Sounds of scrapes and scratches of the most unpleasant kind filled the narrow corridor.

“We might not be alone.” The thought that the catacombs were vacant has been dispelled. “Whatever it is get ready.”

“Understood.” The spiders walked ahead of their King to protect him.

The sound of stone being scrapped violently only got louder, it reminded the chalk being dragged on the blackboard in a wrong way. The corridor was long and the lanterns provided only so little light, but there were shadows in the distance drawing closer.

“What a…” He didn’t finish.

He wasn’t sure what to make of it. The pack of creatures right in front of him were likely a type of undead, but they didn’t look like it. Unlike the lethargic zombies, these were vigorous and fast. And for appearance, it was quite strange. A flesh and bone puppet was the best description he could come up with. Muscle ripped taunt at their bodies, but there was no skin to cover it. Instead of hands they had bone sickles, but the edge of the bone had metal smelted onto it and then sharpened further. Some parts like the top of the skull and the protruding ribs at the chest had no flesh at all, exposing blackened bone.

The sprinting fiends crashed into the shields of the spiders, the metal-gilded sickles scarred the bone and leather of the shield. The undead swung their arms in a rage, clacking and grinding their decaying teeth in glee while at it. Whatever innate perks the flesh puppets had, it was working to their advantage.

The assault was stopped for a moment and the spiders began pushing back. The axes burst into flames and chopped at the flesh of the undead. The flesh was blackened by fire but unlike the usual zombie and like the Flesh Golem, the fiends developed charred scabs to reduce the Fire damage.

As far as he could see, the corridor was filled with the undead. Like rabid dogs, they were swinging at the nearby walls and even each other, all too keen for a fight.

“[Slay]”, an axe decapitated the jittery undead sending its head further down the corridor. “Flesh Skeleton.” The spider informed everyone of the fiend's name.

An interesting thing those flesh skeletons were, neither zombies nor skeletons – more like ghouls.

“The weakness remains the same…” He thought out loud. “Aim for their heads.”

They did that but the Flesh Skeletons were persistent and spiders were taking damage. Some shields were rendered to nothing but a crumbling pile of fragments. For that reason, plus unlike the undead the spiders could get tired, so the ones at the front were swapped with the rank of fresh spiders.

While the fight was ongoing he kept checking the rear of his forces. Attack from there would trap them for good. But despite the endless assault from the front, there was a small mercy that the rear seemed safe; for now.

“I'd rather we don’t spend too much time here.” He voiced his worries.

“Shall we. Retreat?”

No, they came here for a reason, and it's not like spiders were losing. “Let me through.” He decided to do what he should have done in the very beginning.

The shields parted ever so little but just enough to squeeze the tip of the FlameThrower gun.

“Spew Flame,” he activated the jet of fire. The corridor was filled with fire, the sticky oil clung to the Flesh Skeletons and burned hotter each second.

“Uff.” He had to turn away from the wave of hot air threatening to burn his eyebrows.

The heat was real and the IceWalker Suit was not meant to handle such things, especially in a narrow indoor space. However, even with their low resistance to Fire, the undead couldn’t cope with the scale and amount of damage they were receiving. The ones at the very front were incinerated to ash, the middle ones were laying limp on the floor and still burning, and the back lines while smouldering and singed were still roaring for a fight.

“Ha!” He smiled knowingly. “Use the shields.” He ordered the spiders to make a wall.

Just like he predicted, the Flesh Skeletons despite witnessing total annihilation still launched themselves towards the spiders. The shield wall wasn’t there to block the undead but the stray tongues of fire.

“Spew Flame,” he fired at the approaching undead and with that command the shields tightened to make a better seal.

And just like that the rest of the maddened undead were burned to a crisp. The shield was slightly damaged and the air felt too hot for comfort, but that was a very small price to pay for an easy victory.

“I love this weapon.” It felt like a perfect weapon to deal with the undead.

As they were walking the spiders were kicking and shattering the skulls of the surviving corpses.

“Rule #2 Double Tap, well done.” He didn’t even need to teach that; the spiders were that smart.

However, they still walked with caution.

“Watch the walls.” He warned the spiders.

Those pesky walls liked to crumble at the most inconvenient times, and they just had to have a sneaky pocked of monsters hiding inside. He kept tapping the walls, but those seemed like solid rock.

However, just as he turned around the corner a strange sight made his eyebrows rise.

