Chapter 11: Narrow Thresholds and Artificial Horrors

"ROOOOOAAAAAR!"

The roar thundered through the enclosed space, causing the stone walls of the cavern to vibrate violently. Dozens of twisted monstrosities surged forward down the main passage, their razor-sharp talons scraping savagely against the damp floor with a deafening screech.

Ren’s pupils contracted instantly. There are way too many.

At least thirty creatures were packed tight into the front line alone—and beyond the reach of the white beam, more crimson eyes continued to ignite in the dark depths behind them.

"Prepare for combat!" Arata shouted, his hand dropping to the hilt of his broadsword.

Without a moment of hesitation, Kurogane stepped to the front. His massive frame, encased in thick iron plate mail, formed a human barrier in the middle of the passage. "Stay behind me!"

The lead Aberrant lunged through the air, aiming for Kurogane’s throat. The armored warrior smoothly brought up his tower shield to meet the strike.

BOOM!

The force of the creature’s impact rattled the iron shield so hard that the shockwave rippled back into the stone floor beneath their boots. The sound of black claws screeching against reinforced metal cut through the air.

Kurogane grit his teeth, his arms shuddering under the weight of the blow. "Damn it! These bastards hit much harder than they look!"

Before he could even recover his stance, a second monster vaulted over the shoulders of the first, descending from above.

"Watch the roof!"

Miku reacted instantly. Drawing a pair of curved daggers, she pivoted on her heel and dipped low. The creature’s claws whistled through the air, missing her neck by a fraction of an inch. Capitalizing on the monster’s overextended momentum, Miku delivered a swift, cross-slashing strike directly across its exposed abdomen.

CRAAK!

Viscous black blood sprayed against the cavern walls as the monster crashed heavily to the ground. Yet before its body could even settle, three more Aberrants surged over the corpse to fill the gap.

"Tch! Persistent pests!" Miku spat, stepping back to reorient her blades.

Ren’s fingers tightened around the matte-black metal casing of the flashlight. *They aren’t giving us a single second to breathe.*

He swept the intense 5,000-lumen beam back and forth, analyzing the spatial layout of the cavern. The wide chamber they were standing in was less than four meters across. Directly behind them lay the narrow stone corridor they had just traversed, while right in front was an unending tide of bloodthirsty beasts.

If we try to hold our ground in this wide space, we’ll be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

Ren’s eyes darted upward toward the cavern ceiling, taking in the sharp, uneven rock formations and natural stone outcroppings. He turned his attention back to the oncoming horde, a sudden tactical realization crystallizing in his mind.

"Fall back!" Ren yelled over the din of battle.

Arata glanced over his shoulder in surprise. "What?!"

"Why the hell should we listen to a trashy porter like you?!" Arata roared back, straining as he deflected a lunging claw with his broadsword.

"Just do it if you want to survive!" Ren shouted, taking several quick steps backward toward the entrance of the narrow passage. "Retreat into the narrow corridor behind us!"

"Are you insane?! We’ll lose our defensive line!"

"No!" Ren pointed the harsh light directly at the mouth of the tight tunnel. "That narrow passage is our greatest advantage!"

Arata hesitated for a fraction of a second. But another heavy slam from a massive Aberrant struck Kurogane’s shield with a deafening crack.

BOOM!

The armored warrior was forced back half a step, his boots skidding across the slick stone. In that split second, the squad realized the brutal truth: staying in the wide room meant fighting on all sides at once.

"Just listen to him!" Ryu called out smoothly, his tone remarkably composed amid the chaos.

"He’s right!" Reika added, her hands igniting with crackling orange mana. "Their numbers won’t matter if they can’t reach us all at once!"

Kurogane immediately caught the logic. "Everyone! Pull back into the choke point!"

The squad executed a controlled retreat, stepping backward into the narrow corridor. The frenzied swarm of Aberrants surged after them without thought. But as soon as the creatures tried to jam themselves into a passage barely wide enough for two men, their charging formation collapsed into pure chaos.

The narrow width of the stone walls forced the horde into a funnel. Only two or three monsters could squeeze into the front row to attack at any given moment, while the rest were trapped behind, uselessly shoving and clawing against their own kin.

"Not bad, Porter!" Kurogane grunted, offering a brief nod of acknowledgment as he locked his shield firmly into the choke point.

Arata clicked his tongue, though he didn’t dispute the positioning.

"My turn," Ryu murmured softly, drawing a sleek, double-edged longsword from its scabbard.

Reika stepped up behind Kurogane, flame mana swirling around her fingertips, while Miku twirled her daggers, a fierce grin breaking across her face.

"Finish them off now! We have the momentum!" Ren called out, holding the flashlight high to illuminate the exact strike zones for his team.

With the tactical advantage secured, the counteroffensive turned into absolute carnage.

