The Aclaitrium ore's dim, ethereal glow washed over the abandoned city, casting long, intricate shadows and painting a picture of a world frozen in time. Erik moved through the ruins of a bygone era when the underground city was teeming with human life and activity.
Armories stood tall, strategically placed throughout the city, their solemn steel edifices a reminder of their critical role in humanity's survival struggle.
Their once bustling interiors had been replaced with an echoing emptiness, and they were now silent and vacant. However, traces of their past remained, visible in the weapons scattered around, quietly narrating stories of battles fought and heroes forged.
Erik dashed past them, his footsteps resonating ominously through the desolate city streets. He would pass by shooting ranges from time to time, their targets still bearing the marks of countless bullets.
The young man continued his desperate run through the intricate web of streets, each passing structure adding to the desolate atmosphere. As he raced on, his heart pounded in his chest, he had to get away from that place, or he wasn't sure if he could stay alive.
As he dashed through the desolate streets, the Aclaitrium-illuminated cityscape whirled past him in a spectral blur, his breaths coming out in labored rasps.
A piercing scream pierced the hollow silence, echoing off the crumbling buildings. The inhuman cry echoed through the underground city, raising dread inside the young man's mind.
<Stay calm, Erik, stay calm!>
The air around the awakener seemed to chill instantly as the scream subsided, a wave of icy terror sweeping through the city's desolate streets. However, another blood-curdling scream soon resonated throughout the city, this time much closer.
KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
"Shit!" Erik cursed under his breath, adrenaline flooding his being. The raw fear induced by the creature's scream was like a physical blow, a bone-chilling reminder of the terrifying enemy on his heels. Erik's breath hitched in his chest, the very sound seeming to curdle the blood in his veins.
"Keep it together, Erik," he muttered to himself, pushing his terror to the back of his mind. "Keep running. Don't look back."
The young man tightened his grip on his Flyssa as the monstrous scream's echoes faded again into the silence. He charged forward, his breaths coming out in measured pants.
At that moment, Erik noticed some thaids scurrying on top of the cave's walls in the distance. The shrill cry of the unknown monster probably had roused a swarm of eerie creatures from the depths of the ancient city.
Erik watched in horror as some bugs clambered out of the abandoned buildings' cracks and crevices, their massive, compound eyes reflecting the spectral glow of the Aclaitrium ore illuminating the cave.
His heart pounded faster, and his eyes widened as he witnessed these dog-sized bugs navigating the vertical cave walls with uncanny ease.
"Oh, great," Erik muttered, his gaze darting between the thaids skittering towards him. "Just what I needed!"
Since injecting books about thaids into his brain precisely three months ago, Erik had learned about various creatures, including the ones he had in front of him, the Acidspitter Arthropods.
These creatures, the Acidspitter Arthropods, were aggressive predators with a nasty brain crystal power called Corrosive Discharge, allowing them to transform mana into a highly corrosive substance.
Their elongated mandibles housed specialized muscles capable of launching the substance substances produced by their brain crystals with disturbing accuracy by converting mana.
He watched as the Acidspitters coordinated their movements, releasing pheromones that allowed them to act as a unified force and rush out in droves toward the source of the noise or whoever was inside the ancient underground city. In this place, their nest was located.
Erik was aware of these actions, their hierarchical societies, and collective intelligence. He witnessed it for the first time, which was far from comforting.
The Acidspitter Arthropods taken singularly weren't that strong. However, they were usually in high numbers, and when they used their brain crystal powers in conjunction, everywhere they attacked became a wasteland.
Now, he was being pursued not only by an unknown thaid but also by a swarm of these beasts with ranged attacks. The underground city had become a death trap.
"Shit! Things just got much worse…!" he muttered to himself as he saw the creatures rushing out of the walls.
The Acidspitter Arthropods swarmed Erik without hesitation, their compound eyes gleaming with lethal intent. Their elongated mandibles twitched, indicating an impending onslaught of corrosive discharges.
