Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Chapter 1173: The Worm Mountain(2)

---Inside the mountain---

The mountain shook. Dust and pebbles falling from the ceiling woke him up. Disoriented and with his head throbbing painfully, he slowly opened his eyes. Looking around in the darkness, fragmented memories surfaced in his mind.

Their team was attacked. the undead rushed at the solidified darkness, while he and his team members rand in the opposite direction. There was no light in the tunnels, he remembered some cries and screams from people that fell off, into vertical crossroads.

How did he end up here? Right, he had been fumbling with his communication orb while running to contact command and report the situation, when his foot hit something hard and he fell. He touched his head, the wet feeling and smell of blood confirmed where the throbbing pain in his head came from.

Considering his injury, it took him a moment to check his status to see what was going on. At least the system windows were bright in this darkness. They didnʼt illuminate the tunnel, but he was able to read his status information.

His health was still okay with 930/ 1000, but his status ailments showed a severe concussion, slight confusion, and some minor bleeding. As long as he didnʼt have to fight anything it was nothing lethal, but he needed help...

Yes, the communication orb, where was it? Fighting with his blurred mind, he looked for something in his inventory that could give some light. He had let go of his arcane torch when he ran. It wasnʼt on his mind, as it stopped working in the presence of the beast.

Finally, he found his lighter in one of the supply boxes. The crystal used to light tobacco gave off a dim blue light. Not as much as he hoped for, but enough to see the hands before his eyes. He remembered his potions when he found them. Sipping one of the health potions he was granted fixed him up for the most part. He still had a headache and a slight confusion.

Using the light, he started looking for the orb. Although his health was no problem anymore, the creature that attacked them was. Looking around on all fours, fumbling around on the ground, his thoughts kept spiraling back to the attack.

Maybe it would have been better not to drink the potion, as he was now falling into a panic. The danger of impending death became very real now. There was no chance he could fight that thing, that even the undead couldnʼt.
He needed to get help. He needed to call the command and- His fingers touched something smooth and round! He found the communication orb! -broken. For a moment the world turned even darker than it was without the lighter.

There was no way to contact the command or the other teams. There was no way to fight. Run? Would he be able to get out of here alone? If those beasts pursued him he was doomed. But they had not come to him yet. He didnʼt know the reason, but he had been lying here for an unknown amount of time and wasnʼt killed or eaten.

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Maybe he could do it. Yes, his only chance was to get out. Maybe he would find another team on his way. If not... he would inform Her Highness once he got out. Yeah. Opening his he found that he was already a third of the way back.

Just walking 3-4 kilometers through this darkness and hoping he wouldnʼt come across any monster, and he was outside. Easy! He motivated himself without much success and started walking.

...

The skeleton dragon easily stopped the falling debris, protecting his master and her entourage. However, when the cloud of dust settled Natina found that all the holes leading into the worm nest were collapsed or buried by debris.

“Shit, this is crazy!” she cursed very unladylike, but she didn’t care at this moment. Roughly 500 scouts and over 200 undead were originally inside. How many would have survived this collapse? How many were now trapped in there? All of this was a complete disaster!

“Your Highness, are you alright?” the adjutant asked worried.

“Yeah, yeah, get your hands off me. I have to think!” she said harshly. A few teams of scouts, okay, but losing all scouts here? Like this? She would never hear the end of this. She had to do something quickly. Checking with her senses, she found most of her undead still alive, although scout teams kept vanishing as she thought so.

With a wave of her hand, she released a group of great beasts from her undead dimension. Giants, Cliff Wolves, Crystal Mammoth, and more creatures several dozens of meters tall appeared at the foot of the collapsed mountain cliff.

“Hurry, excavate the tunnels,” she commanded her entourage and the group of massive beasts to dig. Of course, the skeleton dragon would have been able to move much more material, but this task was beneath it…And it would probably just collapse even more.

The chosen of Kali on the other hand was deliberating to use her skill and take control of one of her undead while observing the situation inside. She was about to do it, when one of the Hell knights contacted her.

~Master, we are engaging in combat with an unknown creature.~ The leader of a group of riders informed her. Surprised, she shared his vision to finally get a glimpse at the things that gave her so much trouble.

Viewing the perspective of a caster in the back she saw the sleek tunnel illuminated by various ghost flames the black mage had cast. Finally, she was able to see the creature by the pure absence of light in a spot on the ceiling.

Like a spider made of black mist, it stuck to the tunnel ceiling right above their head. Even in this environment, the magic fireʼs light kept constantly dimming. Without the light, even the undead had a hard time seeing it with their night vision.

Now the necromancer realized how the creatures were able to end a whole team almost simultaneously. With their advantage in the darkness and the many limbs, they had a clear advantage. But not this time.

The hell knight leader and his party had just waited for her to watch before he went on the offense Agilely, they jumped off the backs of their mounts, attacking the creature together. Weapons and skills rained on the beast, that adeptly blocked most of them with its limbs, only for several foggy tendrils to fall to the ground.

Ultimately, it was a quick fight once the creature was exposed. It took only moments for the being to fall to the ground, broken. It was not so tough after all! Only in death did it reveal its true appearance as the black fog quickly dissipated.

Natina inadvertently frowned at the sight. It was a lanky being with many, long limbs made of a crimson metal. Protruding from the elongated humanoid torso were 10-15 PAIRs of arms with double joints. No legs, jut arms.

The surface of its body was covered in runes still oozing a fine dark vapor. Was this what made up the secrets to its stealth? The torso was cleaved vertically by the Hell Knight right through the center, almost completely splitting it in half, but these runes were still slightly active.

The nature of the creature was secondary, for the moment. She had to share this information with the rest of the teams. It was proven that defeating the creature itself was not as big of a deal, as long as they managed to locate it properly.

...

Natina instructed all scout teams to run any kind of light and illumination at maximum capacity and quickly gather in bigger groups to maximize light and survival chances, while she and the undead were excavating their escape routes.

This worked. More and more often she got reports that they managed to slay a beast they came across and the scout teams gathered. Another revelation had her click her tongue. After several encounters, it became clear, that these things had no souls, explaining how they were able to hide even from the undead.

Artificial creations. Golems. Adding the absence of any dungeon worm, she could only conclude that this was a trap from the very beginning. A trap prepared by Minas Mar and she actually fell for a trap right from the start...