Chapter 53: Waking Cave
The chamber was the size of a small chapel, lit by veins of mana pulsing under the stone. Cages lined the walls in three stacked tiers, perhaps sixty in all. Their iron bars were darkened with blood and rusty iron.
Eli recognized the ridged scales of Stone Geckos, though these were larger than the ones above, and dark veins ran visibly through their hides. For now, they were dormant, all of them asleep as though held by some kind of malediction.
The floor of the chamber sank into a wide, sloped basin, and at the far end of the basin, another corridor cut into the rock and opened into a deeper passage.
’Huh, would that lead to a deeper floor?’
Eli’s eyes swept the chamber once more. These monsters were just appetizers for what was to come, and later in the future, they would infest the labyrinth’s first floor. Maybe because they were weak, there was no one standing guard here.
Juli leaned over the ledge beside him.
"So these are the monsters... Just how long have they been planning this?"
As soon as she said that, footsteps echoed back into the narrow tunnel behind them, faster than before.
"Get down there now."
"I know."
Juli vaulted off the ledge first, landing hard in the basing and waving at him. Eli slid down the slope and met her at the bottom. They cleared the basin in a few strides and ducked into the corridor on the far side.
The new corridor was nothing like the narrow one they had come through. Three men could have walked shoulder to shoulder with room to spare, and the ceiling rose to twice his height. The floor was smoother than any path they had taken, which could mean only one thing: this was the path toward the deeper floors.
They ran.
But Eli’s lungs was already burning. Elise’s body was built for trays and curtsies, not for sprinting through a Moon lair on adrenaline alone! He could feel his legs starting to lag behind his will.
Worse, his Endurance stat was a measly 22, barely better than a normal human’s. And with his earlier injuries draining his stamina, he was fast approaching his limit if they didn’t do something soon, and he might just drag Juli down with him.
Desperate, Eli decided to put all of his four available stat points into Endurance.
[END 22 → 26]
Immediately, air filled his lungs, and his legs found an emergency second wind.
’Better!’
But it was only a temporary measure. The math was simple. They could keep running and lose by attrition, or they could turn here, where the corridor was wide enough for Juli’s blade to swing freely and narrow enough to keep them from being surrounded.
Eli glanced over his shoulder. Six men, maybe seven, strung out in a loose line down the tunnel. There might be more, maybe staying behind to block their exit if they chose to.
He grabbed Juli’s sleeve.
"Stop. Let’s fight them here."
Juli’s head whipped toward him, then back down the tunnel. Her eyes brightened with determination and excitement.
"Good! I was getting tired of running."
Juli pivoted on her heel and stepped past Eli, putting herself between him and the tunnel. Her blade came up to a high guard, tip angled at the first man down the corridor. The look on her face said one thing: battle-hungry.
"Stay at my back. If one slips past, I believe you can handle them. If two do, you yell."
"Got it."
Eli drew his sword. The borrowed soldier’s blade felt heavier than it had this morning, the chipped edge catching faintly in the mana-lit gloom. He set his feet the way Juli had drilled into him over the past few days: center of gravity low, shoulders loose, eyes forward.
’You got this, Eli. This is your first real obstacle.’
He was scared, of course. If you had told a boy who had spent his whole life in a hospital that he would be wielding a sword and fighting psychotic devil worshippers three days from now, he would have laughed it off and said he hoped to become that delusional someday.
But here he was, hiding behind a character from the game he loved. Eli didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
The first Moon came around the bend at full sprint. He didn’t slow down when he saw them. He didn’t even shout. He just lifted his blade and swung.
Juli met him at full speed.
Her blade intercepted his sword at the elbow, severing it cleanly above the joint, then continuing through his ribs on the same line.
The Moon was dead before his torso finished turning.
’Fast.’
Juli’s swordsmanship was as fast as starlight, flashing once before appearing somewhere else.
Two more Moons rounded the bend together, and Juli moved to meet them without hesitation.
She slipped under the first one’s swing and opened his stomach in a clean horizontal cut, then twisted into the second before he could close in on her. He pommel hammered his temple, dropping him sideways into the wall, and her blade decapitated him on the way back.
Three down. Juli hadn’t even used her aura yet. She was saving it, just in case Colton showed up with his goons.
The fourth and fifth came in more cautiously, blades raised. After seeing what she had done to the first three, they were careful in their approach, or they would meet the same fate.
Then they did something Eli hadn’t expected, but he knew what it was.
Both of them placed their free hands flat against their own chests and began to whisper in a low, identical rhythm.
"Juli! Finish them before they finish!"
Juli rushed the men mid-chant, but it was too late. The activation was too quick to stop, fueled by the corridor’s rich mana.
The air around Juli thickened.
The mana veins under the floor pulsed darker. Black mist rose from cracks in the stone, curling around her legs, slow and deadly, like dark snakes coiling to poison them.
"Shit."