equipped to handle the insects in a brawl. I was not even sure if Grim carried a weapon besides his hunting knives, while Kara had a spear, which would be useless once a scuttler got past its metal tip.

We were neither fighting a war here nor a desperate battle. We had all the information we could have wanted and were prepared as best as we could. While I punted and slammed the small insects back into the fight at the front, splashing green blood across the backs of the moving stones, my comrades harrassed and whittled them down from behind me.

Soon the cluster of enemies was defeated and we took a breather to assess the situation. The insects were strategically placed. There was no denying that. They had sleeping clusters of their warrior and hunter types in connecting caverns and tunnels. They kind of showed us the way we had to go. Follow the creatures to their source.

Was it like the instinctual competence some creatures just had, like the intricate weavings of a spider or the coordination and organization bees or ants were capable of, or was there really sentience behind the organization of the hive? Something capable of strategical and tactical thinking?

The communication we have had with the Queen did not really indicate her to be capable of nuanced thought, but there was some kind of consciousness, at the very least.

I went through my notifications, more habit than anything else.

[Guardian Scuttler defeated! Reward: 5 EP!]

[Guardian Scuttler defeated! Reward: 4 EP!]

[Guardian Brawler defeated! Reward: 7 EP!]

The list went on, but I was not very interested in the details. The EP gain I could grind out in these tunnels was remarkably good, though, and that should count double for my comrades, who both were lacking in experience with fighting and had until now made up the fact with sheer competence in their chosen fields of expertise. Both were good at what they were doing, Kara was relatively high - leveled, as she was at least level 20 and able to control her Wyldshaping to negate the influence of the Wyld, but she was not a fighter yet, having been in training for most of her life.

It was good that I was here and able to give them much needed and rapidly approaching experience, neatly packed in a tunnel too narrow to circle around my defense and swarm them. They might have been able to survive on their own, with Karas spirits taking the front, but one mistake was all it took for a scuttler to slip through and one was enough to seriously endanger both of them.

One of them could disembowel a human in seconds and was fast enough to at least get in a good try in most cases. This was not a fight of skill but a fight of discipline. Stick to the plan and make no mistakes and you would be fine. Let your caution slip and you were in for a world of hurt.

The insects themselves were not terrifying foes in and of themselves, they looked rather...cute, even, if alien. It was the relentless aggression they displayed while roused to feed that was scary. An enemy without fear, remorse, or even regard for their own well-being. I seemed to attract that kind of enemy.

One thing was certain. They were not burying us under endless masses. Quite the opposite - they were preserving their strength by holding only the chokepoints, which made fighting and approaching them possible to begin with. The hive was bleeding out, slowly being ground away by the threat of their enemy, the Weirderbeast. As we approached, we had to fight half a dozen times, maybe, but regarding the size of the hive, we had thought we would have to fight endless and endless waves of these untiring soldiers.

A scary thought indeed. Was this truly something we wanted to...lift the burden of?

While we advanced, over the span of a few hours, through the outermost caverns and the sentry posts, as weird as I felt referring to them as such, the resistance we met gradually rose until we reached an enormous cavern deep underground, with thick and heavy air, and nauseating smells.

And for the first time, neither scuttlers nor brawlers came to greet us at the entrance. As large as a human and twice as wide, giants lumbered through the soil, charging us with wild abandon, as soon as they felt our footsteps in the ground.

The last line of defense for a queen of a dying breed, the kings had joined the fray.

“Get back!“ I screamed, using [Cutting Winds] to throw dust and debris into the air as a screen. “Run until you can defend the entrance!“

Behind me my comrades turned, sprinting into the darkness, leaving me alone with a torch that had fallen to the ground, sputtering in its last moment of light. I did not know it any other way, [Eyes to Pierce The Darkness] turned the shadows into a neat graduation of black and white, with but a thought the hefty weight of Kingsbane materialized in my fist, midswing, and I grunted as I fought gravitation to complete the arc.

Kingsbane, a sword worthy of its name, doing what it did best, taking heads of kings - human and monster alike. With a crunching sound and a screeching scream, the blade severed the bulky head between mandibles and multi-faceted eyes, throwing the brute back, while I already danced out of the way of the claws whirling after my flesh.

A glob of acid came out of the darkness and my sword was wide away, still completing its arc through sheer momentum. I quickly blew up my cheeks and sent a violent gust of wind with [Cutting Winds]. The acid splattered, dispersed, drops of the smoking liquid covering the ground, sizzling and burning. I jumped out from the rain of acid, but droplets hit me on my arm still, burning flesh.

I needed to stay away or get in much closer!

I grabbed Zero, letting Kingsbane disappear again, while I whirled the chain around me. Out of the darkness came an arrow, scratching the shoulder of one of the giants. Grim, at least, had reached the safety of the entrance. I did not spare a look, as they closed in on me. Two with fists raised, two with heads tilted back, ready to spit.

Zero was humming and thrumming as he gathered momentum, a quick turn of my body and the weighted head of Zero, the head of a sickle-blade today, shot out, turning the momentum of the whirling into speed and force. A ripple traveled through the chain mid-air, [Chain Lash] activated, and with an audible crack, Zero whipped around the neck of a king, burying the blade deep into its carapace.

“Take him!“ I yelled, releasing his end, and gripping Kingsbane out of thin air again as all over Zero spikes and pins extended, as he burrowed them into the chitin of his enemy with audible cracking sounds, activating [Constrict] and pressing harder and harder as he tightened his grip. Then he activated his newest Skill, earned in the endless battles with the Nightmares. [Maelstrom of Steel] made him twist and turn ever faster until his countless spikes and blades cut through the carapace which got broken and got churned into paste.

Three Kings left and a sword made for the task. On the blade of the sword, the rune of strife began to glow in a faint, blue light as the acid devoured the flesh on my arm. Not wide awake, not roaring with power, not acknowledging a desperate fight. Simply awakening, interested...ready.