stjorthotic Chapter 27 Crystal Devourer
Chapter 27 Crystal Devourer
Before the shadow's warning had even faded, the response from the depths of the labyrinth had already arrived.
It was no longer a series of scattered crawling sounds, but a dense, chilling rustling noise, like countless arthropods simultaneously rubbing their shells in the darkness. Amplified and overlapped by the echoes of the crystal channel, it created a terrifying, overwhelming tidal wave of noise that drowned everything. The sound came from all directions, making it impossible to discern any specific direction, as if the entire labyrinth itself had come alive and was crawling towards them on countless legs.
"Back to back!" Leah shouted sharply, her short sword held horizontally in front of her, her other hand already pulling out a second stun grenade. "They're surrounding us!"
The three immediately formed a tight triangular formation. Karen leaned against a relatively sturdy crystal wall, her crossbow aimed at the corner of the passage ahead; Leah protected the right side, wary of a fork in the road that stretched diagonally downwards; Shadow crouched on slightly higher ground, his silver eyes scanning the cave ceiling and shadowy corners above.
Xiguang struggled out of the backpack and stood at Karen's feet, its golden fur standing on end, its amber eyes reflecting the approaching darkness from the depths of the passage. Although the cub was afraid, it made a low, threatening growl in its throat, its front paws slightly lowered, assuming a pouncing posture.
The first wave of attacks came from above.
Three crystal devourers, similar in size to the one from before, emerged simultaneously from the crack in the cave ceiling. Their mandibles rotated, their crystalline teeth gleaming with a dark red glow in the darkness. They crashed down like heavy objects, their objective clear: to break their formation.
"Leave the left one to me!" Leah formed a hand seal, and a compressed, cone-shaped stream of air shot out from her palms. It wasn't a cut, but an impact, blasting the leftmost crystal devourer, which was still in mid-air, off course and crashing heavily into the cave wall, shattering its carapace.
Almost simultaneously, the shadows leaped into the air, their dark forms tracing an eerie zigzag, dodging the black acid sprayed from the central creature. Their claws precisely pierced the compound eye of the creature on the right—a relatively vulnerable area covered by crystals. Black fluid splattered, and the devourer let out a sharp screech, crashing to the ground and rolling wildly.
Karen's target was the one in the middle. It charged at her immediately after landing, its rotating mandibles less than half a meter off the ground, creating a gust of wind. Karen raised her crossbow, but didn't fire immediately—her spiritual vision activated instantly, locking onto the location of its energy core: slightly to the left of its head, deeper than the previous one.
He dodged the first bite by sidestepping, the sharp teeth of the mandibles grazing his side, tearing his clothes and leaving stinging, bloody marks on his skin. Almost simultaneously, he pulled the trigger.
The crossbow bolt left the bowstring and precisely pierced the gap in the armor, penetrating half a foot deep.
But this time, he did not die immediately.
The crystal devourer only staggered slightly. The dark red light emanating from its wound was quickly suppressed by the surrounding black energy, and the wound began to heal at a visible speed! It turned its head, its rotating mandibles aimed at Karen again, and pounced even faster!
"The core has been reinforced!" Shadow's voice echoed in his mind. "The meteorite is remotely transmitting energy to repair them! We must destroy the core completely in one strike, or sever their connection to the meteorite!"
Sever the connection? In this chaotic maze, how do you find and sever the invisible energy lines between each guardian and the meteorite?
Karen had no time to think; the wounded Devourer was already upon her. Dawn roared, spewing out a small ball of golden flame—not the previous burst, but a more concentrated, fireball-like strike. The flame struck the Devourer's maw, exploding into a burst of blazing golden sparks.
The Devourer hissed in agony, its mandibles abruptly ceasing rotation, leaving charred marks on its surface. The light psionic energy's restraining effect on dark energy remained, but after this attack from Dawnlight, it was clearly weaker, and the luster of its golden fur had dimmed further.
Karen seized the opportunity and reloaded—there was only one arrow left in the quiver. He aimed at the wound left by the previous crossbow bolt and pulled the trigger.
The second arrow pierced through, even deeper.
This time, a dark red light exploded from within the wound, spreading wildly along the cracks in its carapace. The Devourer convulsed violently, its mouthparts shattered completely, and it finally collapsed to the ground, motionless.
In a mere ten seconds or so of combat, the three small guards were eliminated.
