"[Slow Fall]" Lyana shouted in panic. She was hugging Vivi tight in her embrace. Their fall slowed down because of the magic, but it still wasn't enough. "[Wind Ascend]" Gust of wind appeared and pushed them upward. Normally, one would use such magic to help them jump higher and further, but she used it to slow their fall.

Lyana and Vivi crashed against the floor. It was a painful fall, but at least not a fatal one. The shallow water also helped reduce the damage to some extent.

Lyana pushed herself off the ground. Her head ringing and her vision hazy, but she knew that the crawlers were getting close.

She stretched both of her arms out. "[Double Combustion]"

She could hear the piercing shriek of dying crawlers. When her head stopped ringing, she noticed that they were completely surrounded. Crawler filled every corner of her eyes, numbering in the hundreds. They even covered the ceiling, but they didn't move. They sat still, observing them from a distance.

Cold sweats broke from her skin. If those crawlers began attacking them, they would die. She was out of mana, and Vivi barely knew any offensive magic.

"Who dare kill my children?" A loud voice resounded in the room.

Eight glowing red circles hovered in the darkness of that room, slowly moving near Lyana and Vivi. A huge Crawler, towering three times the height of Lyana appeared from the darkness. The Queen.

Unlike the rest of her swarm, the queen was a sapient creature, but most of the time, it didn't even bother to speak with other sapient race. And one such creature stood before her.

After reading some books about monsters, Lyana expected a more majestic creature to be the queen instead of some oversized crawler. But the aura of power oozing from her body couldn't be mistaken for a normal crawler.

"For what reason did you come here, demon?" The Crawler Queen asked. Her voice that of a woman. "And a human, interesting choices of companion I must say."

Lyana hand trembled. She knew that fighting would only result in their demise. Even from her aura alone, she knew that the queen was too powerful. She must be at early level 40. And even if she and Vivi could kill the queen, what about the hundreds of crawler all around them.

Lyana opened her mouth, but she couldn't find the right answer. A wrong answer would lead to the same conclusion. Death.

"Forgive us for the intrusion o great Crawler queen." Vivi suddenly said. She stood up and bowed at the Queen. "We were simply attacked by your minion. Please forgive us."

'What are you doing VIVI? Like hell that would work!' Lyana shouted inside her mind, she didn't dare say it out loud.

"I believe you, but that doesn't explain why do you attack my nest."

'That worked?!' Lyana shouted in her mind. She looked at Vivi, she gave her a wink. 'Ohh right. She can affect the mind of the queen.'

"We were simply defending ourselves, My Queen, but the Sewer is not a place for a human. The ground is wet and slippery, we fell down here."

"If you promise to leave us without doing any harm, then I will give you a safe passage." The Queen said.

"We promise." Vivi said while giving her a slight bow.

"Then i'll wi-" "[Monster Beheading]!"

Theo fell from above, cutting the Queen's neck clean. It was the first time Theo used [Monster Beheading] for an actual beheading.

"FUUCK!! MY LEG!" He crouched down and hugged his legs. He has a skill that minimizes the damage from a fall, but 10 meters was still too high. Not to mention the wound that Roderyk caused haven't healed fully.

"WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?!!!" Lyana screamed at Theo sudden appearance. Everything was going so well until he showed up.

He stood up. "Saving both of you." He said, not yet realizing his error.

"Vivi, tell him." She said and looked at Vivi. Vivi's hand was covering her eyes. Perplexed, she didn't even bother to answer him "Look around you!" Lyana yelled.

Theo gave her a strange look and turned his body. His face turned sour as he faced the hundreds and hundreds of crawler who saw their queen killed. "Oh fuck!.....Any... idea?"

"Fucking really?" She shouted. "You came here, mess all this up, and push the responsibility to me?!"

"No...uh....hahaha, i...share the responsibility." He smiled awkwardly.

"Then protect us and fight any that come too close!" Lyana touched the ground. "[Rock Spike]" Multiple spikes of rock jutted out from the ground, big enough to impale a man. It encompassed her and Vivi, but not Theo.

Theo readied his stance and applied fire buff on his sword. The wound on his leg still hurt after the fall. Because of that, he couldn't make a proper stance. "Fuck! The wound opened up again." He then took a potion and threw it at Lyana. "That's a [Mana Regeneration potion]. You'll need it." She immediately drank it.

The Crawler screeched and shrieked. They didn't move. After losing the control and command of their queen, they didn't know what to do, they were not given any order.

After a few seconds of intense screeching and staring, one crawler crawled forward. He dispatched it . But that incited the others to also move forward and attacked them.

Theo braced for impact. If he had his plate armor, the fight might appear more feasible, but with only mail, it was hardly possible. He, however, had faced many hardly possible moment in his life, he will survive. The problem was protecting Lyana and Vivi.

He could only hold the wave from one side, and even then, he couldn't stop them all with his leg like that. He scoured his mind for anything that could help him protect Vivi and Lyana, but found none.

"Fuck! Must I use this here?" His hand moved toward his back pouches. Inside it was some items that could help him handle any kind of situation. Though he prefer not using them if he could.

