Free Web NovelChapter 52: The Lower Vein Ambush
The lower tunnels of the Iron-Vein Mines were a different world.
Up above, it was a noisy circus of rookie hunters. Down here, it was dead silent. The air was suffocatingly thick, reeking of sulfur and wet rot.
Arthur’s Ring of the Night Walker hummed on his finger, painting the pitch-black cavern in crisp grayscale.
"Pace yourselves," Arthur whispered from the rear. "The spawn rate down here is dense."
Felix led the way, his Aegis Bulwark raised. Emily walked practically on his heels, her Titan Knuckles glowing with pent-up kinetic energy. Chloe stayed perfectly centered, her knuckles white around her mahogany staff.
Suddenly, the ground vibrated.
Arthur held up a fist. The squad stopped.
"We’ve got company," Arthur said softly, drawing his bow. "Large pack. Five Hobgoblins ahead. Three Cave Spiders above. It’s a coordinated ambush."
Before the words fully left his mouth, the darkness exploded.
A chorus of wet, guttural roars echoed off the stone walls. Five massive Hobgoblins charged out of the shadows, swinging rusted iron clubs. Above them, the unmistakable clicking of arachnid mandibles signaled the spiders dropping from the ceiling.
"Shield wall!" Arthur barked.
Felix planted his boots. He braced his shoulder against the heavy kite shield just as the first two Hobgoblins crashed into him simultaneously.
CLANG. CLANG.
Sparks flew. The B-Rank shield absorbed the kinetic force, but the sheer weight of two seven-foot monsters pushed Felix back an inch. He gritted his teeth, holding the line.
"I’ve got the flank!" Emily yelled.
She didn’t wait for Arthur’s order. The adrenaline took over. Emily darted out from behind Felix’s cover, ducking under a wildly swinging club. She drove her metal gauntlet straight into a Hobgoblin’s ribs.
CRUNCH. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
The ribcage caved in. The monster spat dark blood, collapsing.
But Emily was blood-drunk. Instead of stepping back behind the shield, she pressed the advantage, stepping deeper into the tunnel to chase the next target.
"Emily, fall back!" Arthur snapped, his eyes tracking the ceiling.
She didn’t hear him over the roaring. She wound up for another punch.
Directly above her blind spot, a massive Cave Spider dropped from a stalactite. Its mandibles snapped open, dripping with paralyzing green venom, aimed right at her exposed neck.
Chloe saw it. The healer froze.
Her breath hitched, panic completely seizing her chest. The memory of the crypt rushed back. Emily was going to die, and it was her fault for not being fast enough.
"Chloe, cast!" Arthur roared, completely cutting through her panic.
The sharp command snapped her back to reality. Chloe didn’t think; she just reacted. She slammed the butt of her staff into the dirt. The B-Rank Sage’s Pendant flared to life.
A surge of yellow mana instantly wrapped around Emily, multiplying her speed.
Emily felt the buff hit her system. She moved on pure reflex, throwing herself backward just as the spider landed where she had been standing a fraction of a second ago. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Thwip.
Before the spider could lunge, a steel-tipped arrow tore through the dark. It nailed the arachnid squarely in the cluster of its eyes, pinning its twitching corpse to the cavern floor.
"I told you not to break formation," Arthur said coldly, nocking a second arrow.
Emily swallowed hard, realizing how close she just came to getting her throat ripped out. She immediately fell back behind Felix. "Sorry, boss. Won’t happen again."
"Focus on the big one!" Felix grunted, struggling to hold the shield.
Arthur shifted his gaze. The final Hobgoblin wasn’t just another F-Rank mob. It was bigger. A full eight feet tall. But that wasn’t what caught Arthur’s eye.
Running up the monster’s thick, leathery arms were jagged, black mineral growths. They pierced right through its skin, pulsing with a sick, toxic energy.
The mutated Hobgoblin raised a massive stone hammer and brought it down on Felix.
CRACK.
The Aegis Bulwark held, but the sheer, unnatural force of the blow drove Felix down to one knee. The stone floor beneath his boots actually cracked.
"That’s not F-Rank strength," Felix choked out, his right arm trembling.
"Chloe, stamina on Felix! Emily, break its legs!" Arthur commanded.
Chloe immediately hit Felix with a burst of restorative mana. Felix roared, pushing off his back foot and violently shoving the shield forward. The parry knocked the massive goblin slightly off balance.
Emily didn’t hesitate. She blurred forward, dropping low, and unleashed a devastating double-hook directly into the monster’s kneecaps.
Both joints shattered. The giant Hobgoblin crashed down to its knees with a deafening howl.
Thwip.
Thwip.
Arthur fired twice. The first arrow took the monster in the throat. The second buried itself deep into its right eye.
The massive beast choked on its own black blood and collapsed face-first into the gravel.
The cavern went dead silent.
Felix let out a heavy, exhausted breath, lowering his shield. Emily wiped sweat from her forehead, her hands shaking slightly from the adrenaline crash. Chloe leaned heavily against her staff, panting.
"Everyone alive?" Arthur asked, walking forward.
"Yeah," Emily breathed. "Thanks, Chloe. That speed buff saved my life."
Chloe gave a weak, relieved smile. "I... I almost missed it."
"But you didn’t," Arthur said pragmatically, passing her. "You recovered. That’s what matters."
Arthur knelt next to the massive, mutated Hobgoblin.
He didn’t care about the combat review right now. He was staring at the jagged black minerals protruding from the monster’s flesh. Iron-Vein was an unsealed, generic F-Rank dungeon. Mobs here didn’t mutate. They didn’t grow armor.
Arthur pulled his hunting knife. He drove the blade into the monster’s chest to harvest the core.
The flesh was incredibly tough, almost like cutting through wet leather. He used his Troll Blood strength to saw through the sternum, reaching his bare, blood-soaked hand into the chest cavity.
When he pulled his hand out, the squad went quiet.
It wasn’t a murky, gray F-Rank mana core.
Arthur held a jagged, pitch-black stone. The ambient light around it seemed to warp. As he stared at it, the dark core let out a faint, rhythmic pulse, like a sick, beating heart.
Arthur’s eyes narrowed. What the fuck is this?
