'What the...!' The thing that crawled out from the darkness was unlike any monster I'd seen so far. Well, except maybe for that tainted abomination back in Neufeld.

First, there was the sound of countless legs clicking and scraping against the stone floor. Then, the writhing mass of its elongated, chitinous body entered the small circle of light around us, and I couldn't help but gasp.

It was like a nightmarish fusion of every insectoid horror a person could think of. However, what stood out the most were the two pairs of unnervingly sharp mandibles gleaming in the flickering light of my flame.

Still, the worst part was that I could hear not just one or two but what sounded like dozens of monsters making their way down the dark tunnel.

"Crawlers!" Gil gasped, his face pale with fear.

Coming to my senses, I didn't wait for them to get to us. By the time the clusters of milky white eyes pierced us with mad, all-encompassing hunger I was already hurling a fireball down the tunnel while at the same time, I grabbed Gil's sleeve and urged him to run.

"Gil, we need to move. Now!" But to my dismay, my whimsical roommate stood still, his face a mask of terror as he simply stared at the approaching swarm, unable to move.

I cursed under my breath, my mind racing. "Drop the crates!" I shouted, shaking his arm to snap him out of his stupor.

"But the eggs—" he protested.

"Forget the damn eggs!" I snarled. "We need to get back to the Loading bay! Ready... now!"

I thrusted my palm forward, sending another fireball at the approaching abominations as I turned tail and began running as fast as my legs would carry me.

Gil hesitated for a split second before following suit. I briefly looked back only to see the crackling orb of fire hit one of the monsters head on and exploding into a fiery inferno. The nearby crawlers hissed and recoiled from the sudden burst of light, buying us a precious moment.

However, it looked like this wasn't nearly enough to burn through its protective carapace serving as nothing more than a momentary distraction.

'To hell with this! Didn't that rugged-looking Master say they have things under control? Easy job, my ass!' I grimaced as we breathlessly sprinted through the dark corridor while being relentlessly pursued by the swarm of crawlers.

This was my first time encountering these famed horrors of the Labyrinth in person, but that didn't mean I never heard of them, as many veteran Adventurers down in the city often shared whispered stories about their run-ins with them over an ale.

Sadly, they never mentioned how to best deal with them, only that whenever you would hear scraping of legs against the stone its time to run. So that was what I was doing right now.

Perhaps if I was alone, I could have stood up to them, but with Gil in the picture, I couldn't possibly unleash my full strength without running the risk of seriously hurting him in the process, too. Besides, I remembered Master Wulfric's warning about fighting in the shafts and wasn't keen on causing another cave-in.

My heart pounded in my ears, drowning out Gil's panicked breathing beside me. The flame in my palm guttered and swayed as we ran, casting wild shadows that danced across the rough-hewn walls. 'It shouldn't be too far, just a bit longer...'

But as we rounded a corner, my hopes of making it back to the Loading bay safely were quickly dashed. A writhing mass of crawlers blocked our path, their mandibles clicking hungrily. We skidded to a halt, nearly losing our footing on the slick stone floor.

"This way!" Gil cried, grabbing my arm and pulling me down a side passage I hadn't noticed before. We plunged into the darkness, the sounds of chittering and scraping multiplying behind us.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Luckily, it looked like the auxiliary shafts were all connected, so we could still make it. 'Has another fissure formed between us and the Loading bay?'

But that couldn't be the case. Everything looked fine when we passed that section just a short while ago. Either the crawlers must have already been hiding somewhere in the side passages, or something fishy was going on.

The fact that the whole place was now genuinely shaking certainly didn't help to calm my nerves. At first, it was barely detectable, but the further we went, the more noticeable it was. 'Wait a minute... Shaking?'

Now that I thought about it, I realized I felt some sort of vibrations from the moment we entered the Loading bay, but I didn't pay much attention to it back then as I thought it was simply the echo of the heavy-duty carts being pulled.

But weren't the carts out of service due to the recent cave-in? I felt that I was missing something, but I couldn't quite figure it out yet. This was mostly due to the fact that we were still dashing through the tunnel, unable to stop.

The narrow passage twisted and turned, forcing us to slow our pace to avoid crashing into the jagged walls. "Keep going!" I shouted to Gil, feeling his presence just behind me. However, it looked like he was slowing down, unable to keep up the breakneck pace.

'That reminds me... Where the hell is everyone,' I scowled. There were supposed to be guards patrolling the access shafts at regular intervals to prevent exactly this type of situation from happening.

But as we sprinted out of the side passage, emerging into the innermost auxiliary shaft, I quickly got my answer. At first, I was assaulted by the acrid smell of blood, and then I saw it - the bits and pieces of gnawed-off flesh lying in a pool of crimson liquid. I grimaced quickly, averting my eyes from the macabre scene.

These were probably the remains of one of the patrols. The crawlers must have overwhelmed them before they could have raised the alarm. This meant we were the only ones aware of the dire situation, and nobody would be coming to our rescue.

Even worse, crawlers blocked our path, so we couldn't even get back to the Loading bay. 'Wonderful... it gets better and better,' I scoffed, cursing my poor luck.

However, we couldn't afford to slow down as the hateful crawlers were still gaining on us. I occasionally sent a fireball down the tunnel to keep them in check, but it looked like they saw right through my stalling tactic and barreled through the fire with mad zeal reflecting in their empty eyes.

I was already coming to terms with the sad fact that we would soon be forced to make a final stand and fight for our lives, even with the risk of bringing the whole tunnel down on our poor heads.

But as we rounded yet another corner, we were momentarily blinded by a flood of light. The shaft abruptly ended, opening into a vast cavern similar in size to that of the Loading bay we were in before.

'The lift!' I suddenly remembered as we burst into the wide open space. It looked like we must have made a wrong turn somewhere during the mad dash through the tunnels and ended up here.

I hoped to finally get some backup, but to my dismay, the only people in sight were a pair of Indentured operating the lifting mechanism.

'Damn it!' I turned around, sending a quick fireball toward the shaft's ceiling. The tunnel behind us groaned in protest before it came crashing down, blocking the shaft with a mountain of debris.

I knew that such a cheap trick wouldn't stop the crawlers for long, yet it still bought us a few precious moments.

"Run!" I shouted, and then, not wasting a breath, I followed my own advice. We quickly began making our way across the large cavern, swiftly closing the distance toward the wooden platform at its far end.

By now, the Masters had to know that something was amiss, so all we had to do was make it back to the upper level and wait until they arrived.

But then, as if to mock our feeble attempts to escape the inevitable, I felt one of the biggest tremors so far, and the whole cavern shook. It almost felt like something enormous just crashed into the cavern from outside.

It seemed that my prediction wasn't that far from the truth as, in the next moment, a huge portion of the outer cavern's wall collapsed, revealing a glaring dark hole in its wake.

Immediately, dozens of crawlers began pouring in, rushing toward the distant elevator, undoubtedly lured by the sweet smell of countless human souls dwelling above it.

This was no longer a regular fissure; it was a full-blown breach. Then, to my horror, I laid my eyes on the thing that caused this whole mess. It was at least ten times larger than a normal crawler, with mandibles that looked like they could effortlessly snap a two-story building in half with a single swing.

It also emanated a menacing aura, swirling the air around it in a reddish haze that made it blatantly clear that this was a bonafide boss and an enormously powerful one at that. Luckily, it seemed to have some trouble fitting into the newly made hole, giving us a brief reprieve to consider our next steps.

Not like there was much we could do. 'Well, now we're fucked...'