Red looked around the chamber. There was not a single trace of the being's existence anymore. For a moment the boy wondered whether or not this whole interaction had been nothing more than a dream. However, his newly opened acupoints were still there, and that was evidence enough that something had happened.

He even looked around the room for any other exits, but there was nowhere the blob could have escaped to. Its expansive body and tentacles would never fit through the way Red had entered either. Shaking his head, the youth thought his time would be better served in preparing rather than trying to understand every mystery in this place.

The first thing Red checked was his left leg. The injury was still there, but the pain was not nearly as debilitating as before. Opening two acupoints in that area had immediately proven to be effective in the limb's recovery. The muscles around his thigh were reinforced with a substantial increase in strength and the boy could virtually walk normally again. Of course, he had to be careful not to exert the leg too much and risk opening his wound, but at least Red wouldn't need to hobble through the remaining journey.

Not willing to spend any more time in this chamber, the boy started to journey back the way he came. Without having to carry heavy pieces of flesh with him the travel back was way shorter, but it still took around 20 minutes. Finally, Red arrived back in the main area of the cave.

Carefully taking a look around, the youth checked to make sure no insects or resentful slaves were waiting in ambush for him before leaving the passage. Now that the blob was gone, Red assumed the unnatural pressure that kept most monsters away from this area had also disappeared. If that was indeed the case, he had no way of knowing when the giant insects would start flooding down this part of the cave. The boy had to be quick.

Looking down at his clothes, the smell of dried blood was almost overwhelming to his senses. His trousers could still be spared since Red could simply cut the stained legs, but his shirt was almost certainly a lost cause. It was completely covered in a dark red color and the boy could feel the added weight in the cloth dragging him down.

With no hesitation, he pulled the shirt over his head and threw it to the ground. Thankfully the temperature in the caves was not too low, so the slaves didn't have to worry about freezing to death for lack of proper clothing. It was scarce comfort, though, since you would still rather have even a torn piece of cloth between you and the chilly stone floor while you slept.

Most of Red's clothes were oversized considering the guards didn't have anything child-sized to trade, but the boy was able to cut and tie whatever was given to him into a usable state. Walking over to his travel sack, the boy pulled out another ragged white shirt he had stolen from the other slaves' now empty camp. Having put it on, the attire reached almost to his knees. With his knife, Red was able to quickly cut off the shirt to a more appropriate size, before doing the same to his trousers.

Wearing these clothes wasn't comfortable by any means, but it was preferable to walking around naked and catching a fatal cold down here. Scrubbing his hands and face clean of blood with the leftover rags, Red double-checked his equipment and body once more before setting off.

Opening the map Viran had given him, Red tried to locate his position there. The drawing was impressively detailed, which was a surprising fact considering who had done it. It had taken a few moments before the boy was able to position himself in the tunnel he was currently at. Something else caught his eye upon a closer look, though.

Red looked back to the position of the blob passage and then compared it to something on the map. A path corresponding to the same entrance was drawn there too. However, this path was unfinished halfway through, with a big red skull warning painted over it. Some words were written right next to that, but the boy couldn't understand them. It still showed him one thing.

Viran had found the passage and made sure to mark it as dangerous.

At this point, Red wasn't surprised that the man was able to find out about the blob. It brought a few questions to his mind, though. The old soldier clearly couldn't fit inside the passage, which was why it looked unfinished on the map. However, if Viran was unable to get to the other side, why would he seemingly mark the entrance as dangerous? Was it just out of an abundance of caution?

Red shook his head. Perhaps if or when, he learned how to read, the words next to the symbol would explain the reason. Right now he had bigger problems to deal with. Studying the map, Red tried to pick the safest route he could take. Unsurprisingly, there were many tunnels and chambers in between his destination and him. Some of these openings looked bigger in comparison to the others, but the boy had a hard time telling if these were accurate depictions of their dimensions.

Immediately, Red excluded passing through any place with a skull mark over it. This eliminated more than half of the paths he could take. The remaining ones took very roundabout routes and still passed through some dangerous-looking symbols, but at least they didn't indicate certain death.

Of course, another thing Red had to keep in mind was the fact that Viran hadn't drawn this map for him. What might have been a manageable situation for the man could mean certain death for the boy. For instance, if Red encountered another one of those scythe-like monsters he would most likely be killed. This meant that Red would need to avoid as many of these insect nests as possible.

Considering these circumstances, the boy finally settled on one route in particular. This one would pass through what looked like a big centipede nest if the drawing was anything to go by, but these were the types of enemies Red was the most confident in dealing with. His cleaver would have a hard time chopping the thick bodies of a horned beetle, for instance, but a centipede was another story. They might be very long, but they were still relatively thin. If the youth was able to connect with an accurate slash, then he felt he could easily bisect them.

There was still one more concern in Red's mind, though. Between his destination and himself, there was seemingly a danger the boy wouldn't be able to avoid no matter what path he took. A large skull and a drawing of a certain eight-legged being.

Spiders.

