[Chapter 110. Into the Depths]
The massive, serrated pincers of the Depths Devourer pressed inexorably into the shimring magical field of Lana's shield, the translucent forcefield straining visibly under the titanic pressure. Each agonizing second, the mandibles sank deeper into the energy barrier, the glowing light beginning to flicker and sputter like a dying candle as it struggled to repel the imnse weight of the twenty-five-ter behemoth. Lana braced herself with every ounce of her remaining strength, her heavy leather boots digging deep furrows into the damp, packed soil of the chamber floor as the creature attempted to drive her directly into the earth.
Near the jagged tunnel entrance, Vanessa and Carn stood in a state of agonizing, forced helplessness. One was completely depleted of her mana reserves, her hands trembling from magical exhaustion, while the other lacked any offensive capabilities or the specific spells required to enhance her teammates physical attributes. They could only stand frozen in the flickering orange light, watching with wide, fearful eyes as Sarah continued her desperate, solitary assault on the beast's gargantuan armored form.
Sarah gripped the hilt of her primary dagger, which was buried hilt-deep in the centipede's thick chitin, using the weapon as a jagged anchor while her other hand struck the sa spot repeatedly. The initial shallow, white scratches on the shell gradually deepened with each successive, rhythmic blow. Her Montum Feast skill was finally cycling back into full, terrifying activation as her blades found consistent purchase in the grooves. Massive flakes of black chitin began to peel away and shatter beneath her relentless, high-speed assault, revealing the pale, pulsing tissue beneath.
The minutes stretched into an eternity as Iris took a slow, deliberate step forward from the shadows of the rear. Her massive Zweihänder was now free from the earth, held loosely at her side. Her fingers tightened around the leather-wrapped hilt, her posture coiled like a spring, ready to intervene at the very first sign of a fatal failure. She was the final safety net, and her presence was a cold comfort.
Lana was now flat on her back, pinned helplessly beneath the crushing, rhythmic weight of the Depths Devourer. Both of her arms were locked in a desperate, vertical press against the interior of her shield, her muscles screaming in a chorus of agony as she focused her entire existence on maintaining the integrity of the barrier. Sweat stread down her soot-stained face, mingling with the dark dirt and the salt of her tears, but she held firm. Her entire world had been reduced to the narrow, glowing field of light between herself and a ssy, certain death.
A sudden, heavy thud echoed through the vast chamber as sothing substantial fell to the ground beside Lana. The beast thrashed with a new, violent intensity, the movent dragging Lana's pinned body not just across the surface of the packed soil, but partially through it. The sheer force of the centipede's movent was sufficient to carve deep, jagged furrows in the hard-packed earth of the burrow.
What had just fallen to the ground was a massive, jagged chunk of chitinous armor plating. It was black and glistening with a sickly sheen, freshly carved away by Sarah, who was currently clinging like a parasite to the side of the beast's massive head. Her boots dug into the soft, raw tissue beneath the missing section of carapace, finding firm purchase in the vulnerable flesh that her blades had so painstakingly exposed.
The Depths Devourer thrashed with a renewed, primal fury as Sarah wedged herself even deeper into the gore-slicked gap between the chitin and the underlying muscle. Her daggers now sliced through the tough interior plating as if it were nothing more than wet leather, their edges beginning to shimr with a localized heat haze that distorted the stagnant air around the wound. Thick, black ichor ran down her basic armor in a steady stream, soaking through the fabric of her undershirt and staining her pale skin a deep, oily black.
As Lana was dragged through the dirt, her head lolling to the side, she watched Sarah vanish—not through the use of a teleportation skill or a magical bypass, but by physically, violently pushing her entire body into the gap between the armor and the soft tissue beneath. Lana gagged at the visceral sight, her stomach heaving with a sudden, sharp nausea. Vanessa, watching from the safety of the entrance, covered her mouth with both hands before averting her eyes entirely. Carn simply closed her eyes and turned her head away, unable to stomach the gore. Iris, however, watched the entire display with a cold, unreadable expression, her silver eyes tracking every movent of the dying beast.
The Depths Devourer went truly mad then, flinging Lana aside with a violent, bone-snapping shake of its massive head. It proceeded to slam its armored body repeatedly against the chamber wall, the densely compacted dirt and stone denting inward from the sheer force of the impact. The ground and the cavern walls trembled violently, dust and fine silt drifting down from the hanging roots above like a layer of artificial, gray snow.
