It didn't take long before Red and his group discovered the tracks of the other slaves. Up here only one tunnel led to the surface, so it wasn't too hard to chase after them. However, this path extended for a long stretch and it was unlikely that they would be able to catch the other group before they made it to the guard post at the entrance of the mine.

"How many were there?" Viran asked Gruff, who walked alongside him. This was a very commonly traveled tunnel, so it was hard to determine the number of people who were in that slave group by the footprints.

"Sixty, maybe more." The other man responded. "Most of them were the weaklings, but quite a few of our own were with them too... They were armed with some of our weapons."

The old soldier grunted. To Red, those people were insane if they thought they would be able to defeat Viran with that cheap equipment. In fact, the boy doubted that they would be able to kill him even if they were fully outfitted with iron weapons. It just wasn't a matter of weaponry as much as it was a matter of skill.

Most of the slaves in that runaway group weren't here half a year ago, so even if they witnessed the occasional display of authority by Viran, they had never truly seen what he was capable of or what he had done when he first arrived in the mines. The worst massacre was on the first day after the man announced he was going to be the ruler of this place moving forward. Some of the gangs of slaves were having none of it and decided to confront him directly to put the apparent lunatic in his place.

Viran slaughtered them all, bare-handed. It was the most brutal display of violence Red had ever seen, made worse by the fact that most of his victims didn't immediately die from their injuries. The boy could still remember their haunting screams echoing through the cave tunnels, but no slave dared to approach them to help. Still, for as many people had died that day, the body count would keep increasing over the next week.

Multiple assassination and poisoning attempts were made against Viran, as those opposing his rule turned to more clandestine tactics, which the man easily saw through and survived. The people responsible were tortured and gave up their accomplices, and another massacre took place, this one more slow and deliberate. All sense of defiance was crushed in the hearts of the slaves after more than half of them ended up dead a few weeks after the man's arrival. The survivors decided to follow Viran's rule wholeheartedly.

Red, having personally observed these events, knew that there was no chance those people would survive what was coming for them if Viran truly decided to be merciless. They had about 20 people following the man, so they were technically outnumbered three to one, but even if he was alone, his enemies would still have no hope of victory.

"Stop!" Their leader screamed from up ahead and the entire group froze in their steps.

Red approached the front of the line as he saw Viran crouched down, examining the ground in front of him along with a few other slaves. When the boy got close enough, it was soon evident what had caught their attention. A large hole, about 2 meters in diameter was dug into the wide tunnel floor and it certainly hadn't been there the last time they had passed through here. As one of the slaves illuminated it with a torch, Red realised he was unable to see its bottom.

"Insect tunnel." Viran commented in a solemn tone.

"That's not possible, the ground is too tough up here..." Gruff responded. Burrowing insects were a relatively common sight in the world, but the slaves lived in an area full of ore and rock walls, so digging through those would be no easy task even for these giant creatures.

"It's centipedes!" One of the slaves commented as he pointed towards the multiple continuous footprints of a creature that had far too many legs leading away from the hole and in the direction of the cave's exit.

"Not just that." Red added after looking through the dusty ground. "There is more than one type of footprints too. Probably horned beetles, but some of them I don't remember ever seeing before." He hadn't fought any of these creatures before, but he had lived long enough in the mines to recognize these kinds of tracks and avoid them at all costs.

"But these things don't just walk around together!" The same slave responded, looking more to convince himself than to disprove Red.

This was true. The monsters down here were just as hostile to each other as they were to humans. Many of them would even engage in cannibalism if they got too hungry, proving once more how brutal the environment down here was. The idea of them just walking around together without tearing each other apart was ridiculous, not to mention there were quite a few of them here if the footprints were anything to go by.

That is unless someone was compelling them to do so.

As Red remembered his conversation from earlier, he looked towards Viran, but the man had already stood up.

"There's no time to waste here!" He stated. "We'll close this hole later, for now, we need to kill whatever blasted creatures have made their way into my territory!" At that, Viran started walking up the tunnel again.

The slaves looked at each other hesitantly, holding the weapons in their hands tighter, but they still chose to follow their leader. As much as they feared the monsters, they knew that he was their best chance of making it through this alive so they chose to take their chances.

The tunnel leading up to the surface was very large, more so than most chambers down at the mine, and in some areas more than 20 people could stand side by side while walking through it.

As their group walked along, they saw that the monster footprints took no detours, simply following along the main tunnel path. Tension started to mount amidst the slaves as they came to the conclusion they were headed towards a head-on collision with the creatures, and sure enough, it didn't take long for the sounds of battle to reach their ears.

