Chapter 172: Inside the Cave

Words : 1175 Updated : Oct 12th, 2025

The cave swallowed them whole. Darkness pressed in from every side as Inigo and Lyra stepped beyond the web-laced mouth of the cavern. Only the flickering torch in Lyra’s hand pushed back the shadows, revealing a long, descending tunnel lined with slick stone and hanging strands of silk. The air was dense—humid, sticky, and foul. Every breath carried the scent of mildew and decay, layered with something sharp and venomous. Inigo moved first, rifle raised. His boots crunched softly over gravel and brittle bones. The M4 felt solid in his hands, its cold body steady against the thrum of anticipation rising in his chest. He had fought worse things than spiders—but that didn’t make this pleasant. "Webs are fresh," Lyra whispered behind him. "They’re close." Inigo nodded once. His enchanted eyes scanned the dim corridor. Small glints of movement danced between strands. His free hand flexed instinctively, channeling his magic. Blue light shimmered faintly over his legs. Then he vanished—just for a blink—and reappeared ten meters ahead in a flash of speed, silent as a shadow. Lyra jogged up behind him, bow already nocked with an arrow. "A little warning next time?" "Gotta keep you on your toes," he replied. The tunnel widened, opening into a larger chamber. The torchlight revealed nests—bulbous sacs clinging to the walls, pulsing faintly like grotesque hearts. Egg clusters, no doubt. "Targets on the ceiling," Inigo muttered. Above, pale shapes crawled within the webs. Spiderlings. Dozens. Each the size of a small dog, with legs that clacked like bone on stone. Red eyes glimmered in the dark. One dropped. "Contact!" Inigo raised his rifle and fired. The sharp crack of the M4 echoed like a thunderclap, and the spiderling exploded mid-leap, ichor splattering across the cavern floor. Three more dropped in its place. Lyra fired in quick succession. Her arrows glowed faintly with runes—simple enchantments for piercing. One bolt slammed into a spider’s thorax, pinning it to the wall. Another struck a leg joint, disabling the creature. The third hit clean between the eyes. The rest hissed, alerted, and began pouring from the walls like a wave. "Fall back!" Inigo shouted, planting his foot and unloading a controlled burst into the mass. The M4 barked again and again. Shells clattered to the ground. Bodies dropped, twitching, shrieking. Lyra pivoted beside him, loosing arrows with mechanical precision. She moved like a dancer—fluid, alert, calm. One arrow to the mouth. Another to the eye. Then a sweeping kick to knock away a lunging spider before driving a shaft into its gut. They fought back-to-back, their movements honed by countless battles. Inigo’s magic surged. His feet glowed faintly again. He dashed forward—faster than any man should be able—blurring into the fray. A spiderling lunged, only to find him already behind it. A clean shot to the thorax, and it collapsed. "Too many!" Lyra called out, retreating toward a raised ledge of stone. "Go high!" Inigo replied, tossing her a flashbang. She caught it mid-step, climbed the ridge, and threw. The explosion was brilliant—a burst of light and sound that disoriented the advancing swarm. Inigo capitalized on it. He jumped—an impossible leap that took him ten feet into the air—and landed hard in the middle of a cluster. The shockwave of his landing staggered several spiderlings. He switched to burst-fire, sweeping through the cluster with ruthless efficiency. The scent of gunpowder, ichor, and burning webs filled the air. Lyra rained down arrows from above, her shots never missing. Each one landed with deadly grace, thinning the swarm. She breathed evenly, controlling her pace, conserving her ammunition. But even she couldn’t help but mutter, "There’s got to be a hundred of them." "More like fifty left," Inigo said, flipping over a boulder to reload behind cover. "I counted." "Of course you did." Another group of spiderlings skittered down the far wall. Inigo darted toward them with another magic-fueled dash, closing the gap in less than a second. One spider leapt at him, but he ducked under its bite and shoved the barrel of his carbine into its mouth. One shot. The head burst apart like a melon. He spun and fired a three-round burst at another climbing up behind Lyra. "Above you!" Lyra twisted, grabbing a second arrow and driving it into the spider’s face point-blank. "Thanks!" Soon, the last of the spiderlings fell twitching to the ground. The chamber was littered with bodies. Webbing burned at the edges from the incendiaries, casting flickering light across the walls. The silence was deafening. Inigo stood among the corpses, panting slightly, steam rising from his shoulders as his magical boost cooled off. Lyra dropped from her perch and surveyed the area, nudging a few twitching legs to make sure the threats were dead. "Is that it?" she asked. "No," Inigo said, pointing to a narrow tunnel on the far side of the chamber. "That’s the real nest." He walked over and inspected the passage. Thick strands of silk clung to the entrance, almost like curtains. Beyond it, only darkness. "We’re close to the core," he muttered. Lyra replaced her quiver with a fresh one. "Boss fight coming?" Inigo nodded. "Boss fight coming." They took a moment to recover. Inigo pulled out a field ration bar from his belt pouch and bit into it with a grimace. "Still better than Guild rations." "Barely," Lyra said, gulping water from her canteen. He checked his ammo—two magazines left for the M4. He reached into his pouch and retrieved a slim, rectangular crystal, slotting it into a bracer on his wrist. A faint hum indicated his enchantments were recharged. "I’ll lead in first," Inigo said. "You cover me from the rear. Focus on the small ones if they swarm again." "Got it." He slung the rifle back across his chest and pushed aside the curtain of silk. The tunnel narrowed briefly before opening into another vast chamber. Unlike the first, this one pulsed with faint violet light. Crystals embedded in the ceiling gave off a dim glow, illuminating the chamber in eerie shades. Webbing blanketed every surface. At the far end, something massive stirred—a shadow among shadows. Inigo held up a fist, halting Lyra behind him. "It’s asleep," he whispered. Or waiting. The sound of dripping echoed faintly. A low hiss vibrated through the chamber floor, almost too subtle to hear. "I think that’s our Broodmother." "We going in now?" Inigo glanced at his rifle, then at the monster half-shrouded in darkness. "Next chamber," he said, backing away. "We fight it on our terms." They retreated into the tunnel again. Inigo took a breath and leaned against the wall, rechecking his loadout. Lyra was already tightening her bowstring. "You ever fought something that big?" she asked. "Not with legs that many." They shared a look. No jokes now. No grins. Just mutual understanding. It was about to get real. "Tomorrow’s breakfast is on me," Inigo said. "Only if we live to cook it." "Deal." And with that, they stepped forward again—toward the final chamber, and the fight of their lives.

Chapter 172: Inside the Cave

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