Chapter 738: Let’s See If Rules Hold!

Just as he was standing there, contemplating whether he should continue the hunt or return...since it had been quite a long time since he went out, especially including that sweet time with Zeyra... the bedrock beneath his feet suddenly began to vibrate.

Unlike before it was not some gentle tremor.

It was a dense, pulsing shudder that rattled through the roots of the stalagmites and caused the bioluminescent azure fungi on the ceiling to drop tiny, glowing spores like falling stars.

Down in the abyssal sinkhole, the dying death-rattle of an elite warrior had not gone unheard.

Sol stood at the mouth of the arched tunnel, his right hand resting casually on the leather-wrapped hilt of the Dreadwing blade.

His neon-crimson eyes narrowed, piercing the damp, red-tinged gloom as he listened to the gathering storm below.

Unlike beasts, above the ground, the colony’s response was not the chaotic, frantic scatter of mindless insects.

It was the disciplined, territorial deployment of an apex subterranean hive. When a single scout went missing, a pair of sentries was dispatched to investigate.

When the sentries failed to return, a seasoned Layer 3 veteran moved in to hunt. But when an elite veteran was executed in silence, the hive recognized the presence of an invasive predator... and it responded with a strike force.

SKREEEEEEEEE—!

SKREEEEEEEEE—!

A chorus of high-pitched, ear-splitting shrieks erupted from the depths of the sinkhole, bouncing off the damp slate walls until the acoustic resonance was threatening enough to burst the eardrums of any average warrior.

Through the subterranean draft, deep from the dark, downward-sloping passage leading to the abyss his enhanced senses picked up the violent shift of air currents.

A wave of stifling, humid heat surged upward, thick with the nauseating stench of rotten meat, sulfur, and concentrated, vaporized acid.

Almost immediatly came the sound.

CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!

It sounded like an avalanche of iron plates tumbling down a stone staircase. Hundreds of chitinous legs struck the slate floor in perfect, terrifying synchronization, accelerating up the tunnel toward the archway.

But still Sol didn’t retreat, jump into the ceiling shadows, nor did he back up into the wider cavern.

He simply shifted his footing, his feet settling into a wide, balanced stance on the slick rock floor, his left hand hanging loose at his side while his right hand maintained a light, relaxed grip on his blade.

Eight... no, nine or maybe ten, Sol calculated silently, his mind effortlessly picking apart the overlapping vibrations rippling through the stone. All Layer 3 elites. And from the sound, they aren’t coming to investigate. They’re coming to exterminate.

A slow, wicked grin tugged at the corner of his lips.

Before his breath could fully settle, the mouth of the archway exploded.

A sudden, sharp series of high-pitched shrieks echoed down the corridor, so loud and vibrating that thin dust cascaded from the ceiling stalactites.

SKREEEEEE! SKREEEEEEE! SKREEEEEEE!

Nine or maybe ten colossal, jet-black shapes surged out into the arched chamber at blistering speed.

Each beast was easily forty to fifty feet in length, their overlapping bodies coiling and weaving over one another like a nest of disturbed pit-vipers!

Their black armor plates glistened under the crimson fungi-light, hard as tempered iron and dripping with subterranean moisture.

Their compound eyes burned with cold, collective malice, and their massive, arm-length mandibles snapped open and shut in synchronized fury, releasing thick streams of green, sizzling saliva that dissolved the stone floor as they surged forward.

Unlike the isolated hunters he had fought earlier, these nine elites didn’t hesitate at the threshold, nor did they pause to inspect the dead veteran lying at Sol’s feet.

They moved as a single, terrifying tactical coordinated unit.

Two of the largest centipedes immediately fanned out to the left and right walls, their hundreds of legs catching the vertical slate to scale the sides of the tunnel, intending to flank Sol from above.

Two more shot straight up onto the arched ceiling, their long bodies coiling into overhead ambush positions.

The remaining six formed a tight, three-deep wedge along the tunnel floor, locking their mid-body legs into the stone to prepare a devastating, wide-angle wall of acid and mandibles!

They meant to flood every square inch of the passage with venom, pinning Sol in a three-dimensional box of crushing mass and corrosive death.

To any ordinary battle-tested Layer 3 human veteran, this synchronized assault would have been an absolute death sentence.

In a narrow tunnel, facing ten mature beasts working in perfect harmony, there was no room to maneuver, no space to dodge, and no way to break the line.

Sol, however, simply let out a low, gravelly chuckle.

"Impressive teamwork," Sol drawled, his crimson eyes gleaming with cold, absolute clarity. "Too bad you’re all using the same broken blueprint."

He still didn’t activate his sun core or release a loud, earth-shattering wave of physical aura. Instead, Sol’s posture relaxed completely.

His shoulders dropped half an inch, his breath slowed to a quiet, rhythmic pulse, and his neon-crimson eyes narrowed into razor-thin slits of liquid light.

His spatial domain expanded outward, locking onto all monstrosities simultaneously.

Every twitch of their antennae, every shift of their center of gravity, and every microscopic tightening of their chitinous joints was instantly mapped onto the biological blueprint he had just cracked.

"Let’s see if the patterns truly holds," Sol whispered.

The four centipedes on the ceiling twitched their antennae twice in rapid succession—Pattern One.

Simultaneously, the five centipedes on the floor slammed their middle eight pairs of yellow legs firmly into the slate—Pattern Two.

SZZZZZZT!

A rain of bright green, highly concentrated acid erupted from the ceiling, four thick streams of melting death cascading down like a waterfall! At the exact same millisecond, the five ground centipedes launched their multi-ton bodies forward in a synchronized, head-on lunging wave, their snapping mandibles aiming to crush his legs, torso, and throat in a single, overlapping bite!

To any ordinary warrior, even a squad of battle-tested Layer 3 Veynar captains, this coordinated assault was a flawless, unavoidable execution. The sky was falling acid, the earth was surging jaws, and there was not a single inch of stone left to dodge.

To Sol, who held the blueprint, it was merely a puzzle with a single, perfectly visible solution.