The first Acidspitter flexed its mandibles and hissed a glob of caustic substance at Erik. He threw himself to the right with a burst of adrenaline, narrowly avoiding the killer spray.
The discharge landed on the ground where he had been standing only moments before, immediately consuming the stone and leaving a smoking, pitted crater.
Erik had barely regained his footing when another Acidspitter sprayed him with acid. Erik quickly drew on Nathaniel's power this time, augmenting his physical abilities to perform a quick backflip and evade the attack. As he touched down, he could hear the hiss of acid burning the ground where he had just been standing a few seconds ago.
A third Acidspitter took its turn, launching a corrosive liquid stream. Erik had already moved in anticipation of the attack, performing a side roll that kept him clear of the lethal trajectory.
Even as he evaded one attack, another appeared. The Acidspitters were unstoppable; their attacks were well-coordinated and precise.
Erik moved with the grace of a dancer; each step, twist, and turn was a calculated move in a deadly ballet. He jumped, ducked, and darted to avoid the rain of corrosive discharge that seemed to come from everywhere as more and more bugs approached his position.
The Acidspitter Arthropods collectively flexed their mandibles and hurled an overwhelming barrage of corrosive substance toward Erik, but with many more creatures in range, he quickly realized he couldn't avoid the attacks this time, even with his speed; the amount was simply too much.
The onslaught that followed was like a torrential downpour—a storm of searing liquid death.
Erik dashed towards the nearest structure. As the corrosive barrage closed in on him, his heart pounded in his chest. The lethal liquid stream sizzled through the air, leaving a trail of vaporized humidity behind it.
Erik rounded the corner of a sturdy, ancient structure just as the lethal rain was about to hit him. The structure bore the scars of many years, but it stood firm against the onslaught.
As the acid ate away at the building material, the Acidspitter's corrosive discharge splattered against the other side of the structure, creating an ear-splitting hiss and a rising cloud of smoke that, if inhaled, was as lethal as the liquid counterpart.
Erik pressed himself against the building's cold, hard surface, gasping for air. He was left out of breath due to all the movements he had to take to avoid the barrage of attacks and, at the same time, running away.
The screeches of the Acidspitter Arthropods echoed through the vast city, as did the constant sizzling of their acid on the opposite side of his cover. He was temporarily safe, protected from the bugs' lethal discharge. The problem was that he was being pursued by something else too, and hiding behind that building, avoiding the attacks, made him lose a lot of time.
Erik flooded his neural links with mana, his veins pulsing with light blue energy, drawing on Nathaniel's brain crystal power. The area around him swelled with energy. Each heartbeat was thundering in his ears, each breath a measured intake of focus and determination—it was as if time itself had slowed.
Erik propelled himself away from the building's protective shell without hesitation. His steps, which had previously been cautious and wary, now echoed with the power and assurance of a predator. Every fiber of his being was streamlined for speed, his body moving in a blur too fast to see by the Acidspitter Arthropods.
A large metallic door loomed ahead, its surface gleaming with faint blue hues that mirrored the luminescence of Aclaitrium ore.
"THE EXIT!" Erik yelled.
Erik's sharp eyes took in the details as he sprinted toward the massive metallic door. A heavy, rusted wheel protruded from the door's center, a circular vault lock that appeared to be the key to unlocking the barrier. His heart sank.
The wheel was clearly corroded, resulting from years of neglect and moisture seeping in from the surrounding environment.
He'd need extraordinary strength to pry it free, and he wasn't sure if his own physical abilities were sufficient. If he couldn't turn the wheel, he'd be trapped inside the cave, vulnerable to the oncoming swarm of Acidspitter Arthropods and the unknown monster.
The thought made his blood run cold; the grim reality of his situation was sinking in.
But he couldn't afford to be hesitant. He poured more mana into Nathaniel's brain crystal power, hoping to get to the door quickly enough to get out of that mess. As he approached the exit, he braced himself for the struggle that lay ahead.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m