Chapter 88: Descent begins
Chapter 88: Descent begins
[Voren]
[General Info]
Species: Human
Sex: Male
Age: 89d
Height: 179cm
Weight: 65kg
Emotional state: Calm
Titles: Devourer, Alpha Predator, The Lord of Nine Hells
[Contracts]
Unnamed contract (expiration date isn’t stated)
Assassination Contract (expiration date isn’t stated)
[Stats]
HP: 9/9
EXP: 712231
STR: 12.38
DEX: 13.33
CON: 12.59
INT: 12.24
[Abilities]
Devourer (lv MAX) (Evolution options available!)
Mystic Flight (lv 20)
Venomous Stinger (lv 18) Can be levelled up!)
Steel Web Spinning (lv 15) (Can be levelled up!)
⠀⠀
Auxetic Malleability (lv 15) (Can be levelled up!)
Frost Wind Claws (lv 15) (Can be levelled up!)
Battle Trance (lv 15) (Can be levelled up!)
Cold Affinity (lv 15) (Can be levelled up!)
Adaptive Heat Vision (lv 15) (Can be levelled up!)
Adaptive Enhanced Smelling (lv 15) (Can be levelled up!)
That was my character sheet at the time I stepped next to the dark mouth of the cave. My latest two abilities turned front of my face into an elongated snout, and my pupils into vertical slits. Both I upgraded to “adaptable”, which meant that my extremely sensitive nose didn’t cause me nausea when I passed a city’s dump, and my eyes could see not only heat, but just normal colours as well.
What wasn’t in my character sheet were the spells that Pest was ready to cast for me. What he didn’t mention was how long it took to make any of them… but it was another story entirely. In short, they were useful, but a fight would end by the time Pest would finish anything.
“This is the place, Devourer,” Yvenna, my guide, said. “This cave goes all the way down to the underground system. Anyway, are you sure you don’t wanna stay a little longer? You know, get your money from Rosha, buy something neat from them before that, or whatever.”
“No.” I shook my head. “What the hell I’m gotta buy, anyway? I won’t have enough for anything that’s better than what I already have.” To demonstrate, I let my frost claws out of my fingers for a moment. “I will decide what to do with the money when I return from the caves whenever that would be.”
Yvenna didn’t look happy with it, but with some reluctance, she nodded. “Fine. I will be stronger when we meet again, Devourer! So… So you get stronger too, so you’d be still stronger than me.” She blushed. “I’m sure the caves won’t make you any less perverted, either.”
I snorted. Travelling all on my own, without female company for what might be weeks… “If anything, it would make me more than I already am. Bye, Yvenna.”
With a farewell wave at her, I walked inside the mouth of the cave. It started out wide, but soon narrowed to the point where I had to keep my hands close to the sides to be able to pass without touching the walls. Despite that, the ceiling kept high, becoming even higher with time, until I couldn’t see it with my heatvision. The light of day disappeared much earlier.
I could scent bats and their shit, moisture and slime, small insects that hid under the wet rocks I passed. The further I went, the more and more distant became scents from the surface, of grass and wood and furry animals.
This was an entirely different world from the surface.
After an hour of walking, the cave passage began to split and wind up. I walked through the widest of the passages, whether they led up or down, leaving wide claws marks in the stone on each fork. Most of the passages went down.
Even though I chose the widest paths, caves were an unpredictable place. Despite my efforts, sometimes I would have to squeeze myself into crevices. Sometimes, I would have to fly up or down cliffs and clefts.
I met my first prey—my first monster—what was a late night on the surface, probably. It was hard to measure time, and the best I had for a clock was my “age” line in my character sheet.
The first sign of the monster’s presence wasn’t the monster itself, but a huge web that covered the entire passage I was going through. Despite its size, the web’s threads were thin, and I wouldn’t have noticed them if I didn’t see a drop of water fall from the ceiling and land on a thread.
Then, I smelled the owner of the web itself. An insect, my senses told me. A spider, obviously. There were many kinds of those in the caves, according to what Yvenna and Rosha told me. Black Death Spider, Aether Spider, Pale Lily Spider… But the most common (and the biggest) was Armoured Cave Spider.
But I couldn’t see the owner of the web around. Spiders weren’t warm-blooded enough to glow in the heatvision, but everything had slight differences in temperature. Materials, shape, movements—everything added minute shifts to the temperature, which I now used to orient myself.
So, the web was there, but the owner wasn’t around. It was possible that the web was abandoned. There wasn’t any dust and junk in it, but it could’ve been just because we weren’t underground. It wasn’t like in the forest, where literally anything could stick in your web.
Well, there was one way to find out which was the case this time. With a smirk, I swiped my mighty claws, turning the neat web into shreds in moments. Then I waited. And waited.
And then the giant spider, as big as me, crawled from behind the corner. Its legs clicked softly as it walked towards the broken web, seemingly unaware of me until it was just about five meters away. Its head, completely devoid of eyes, turned to me and the spider tasted the air with its mandibles.
It looked, I thought with pleasure, like a fine first prey for my descent. Big and stocked on abilities, I was sure—it would compensate for the lack of prey I’ve seen on my way down.
All that was left was to kill it.