The slaves rarely had sightings of them, and Red himself had only seen two of them in the years he had been here. As Viran explained to him once, these weren't truly wandering monsters and mostly stuck to ambushing their prey. However, amidst all the creatures he had encountered, excluding the insectoid, they were still amidst the most fearsome.

Red remembered how many slaves had died to a single spider when it had wandered close to their living space. The monster at the time was set on creating a nest in this place, but thankfully they were able to hunt it down with Viran's help. The boy had no idea how he would bypass these things and their sticky webs, but this was more of a concern for later.

Putting away the map and throwing the sack over his shoulder, Red set off towards the depths.

…

The passages beyond the youth’s usual territory got harder and harder to traverse. They weren’t made or adapted for humans, so Red had to face sheer drops and squeeze through small tunnels to travel down. This made the mere traversal of a few hundred meters take the better part of an hour.

At this point, Red was in completely foreign territory. Surprisingly, the number of moonstones on the wall increased substantially the further down he went. Some parts of the cave were very well lit, and the boy found other kinds of minerals on the wall. He couldn’t judge how precious they were, but even if the youth knew he didn’t have the right equipment to mine it.

Red hadn’t found any signs of giant insects in the first few legs of his journey, but he doubted it would remain the same. Sure enough a few hours later, Red started to see more and more signs of monsters in this place. Footprints, pieces of exoskeleton, and even human bones were strewn around the tunnel. Then came the noises.

It didn't take long for the boy to reach trouble. In a certain chamber, loud hisses and the sounds of legs clattering on the floor were heard. Red slowed his pace and approached the scene slowly, one hand holding onto his cleaver.

After walking a few meters forward, the boy was able to see what was causing the ruckus. A handful of centipedes were currently fighting against a large beetle. This one, though, didn't have a horn, instead sporting a giant set of serrated mandibles. The many-legged creatures tried to wrap around the body and limbs of the beast, but the beetle was far too big and strong for them to hold on for long.

Looking around, Red could see the mutilated corpses of two other centipedes that weren't quick enough to dodge the big monster's bite. The rest of them, though, kept on attacking, their mandibles clamping down onto the beetle's carapace. The beast had a very sturdy exoskeleton, and it seemed capable of shrugging off these attacks. Yet, it didn't leave without some wounds. Two of its legs were missing, and the monster's movement was suffering for it.

The boy did his best to remain unnoticed while observing the battle from afar. The beetle reared up again and a centipede wasn't fast enough to move out of the way.

Red heard the sound of a carapace completely breaking as the large monster bit down. The centipede was bisected, and its parts struggled desperately on the ground in its death throes. Its siblings didn't let the death of one of them be in vain though.

Another centipede dashed behind the beetle and with a clasp of its mandibles cut off another one of its legs. The monster stumbled and tried to turn around, but it had become far too slow and unbalanced with its heavy body. At that point, the long creatures were able to avoid its dangerous mandible with their faster legs. Soon enough, another one of the beetle's limbs was snapped off and the insect had an even hard time moving around. Instead, it started to shake itself left and right to throw its opponents off. It had some success, but it had become an almost immobile target at that point.

The centipedes, however, were not any closer to being able to pierce the beast's carapace. Their persistence might have paid off eventually, had Red not decided to intervene.

The monsters were too embroiled in their fight to hear the boy's approach. As another centipede was thrown a few meters away, he took that opportunity to strike. The creature was ready to return into the fray when it felt immense, explosive pain surging from its lower body.

The centipede shrieked. When it looked back, the insect saw Red dash around it. It had a third of its body severed by the youth's cleaver, but it didn't die immediately. Snapping around in a frenzy, it tried to bite its attacker.

With its movements slowed down by losing almost half its legs, though, Red was able to dodge it without much difficulty. Pivoting on his right leg, he brought down the cleaver against the monster's head.

With a crunch, the weapon bit deeply into the monster's head. The centipede thrashed frantically as its brain was chopped apart in the process. Not willing to get caught in the middle of it, Red quickly pulled his weapon off before dashing away.

The other centipede noticed the death throes of its companion and the new attacker darting away from the scene. It hissed and jumped off the beetle's back to seek revenge, however, it suddenly felt something clamp on it.

With a shriek, the beast turned back just in time to see a mandible chopping off a section of a small section of its body. The centipede dashed away with the remaining of its legs and the beetle was unable to follow up on its attack and finish it off.

Right as the centipede thought it was safe, Red attacked. Taking advantage of the one-two punch, the boy slashed down and with one swift motion chopped off its head while it was distracted. The rest of the monster's body flailed around, and he gave it a wide berth as he watched the two centipedes slowly die off.

It took half a minute for the creatures to stop moving, but eventually, everything was still in the room once more. Looking up, Red's gaze met the beetle's compound eyes, and the boy felt as if the monster was looking directly at him. Both of them were completely still, and a weird atmosphere formed in the chamber. Finally, Red nodded towards the insect.

"They did quite a number on you, huh?" He sheathed his cleaver. "Well then, I guess we can say we helped each other a bit, but this is as far as it goes... Whether you live or die now, will be entirely up to you."

The boy turned around and walked to the exit of the room. The beetle didn't move, staring silently at the human's back as his image slowly disappeared from view.