The Mantis was falling like a stone toward answers.
Toward truth.
Toward whatever waited in the depths below.
It fell in complete silence, passing centiters from the mutant’s coiled body. So close it could sll the stench of its corrupt flesh, its unnatural tissue.
But it didn’t touch it.
It landed on the stairway fifty ters below, its legs absorbing the impact without making more noise than a whisper.
Perfect execution... it had succeeded.
The stairway descended in a tight spiral, carved from the sa stone as the walls. The runes continued here too, lines of white light guiding the path downward.
Downward.
Toward another floor.
Another chamber. Larger than the previous one, the ceiling higher, the darkness deeper.
And another mutant.
This one was bigger, its extremities thicker, its carapace darker. It coiled in a similar manner around another stairway, body wrapped protectively around the descent.
To another level below.
The Mantis repeated its strategy. Ceiling approach, controlled fall, silent landing. The sa technique was executed now even with so practice.
It worked again.
By the third level, the Mantis didn’t even hesitate and changed its glide’s direction quickly to fall through the next opening. Confidence building with each successful bypass.
The mutant here was slightly larger than the previous one again. Its eyes glowed with murky intelligence while staring toward nothing in particular. Simply waiting with the patience of sothing that had all the ti in the world.
Fourth level.
Fifth.
Sixth...
Each guardian was bigger than the last, more powerful, more perceptive. The escalation was systematic and deliberate, as if whoever had placed them understood the principle of layered defense.
By the seventh level, the Mantis began to suspect sothing had changed.
The mutant here stirred when it passed. It didn’t see it, didn’t sll it, but it sensed sothing.
Eighth level.
The guardian stirred more violently, its massive head turning toward where the Mantis passed, though its eyes didn’t focus on it directly. Getting closer to seeing what shouldn’t be visible.
And below, even deeper into the earth, there was a ninth level.
The penultimate chamber before whatever goal lay at the bottom. One step away from answers.
But the guardians were becoming increasingly alert with each descent.
The Mantis began its descent to the ninth level, moving faster now. If it was going to be detected anyway, speed beca more valuable than stealth.
It was the right call...
The mutant of the ninth level lunged.
Not toward where the Mantis was, but toward where it would be a second later, predicting its trajectory with impossible precision.
Through the bond, Ren transmitted an urgent order. ’Forget stealth. Forget integrity. I just need a glimpse.’
Sacrifice was acceptable now, destruction was acceptable...
Only the information mattered.
The Mantis abandoned all pretense of stealth and let itself drop in a vertical dive, wings pressed against its body becoming an arrow. Pure velocity, pure commitnt to reaching the bottom.
The mutant hit it anyway.
Not completely, just a glancing blow, but it was enough to cause damage. One of its rear legs was torn off, ripped away by the force of impact. One of the mirror plates on its side cracked and broke free, falling into darkness.
But the Mantis continued falling.
Faster now, less mass to slow it down, injury becoming advantage through montum.
And the last guardian detected the disturbance.
The mutant of the tenth level was monstrous, filling almost its entire chamber, its body coiled in layers upon itself. And when it uncoiled, revealing its true size, it beca impossible not to see and impossible not to feel the air displacent when it lunged upward, mandibles opening to reveal rows of teeth designed for tearing and crushing.
The Mantis wouldn’t make it.
Couldn’t dodge, not in free fall, not having lost velocity after the damage from the first impact. Physics and injury conspiring against survival.
It was going to be destroyed before the goal.
Unless...
Ren sent another order, this one accompanied by permission to freely use the bond’s mana. More than it would normally use at once, more than was safe or sustainable, but necessity overrode caution.
The Mantis activated what other mantises didn’t have.
Elental control.
A powerful and enormous advantage for its rank, the kind of ability that separated Ren’s beasts from normal creatures of equivalent level.
Lin’s technique: fire and wind.
Not to the point of generating true lightning. Ren could only use that because corruption and the seed had pushed him to an extre state, but for the mantis it would be too much. The energy requirents exceeded what its form alone could channel.
Still, with the enormous bonuses of extra elental control, it should be enough. The Mantis’s wings ignited, not literally but with external fire, and the wind was for directing the explosion’s impulse.
The maneuver saved the Mantis by launching it sideways with speed no normal Bronze 1 beast should possess. The mutant’s attack passed centiters from where it’d been an instant before.
And the Mantis crossed the threshold from ninth level to tenth, moving too fast, out of control, but inside.
Finally reaching the last chamber.
But the last guardian was too fast and attacked again, the mantis using propulsion to maximum capacity but despite the high velocity, it wasn’t enough and the attack managed to graze its side.
The Mantis impacted against the stone floor with force sufficient to crack more plates. A second, third, and fourth leg broke. Its abdon was bent at an unnatural angle, internal structures compromised.
But it was still alive.
Functionally destroyed, but alive.
Until the mutant arrived, and then no more.
The final strike was absolute.
♢♢♢♢
POV Ren...
The pain arrived without warning.
Like a dagger in his chest, as if sothing vital had been violently ripped from him. The bond with the Mantis, the connection shattered like glass under pressure.
Broken.
Ren staggered, his hand shooting to his chest where the pain was most intense. For a fraction of a second he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could only feel the void where the connection had been. Emptiness where there should be presence.
User Comments
0 comments from readers