“A wall of ice?” It didn’t look like it belonged here. “Odd and out of place.”

“Magic.” The spider said matter of factly.

This wasn’t a complete barrier, the solution was in his hands and the enemy likely knew that; what this was – was an obstacle to slow his advance.

“Break it using Ice Pierce.” He instructed, knowing that the FlameThrower would take too long.

The pickaxes hit the ice wall slowly chipping it away.

“King!” A spider ran to him with an alarm on its face. “Our rear.”

Yeah, this was a trap. An undead attacked from the back, and trapped them in. This time it was another Flesh Golem, but it looked more like a worm. It had an elongated body with many tentacle appendages on its side. It used them to crawl inside the tunnel and was quite fast at it.

“That’s bad.” From the experience, the fire was not the solution. And there was no way to bind the abomination in this narrow tunnel. “We have to stop it or it will crush us.” He had to hatch a plan quickly.

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Well, the ice wall might have given him an idea. He retrieved a cluster of Freezing Grenades, and threw them at the approaching abomination. The grenades hit it and shattered spreading the frost everywhere. Luckily he had thrown enough to inflict the monstrosity with Frozen. It stopped moving for a moment, but judging by its size it wouldn’t last for long.

“Now.” He ran together with spiders to attack the fleshy worm.

For that reason, he’d retrieved the Devouring Spear; the weapon had a good track record in dealing with the abominations. He thrust it into the fleshy exterior of the worm and the spear sunk deep. Even through a thick layer of meat, he could see the reddish glow of the spear tip which told him that Soul Steal was activated and the abomination was taking continuous damage. Yes, he was sapping the ‘life’ out of the undead; how it really worked was a slight mystery.

“It’s working, it should die soon.”

Regardless, the spiders quickened its death by helpfully chopping off big chunks of its body.

[You have defeated Flesh Golem, Fighting +1500exp]

[Soul Steal], the perk completed trying to store the soul inside.

[Error], [Soul Well has claimed the soul].

“Huh, that’s not one of my perks.” He had a pensive expression. “The cursed Lich has it.” He was sure of it now.

“King. The Ice Wall…” The spiders were done clearing it.

“Let’s go and get that Lich, It won’t be able to hide forever.”

“Understood.” The spiders took a defensive position and ventured deeper into the catacombs.

As they were walking he observed empty holes lining the walls, it was probably the place where the dead used to rest, now those were vacant.

“So that’s where they came from.”

Some of the dead were still there. The few remaining corpses were blackened and skinny with barely any flesh left on them, it was likely a waste of mana to raise these as undead servants; or maybe there was another reason entirely. But just in case, as they went they smashed their empty skulls anyway, further defiling the resting place.

Soon the spiders emerged into a larger hall. This one was filled with intact stone coffins. The hall felt chilly and there was an ominous aura.

“A boss room?” He guessed looking around and fully expecting one of the lids of the coffins to fly open.

He was only partially right, the room cooled to frigid temperature and instead of some Undead Draugr, wraiths emerged from the coffins.

“This is bad!” Indeed it was, the wraiths were incorporeal and hence immune to physical damage.

The wraiths shrieked in a mind-piercing voice, trying and failing to inflict Terror debuff. Ha! His spiders were immune and him being Monster King also allowed natural immunities. However, the undead apparitions achieved a secondary goal. The loud shriek called more of the wraiths from all over the catacombs and now they outnumbered the spiders two to one.

“This is very bad! Use the scrolls.” He advised.

And just in time before the wraiths flew in rage to attack the scrolls were out. They were out of Fire Arrow scrolls, but that didn’t mean that other elements like Air and Nature didn’t work. So they used those. The wraiths received the hits, and the magic projectiles disrupted their incorporeal forms, but one hit was not enough to exorcise them. Meanwhile, the apparitions did their thing slamming their cursed bodies at spiders and sapping their life energy. The axes were also enchanted and alleviated some of the draining assault, but they weren’t enough to kill the wraiths in one or two swings either.

Some of the wraiths winked out of existence, but equally, some of the spiders collapsed to their knees – tired and barely conscious.

“Why aren’t they attacking me?” He waved the Devouring Spear threateningly. “Oh, that’s, probably why.” He launched himself in the full offensive helping the most tired spiders.

