[Chapter 87. Tidal Wave of Chitin]
The first Venom Lasher surged into the narrow corridor, its multi-segnted, chitinous plates gleaming with an oily, iridescent sheen under the artificial light of the drones. Violet beams from his offensive units imdiately pierced the oppressive darkness, striking the creature’s armored body with surgical precision. The beast hissed, a sound like steam escaping a pressurized valve, and chittered frantically as the high-intensity beams slamd into its thick, blackened carapace. It didn't stop, however; it began scaling the makeshift wall of corpses in a dizzying, spiraling motion, its many legs findng purchase in the cold at of its fallen kin. Two more beams struck it midway through the corridor, lting through the armor and into the soft tissue beneath. It shrieked—a piercing, multi-tonal death cry that echoed off the damp tunnel walls—before tumbling heavily to the muddy floor.
A sudden, heavy silence fell over the passage.
Then, a dull thud echoed from the distance, followed by another and another, like a chain reaction of collapsing shelves deep within the subterranean network. The sound that followed was deafening—not for its sheer volu, but for its terrifying quantity. It was the sound of a thousand simultaneous hailstorms, overlapping, echoing, and amplified by the narrow confines of the stone.
They poured into view—a roiling mass of black and violet bodies crawling across the sloped walls and the ceiling, scrambling over one another in a frantic, mindless heap, all moving toward the sa singular destination. Toward him.
The swarm struck the blockade with enough combined kinetic force to send a series of sharp vibrations through the dirt floor beneath Searanox's boots. Before the first creature could even attempt to squeeze into the narrow passage between his engineered corpse-walls, his drones unleashed their first coordinated volley. Missing wasn't a concern; when faced with so many targets packed into such a confined space, every shot found a ho in living tissue.
The first wave flooded the passage, crawling on every available surface—floor, walls, and ceiling alike. His drones fired in rapid, rhythmic succession, maintaining a constant, flickering stream of violet energy into the at-grinder of the confined space. Searanox himself had been standing perfectly still, gathering energy for several long seconds, preparing his Overcharged Shot—the first and likely only one he could afford given his current TP reserves and the mounting maintenance costs of his active units.
Monts later, the first Venom Lasher to breach the tunnel entrance slamd into his primary barrier at the end of the corridor. With no room to maneuver or build montum, its impact was significantly weaker than the Carapace Crawler's charge had been. It couldn't wind up for its devastating charge attack or effectively lash out with its barbed tail. It was almost pathetic how his choice of terrain had stripped them of their entire offensive repertoire.
But under the relentless assault of half a dozen others pushing from behind, the first hexagonal barrier was nearing its breaking point. His defensive drones perford a seamless rotation, swapping positions in a quick, practiced maneuver to bring a fresh shield to the front. By then, his own shot was finally ready. He aid his Magitech Rifle directly down the center of the passage and unleashed a thick, violent beam of violet energy. It pierced deep into the mass of chitin, but in the chaos, he couldn't tell exactly how many it had claid or if it was as effective as he had planned. There were simply too many bodies in the way.
Minutes began to blur together into a singular, exhausting loop of violence. One after another, the monsters fell dead, their heavy bodies getting buried beneath their own kin as the next wave climbed over them to take their position. Everything went according to the tactical simulation until there was a sudden, erratic movent from above.
From the edge of his peripheral vision, Searanox caught a blur of motion in the upper right corner of the tunnel. One of the creatures—smaller and more agile than the rest—was forcing its segnted body through the tiny, jagged gap between his barricade and the corner where the earth t the ceiling. He had hoped this wouldn't happen, but he had prepared for the possibility. He reacted on pure instinct, placing his first rifle shot into the creature's side, burning away a significant chunk of its carapace. The second shot took out several of its leading legs in a spray of purple ichor. The third shot never ca; the beast launched itself at him with a desperate screech, and he jumped backward just in ti to avoid a direct collision.
