After checking the air near the entrance and confirming there was enough oxygen, Juno pulled a safety rope from her pack and secured it firmly to an anchor point.
She clipped herself into the line and checked the harness one last time.
“Gear up.
We’re going down.” Rebecca had just lowered her backpack when she saw Juno preparing to descend first.
“Juno, I’ll go down with you,” she offered, but Juno immediately shook her head.
“No.
I’m leading this expedition and I’m the one who brought everyone here, so I go first.” While they spoke, everyone else finished checking their equipment.
Alaric Thomas carried only a smaller pack, having already stored the rifle with Saw-Tooth through the Ghost Card.
He stretched his shoulders and prepared to enter the cave as lightly as possible.
Everyone watched as Juno slowly descended along the rope and disappeared through the dark opening.
Several moments later, her voice echoed faintly from below.
“Clear!” Only then did the others begin descending one after another.
Alaric and Sam remained near the back, and before leaving the surface, Alaric took one final look around the silent mountain.
He couldn’t help thinking that this really was the perfect place for someone to disappear without ever being found.
“Alaric, come on!” Sam called from below.
Alaric clipped himself in and followed the rope down, using the rock wall for support while gradually lowering himself into the darkness.
As he descended, the space beneath the entrance became noticeably wider.
The underground chamber was several times larger than the narrow opening above suggested.
Alaric was the last person to reach the bottom.
After unclipping from the rope, he looked upward and saw sunlight pouring through the cave entrance like a distant beam from another world.
From above, the interior had looked completely black, yet from below, the opening seemed almost beautiful.
Juno looked up at the sunlight and smiled.
To her, it seemed like a good omen for the expedition.
The others began examining the surrounding rock formations while preparing to move deeper underground.
Sarah wandered a few steps away and noticed something strange on one of the rocks.
It looked like a bloody handprint smeared across the stone, fresh enough to make her freeze.
She stared at it uneasily but chose not to mention it, perhaps afraid of ruining everyone’s excitement.
Just as Sarah leaned closer, a swarm of bats suddenly exploded from the darkness.
Hundreds rushed toward the entrance at once, their wings filling the chamber with frantic noise.
Already tense, Sarah screamed and stumbled backward.
Juno immediately hurried over and helped calm her down.
Holly, meanwhile, still had her camera out and watched the bats with obvious excitement, even trying to count them as they passed overhead.
Alaric found her enthusiasm increasingly difficult to understand.
He lowered his gaze and summoned one of the Ghost Cards into his palm.
He wasn’t certain exactly what kind of creature lived beneath these mountains, but based on The Descent, he already had a strong suspicion.
The black card reacted almost immediately.
[Traces of Containment Target: Crawler Detected] Crawler.
Alaric’s expression became serious.
The creatures from The Descent were pale humanoid predators adapted to generations of life underground.
They relied heavily on sound because their eyesight had deteriorated, while their bodies had become extremely agile and well suited to moving through caves.
Most importantly, they hunted humans and other animals for food.
Compared with Saw-Tooth and One-Eye, Crawlers weren’t supernatural demons.
Still, fighting creatures adapted specifically for darkness inside their own territory was completely different from confronting cannibals in an open forest.
In tunnels this narrow, a person’s fear and lack of mobility could become more dangerous than the monsters themselves.
Alaric felt nervous, but there was excitement mixed into that uneasiness.
The more dangerous a creature was, the more useful it could become once contained.
If he managed to capture a Crawler, then fighting future monsters in darkness would become much easier.
Once Sarah recovered, Juno led everyone toward a narrow opening between several rock formations.
It was the only visible path deeper underground, and the passage was barely wide enough for one person to enter comfortably.
Juno switched on her helmet light and immediately lowered herself into the gap to scout ahead.
Alaric remained near the back again.
Before entering, he glanced once more at the bloody handprint Sarah had noticed and then stared into the black passage ahead.
For anyone suffering from claustrophobia, this place would be absolute hell.
He followed the others inside.
Because Alaric had paid to upgrade much of their equipment, the lamp mounted on his helmet was considerably brighter than the average light.
The beam clearly illuminated the stone ahead, though the passage itself was only wide enough for him to extend his arms with difficulty.
