Chapter 63 – Earning Your Keep (Part Four)

THUD!

The massive body collapsed.

A potent venomous gas billowed out from the spider’s corpse in all directions.

The deep-green venomous spider was twice the size of the others and possessed a powerful toxin.

Two or three of these tricky beasts were mixed in with the countless spiders that swarmed them continuously.

*Hiss!*

“Ugh…”

Il-hyeon and his team held their breath as the green smoke spread toward them.

The venom was so dense and potent that the warning signals on their self-purifying coats began to blink.

The sealed tunnel was already severely contaminated, but the venomous spiders’ corpses made it even worse.

-Toxicity levels are too high.

“Everyone, take them out.”

At Lee Soo-yeon’s command, they each pulled out a small white box.

Inside was a syringe. The team members immediately rolled up their sleeves and injected themselves.

It was a powerful antidote.

Having been informed that the monsters possessed venom, this level of preparation was essential when entering their teeming nest.

“You guys are okay, right?”

Il-hyeon asked, looking back at his summons. They nodded.

As expected, the ambient poison in the air seemed to have no effect on them.

“To think monsters of this scale have been living underground all this time. The people who lived here would have a heart attack if they knew.”

Ghost muttered, spitting amidst the countless spider carcasses.

They had faced so many of the creatures that he couldn’t even begin to count them all.

Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, partly due to the unpleasant humidity.

“How could anyone live here again? It’s too creepy.”

“Well, if the ground gives way on this scale, I doubt there’ll be a town to come back to.”

“Ah, that’s a good point.”

While they talked, Il-hyeon had his rats quickly collect the cores so they wouldn’t impede their movement.

The cores were pulled from the monsters’ bodies and delivered to his hand one by one.

“Ha, feeling like a big shot now, are we?”

Il-hyeon said with a chuckle, looking at the mouse perched on his head.

Unlike the swarm of rats he had summoned earlier, this one—his most senior summon after the Phoenix—exuded an air of leisurely confidence.

It casually gestured from its perch, directing the other rats like a field supervisor.

The cores from the dead monsters were gathered in an instant, and he tossed a few to his summons.

Only to the ones he had permanently summoned using cores, of course.

Then, Il-hyeon absorbed the vast majority of the remaining cores himself.

‘I’ve absorbed quite a lot today, but I feel fine.’

Il-hyeon wondered as he absorbed the cores.

He had absorbed a considerable amount of Ether since entering this place, yet he felt no strain on his body.

In the past, this much would have been his limit. It felt like his capacity had increased ever since he collapsed after pushing himself to use that A-rank core.

*Rumble…*

Suddenly, the ground began to shake.

It wasn’t the sound of something rushing toward them from down the tunnel.

He could tell the difference. This was the ground itself trembling.

The team members dropped into a lower stance, startled, and looked around.

“What’s going on?”

“An earthquake…?”

“If it’s an earthquake at a time like this, I’ll be too pissed to even pass on.”

Ghost shook his head.

Meanwhile, the trembling grew stronger, and they realized something was approaching.

And it wasn’t coming through the tunnel, but by smashing through the earth itself.

*CRASH!*

With a deafening roar, the ceiling shattered.

Rock fragments rained down in all directions, and through the broken gap, a large, four-pronged mouth appeared.

*SCREEECH!*

An armored spider, its body looking as if it were clad in armor, shrieked.

*THUD!* The armored spider, several times larger than the others, leaped down. From the hole it had bored through by eating rock, more spiders poured out.

The sight of spider monsters endlessly pouring from the hole in the ceiling was enough to turn one’s stomach.

“Just how many more are there?”

Il-hyeon muttered, raising his sword.

One armored spider had appeared, but the ground was still shaking.

That meant more of them were tunneling their way toward them from a distance.

*CRASH!* This time, it was from below.

From the shattered floor, another armored spider emerged, along with dozens more spiders swarming out.

“Block the holes! Ugh!”

Lee Soo-yeon shouted as she swung her sword wide, cleaving two charging spiders in half. Just then, another explosion erupted from the right wall.

From every new opening, spiders poured in endlessly.

*Shunk!* Il-hyeon stomped his foot, feeding a cluster of spikes to the spiders blocking his path, and placed the Gumiho on his palm.

Without a word, the Gumiho knew exactly what Il-hyeon intended and what it had to do.

*Whoosh!*

Il-hyeon threw the Gumiho toward the ceiling with all his might.

Hurled toward the hole teeming with spiders, the Gumiho’s body shimmered and transformed into a fierce flame that engulfed the long, straight tunnel.

The spiders approaching from within were roasted alive, unable to move.

The flames, having swept to the end of the passage, reverted to the Gumiho’s form, and its levitating body fell.

*Thwump!* While the flames had raged, Il-hyeon had cut down six spiders where he stood. The Gumiho landed back in his hand.

It leaped from his hand to his shoulder and began creating flames around him, attacking the monsters that tried to approach.

The Phoenix also moved, diving into the newly formed holes and incinerating all the spiders inside.

But even as they fought, more holes were torn open. An armored spider’s pincer-like foreleg shot toward Il-hyeon.

*BAM!* The thickly armored leg slammed into the ground. Il-hyeon moved quickly, running up the leg and plunging his sword into the armored spider’s eye.

*SCREEECH!*

The massive armored spider lost its balance and tilted, its shadow falling over Ghost, who was in the middle of a fight.

“Yikes!”