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Its tail whipped around in a lightning-fast arc, the hooked tip glowing with a sickening, bioluminescent violet light. It slamd through his protective armor with the force of a hamr, burying itself deep in his calf.
One of his drones imdiately fired a point-blank burst into the creature's damaged head, where the chitinous plates were already cracked and smoking. The creature collapsed into a heap, dead before it hit the floor, as Searanox let out a ragged scream of agony. A white-hot, burning sensation pulsed through his leg, radiating upward toward his hip. With a guttural growl, he reached down and ripped the hooked tip out of his muscle. The pain of tearing the barbed stinger from his flesh was nothing compared to the sensation of the venom now spreading like molten lead through his veins.
Thick, black venom dripped from the hook, pieces of blackened flesh still clinging to its barbs. With trembling hands, he tore open the leg of his leather pants. The stinger had punched a clean hole straight through his calf, leaving a gaping, ragged wound. But that wasn't the worst part. The entire area around the entry point was rapidly turning a bruised, necrotic black.
He gritted his teeth, slamming the back of his head against the dirt floor as he collapsed onto his back, his rifle clattering beside him. The pain was overwhelming, a systemic assault on his nerves. Searanox summoned a healing drone with a desperate ntal command, its pale green glow imdiately enveloping his mangled leg. The physical injury began to knit back together under the drone’s influence, but the burning pain didn't lessen; if anything, it intensified. His eyes were squeezed shut, his jaw clenched so hard he could hear his teeth creaking under the pressure.
After what felt like an eternity, the drone stopped its work, floating idly above him in the dim light. He opened his eyes, panting, and ntally scread at the machine to continue the healing process. It didn't move. It remained stationary.
When he looked down, there was no longer a physical wound to heal—the flesh had closed—but the black corruption remained. It seed to be slowly, inexorably spreading through his flesh beneath the skin, ignoring the drone's restorative power.
Searanox dismissed the healing drone with a snarl of frustration and grabbed his rifle with trembling, sweat-slicked hands. He aid blindly at the passage where the corpses were piling up and fired. His shot ricocheted off the side of his own barricade, scorching the carapace of a long-dead crawler. He took sharp, quick breaths, his vision swimming as he fired again, and again, into the darkness.
There was no way he would surrender to a dungeon "irregularity."
"The ga... only ends when the Nexus falls," he hissed between ragged breaths, reciting an mates mantra that felt more like a prayer now.
His aim was terrible, the tremors in his hands making it impossible to hold a steady line, but even the few shots that hit their mark were better than doing nothing while the venom took him. His drones, however, continued their perfect execution; the barriers were swapped with chanical precision just as the alternate unit recovered its capacitors. His offensive drones fired in a perfect, synchronized rhythm, turning the narrow gap into a literal wall of fire. There was just one tiny detail that hadn't gone as planned—the breach—and that could have been avoided if his second shot had landed squarely on its mark.
After a few more minutes of the at-grinder, the tunnel finally grew quieter. The passage between the walls was now almost entirely filled with corpses, physically limiting the number of Venom Lashers that could even attempt to reach his barriers. After another few minutes of sporadic fire, he was fairly certain that nothing alive remained in the imdiate vicinity, but he kept his formation active just in case more were burrowing through the walls.
Suddenly, his ears picked up a new sound from deeper in the tunnel—the direction he had co from. He couldn't make out what it was over the ringing in his ears, but for a split second, he thought he heard the muffled sound of human voices. From the direction where the portal should have been. But that was impossible; Iris would never be foolish enough to bring the other won into a dungeon that was unknown. He stared into the absolute blackness of the tunnel behind him, expecting more monsters, but then he saw it: light. A bright, warm light was pushing away the oppressive darkness ahead of it.
`Great. Now I'm hallucinating.` He thought, closing his eyes and trying to force his mind to form a single, coherent thought before he lost consciousness entirely.
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