“What the fuck was that?”

Maximus and Kievra both did their best to push against the cave-in, putting all their strength into it as the rocks remained firm in place. Each one easily the size of a child, the stones completely covered the entirety of the opening and sealed all light from entering. Only when Caius grew worried that they’d cause the stones to roll over all of them did he get them to stop.

“I don’t know.”

Ryke remained still, his arm requiring new treatment after the prior stunt. A mix of helplessness and rage flashed through his eyes, and for a moment his gaze peered straight into the abyss next to them. He didn’t know what to do, but only because he knew their options. Wait, clear it, or dive deeper.

Clearing it runs the possibility that they all get crushed by a worse cave in. Waiting implies they won’t run out of air and they do have a stable supply of food and water, but wait for what? Diving deeper at least gives the option of leaving through a possible second opening. The boy simply wasn’t confident in surviving whatever was down there with his team.

But he still had to make the choice.

“Rest up, eat, recover. We keep going down in an hour.”

“Keep going? But your arm-”

“Is my issue.”

Lycus went silent, sitting down beside him. The boy was regretting leaving Kara behind and Ryke could tell, mostly because he wished Fromir was here too. The animals were all left at camp in fear they wouldn’t survive the mist, and now they were left without their comfort in crisis. It also provided their companions safety.

They did their best eating what they could from the four Fera, rested and used the hour to recover what vitality they used up in the clash. Ryke used a shorter grip on his glaive for better one handed use and practised just enough so it didn’t feel weird in his hand but his overall lack of confidence wasn’t hard to see, even when he tried to hide it. He could see the increasing panic in everyone’s gazes, the listless energy when they rarely moved. All Ryke could do was hope they found their vigour if they had to fight. When, they had to fight.

No one knew what caused the cave-in but they had no real way of knowing either, and that sense of unease and uncertainty carried on even as they delved deeper into the Angicor Den. The occasional roaming beast would come across their way, and the den slowly split off into separate passageways, a maze of rock and stone that hid the true path.

Ryke could only make blind guesses as he led them, not daring to split the group. The weak serpents that occasionally passed them by were of no threat, but eventually they began seeing corpses. A small dead Angicor here, then a slightly larger one deeper in. Then it was two. Four. Nine. When they opened up into the first thing that looked like a room, they saw no less dead Angicor than the amount they left at the opening. Dozens, Fera included.

The bodies were stacked up in a pile nearly over a dozen feet high, their blood drained to soak the stone floor. Ryke felt like he was walking in a shallow pool of water, and the thick scent was overwhelming. He silently thanked the Mother that he hadn’t refined his sense of smell yet and slowly led the group around the room. Nothing much remained in the room. As they slowly approached one corner, they saw a body slowly move.

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A weak hiss sounded out, and a snake leaped out so slowly that Caius hardly needed to move. His blade cut the Angicor’s head clean off and sent it rolling into the big pile of bodies in the centre. The small beast seemingly hid within the pool of blood, and when its body left the pool the clutch of eggs it was protecting was revealed peacefully to the world as the blood sank.

“Even if we save the eggs-” Ryke cut Lycus off before the boy could begin speaking. “They might die when we fight. If they stay and are lucky enough to hatch, they’ll have enough food from the corpses/”

Lycus nodded quietly in response, the look of pity in his eyes nearly palpable. Even so, Ryke slowly dragged a few of the more intact corpses over to the eggs, removed their scales and left them. That was all he could afford to do for both the eggs and Lycus.

“I think it’s obvious now they were running from something.”

“No shit.”

“Walk quietly.” Was all Ryke had to say in response. He didn’t consider it disrespectful, they were all fairly tense and he considered them his friends; he understood. That didn’t stop him from telling them what to do in this situation- even if he felt it obvious. They needed something cohesive to keep them apart from their worries.

Especially as the sight deeper in only grew worse and worse, lit by the torchlight. The corpses became nothing but chunks and scattered scales, fangs lodged in walls and eyes splattered against the stone. It looked less like a battlefield and more like a meat grinder. Ryke couldn’t take a single step without some unknown piece of flesh sticking to his boot, just for it to be replaced by another with the next step.

Rocks fell from the ceiling, the cave shaking around them as they furthered their descent. Shrieks and echoes bounced off the stone walls and hundreds of tiny snakes slithered past and around them, uncaring of the intruder's presence in their path. Doing his best to avoid crushing one of them and dealing with unnecessary aggression, Ryke motioned the group to stay against the wall as they progressed forward.

Soon they were met by yet another open room, a similar pile of bodies haphazardly tossed into the massive pile.Two massive Angicor lay at it’s base with each having a lump on their necks nearly the size of their own heads, easily twice the size of the one Ryke fought. He couldn’t hide the way his face paled upon seeing it, but the human looking corpse next to them brought some relief to his morbid curiosity.

Wearing nothing but torn rags and bite marks covering their chest, a dead woman lay in front of the piles. Her legs were covered in fur, reminiscent of animals they saw in the Beast Courtyard, and her head sported two half a foot long black horns. Her skin was rough, pale and her eyes were a blue just as insipid; yet that was all overshadowed by the vicious tar-like substance thrashing across her skin. Every movement caused her body to shake, as if it was trying to rip itself off of her without a care for the skin it was latched onto.

The black mass shrieked as Ofrir pressed the torch to it and it quickly flowed into the corpses orifices for safety. Lycus nearly threw up and Maximus seemed uncaring whilst the rest looked on in abject horror, knowing that something similar happened to those who were possessed in the second clearing. The spearman’s expression hardened as he stomped down solidly on her head smashing the horns off. After picking them up, he stomped until there was nothing left of the head and scorched the stomach until there was nothing left.

Many could only look away but Ryke forced himself to look, nodding silently at Ofrir’s actions and making sure the tar didn’t escape somehow. He wasn’t sure how the Devils worked or how strong this one was but the Fera that lay dead next to them were clearly at the peak of the First Ring, if not nearly within the Second.

Yet the bloody footprints clearly indicated that something kept going deeper, and Ryke’s face only grew more and more distorted as they followed. Whatever group they were following was easily the same size as theirs if not larger and definitely stronger; he didn’t know what else to do but follow and hope they don’t get noticed or killed before they’re maybe led to the way out. He relied on the idea that whatever Devils were in front of them had no reason to expect something to be following them.

Eventually they began hearing more shrieks and the cave shook once more, the path slowly going up and ending at a ledge that apparently dropped down into another large open cavern. They could all hear the loud hiss as well as the laughter that followed, which then transitioned into a conversation spoken in a language none had heard before. Another thud and they heard something massive slam into the rock wall, causing stalactites to fall from the ceiling and splinter across the floor. Ryke couldn’t resist the urge to slowly crawl forward and peak his head over the ledge- an act that was naturally followed by his companions.