Chapter 735: Prey Became The Hunter

The moment the sound echoed out, Sol didn’t stand around to admire his throw.

He leaped straight up, his boots catching the vertical slate wall, and pressed his back flat against the pitch-black ceiling of the archway, thirty feet above the ground.

He dug his fingers into the small, calcified cracks of the ceiling slate, hanging suspended like a mountain bat, his breath held, his heartbeat slowed to a barely audible thrum, and his aura completely buried beneath his skin.

Down in the outer rim of the sinkhole, three of the nearest juvenile centipedes... thirty-foot, Layer 2 equivalents patrolling the upper rock ledges... instantly froze.

Their long, crimson antennae twitched violently, sweeping the humid air as they registered the distant vibration.

One of them, slightly larger than its two brood-mates, let out a low, dry hiss.

It uncoiled its body from the rock wall and began writhing up the tunnel path toward the sound, its hundreds of yellow legs clicking against the stone in a slow, inquisitive rhythm.

A few heartbeats later, from the direction of the sinkhole shelf, a low, rasping rustle vibrated through the floor.

CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK.

A single giant centipede slithered out from the dark archway, Sol looked carefully and found that it was a younger adult... roughly thirty feet long, its armor plates slightly paler, possessing an energy signature equivalent to a mid-tier Layer 2 warrior.

Its compound eyes swept the tunnel floor, looking for the source of the fallen rock. It was cautious, but its intelligence was low, driven purely by basic territorial instinct. It didn’t think to look directly overhead.

The second its thick, armored neck passed directly beneath his hanging shadow—

Sol didn’t hesitate. He let go of the ceiling.

FWHOOSH!

He dropped like a falling rock, bringing his full weight down straight onto the back of its head.

He didn’t draw his blade. As he fell, he drove his feet straight down onto the back of the centipede’s neck with terrifying, localized physical force!

CRUNCH!

The sheer weight of Sol’s strike crushed the monster’s head directly into the ground! The third thoracic segment shattered, black hemolymph spurting in a violent spray as the beast’s central nerve cord was injured.

Before the dying beast could even thrash its tail or release an alarm shriek, Sol’s hands moved in a blurring arc.

He grabbed the thrashing head, jammed his thumbs into its soft eye sockets, and violently twisted its head three hundred and sixty degrees until the central nerve cord snapped with a loud, wet CRUNCH.

The thirty-foot body twitched twice, its yellow legs locking up, and went completely limp.

Sol landed smoothly on the stone beside it, his knees absorbing the impact without making a sound.

HUMMMMM.

Deep within his mind, Orphos activated automatically. A thin stream of indigo soul-wisp rose from the fresh corpse, seeping into Sol’s skin to feed the hungry compass.

He didn’t linger to admire the harvest. He grabbed the tail of the dead Layer 2 scout, dragged the thirty-foot carcass five paces into the dark shadow of the archway, and left it lying out in the open near the tunnel mouth.

Then, with an effortless, fluid leap, Sol launched himself back up to the ceiling, embedding his fingers into the high crags once more, becoming a silent, cold shadow above the path.

One down, Sol thought, his eyes glinting in the dark, his breathing so shallow that not even a wisp of vapor escaped his lips. In a hive structure governed by chemical trails and steady patrol intervals,if that one doesn’t return to its patrol zone on the outer ridge, the hive’s internal order will notice the missing link. They’ll definitely send someone to check and that will be my chance to get another soul.

His calculation was proven correct in less than two minutes.

From the dark mouth of the sinkhole, a much heavier, rhythmic scraping sound emerged.

CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!

The incoming footfalls were heavier, faster, and far more deliberate.

As the second centipede wriggled out of the archway into the tunnel, Sol’s eyes narrowed. This one was noticeably larger... easily forty-five feet from mandibles to tail, its carapace a deep, oily jet-black that absorbed the faint crimson light of the fungi.

Its energy signature hummed with the cold, dense vitality of a bonafide Layer 3 warrior.

Unlike the careless Layer 2 juvenile before it, this monster was deeply alert.

The moment it crossed the threshold of the archway, its long, crimson-tipped antennae twitched violently. It caught the faint, metallic reek of fresh hemolymph in the air.

The Layer 3 centipede froze instantly, its forty-five-foot body coiling into a tight, defensive S-shape against the stone wall, its massive mandibles dripping thick, green venom that sizzled as it hit the floor.

Its dark, compound eyes flicked toward the shadow, spotting the limp, oozing corpse of the Layer 2 scout lying near the tunnel wall.

SKREEE...

A low, vibrating hiss rumbled from its throat. The discovery of its dead kin didn’t make the beast charge wildly.

Instead, it raised its front eight segments off the ground, its mandibles dripping with green venom, snapping in alert, hyper-vigilant arcs as it began to inspect every inch of the surrounding stone with agonizing caution.

It slithered forward inch by inch, its heavy armor scraping against the rock, its antennae whipped upward, scanning the high ceiling and its tail sweeping behind it to cover its rear.

Up on the high ceiling, Sol watched the beast’s meticulous approach with cold, appreciative eyes.

A veteran, Sol thought. Sharp instincts, hyper-aware of its surroundings, and fully prepared for an ambush.This one has survived a few hundred fights down here.

Sol also demonstrated the absolute mastery of his physical control.

Hiding from a fully alerted Layer 3 subterranean predator required more than just holding one’s breath. These beasts felt the microscopic heat radiating from living flesh and the subtle shifts in air density caused by lung movement.

Sol went completely still.

He didn’t just stop breathing; he halted the micro-vibrations of his muscles, he used his precise control over his essence to pull it all deep into his sun core.

His body temperature dropped instantly, matching the cold, damp slate of the ceiling.

His heart rate slowed to one beat every ten seconds, and he became a literal extension of the mountain face... no heartbeat, no heat signature, no spiritual footprint.