The colossal body crashed down, crushing the spiders fighting below.

Blood splattered like squeezed paint, and the spiders were flattened, their bodies crushed to death.

Ghost, who had been right there, poked his head out from the top of the armored spider’s corpse.

His body, made translucent by his ability, had passed right through the corpse. He quickly pulled the rest of himself free and charged at the other spiders.

“They’re just recklessly tearing through the ground. This could get dangerous. We don’t have time to hesitate…”

Lee Soo-yeon muttered, looking up at the shaking ceiling.

Eight armored spiders had already bored their way through, and the ground was still trembling.

It meant more monster hordes were still on their way.

A swarm of this magnitude couldn’t simply be explained by monsters sensing their presence and attacking.

A hive mind, where each individual could share thoughts, might behave this way, but the spiders’ reaction had been too delayed for that to be the case.

The only other possibility was a powerful command-type individual controlling all the scattered monsters.

It was likely the target they were here to eliminate.

*CRASH!*

As a ninth hole was punched in the ceiling, the tunnel behind them collapsed.

They didn’t seem to care that a few sections of the vast tunnel network were being partially buried.

“Everyone, move! We can’t fight them all!”

They ran toward the only remaining path ahead.

They pushed through the endlessly pouring monsters, and Il-hyeon used his ability to seal the entrance behind them without drastically altering the terrain.

Of course, it only bought them a moment. The armored spiders immediately smashed through the blocked wall and resumed their pursuit.

The team members, much faster than the spiders, hurried on, but the ubiquitous webs made it difficult to pick up speed.

Furthermore, where the map showed a three-way fork, only a single path remained.

They needed to take the middle path to follow the route, but it was so badly collapsed it looked as if someone had destroyed it intentionally.

“Damn it… they’re changing the paths.”

The creatures tunneling through the earth were still busily at work.

It seemed their plan was to dig indiscriminately or collapse tunnels to block them off.

Scanning the underground structure took time, and with the spiders constantly changing it, the GPS had become useless.

“Looks like there’s definitely something down below.”

Lee Soo-yeon said.

An armored spider that had tunneled up from below to chase them appeared boldly, only to be impaled by four swords and killed before it could do anything.

Lee Soo-yeon quickly checked the GPS and pointed to the newly opened hole.

“We’re going down this way.”

“Is it the right way…?”

“It’s our best option.”

With that, Lee Soo-yeon immediately took the lead and jumped down. Seok Pil-joon and Il-hyeon followed without a word, and Ghost reluctantly leaped in after them.

The four Awakened descended, cutting down all the spiders that were climbing up and filling the hole.

The passage bored by the armored spider was longer than expected. Besides slicing through spiders, they had to brace themselves against the walls to control their descent.

*Thud!*

They landed in a shower of countless corpses.

Ghost, soaked in monster blood and unidentifiable chunks, shuddered in disgust.

“This place is…”

Seok Pil-joon grimaced as he surveyed their surroundings.

The vast, circular chamber was filled with grotesque, deep-green eggs.

On the walls, the ceiling, and the floor.

There were so many that not an inch of ground was visible.

“Based on the location… is this some kind of hatchery?”

Tiny spiderlings crawled across the floor.

Though “tiny” was only relative to the adults; the hatchlings were at least the size of a human head.

The wolf beside Il-hyeon, wrinkling its nose, seemed annoyed by them and raised a paw to crush one.

*SQUELCH!*

Its body completely pulverized, the creature died instantly, only its eight thick legs twitching.

*Crack! Crac-crack!*

Just then, the eggs began to hatch.

All of them. Every single egg covering the chamber cracked open, and grotesque creatures pushed their heads out.

Seeing that many of the spiders were not yet fully formed, it seemed they had forced their way out prematurely.

They had sensed the intruders and hatched out of instinct.

The sight drew an involuntary sigh.

“Jeez. This is just disgusting.”

The four Awakened here were all members of Aegis, considered the world’s best, and they had Il-hyeon’s summons as well. No matter how many of these premature hatchlings there were, cleaning them up was only a matter of time.

But in this confined and hostile environment, fighting an endless stream of monsters like this, their mental fortitude would give out long before their bodies did.

Indeed, just looking at the vast chamber filled with spiderlings was nauseating.

“Hm?”

Il-hyeon, who had been preparing to face the monsters, paused.

He felt a strange energy from behind him.

Il-hyeon turned and took a step closer to the source of the energy. He could feel a flow of Ether from the green pillar in the center of the room, which had been bothering him since they arrived.

Ether energy was rising from deep below, spreading faintly throughout the chamber via the pillar.

*SLASH!*

Il-hyeon swung his sword, slicing through the unsettlingly pulsating pillar.

As it split apart, spewing green blood, a long passage leading downward was revealed inside.

The team members, who had been wondering what he was doing with monsters all around them, stared at him in surprise when they saw it.

“Is that…?”

“Found a shortcut.”

Il-hyeon grinned and leaped inside.

He slid down the slightly squirming tunnel.

The slope was steep, but unlike before, no monsters appeared along the way.

*Thud!*

Il-hyeon landed on the floor.

The chamber was filled with sticky webs, the half-eaten torso of another spider, and green slime.

Just as Il-hyeon had suspected, the space around him was what he’d expected the queen’s chamber to be.

But then, Il-hyeon encountered one of the most bewildering things in his entire experience.

“Get lost.”

A curse echoed from the darkness.