The spear, true to its name, literally sucked the life out of the wraiths. The only challenge was getting close enough, the wraiths cautiously flew away from him and the reach of the spear.

The Elemental Arrows kept flying and he kept running from one group to the other supplying them with his scrolls and killing an unlucky wraith here and there. It was quickly found out that a simple flask of TomGrape juice alleviated some of the Drain symptoms. Good job spiders figuring that out!

With the power of ‘energy drinks’ and disposable scrolls, the wraith menace was defeated.

“This was kinda scary.” He didn’t like ghosts.

“We’re. Okay.” The spider misunderstood his statement as worry and gave a spider thumbs-up.

“We can. Continue.”

And so they will. The direction was obvious because there was a large gate by one of the walls. He tried to push the gate, but it didn’t budge.

It wasn’t locked or rusted. “It’s frozen shut. That bastard, buying time!”

The gate was black metal so the picks couldn’t shatter it. Nor did he need to smash through, he just needed to defrost it. He toasted the gate applying a generous amount of Flame Spew. The binding ice melted, but even then the gate remained shut – was latched or even barricaded.

“Go figure, of course!” he felt like giving up.

Yeah, the gate was metal, it was standing firm and imposing, and very much hard to destruct. But, the wall was just that, a brick-and-mortar.

“We’ll have to punch a hole in the wall.” This was his solution to a complicated problem.

Hammering the thick wall would probably take a day, if he didn’t have a trick up his sleeve. Yes, they hammered it, but also he applied Freezing and Fire Grenades to shock it thermally and speed the process. The brittle brick crumbled under the stress of the metal hammers the spiders were using, all thanks to the convenience of Magical Inventory and his tendency to hoard various stuff inside.

Just then the wall crumbled he jumped towards the opening and basked the outside room with the warmth and love of his FlameThrower. And only then the spiders jumped out of the hole one by one.

Despite all the hammering noise the spiders had made, the undead were still caught off guard. There was a whole bunch of them by the gate: zombies, flesh skeletons, flesh golems and the like. By the gate and not by the hole in the wall, someone gave them a stupid command. Anyway, they took the chance to flank the undead, and since this room was another equally large hall they were able to use the last of Fire Grenades to roast the small fry. The undead burned and crackled in a large heap of twitching and barely moving corpses. The spiders jumped to deal with the two lumbering Flesh Golems.

But that was only a small distraction. The real thing was standing in the middle of the hall, well the hall was a bad description because this was more like a workshop. A workshop to craft bones and flesh. Various parts littered the room and there was a humongous pile of IceShard Bird meat in the centre, and by the pile was the ‘real thing’. A monster unlike any he had seen before.

“A Lich?” No, he was wrong. It was something else.

The monster was as tall and imposing as the giant flesh abomination. A massive skeletal figure made out of human-like bones and blackened flesh. The bones were unnaturally large, elongated and twisted. The monster didn't quite have one face – many skulls were piling atop its ill-defined shoulders forming a big ball-like clump. However, there was a dominant skull, it was larger and had crown-like horns. The empty eye sockets in the dominant skull glowed red ever so slightly. Its bone golem body was shrouded in a tattered black robe, the cloth moved and twisted in flowing motion even if there was no wind here. The skeletal monster had a dual aura of regality and death.

The many spindly arms coming from the midsection were busily shaping the flesh beneath into another Flesh Golem, leaving the two bigger main arms to hang free at the shoulders. The left hand had a blackened and seemingly tattered leather tome clutched between large fingers, the tome looked miniature in that huge palm. The right arm was not an arm but a bone appendage in a shape of a blade. The sword was long and broad and its bone edge looked unnaturally sharp. The weapon radiated bloodlust and gave the monster a fearsome aura.

The sight was haunting and unsettling.

The Boss monster, the ruler of this place, continued labouring at the soon-to-be flesh masterpiece even despite the threat of the spiders, or maybe because of it. The dim light in the bony skull glowed with more furry breathing life into the abomination.

The newly made flesh golem wasn’t just flesh this time, there were numerous skeletal arms embedded in its bulbous body, each wielding a weapon shrouded in black aura.

The ‘Lich?’ glared at the King of Spiders for the first time, the gaze was filled with hate. It was so strong he could physically feel it.

“Die!” It spoke directly to the mind. “Eternal Frost.”

White carpet of ice spread from the monster like some sort of infection covering everything and all in frost.