It was faint at first, but Viran had quite clearly picked up on it before anyone else, as his steps suddenly became faster. The whole group was surprised by the sudden change, but they hurried their pace, and soon they could hear the sounds too. Screams, and the hissing of insects.

They were surprised as they first saw a bloodied slave running in their direction. His expression brightened up as he saw Viran and the other slaves ahead of him but suddenly his body was hoisted into the air as a large spike was impaled through his chest. Behind him, the hulking figure of a horned beetle could be seen. It shook itself around, freeing the slave and hurling him against the wall with a sickening thud. No further movement came from his body.

Red was finally able to see the creature in full. It was about two meters long and over a meter tall. It had a very bulky body covered by a brownish carapace, with a single straight horn protruding from the top of its head. The projecting spike was around a meter and a half in length, ending in an unnaturally sharp tip that was dripping blood. The menacing sight of the monster gave pause to a few of the slaves, but Viran had already reached it long before them.

The monster noticed the figure of the man running in its direction and it likewise started running at him with its horn pointed forward to stab its new target. They were about to clash and it seemed as if Viran was about to impale himself into the spike, but suddenly he took a light step to the right twisting around as the horn missed him by what felt like centimeters.

Red didn't see when the man had grabbed his knife, but it was already on his hand as Viran stabbed down into the creature's eye. Using the momentum of the monster's charge, the soldier dragged the knife along the rest of its body, making a long cut that went from the head all the way to the end of its frame.

The beast didn't even seem to register the extent of its wound, the knife not being long enough to reach its vital organs. Still, it turned around in anger when it saw its target had suddenly disappeared behind it, almost toppling over from its sheer momentum. Viran saw his opportunity and approached the monster from its now-blinded side, hopped onto its head, and stabbed his knife down right between its eyes.

The anguished beetle lifted itself on its hind legs, trying to throw its opponent off of it, but the man didn't seem off balance for a second. He dislodged his knife and jabbed it down again, cracking the carapace around the area of impact and even his hand seemed to go inside the monster's head along with his weapon.

Viran repeated the same attack a few times in quick succession while the creature tried its best to throw him off, but it didn't take long for its movements to become weaker and weaker. With a thud, the beetle crashed down onto the ground and stopped moving completely.

Red didn't know if even 10 seconds had passed before the battle was over, as he and the other slaves could only stare in wonder as their leader fought. Viran turned back towards them, his face and clothes covered in green blood.

"We don't have time to waste, you morons! Stop gawking around and follow me."

They all obeyed and rushed behind the man. Soon, they arrived on the main battlefield.

Bodies were scattered around the cave tunnel, a lot of them missing entire limbs or chopped in half. Blood pooled around the floor as the battle still raged around the place. The slaves, clearly on the backfoot, were scattered around the tunnel with their improvised weapons trying to keep the monsters at bay. Red counted about 4 giant centipedes, 2 horned beetles, and something much scarier and bigger.

This monster had a very long body - about four meters long - with a thin thorax and a bulkier abdomen. Its triangular head with two large, oversized eyes looked around the ground at the several chopped-up bodies in front of it, two antennae waving around on top of it. The creature had six limbs, standing on four of them to easily reach the ceiling at 3 meters tall, but that wasn't the most frightening part. Its two frontal legs resembled glistening curved scythes around their outer edges, sharper than any weapon Red had ever seen. He had the feeling that these same scythes were responsible for the perfectly chopped up bodies scattered around the mantis.

At that point, even Viran stopped to take in the scene in front of him, not to mention the rest of the group. The creature stood in the center of the wide tunnel, and everyone including the other monsters gave it a wide berth. It seemed uninterested in the fight around it, too busy shoving pieces of flesh into its relatively small mouth. Red himself had never seen this kind of creature before and he didn't even know its name, but he knew that if he was to face it head-on the only fate awaiting him was death.

"Listen well!" Viran's shout rang through the tunnel. Even the people who were earlier running away from him were excited to see the man appear in front of them. "Remember your training! Immobilize them and stab them in between the carapaces and in their eyes!" He turned around, looking at Gruff. "Go ahead and gather the stragglers together so they don't get picked apart. I'll distract the big one."

Gruff nodded, before ordering the people behind him to move. The boy had been just about to follow them before Viran grabbed his shoulder.

"Not you." The man said. "You'll help me with that thing."

Red suddenly had a bad feeling about this situation.