But the price was: two stun grenades, two arrows, increased consumption of Dawnlight, and Leah's leg injury bleeding again due to strenuous exercise. Everyone knew that this was just the appetizer.
A heavy, earth-shaking crawling sound came from deep within the main passage.
The sound was louder, slower, and...heavier than ever before. Each limb hitting the ground felt like a hammer blow to the heart, accompanied by the piercing noise of shattering crystals and rubbing rocks.
A huge shadow slowly emerged from around the corner of the passage.
The first thing to appear is the mouthparts.
That wasn't the rotating drill from the smaller guards, but a massive, meat grinder-like disc over a meter in diameter, composed of countless layers of crystalline teeth. The disc rotated slowly, each tooth as long as a dagger, its edges shimmering with a dark red energy glow. Wherever it passed, the black crystals along the edge of the passage were easily ground into powder.
Then came the cephalothorax, mostly obscured by the mouth disc—covered in thick, armor-like black crystalline armor, its surface riddled with sharp crystalline protrusions, like malignant tumors. A viscous, dark red fluid of energy flowed from the seams of the armor, slowly undulating like lava.
Finally, there's the body. It's as thick as a train carriage, composed of a mixture of rock and crystals, its surface covered with a rough, chitinous, and mineral-like texture. Dozens of pairs of segmented limbs extend from both sides of the body, each as thick as an adult's thigh, ending in sharp, crystalline claws capable of easily piercing rock.
This crystal devourer was at least ten times the size of the small guard from before. It filled the entire passage, scraping against the cave walls as it moved, leaving behind large pieces of crystal fragments and rock dust.
"How much minerals did it eat to grow this big?!" Leah's voice was filled with barely concealed shock.
The shadow's silver eyes were fixed on the behemoth. "It's the first one. The first individual to be eroded and modified when the meteorite fell. It devoured most of the high-purity crystals and primordial spirits in the core area of the mine, and is now semi-crystallized and semi-energized. Physical attacks are unlikely to be effective."
As if to confirm Shadow's words, Leah had already taken action.
She held nothing back, her hands rapidly forming three consecutive hand seals. The surrounding air was forcibly drawn in and compressed, forming a visible, high-speed rotating, transparent drill in front of her—this was the Wind Whisper Tribe's advanced attack technique, "Spiral Wind Cone," with extremely strong penetrating power. She let out a low shout and thrust her hands out.
The wind cone roared out, tearing through the air with a sharp whistling sound, and aimed precisely at the thickest part of the giant insect's head armor—the place where the energy core might be located.
boom! ! !
A dull thud. The moment the wind cone made contact with the crystal armor, a chaotic burst of air erupted, scattering crystal fragments everywhere. But the giant insect merely tilted its head back slightly, leaving only a shallow scratch less than an inch deep on the surface of the crystal armor. Moreover, the black crystals around the scratch immediately began to grow and repair themselves, and the mark almost disappeared within seconds.
The giant worm seemed enraged. It let out a low, rumbling roar, like the grinding of rocks, and its mandibles spun faster as it charged toward Leah! Its massive body moved through the narrow passage like a runaway train, scraping away a thick layer of the black crystals from the cave walls in its wake.
"Get out of the way!" Grom's voice suddenly came from behind—the dwarf had arrived at some point, clearly drawn by the explosions and the commotion of battle. He gripped a heavy warhammer in both hands, its head already enchanted with runes, radiating a dark red dwarven psionic glow.
Instead of attacking the giant worm's body, the dwarf slammed his warhammer into the ground!
boom!
The ground trembled violently. From where the warhammer struck, a dark red energy shockwave spread out in a ring, slamming into the giant worm's limbs. Several of the limbs supporting its forebody slipped abruptly, interrupting the giant worm's forward momentum. Its massive body tilted forward due to inertia, its jaws slamming heavily against the cave wall in front of it, tearing off a large chunk of rock and crystal.
"Its joints are its weak point!" Grom roared. "Its carapace is too thick, but the crystalline structure connecting the joints is relatively fragile! Attack its legs!"
Leah immediately understood. She changed her strategy, no longer pursuing penetrating power, but instead manipulating the airflow to form countless tiny, sharp wind blades, like a flock of agile birds, bypassing the giant insect's frontal mouth disc and thick carapace, and attacking the relatively slender joints on its sides.
