The underground cave system stretched in every direction, and the farther they traveled, the more passages branched away into darkness.
Their helmet lights seemed weaker with every turn, barely cutting through the endless black tunnels ahead.
After the group scattered, the entire cave had become a maze where every wrong turn brought them deeper underground instead of closer to escape.
Juno walked in front with a climbing pickaxe in one hand and the pistol Alaric had given her in the other.
She still blamed herself for bringing everyone into an unexplored cave and insisted on taking the greatest risk.
Alaric Thomas simply followed behind and let her scout ahead while keeping his attention on the darkness around them.
Juno never noticed the six Crawlers silently moving across the ceiling above her.
They were no longer wild predators but Alaric’s completely loyal subordinates, spreading through the tunnels to eliminate threats before they could approach him.
With them watching every direction, traveling through the cave suddenly became much safer.
Along the way, Alaric discovered something interesting.
Even though his six Crawlers had become Ghost Card Containment Targets, the other Crawlers living underground still seemed to recognize them as members of the same species.
None of the wild creatures immediately treated his subordinates as enemies.
At one junction, the six contained Crawlers encountered another of their kind.
The wild Crawler made several clicking and guttural noises as though trying to communicate, while Alaric’s subordinates remained completely motionless around it.
The creature seemed confused but showed no sign of hostility.
Then Alaric gave a command.
All six attacked at once.
The wild Crawler barely understood what was happening before its supposed companions pinned it down and tore into its body.
Juno heard the sudden struggle and looked upward just as the mangled corpse fell from above.
She rolled aside before it hit the ground with a heavy thud and splattered dark blood across the stone.
Juno stared at the mutilated body and then at the shadows where the other Crawlers had disappeared.
“Why are they attacking each other?” she asked, clearly unable to understand what she had just witnessed.
Alaric glanced at the corpse and answered casually, “Maybe they’re starving.
There probably isn’t enough food down here.” Juno obviously didn’t believe him completely.
If the Crawlers normally devoured one another, there shouldn’t have been such large groups living together throughout the cave.
Still, she had no better explanation, and Alaric had no intention of revealing the Ghost Cards unless absolutely necessary.
The incident was only a minor interruption.
They continued through the tunnels without encountering any real danger because nearly every nearby threat was quietly eliminated by Alaric’s six Crawlers before it reached them.
Juno had no idea how much protection was moving through the darkness around her.
Eventually, they reached another fork in the cave.
Juno suddenly stopped and bent down.
A bracelet lay on the ground.
Her expression changed immediately.
“This is Sarah’s.
She was wearing it earlier.” Juno’s breathing quickened, and before Alaric could say anything, she tightened her grip on the pickaxe and ran down one of the passages.
“Sarah might be in trouble.
I have to find her.” Alaric remained at the junction for a moment and looked toward the other tunnels.
Then he silently called his subordinates back and followed Juno.
The six Crawlers crawling above changed direction almost simultaneously and began moving after him.
Seen from outside, the sight would have been terrifying.
One human ran through the darkness while six pale creatures silently crawled across the ceiling behind another man.
“Sarah!” “Beth!” “Sam!” Juno’s shouting echoed far through the cave.
Alaric heard her from a distance and couldn’t help thinking that she truly had no fear of attracting attention.
Still, he didn’t stop her because the noise served a useful purpose.
If Juno drew the Crawlers toward herself, Alaric could preserve more of his own strength while his subordinates handled them.
…
Elsewhere in the cave, Rebecca and Beth were pressed tightly against a rock wall, barely daring to breathe.
A Crawler was only a short distance away, moving slowly through the darkness as it searched for them.
Fortunately, the ordinary Crawlers had extremely poor eyesight and depended mostly on hearing and smell to locate prey.
Juno’s voice suddenly echoed through the tunnels.
The Crawler instantly reacted.
It turned toward the sound and rapidly crawled away.
Rebecca and Beth remained still until they were certain it was gone.
Neither woman made any attempt to warn Juno that a monster was heading toward her.
At that moment, both were too frightened and exhausted to think about anyone beyond themselves.
As soon as the passage was clear, they moved in the opposite direction.
They had no intention of going back.
Juno’s shouting continued to attract nearby Crawlers, but most never reached her.
Alaric’s contained creatures intercepted them in the darkness and tore them apart before Juno even knew they were close.
