Chapter 731: Ghost?

The cavern floor was a rugged, uneven expanse of black slate, stalagmites, and ancient, calcified rock formations.

As Sol walked further down the sloping path, his sharp eyes noted the scattered remnants of past life lying among the rocks.

Bleached, hollowed-out skeletons of surface beasts that had tumbled into the fissure lay scattered in the crevices.

But alongside those ancient bones were massive, curved shards of jet-black, armored carapace... thick, hollow exoskeletons that had been shed and left to rot in the damp gloom.

Sol knelt beside one of the shed armor plates, running his fingers over the cold, rigid surface.

The black chitin was nearly two inches thick, hard as iron, and bore a faint, lingering trace of cold, venomous essence. Judging by the curvature of the shell, whatever creature had shed this armor was long, multi-segmented, and massive.

A cave dweller, Sol thought, his crimson eyes gleaming in the faint blue light. And judging by the essence lingering in this shell, it’s at least a Layer 3 equivalent.

Sol stood up, his hand dropping casually back to the hilt of his Dreadwing blade.

He didn’t activate his sun core’s intense heat, nor did he release a loud, arrogant pulse of aura.

In an enclosed, subterranean environment like this, broadcasting a massive heat signature would simply blind his own senses and alert every ambush predator hiding in the dark

Instead, he suppressed his breath, moving with the quiet, effortless grace of a hunting cat, letting his ears and his spatial domain map the dark corners of the cavern.

He walked deeper into the starry gloom for another three hundred paces.

The silence of the cavern was almost haunting, broken only by the slow, rhythmic drip-drop of subterranean water hitting stagnant pools deep in the shadows.

Wouldn’t a ghost or something jump from the dark and attack? Sol thought, his eyes scanning the pitch-black crevices between the stalagmites.

He wasn’t afraid of much... he’d stared down mutated horrors and warlords without blinking... but being completely alone in a pitch-black, dead-silent cave had a way of resurrecting old, buried thoughts.

It’s inevitable, really. That’s what you get after being poisoned by those cheap, trashy jump-scare horror movies from back home. The ones where the idiot protagonist wanders down a dark hallway alone and gets dragged into the ceiling.

He scoffed softly at his own paranoia. Seriously, if a pale lady with long black hair crawls out of one of these pools, I’m filing a cosmic lawsuit for copyright infringement.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, the air current right behind his sensitive neck shifted without the slightest warning.

Sol almost jumped out of his skin.

Because he was hyper-attentive, he caught the sound instantly. It wasn’t a loud rustle, nor was it a heavy stomp. It was a faint, terrifyingly smooth gliding sound... like a massive, wet rope being dragged over soft velvet.

Oh, come on, don’t tell me it’s actually a ring-head—

From the pitch-black shadows of the ceiling forty feet directly above his head, a colossal shape detached itself from the stalactites and dropped straight down toward Sol’s exposed shoulders!

FWHOOSH!

Sol’s instincts, honed through countless life-and-death clashes, reacted before his brain could even process the ridiculous horror-movie trope playing out in real time.

Instead of leaping backward into an unseen corner like a victim in a bad thriller, Sol drove his heel into the stone floor and slid sideways in a smooth, lightning-fast lateral dash!

BANG!

A colossal weight slammed into the exact spot where Sol had been standing a fraction of a second ago! The slate floor shattered under the kinetic impact, sending razor-sharp shards and clouds of ancient dust spraying into the dark.

Sol pivoted on his heel, his neon-crimson eyes cutting through the dust cloud to behold his attacker.

It was a nightmare straight out of the deepest subterranean depths... a Chitinous Giant Cave Centipede.

The beast was easily over forty feet long, its thick, serpentine body constructed from dozens of overlapping, jet-black armor plates that glistened like wet oil under the glowing fungi overhead.

Hundreds of razor-sharp, yellowed legs extended from its sides, twitching and skittering against the stone with a dry, deafening clack-clack-clack-clack.

At its head, two massive, curved mandibles... each as long as a full-grown warrior’s arm... were dripping with thick, sizzling pools of bright green, corrosive venom that hissed and dissolved the stone upon contact.

A dozen small, pitch-black compound eyes clustered near its maw, gleaming with cold, predatory malice.

SKREEEEEECH!

The monster let out a high-pitched, ear-splitting shriek that rattled the stalactites overhead, its long, armored body coiling in a fraction of a second as it locked onto the human who had dared to dodge its ambush.

Sol stood there, staring at the squirming wall of legs and venom, and let out a long, heavy breath.

"So it was just a centipede. A Layer 3 cave predator," Sol muttered, as he breathed a sigh of relief, his lips curling into a cold, self-deprecating smirk. "Scared the shit out of me for a second. I legitimately thought it was some pale ghost floating out of the dark."

He shook his head, cracking his neck as he looked the monstrous bug up and down.

Honestly, if I think about it carefully, why the hell was I even worried about a ghost? Sol mused, his grin widening into something distinctly absurd. I literally unveiled and fucked a Primordial Goddess on an obsidian throne just a little while ago. What’s some low-tier, floating sheet-ghost going to do? Complain about the temperature? If a ghost really shows up, it should be the one praying I don’t treat it like another celestial manifestation.

Chuckling quietly at the sheer ridiculousness of his own headspaces, Sol flicked his wrist, clearing his mind of useless clutter as his gaze sharpened onto the angry, clicking centipede.

"Alright, land-shrimp," Sol drawled, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his blade. "Let’s see if your soul tastes better than your entrance."

But before Sol could draw his blade, the Centipede moved first.