"[Mass Hysteria]" Vivi eyed sparkled with an ominous violet light.

The Crawler's screech and shriek became erratic. They were confused and disoriented. Some ran away, some charged at Theo, but most began fighting each other.

Vivi body fell to the ground. The spell put an immense burden on her body and mind. "Vivi!" Lyana called in a panic.

"Lyana!" Theo called her. "Focus on the enemy! She gives us a chance, don't waste it."

Theo took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He focused all his aura to protect his body. He has no need to enhance his attack. His blade sharpness and his skill were enough to deal with the horde.

He remembered about a sword style that his father once told him, one that focused on fighting numerous monster at once. "[Dance of Wolf]" He whispered.

Theo jumped at the crowd of crawler while spinning his body and stretching his sword out. The [Dance of Wolf] practitioner employed a much faster and much agiler movement. Wearing a light armor to not impede their body. They would dodge and pirouetted almost excessively to not get hit by the enemy, then counter with fast and precise strikes directed at the opponent weak spot. But such movement was not possible with the open wound on his leg. His movement was clumsy and slow.

Lyana observed the Crawler surrounding them. The spike stopped some of them and Vivi's [Mass Hysteria] sent some of them running to the spike, but it won't last long. They will find a way to get past the spike, or the spike will crumble, whichever came first.

Her mana still not enough to cast another area spell, but she doesn't have to. You don't have to fight quantity with quality.

She began drawing an intricate symbol in the air and after she was done, a fire elemental jumped out from it. She pointed her finger, covered with a green magic circle at the spawned elemental.

"I bound you to my will." The elemental eyes turned green. "Now go and kill all the crawler."

Normally, one does not need to bind a summoned elemental if the summoned was lower-leveled than the summoner. But in this case, Lyana was about to send the elemental to a certain death. She has to maintain some form of control over all her spawned Elementals. Or else, they will return to their realm, or worse, attack their summoner. She repeated the process three times, each time harder than the previous.

She immediately sat down in meditation after sending all the elemental to battle. She closed her eyes and focused on recovering her mana. The potion Theo gave her was effective, it increased her mana regeneration by 100% for a short amount of time.

The elementals she summoned was [Lesser Fire Elemental]. The weakest and most basic of fire elemental, being only level 5, but it was enough to fight with a lesser monster like crawler. Or at least keep them at bay while she regenerates her mana.

She didn't have enough mana to summon a higher elemental nor would she summon one even if she had. She wasn't well versed on the subject of summoning magic and wouldn't take the risk.

-----

Theo kneeled on the floor, exhausted and relieved. Vivi's [Mass Hysteria] had driven almost all the Crawler into killing each other or running. He himself had lost count about how much he had killed, around fifty was his best guess.

He looked behind him. Vivi still out cold on the floor and Lyana was exhausted, safe but exhausted.

He took a glance at Panes. No dent, no scratch, no damage at all. His mail armor and gambeson, on the other hand, was broken. He even has some nasty bite and claw wound on his skin. Thankfully, none of them was a deep wound. Except for the wound in his leg that become worse after the fight.

He took a fabric and made a makeshift bandage to cover the wound. He looked up. "Cissy! We're done here!" He shouted.

"Okay!" She threw a rope down the hole.

Theo got a message in his mind.

[Dance of Wolf level up to Lv.5]

[Theo Gladium Level up to Level 31]

[Vigor, Resilience +1. Strength, Agility +2.]

Theo tied the unconscious Vivi to his back with another rope.

He observed the room now there was no more threat. The wall was filled with tunnel holes, probably where the Crawler came in the first place. Among the mound of Crawler corpse, there was a corpse of a black cloaked man in the corner of the room.

Theo approached it carefully. While he was sure that it was just a corpse, he got nothing to lose by being careful. It was just a dead skeleton.

Its robe was ripped apart and the skeleton wasn't complete either, meaning that the person died while being ripped apart by crawlers or their queen.

Anything the skeleton carried was missing, except one thing. On the robe, a badge stuck. A black badge with a carving of an angel on it. While he didn't recognize the angel, he knew about the black badge. It's triangular shape and the metal it was made of signified only one thing. "What the hell a priest of The Black doing here?" He asked himself.

"Theo, you coming or not?" Lyana asked while climbing the rope. She was exhausted and climbed the rope at a snail pace.

"I'll be right behind you."

Suddenly, he heard a sound, a commotion, coming from one of the holes in the wall. It was not crawler's sound, it was a human. No, not 'a' human, a lot of them. "Lyana, I have something to investigate first. It won't be long."

"Be careful Theo, you're carrying Vivi behind you."

Theo entered the hole he believed to be the source of the sound. It was not a long hole, after half a minute of walking, he could see the other side. The sound was coming from another room similar to the previous one.

Theo was couldn't believe what he saw. Instead of being infested by crawlers or rodents, it was filled with people. They were all armed and looked battle-hardened. They were equipped with expensive gears like an army.

"What the hell?"