The few that slipped through were quickly dealt with by her pistol and climbing pickaxe.
Then Juno suddenly stopped.
A body lay ahead.
She knelt beside it.
It was Sam.
The younger woman had been dead for some time, her throat torn open by a Crawler.
Juno stared at the corpse without speaking, remembering how frightened Sam had been earlier.
Another member of the group was gone because of the expedition she had organized.
After several moments, Juno forced herself to stand again.
She looked back but couldn’t see Alaric anywhere behind her, making her wonder whether he had finally decided to escape alone.
Considering the situation, she couldn’t even blame him for being afraid.
Juno pulled her pickaxe from the chest of a dead Crawler and continued forward.
What she didn’t know was that Alaric was no longer walking like a human.
He had activated Fusion with one of the Crawler Ghost Cards.
His body had transformed.
Alaric now resembled one of the pale underground predators, moving on four powerful limbs while five contained Crawlers crawled alongside him.
He clung easily to the ceiling and followed Juno from above without making enough noise for her to notice.
For the first time since entering the cave, Alaric was experiencing the environment exactly as its native predators did.
The transformation looked horrifying, but the feeling was surprisingly reassuring.
His body moved naturally through narrow spaces while his hands and feet gripped the rock with ease.
Darkness no longer felt oppressive when he could crawl across walls and ceilings without worrying about falling or losing direction.
Alaric was actually a little excited.
He tested the transformed body as he traveled, moving from wall to wall and then across the ceiling.
His previously extracted Enhanced Vision, Auditory Enhancement, and physical improvements remained active rather than disappearing during Fusion.
Everything he already possessed had been layered onto the Crawler’s body.
That made the transformation far stronger than he expected.
To test it properly, Alaric deliberately approached a lone wild Crawler farther down the tunnel.
The creature recognized his appearance and didn’t immediately attack, giving Alaric the perfect opportunity.
Before it understood what was happening, he grabbed its head and twisted sharply.
Crack.
The Crawler collapsed.
Alaric looked down at the corpse and finally understood the Fusion ability more clearly.
His own strength and extracted traits were being combined with the natural physical advantages of the contained creature rather than replaced by them.
That meant his transformed body was stronger than an ordinary Crawler.
Unfortunately, he could still fuse with only one card at a time.
If he could combine Saw-Tooth’s raw strength, One-Eye’s resilience, and several Crawler abilities all at once, he might actually be able to fight the Evil-Spirit Incarnation directly.
For now, however, such stacking remained impossible.
Alaric could only work with the power available to him.
After fully adjusting to the transformed body, he increased his speed.
Juno was getting farther ahead.
…
Deep inside another section of the cave, Sarah suddenly opened her eyes.
Her headlamp flickered on and revealed a horrifying chamber filled with scattered bones and a dark pool of blood.
Sarah’s heart began pounding as she slowly tried to understand where she was.
The place looked less like part of a cave and more like a feeding nest.
Before she could stand, something small lunged from behind.
A young Crawler grabbed her hair and dragged at her scalp.
Sarah screamed and immediately fought back, grabbing the creature by the head and slamming it against the ground.
When it continued struggling, she seized a heavy bone from nearby and repeatedly struck its skull until its movements weakened.
Then a suppressed gunshot sounded behind her.
Sarah spun around.
Another Crawler collapsed only a few feet away.
Beth stood behind it with a pistol in both hands, her arms trembling after firing.
Rebecca was beside her, equally shocked to find Sarah alive.
For several seconds, none of them seemed capable of believing they had actually found one another again.
Sarah rushed forward and embraced them.
The three women held onto each other while quietly expressing their relief.
For the first time in what felt like hours, none of them were alone.
They began discussing how they might find Juno, Alaric, or another path through the cave.
Then the light at the entrance disappeared.
A huge shadow blocked the passage.
Sarah, Beth, and Rebecca slowly turned.
Their expressions immediately changed.
The creature standing at the entrance was much larger than the ordinary Crawlers.
Its powerful body was coated with dried and fresh blood, while its face looked even more distorted than the others.
Most terrifying of all were its eyes.
Blood-red pupils stared directly at the three women.
Sarah shifted slightly.
The creature’s gaze followed her.
Beth moved one step to the side.
Its eyes moved again.
The three women felt their remaining hope disappear.
Unlike the other Crawlers, this monster could see.