Hiss hiss hiss hiss—!
The sound of wind blades cutting through crystals and chitin rang out rapidly. Small cuts appeared at the joints of several limbs, from which black fluid seeped out. The giant worm writhed in pain, its body twisting violently, and more limbs extended from beneath it in an attempt to regain its balance.
But Grom and Lydia's cooperation worked. The giant worm's movements became sluggish and uncoordinated, its massive body appearing clumsy and aggressive in the narrow passage.
Just then, Xiguang acted again.
The cub seemed to have judged this to be a crucial moment. It lunged forward a few steps, away from Karen, then took a deep breath—its small chest visibly bulging. The next second, it unleashed a solid, blazing golden flame, no longer a fireball, but a continuous stream of energy like a laser beam!
The flames shot straight toward the center of the giant worm's mouth disc—the pivot of rotation and the key node for energy transmission.
Gold and dark red collide fiercely.
The moment the flame touched the mouth disc, it emitted a piercing hissing sound, like cold water being poured into hot oil. The dark red energy was purified and dissipated, and the rotation speed of the mouth disc slowed down significantly, even briefly stalling. The giant worm let out an even angrier and more painful roar, its massive body violently arching backward due to the damage to its mouth disc.
It worked! But the light of dawn only lasted three seconds before abruptly extinguishing. The cub collapsed to the ground as if all its strength had been drained, its golden fur completely losing its luster, its amber eyes half-closed, conveying extreme weakness and exhaustion: No strength left…
"Dawn!" Karen tried to rush over, but the giant insect had already regained its footing. Although its mandibles were damaged and rotating sluggishly, they were still terrifying. It seemed to have identified Dawn as the greatest threat, adjusted its direction, and charged towards the limp young on the ground!
"Stop it!" Leah screamed, and the wind blades cut the giant worm's limbs even more densely, but this time the giant worm seemed to completely ignore the harassment, focusing all its attention on the Dawn.
Grom swung his warhammer at the ground again, but this time the giant insect was prepared, its several intact limbs digging deep into the ground to stabilize itself. The shockwave only made it sway slightly, without reducing its speed in the slightest.
The distance closed rapidly. Twenty meters. Fifteen meters. Ten meters.
Xi Guang tried to get up, but her limbs were weak, and she could only barely lift her head, watching the enormous, tooth-filled maw press down on her. There was no fear in the cub's eyes, only an almost calm…resolute determination? Its last thought was: Protect Karen…
"No--!!!"
Karen's scream nearly tore his throat apart. He threw away his empty crossbow and charged at the giant worm, at the dawn, bare-handed. Reason told him it was suicide, but his body acted before he could think.
Just as the giant insect's jaws were about to touch the dawn light, and Karen was still five meters away—
His spiritual vision, passively and to its extreme, erupted.
It wasn't activated intentionally, but rather an instinctive reaction of the spirit runes in a moment of crisis. The vision shifted instantly, and the world transformed into lines and blocks of color formed by the flow of spiritual energy. The giant worm was no longer a concrete creature, but a vast, chaotic vortex of dark red energy.
At the center of that vortex, deep within the thick crystalline armor and rocky body, Karen "saw" something extraordinary.
It wasn't a dark red, polluted energy core, but a small, extremely faint yet pure radiance emanating a warm white light. That radiance was heavily enveloped and eroded by the dark red energy, almost extinguished, but it still stubbornly persisted, like a candle flame in a storm, like a pearl in the deep sea.
That's... a fragment of the Soul of the Mineral Vein?
Did this giant worm inadvertently swallow a small piece of the vein's soul that wasn't completely contaminated while devouring the core of the ore vein? The fragment wasn't digested; instead, it became embedded deep within its energy structure, becoming an unstable "foreign object" that conflicted with the nature of contamination.
The location of this "foreign object" is right in the center of the giant insect's chest, below the intersection of the two thickest pieces of crystalline armor.
weakness!
It's not the weak point of the outer shell, but the fatal flaw in the internal energy structure!
"Attack its chest!" Karen roared with all her might, her voice echoing through the passage. "Right in the middle! Underneath the thickest part of its crystal armor! There's something there! It's its weak point!"
Leah and Grom were both taken aback. Attack the thickest shell? But Karen's tone was so certain, so urgent, that there was no time for doubt.