Kurogane braced his body against the iron shield, shoving forward with brute force to crush the frontmost monsters against the stone walls. Taking advantage of the pin, Arata lunged over Kurogane’s shoulder, his heavy broadsword descending in a brutal overhead arc. The steel blade cleaved cleanly through the skull of a matted-fur monster, splitting it down to the jaw.

Before the corpse could drop, Reika thrust her hands forward. A swirling sphere of condensed flame shot down the narrow funnel, erupting upon impact into a localized blast of intense fire. The inferno scorched the tightly packed monsters, filling the corridor with the sickening smell of burning flesh and shrieking howls.

From the shadows of the flank, Miku moved like a ghost. She vaulted off Kurogane’s broad shoulder, diving into the middle of the disoriented beasts. Her twin daggers blurred through the air, slicing through throats and severing tendons with terrifying precision. Black blood coated her arms as she spun, dropping three Aberrants in a span of two seconds before leaping safely back behind their line.

Ryu finished the sequence. Stepping forward with fluid grace, his longsword traced glowing arcs of silver light through the air. With effortless precision, his blade severed heads and limbs in rapid succession, cutting down the remaining wave until the narrow corridor fell completely silent.

"Haa... haa..."

Heavy breaths echoed through the cavern as the squad lowered their weapons.

The narrow tunnel was now choked with the silent, mangled bodies of over thirty Aberrants, their black blood pooling across the uneven stone floor.

"Whew... glad that’s over," Kurogane exhaled, dropping to one knee to rest his heavy shield against his leg.

Ren kept the bright cone of light trained on the floor, watching the smoke rise from the mound of corpses.

Reika wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and turned to Ren with a warm, genuine smile. "Thank you, Ren. If you hadn’t called out that positioning, we might not have realized it in time."

Miku nodded beside her, sheathing her blood-stained daggers with a bright grin.

"Tch. Please," Arata scoffed, turning his head away as he wiped his sword clean with a rag. "It was pure coincidence."

"Besides, anyone with half a brain could have thought of using a choke point," Arata muttered bitterly under his breath.

Kurogane glided a heavy, gauntleted hand over his shoulder armor and grunted, looking sideways at Ren. "Hey, trashy porter... just consider my compliance a coincidence too. I was already thinking of pulling back."

Ryu crouched atop a pile of fallen monsters, flicking a drop of dark blood off his blade before looking up. His calm eyes locked onto Arata and Kurogane with a sudden, sharp intensity. "Kurogane. Arata," Ryu said softly, his voice carrying an unexpected weight. "Are you looking down on the Celestial bloodline?"

Ren turned to Ryu, his brows knitting in genuine confusion.

Wait... is he defending me?

"Alright, alright, that’s enough," Reika stepped in hastily, waving her hands between them. "We’re all teammates here. Let’s not start fighting amongst ourselves."

"She’s right. Let’s keep moving," Miku said, stepping over the fresh mountain of corpses to lead the way deeper into the passage.

Kurogane and Arata grunted in unison, falling in behind the two women without further argument.

As Ryu walked past, he offered a gentle pat on Ren’s shoulder before continuing down the tunnel with the rest of the team.

Ren stood still for a moment, lingering near the edge of the massacre. *Celestial...? Is it possible that he and I share some kind of connection?*

Shaking his head to clear the thought, Ren stepped over the bloody remains of an Aberrant, adjusting his grip on the flashlight. But as the white beam focused directly on the open chest cavity of a nearby beast, a cold, glowing interface abruptly materialized in his field of vision.

[UNKNOWN ENERGY DETECTED.]

[ANALYZING TARGET...]

[ANALYSIS COMPLETE.]

[ABERRANT SPECIES: MUTATED VARIANT]

[WARNING: BIOLOGICAL STRUCTURE EXHIBITS SIGNS OF ARTIFICIAL ENGINEERING.]

Ren’s posture froze. Artificial?!

His eyes scanned down to the next lines of glowing text.

[FOREIGN ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED.]*

[ENERGY COMPATIBILITY: 97.4%]

The blood in Ren’s veins turned to ice. Without needing any further explanation from the System, he recognized that energy signature instantly.

[NYX SEAL: 81%]

[WARNING: FOREIGN DARK ENERGY DETECTED INSIDE THE ABERRANT CORE. DIRECT CONTACT MAY CAUSE INSTABILITY IN THE SEAL.]

Ren instinctively took two sharp steps backward, pulling his boots away from the pooling black blood.

"Hey, Ren! What are you doing back there? Come on!" Reika called out from up ahead, her voice echoing down the stone passage.

"Coming," Ren replied quickly.

He picked up his pace to match their stride, but his gaze remained fixed on the blood-soaked floor beneath them.

These monsters didn’t evolve naturally, his jaw tightening in the dark. Someone—or something—deliberately modified them.

"Hurry it up," Arata grunted from the front of the line. "If you lag behind, we can’t see a damn thing out here."