Sam explained the plan to the others, and they began. The closest scalable passageway was about a hundred feet away from the edge of the canyon, far too far to jump. They would have to run for it. Sam began to climb down the side, and as he reached the halfway mark, he jumped down, landing with a soft thud. He began to run towards the passageway, and the ambient noises of the monsters started to pick up.
One of the creatures poked its head out of its den, a strange hybrid between a lion and a wolf. It howled as it saw him, and then began to chase him. More and more monsters spilled out of their holes, and started charging Sam. Behind them, the other members of Sam’s party slunk towards the passageway. Sam ran circles around the monsters,using his abilities to keep distance between him and the weaker creatures. These monsters only lived on the edge of the canyon, and their strength was barely peak G Rank. To imagine that Sam, who was also at that stage, at least nominally, considered them to be pitifully weak, showed just how powerful he was.
When the others had finally reached the passageway, Sam charged the monsters, and pushed his way through their ranks, blasting them apart with powerful swings of his mace. Some of them did not go down as easily, but Sam outpaced them rather than staying to fight. As he approached the stone tube that was his goal, something rocketed out of it at high speeds. Sam reflexively jumped up into the air, and soared toward the lip of rock thirty feet overhead that marked the top of the tunnel. He had wanted to approach this from the side, so that he could climb, but this was his only option now.
He reached about 20 feet in height before he started to fall, and he desperately pumped power into himself, activating Girdings of the Arbiter. With a titanic surge of effort, he propelled himself the rest of the way, and he grabbed onto the rock, before throwing himself up and over it. Below him, the horde of monsters started to snap at each other, suddenly bereft of the common target of Sam. The others were already waiting on the top, panting heavily. Sam raised an eyebrow.
“What exactly were you all doing that was more strenuous than fighting off a hundred monsters?”
“Sam, just shut up. Not everybody is a goddamn juggernaut like you,” Jeffrey said good naturedly. “Though you do have your uses sometimes.”
Sam laughed and made his way over. As they started running down the tunnel, a rumbling noise began to shake the tube of rock beneath them. Something was moving in it. Something big.
“Shit. Pick up the pace, guys!” Sam shouted as pieces of rock fell off the side of the tunnel. On the other side of the canyon, there was another gap between the tunnel and the canyon wall. They needed to make it there before the monster reached it.
As they ran, Pyotr picked up Lao, who was starting to flag, and Sam began to move towards Jeffrey and Addas, who both gave him foul looks. Neither wished to be carried around like a baby. They pushed themselves to this maximum speed, breathing heavily as they tried to keep up with Sam, Pyotr and Eduardo. Eventually they began to fall behind, and Sam scooped them up with one in each arm. He was slowed, but not by much. They were, even combined, far less than his maximum lifting capacity now.
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The end of the tunnel came into sight ten seconds later, and Sam’s heart sank as he saw a chitinous blur race out of the end. A gigantic centipede, hundreds of feet long, coiled around itself on the far end of the canyon, blocking their escape. Green acid bubbled up from its mouth, and it hissed at them.
Sam gritted his teeth as he saw just how large it was. Small sparks danced along its carapace, and the acid dripping from its mouth somehow produced an aura of electricity. It was a terrifying sight, and by the power that was coursing off it, it was a threat that none of them could face.Sam was starting to get good at extrapolating the power of a monster from its aura, and as long as everything progressed in a linear fashion like it should, then this monster was at about the middle of F Rank. Sam could have been completely wrong, but the fact was that they were weaker than it.
It coiled upwards, thrusting its head into the air. Upon seeing them, or perhaps sensing them as it lacked eyes, the creature spat a gobbet of acid at them. It sent off sparks of lightning as it traveled, and it landed in front of them, searing a hole in the rock. A tiny droplet of it sped towards Lao, but Eduardo cut it out of the air before it could reach the man. Lao gave him a look of gratitude, and summoned a Dao shield in front of him. The next time that happened, he could be ready. The centipede had different plans however. With the crunching of breaking rock, it launched itself towards them.
The centipede opened its mouth wide as it moved, and thrust its head down towards the party. Everyone scattered, and the tube of rock crumbled beneath the force of the attack. A fault line raced up the rock as the centipede thrashed around, and the tube started to cave in. Knowing that if they were caught on the ground, it would be game over, Sam and the others started running towards the end of the tunnel.
The centipede whirled around and snapped at them with its massive jaws, but it missed narrowly. They reached the end, and jumped down from the rapidly unraveling tunnel. Sam grabbed Jeffrey and Addas, who both held onto him for dear life, and he scrambled up the wall as fast as he could. Pyotr and Eduardo followed shortly after, with the first man carrying Lao as usual. They made it up just as the centipede had reached the wall, and it slammed its head into it, trying to shake them off.
Pyotr almost lost his grip, but he warped the rock around his hand to hold him in place, preventing him from falling. Sam helped them up and they started running up the mountain side as the centipede slithered up the wall. It moved quite slowly relative to its size, and eventually it started to have trouble with gripping the rapidly steepening rock face. With a hiss of rage, it turned around and skittered back to the valley. Everyone let out collective sighs of relief. They were barely a quarter of the way to the hammer, and the threats were already becoming immense. What kind of creatures would be lurking in the next valley? At least this was a good leveling opportunity, but even that might be occluded by the fact that if they could not defeat an enemy, then they could not gain any essence from them. With no further conversation, they plodded up the mountain, the third such mountain so far.