"I'll trust you this once!" Grom roared, gripping his warhammer tightly with both hands, channeling all his dwarven psionic energy into it, the hammerhead glowing a blinding red light. He stopped slamming the ground and charged towards the giant worm's side, aiming for its chest, and swung the hammer with all his might!
Leah also changed her strategy. She compressed and condensed all the airflow she controlled into an extremely thin, almost invisible air needle, aimed at a single point, and fired it with all her might!
The giant insect seemed to sense the danger. It abandoned the Dawnlight, its body twisting sharply to the side, attempting to use its thicker side armor to block the attack. At the same time, its mandibles rotated in the opposite direction, spewing out a large jet of viscous, highly corrosive black acid, splashing it at the charging Grom!
"Watch out!" Leah's wind needles arrived faster than expected, colliding with some of the acid in mid-air and scattering it. However, a significant amount still splashed onto Grom.
The dwarf didn't dodge—he didn't have time to dodge. He roared, his warhammer continuing its momentum, slamming heavily into the giant worm's crystalline armor right in the center of its chest!
boom--! ! !
A louder impact than ever before. The crimson dwarven psionic energy clashed violently with the giant insect's black energy, erupting in a blinding flash of light. A crater the size of a washbasin blasted open on the surface of the crystal armor, cracks spreading outwards like a spiderweb.
But at the same time, the acid also splashed onto Grom. The dwarf's leather armor and skin hissed and corroded, and he groaned as he was thrown back by the shockwave of the explosion, crashing heavily against the cave wall, his warhammer slipping from his hand.
The giant worm let out a bloodcurdling scream. From the spot where it had been struck in the chest, dark red energy erupted from the crack like a burst dam, mixed with tiny, warm white lights—fragments of the Soul of the Mineral Vein being released. The white light touched the surrounding black energy, triggering even more violent chaos and explosions.
The giant insect's massive body convulsed violently, its mouthparts stopped rotating, and its dozens of pairs of limbs went limp. It collapsed like a small mountain, the impact shaking the entire passageway.
The fallen giant worm blocked their main passage.
Smoke and dust filled the air, along with the acrid smells of burnt, sour, and ozone.
Karen rushed to Xiguang's side and picked up the weakened cub. Xiguang slightly opened its eyes, licked his hand, and conveyed a faint thought: We won...
Leah limped toward Grom. The dwarf leaned against the cave wall, large holes corroded in the leather armor on his chest and arms, the skin beneath charred black and emitting wisps of smoke. He was deathly pale, but still conscious. Seeing Leah approach, he grinned, revealing teeth stained with blood.
"Dwarves...thick-skinned...they won't die..." he gasped, "but that...it really fucking hurt..."
A shadowy figure silently appeared beside Karen, its silver eyes scanning the fallen giant worm and the surrounding environment. "The passage is blocked. We need to find another way. And..." it gazed deeper into the maze, "The commotion just now will attract everything else. Time is running out."
Karen, holding Xiguang, looked behind the giant insect's corpse—where the path should have led to the meteorite's core was now completely blocked by mountains of debris. He then looked at the spirit runes on his wrist; the runes pointed in the direction indeed behind the giant insect's remains.
There was no way out; the road ahead was blocked.
Inside the maze, the rustling crawling sounds were becoming clearer and closer from every direction.
Just then, an ominous cracking sound suddenly came from the ground beneath the giant insect's corpse.
Click... Click...
"The ground is collapsing!" Leah exclaimed.
Before the words were even finished, the rocks and crystalline structures beneath the giant insect's corpse, unable to withstand the weight and the impact of the recent battle, shattered completely. A huge, bottomless crater opened up beneath the corpse, like a hungry maw.
The giant worm's corpse began to slide down, carrying pieces of debris that had blocked the passage, and fell downwards.
Karen and the others were standing right on the edge of the collapsed area.
"Back off!" Shadow shouted sharply.
But it was too late.
The ground beneath Karen's feet suddenly tilted downwards and shattered. He lost his balance, clinging to the light, and together with the shattered rocks and crystals, plummeted into the newly emerging, deeper darkness below.
Lydia's gasp and Grom's curses faded quickly into the distance above.
Falling. An endless fall.
The last thing Karen saw was Lydia's outstretched hand at the edge of the collapse above, and a fleeting, almost helpless glimmer in her dark silver eyes.
Then, darkness completely engulfed him.