Everyone moved downward slowly while carefully watching their footing.
After nearly ten minutes, the tunnel finally widened.
Any faint natural light from the surface had completely disappeared by this point.
Once they passed through the narrow rock passage, darkness surrounded them from every direction.
Without their lamps, they wouldn’t have been able to see their own hands.
Juno waited until everyone caught up before pulling out a flare.
She ignited it and tossed it farther into the chamber, where red light suddenly washed over the darkness.
A massive cavern appeared before them.
Several members of the group immediately became excited.
Now this felt like a real expedition.
Everyone slowly spread out to examine the cavern while remaining within sight of one another.
A single flare wasn’t enough for normal human eyes to make out every detail, but Alaric’s Enhanced Vision gave him a significant advantage.
He could see much farther into the dim red light than the others.
The cave was damp and unnaturally dark.
Strange moisture and mineral deposits covered parts of the stone, giving several surfaces a slick appearance beneath the flare light.
Alaric didn’t know whether it was ordinary cave runoff or something left behind by the creatures living here.
“Alaric, look at this!” Sam called.
She had found a small pool collected inside a depression in the rock.
Everything fascinated her during her first major expedition, and she immediately started reaching toward the water.
Alaric caught her wrist before she could touch it.
“Stay near Beth and stop touching random things.” Sam frowned at him.
“Okay, okay.” Beth watched the exchange with amusement.
She had originally expected Alaric to behave like another inexperienced student who needed constant supervision, but so far, he was far more cautious than Sam.
If anything, Alaric seemed to be the one keeping her out of trouble.
Ahead of them, Juno and Rebecca briefly argued beside another narrow opening.
Alaric couldn’t hear every word, but Juno eventually won the disagreement and prepared to lead everyone deeper into the cave.
Before she could enter, Holly slipped past her and went inside first.
“Holly, do you always have to make everything a competition?” Juno asked helplessly.
“If you’re too scared, I’ll scout ahead,” Holly called back from the darkness.
Juno sighed and followed her.
This time, Alaric entered fourth.
The new passage was even tighter than the previous one.
Sam had difficulty squeezing through despite being smaller than Alaric, while his broader frame scraped against the rock several times as he crawled forward.
After a few yards, the space became so narrow that his shoulders suddenly stopped moving.
He was stuck.
Alaric didn’t hesitate and immediately activated Fusion with Saw-Tooth’s Ghost Card.
Strength surged through his muscles, allowing him to force himself free from the constricting rock.
He crawled forward quickly and soon reached the wider section where Juno and the others were waiting.
Then another problem appeared behind them.
Sarah had become trapped.
Beth had already made it through, but the moment she realized Sarah was stuck, she turned around and crawled back toward her.
Almost at the same time, loose stones shifted overhead and the entire narrow passage began trembling.
Juno and Sam immediately panicked.
“Sarah!” The cave was starting to collapse.
Alaric reacted quickly and pulled the folding entrenching tool from his pack.
Bracing himself beneath the falling section, he wedged the tool against a heavy piece of rock and used his enhanced strength to hold it long enough for Beth to reach Sarah.
Both women desperately crawled toward the opening.
Stone fragments rained around them.
Alaric kept the collapsing rock supported until Beth and Sarah finally came through at the last possible moment.
The passage behind them gave way almost immediately afterward, sealing the route they had just used.
Everyone stood frozen for several seconds as dust filled the chamber.
Alaric slowly lowered the tool.
He hadn’t saved them because he suddenly considered himself some kind of hero.
Beth was a genuinely good person, and saving her when he had the ability to do so cost him almost nothing.
Besides, having more people alive underground meant more eyes, more hands, and more potential distractions if something began hunting them.
His survival philosophy remained simple.
If something truly dangerous chased the group, he didn’t necessarily have to outrun the monster.
He only had to avoid being the slowest person.
Beth finally recovered from the shock and immediately hurried toward him.
Before Alaric could react, she wrapped both arms around him in a grateful hug.
“Good kid.
Thank you.” Alaric froze.
His face was pressed awkwardly against her chest.
For a moment, surviving the cave became a secondary concern.
He could barely breathe.