SNAP!
A single snap of Captain Ennessa’s fingers and two soldiers immediately stepped forward.
Both extended their hands, and small openings slid apart in the armored plating covering their palms.
A powerful stream of compressed air burst forth, blasting away the desert sand layer by layer and gradually revealing what had been hidden beneath the surface.
A circular hatch buried beneath the sand, made from a strange dark crystal-like material.
To everyone else, it was simply a concealed entrance, but to Arlo, however, it radiated dense motes of dark elemental energy.
One of the soldiers crouched beside the hatch, twisted it open, and lifted the heavy cover aside, revealing a narrow hole that descended into complete darkness.
Captain Ennessa silently raised one hand, her fingers counting down the remaining seconds.
Five...
...four.
Three...
...two.
One.
The moment her final finger lowered, Ennessa dropped into the opening.
As soon as her boots touched the ground below, both rifles were already raised, her sharp eyes sweeping across every corner of the darkness.
Ten seconds passed, but nothing happened.
Above, the soldiers watched the opening in silence, waiting for the signal she had given them beforehand. With no sign of danger, they began descending one after another.
Arlo was the last to follow them down.
The cavern beneath the desert was far larger than Arlo had expected. Huge rocks hung from the ceiling and rose from the ground, covered in multicolored crystals that gave off a faint glow in the darkness.
With only a single narrow path ahead, the squad moved forward without a word, the mounted lights attached to their rifles illuminating the path ahead.
Thirty minutes passed without incident, with nothing attacking them or even the smallest creature appearing within the cavern.
Yet the longer they continued walking, the stronger the unease inside Arlo grew.
Something was wrong.
Quietly, Arlo expanded his senses and allowed the surrounding mana currents to respond to his presence.
Normally, mana existed as countless tiny streams of different colors, each corresponding to a particular elemental affinity.
That was what every book within the Eclipsion royal library had taught him.
But the mana here was different.
Every strand, every particle, every current flowing throughout the cavern was pitch black.
They drifted lazily through the air like venomous serpents gliding across a stagnant swamp, flickering in and out of existence with an eerie rhythm.
It was unlike anything Arlo had ever witnessed.
Not only was there only one type of mana present, but it also carried an unsettling feeling of corruption.
Suppressing the chill creeping through his body, Arlo continued following the currents deeper into the cavern, searching, listening, and feeling.
Soon, Arlo sensed something beneath the stone floor ahead.
Another concentration of mana, but unlike the energy freely flowing throughout the cavern, this one was completely still, trapped within intricate runic patterns carved into the ground roughly ten meters away.
His expression slowly changed as realization dawned.
’This is not natural mana.’
Someone had deliberately arranged it, placing commands within the formation and turning it into something else entirely.
A runic formation?
’No. A trap!’
"Captain..."His voice was barely more than a whisper, but the moment he spoke, dozens of rifles turned toward him, their barrels aimed directly at his face.
Arlo swallowed, as he still didn’t fully understand these weapons, but judging by the way everyone held them, he had no desire to find out what happened when they were fired.
"What is it now, kid?"
Arlo slowly pointed toward the ground ahead, resulting in several soldiers redirecting their flashlight beams.
"There. Don’t those markings look... unusual?"
Ennessa immediately crouched down.
Her hand moved toward the engraved lines, but just before her fingers touched them, she froze.
Her pupils contracted, and she instantly pulled her hand away.
"These aren’t markings."
Her voice became deathly serious.
"They’re Vorath trap formations."
The soldiers quickly swept their lights farther ahead.
Only then did they realize the truth.
Runic lines covered nearly the entire width of the cavern, leaving only a thin, winding path untouched as it twisted through the maze of hidden traps.
Ennessa slowly rose to her feet before looking directly at Arlo.
"...Kid."
"Yes, Captain?"
"Get behind me."
She pointed toward the narrow safe path.
"From this point onward, step exactly where I step."
Arlo felt a little bit of appreciation in his heart but then, she continued,
"I don’t trust you enough to believe you won’t trigger every trap in this cave through some unbelievably stupid mistake."
The words made his expression plummet, but he didn’t argue it, stepping directly behind her.
The squad resumed moving, their every step followed a precise zigzag pattern despite the tunnel itself remaining perfectly straight.
Being behind Captain Ennessa had its advantages for Arlo. If anything happened, the strongest person present would be the first to respond.
As they continued deeper into the cavern, Arlo once again allowed his senses to drift toward the trap formations.
The closer they moved, the stranger the mana felt, but then he noticed another thing that was quite unusual.
"Captain..."
He whispered.
"What now, kid?"
"I think..."
He hesitated.
"I think..."
Captain Ennessa stopped walking immediately and turned around, the entire squad freezing behind her.
"What is it, Arlo?"
Arlo stared silently at the glowing runic formations, before replying.
"I don’t think these traps have been here very long."
Ennessa frowned, looking at the young man who kept staring at the markings on the ground.
"What do you mean?"
Arlo slowly lifted his gaze toward her.
"These looks like they were drawn less than two minutes ago, so whoever placed them can’t be that far away."
The words made her brows knit together, as Arlo continued.
"At least not as far away as we’ve been walking all these while."
Those last words were like a bomb, as Captain Ennessa’s expression changed.
Instantly, she snapped both rifles towards the cavern ceiling.
"ABOVE US!"
Powerful beams of light shot upward, as every soldier followed their direction, and there they found them.
Hundreds of jet-black creatures clung motionlessly to the ceiling on all fours, their elongated limbs wrapped around the stone like monstrous spiders.
Rows of pitch-black eyes stared silently back at the squad, and a second later...all hell broke loose.