Chapter 332:Tunnels again.

Chapter 332: 332:Tunnels again.

Silver ran his fingers across one of the scratches.

"Must be nice." He stepped over the broken stone. "Some of us have to worry about bringing the mountain down."

His headlamp remained on its lowest setting, providing enough illumination for him to see the ground several meters ahead without turning himself into a moving beacon.

Whenever he approached a sharp corner or unfamiliar intersection, he stopped, listened and used Spatial Sense for several seconds.

He refused to leave the skill constantly active.

His reserves had recovered before entering the route, but Silver had learned exactly how quickly spatial abilities could consume them when he became careless.

If he encountered the queen again, he wanted enough energy available for Short-Step, Space Slash and, if everything went horribly wrong, Spatial Distortion.

He wasn’t planning on fighting the Rank Six creature. If he saw it, the plan was considerably simpler.

Run... preferably before it saw him.

Silver reached another bend and stopped to listen. He also used Spatial sense and found nothing bad, so he continued.

Every twenty or thirty minutes, he pulled out his phone and connected the Portable Network Restoration Module.

The first check gave him exactly what he’d expected.

[Searching for External Networks...]

The indicator blinked.

Silver waited.

[No External Signal Detected.]

He switched it off.

An hour later, he tried again.

[Searching for External Networks...]

Nothing.

[No External Signal Detected.]

Silver stared at the message.

"Come on... one bar, I’m not asking for much."

The device remained unsympathetic. He stored it and continued climbing.

At least the Emergency Survival Beacon remained available if he reached a shallower section before finding a civilian network.

Silver considered activating it anyway but decided against wasting its power while buried this deeply. The system had already warned him that the probability of an external receiver detecting it at his current depth was extremely low.

He needed height but the problem was getting it.

Another hour passed.

The tunnel widened into a section filled with debris from the collapse.

Silver slowed.

Several dead worms lay among the rocks. Some had been crushed completely and others had been torn apart.

Silver crouched beside one to get a better inkling. The body was old enough that the blood had dried.

He stood.

The collapse had probably killed them. That made him feel better, since he didn’t need more things trying to eat him.

He stepped around the bodies, then stopped. Something clicked somewhere ahead.

His gun immediately rose as he switched off his headlamp and darkness swallowed him.

He listened. The clicking sound came again, and then followed by scratching. There were several creatures, though not close.

Silver activated Spatial Sense.

The surrounding passage unfolded inside his awareness. Three worms were moving through another tunnel that crossed somewhere ahead.

He remained still.

There was no reason to fight them.

He waited patiently as they looked around. The worms moved across the distant intersection but before they could fully worm away, one paused. His grip tightened around the handgun.

The creature remained there for several seconds as though sensing something, then continued. The spatial disturbances gradually disappeared.

Silver waited another minute, then turned his headlamp back on.

"That’s more like it."

Avoiding a fight felt considerably better than winning one.

He continued.

The tunnel rose, then dropped, then rose again. At one point he reached a nearly vertical section where the queen had apparently climbed directly up the wall.

Silver stared upward.

The scratches continued for almost fifteen meters. He looked at his hands, then at the wall. He chuckled to himself.

"Show-off... but you won’t bring me down."

He retrieved the climbing equipment.

The harness was already secured around his body, so Silver removed the reinforced rope and one of the anchors. He tested the stone first, found a stable section and began climbing.

His recovering body didn’t appreciate it. His shoulder started aching halfway up.

Silver ignored it.

He used the ascender to reduce the strain, carefully placing his feet into cracks and occasionally using Primal Strength to pull himself through the more difficult sections.

It took significantly longer than he wanted. Eventually he pulled himself over the ledge. He lay there for several seconds and stared at the ceiling.

"Still alive."

His breathing gradually slowed.

He retrieved the rope, then continued since he couldn’t afford to stop. The route curved again.

He had stopped trying to understand it since up was apparently a suggestion. He followed the queen’s markings.

Another hour disappeared under the grueling movement. The terrain gradually changed. It became less stone and more packed earth.

Silver slowed after noticing it. The queen’s scratches remained visible but the walls were softer. Loose soil occasionally fell from the ceiling.

He didn’t like that. He had already encountered one entire nest of burrowers in terrain exactly like this.

He activated Spatial Sense.

[Spatial Sense Lv2 Activated.]

He found nothing nearby.

Silver expanded slightly, still nothing. He deactivated it.

"Good."

He continued on. The passage narrowed which made him even more uncomfortable. The queen’s marks disappeared the deeper he went.

Silver stopped when he realized why. The large tunnel split. The queen had taken the wider route on the left, unfortunately, part of it had collapsed.

He stared at the obstruction, his gaze filled with disappointment and resentment.

He checked with Spatial Sense and found that the collapse wasn’t extensive and the passage continued beyond it.

There was a narrow gap near one side. Silver took it as a sign to squeeze through. The space beyond was noticeably tighter, enough that he couldn’t comfortably swing his sword.

He frowned.

The queen had probably passed through before the collapse altered the tunnel.

He considered going back, then Spatial Sense showed that the passage widened farther ahead.

Silver continued for more than ten metres while the walls pressed closer. His headlamp illuminated loose earth.

His instincts began whispering that something was wrong. He stopped but found nothing, there was only complete silence. The only thing that came to him was probably he was feeling claustrophobic in the smaller passage way or his paranoia was finally winning.

He took another step but before he could stabilise himself for the next step, the wall to his right exploded. Silver barely saw movement before a massive dark shape slammed into him, the force hard enough to break bone of someone weaker.

His shoulder painfully struck the wall, pain exploding through his ribs. The handgun nearly left his fingers.

Silver reacted instinctively the moment he registered that everything had gone wrong. He twisted as a huge claws tore through the space where his chest had been.

He kicked it, but the creature barely moved.

"What the..."