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Lana doubled over as a sharp, agonizing pain shot through her gut—a phantom blow that felt entirely real despite her being nowhere near the point of impact. Her Burden Transference skill had activated, automatically diverting a significant portion of the crushing damage being inflicted upon Sarah directly to her. It wasn't an overwhelming amount of damage, but it was more than enough to remind her of the unbreakable, magical bond her class had forged between them.
Inside the beast, Sarah couldn't see anything in the suffocating, wet darkness. Her eyes were squeezed shut against the foul-slling, high-pressure environnt of the creature's innards. She was wedged tightly between the twitching soft tissue and the hard, unyielding interior of the chitin, her daggers carving frantically through the yielding material before her. With each passing second, she gained more room to maneuver as the beast's internal organs and muscle yielded to her frantic, desperate assault.
Iris stepped further out into the chamber, observing the writhing, dying centipede with a sense of clinical, professional detachnt.
`One way to bypass hardened armor.` She thought. The observation was dry and entirely devoid of humor, a tactical note taken as she watched the creature's final, desperate attempts to dislodge the source of its destruction from within.
Soon after the final, thunderous slam against the chamber wall, the Depths Devourer finally stilled and collapsed into the dirt. Its massive, segnted body twitched once, twice, and then went completely limp. As the life left the creature, a translucent system window materialized before Iris's vision, glowing with a soft, blue light.
[System Notification]
─ You have cleared Dungeon: Burrowing Depths
"W-we… we actually did it." Vanessa's voice erged from behind Iris, tremulous, shaky, and barely audible in the sudden, ringing silence of the chamber.
Lana collapsed where she stood, her legs finally giving way as the adrenaline abandoned her nervous system entirely. The impact with the packed soil sent small puffs of dust into the air, but she lacked the physical energy to care about the gri. Carn rushed to her side imdiately, her hands already glowing with a soft, white light as healing energy washed over Lana's bruised and scraped form. The magic did nothing to alleviate the crushing, soul-deep fatigue that had settled into her bones, but it prevented the additional energy loss that would have co from her body's natural, slower healing processes. Lana lay motionless on her back, staring blankly at the dark chamber ceiling.
A delicate, trembling hand pushed itself out from inside the centipede's torn flesh, coated in thick, black ichor all the way to the elbow. An arm followed, then a shoulder, and finally a torso. Sarah forced her way out from the Depths Devourer's innards, taking a deep, ragged breath of the cave air as she erged. Her entire body was heavily stained with the black ichor; the substance dripped from her hair and soaked her clothes in thick, viscous rivulets. She vanished in a blur of movent and reappeared next to the others in a flash, the sudden teleportation skill flinging droplets of the black sludge across the chamber. Vanessa recoiled with a small cry as the ichor splattered against her boots.
Iris gave a single, curt nod of approval. "Well done, Sarah. That was quite the unorthodox way of concluding a fight, but effective nonetheless."
"I want to bathe. Right now." Sarah shuddered violently, her voice cracking as she began to wipe away the thick chunks of flesh and cooling ichor that clung to her skin and matted her hair.
"I am certain we can all have a bath once we report your success to Searanox," Iris said, her tail swishing rhythmically behind her as she turned her gaze from the dead beast toward the center of the chamber, where she expected the reward to appear.
"I am so incredibly sore…" Lana murmured, attempting to push herself up only for her legs to fail her once more.
"We cannot rest here for long," Carn said softly, looping her arm under Lana's shoulder and helping her to her feet with a grunt of effort. "The air is already turning foul from the corpse."
A soft, golden light began to coalesce directly in front of the cooling corpse of the Depths Devourer, gradually materializing into a large, ornate chest. It was crafted from a dark, heavy wood that had been polished to a perfect, glass-like sheen, featuring intricate tal fittings that seed to absorb the chamber's dim torchlight rather than reflect it.
Iris approached the chest with a fluid stride. With a single, casual gesture of her hand, every item contained within the chest was instantly stored inside her personal storage ring. The chest now sat open and completely empty.
"You can't just take all of it!" Vanessa blurted out, her voice sharp with a mixture of disbelief and sudden anger. "We nearly died for that. We worked so incredibly hard for it!"
Iris rose slowly from the empty chest and turned toward her, her silver eyes cold, unyielding, and utterly devoid of empathy. "You will receive exactly what Searanox provides for you, and nothing more." She took several heavy steps toward the shimring exit portal that had opened near the wall. "It is ti to leave this place. Move."
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