The dirt hole wasn't very steep, but it was angled to continuously keep going downwards at a slight angle.

There wasn't much to be done except to continue deeper. Luckily the cave walls were filled with blue glowing mushrooms, making it unnecessary for William to use the multi-tool for light.

The vacant tunnel soon lead into a large half sphere cave that had a corner full of bones and was filled with small, one meter tall mantises grouped up in the center of the cave. One of the mantises let out a low screech the moment it saw William. This was followed by the rest of the group looking toward the entrance of the cave and letting out a similar screech.

They only screeched for a moment before rushing towards William. William slashed expecting it to be blocked but to slow the mantis down. Instead it simply cleaved through the mantis as it didn't block in time. But this did nothing to slow down the rest of them as they swarmed towards William.

The fight was mostly William moving in a circle, keeping close to the wall of the cave while attacking the mantises with each strike taking at least the life of one mantis. Not that this did much as the rest kept coming relentlessly.

By the end of the fight William was more tired than he had been fighting the guardians. Mostly because they kept coming and attacking downwards to hit them while constantly retreating was something he hadn't experienced before.

William took a new look over the room as it was now littered by small mantis corpses.

In the center of the room stood his grandfather and Rigel. They were looking downwards at something white while talking, he couldn't hear what they were saying from a distance.

As William came closer he saw a deer having been stripped of most of its meat, with long strips of its meat laying besides it.

Next to the deer and holding the two men's attention was a small white fox. It had bloody streaks across it's body but worst was the left hind leg which looked like it had been hit by overwhelming strength, leaving it half of it crushed and the rest broken and twisted, but it's chest was still going up and down and William heard weak wheezing breaths. It was struggling to remain alive.

William was unsure if he should end it's misery or if he should help it, in the end he decided to help it as the only goal was to deal with the mantis colony.

William felt a hand on his shoulder as he was taking out one of his healing talismans from its pouch on his. As he looked towards Victor he saw that Victor was holding a vial in one hand, both the vial and liquid in it was crystal clear.

Rigel disappeared while Victor handed William the vial.

"Take this and pour some of it over the hind leg, sprinkle a little over the rest of its body. Wait a minute before pouring the rest of it in the mouth of the fox, then wait another minute before carrying it to the side of the room. Understood?"

William was a little confused by the sudden instructions but nodded nonetheless.

"Yeah, I understand."

Victor disappeared immediately after Williams confirmation that he understood.

Opening the vial William smelled a strong smell of unfamiliar herbs. The smell was strong enough that it felt like his nostrils were burning, making him twist his head from instinct. William wondered exactly what was in the vial for it to be strong enough to burn his nose simply by being near it.

William started following Victors instructions with some hesitation, which only grew stronger when the liquid landed on the mangled leg and started sizzling. The blood on the leg was washed away as the crushed part of its leg started filling out while the whole leg started twisting as if it had turned into a wriggling snake. It took a few seconds of this before the leg started looking normal if slightly smaller where it had been crushed.

William decided to steel himself before he continued. He sprinkled a small amount of the liquid over the rest of the fox, taking extra care to not get anything on himself. There was a weaker sizzling sound from the body compared to the leg and it died out faster.

William had a hard time seeing if the cuts over it's body had healed as the fur was hiding the injuries, the only reason he knew it was injured there being the bloody lines which had disappeared with the sizzling.

William took a second before deciding that he should make sure that the injuries were gone. His grandfather hadn't told him to do this but he had told him to wait a minute before pouring the rest in its mouth, so spending that minute to make sure that the injuries were healed couldn't hurt.

William had to go down to his knees to properly check the body. The fur of the fox was smooth and soft enough that Williams hand sank into it. William had to stop himself from stroking the fur as he dug through it to search for any injuries. It looked like the medicine had done it's job as there were no visible injuries. Before William was about to feed the rest of the potion to the fox he decided to listen to his intrusive thoughts and stroke it's fur a little.

William did have some hesitation before continuing. Seeing how the liquid had reacted to the injuries of the fox made him unsure if this was something someone could actually drink. There was also the issue of how he should make the fox drink the medicine, Victor had only told him to pour it into the mouth which seemed wrong. But these two issues were resolved by the trust William had in his grandfather.

William opened the fox's mouth before angling it to pour the medicine down the mouth. For a second nothing happened which made Williams unease grow as he wondered if he had done something wrong. The fox started to spasm after a few more seconds which made William unsure what to do. William was still holding the head of the fox as the spasms started which furthered the unease. Should he lower the head to the ground or not. Eventually he decided to simply pet the fox's head as he remembered his mother doing something similar to him in the past while he was laying sick.

The spasms did eventually die down which made William let out a sigh of relief as he kept petting it. The breaths had now changed to be heavy and clear, he said still decided to wait a minute more before moving the fox as he was still worried for it.

Even if injuries could be healed quickly in numerous ways they could still have after effects. He still remembered the burning chest wound he had gotten from one of the duals he had insisted be with real swords. His chest had ended up being cut deeply enough to need immediate healing. But even after the healer had cast his spells and the wound was gone without a trace William could still feel a phantom pain of it for the rest of the week, even sometimes waking up believing himself to be bleeding out during that week.

William finally decided to move the fox after ten minutes of patting. William was very careful as he gently scooped up the fox, carrying it like a baby towards the edge of the cave. With the only direction from Victor being the edge of the room William decided to put down the fox a few meters to the side of the entrance to the tunnel that lead out from the nest. This was also one of the few spots which had no mantis corpses.

There wasn't much William could do to make the place more comforting for the fox as the only thing around was dirt, bones and mantis corpses. So he took off his cloak to serve as the fox's bedding, deciding that it wouldn't bring him any benefit down here.

He was a little worried about leaving the fox here so William moved a few mantis corpses to hide the fox from anything entering the cave. When William was done he saw that runes had been drawn in the dirt around the fox. He couldn't read the runes as he hadn't learnt that yet but the only two people here where Victor and Rigel so he didn't worry about the newly appeared runes.

It was finally time to move on. William was a little surprised that nothing had entered the cave while he was taking care of the fox, but the time had only felt long to him because he was worried for the fox. In reality, the only significant period of time was when he waited for the fox to be ready to be moved, the rest taking no more than a handful of minutes.

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The other side of the cave had a tunnel that would lead deeper into the nest and with nothing more to do here William went into it. Victor got and Rigel were nowhere to be seen but William assumed they were still following him.

The tunnel kept going downwards at an angle, William didn't know how deep they were now, but with how long the tunnels were they had be quite far down now.

William suddenly heard Victors voice coming from behind him.

"Sometimes people do more than is necessary and that's usually great but sometimes that can backfire."

As William turned around he couldn't see Victor so he simply asked what he meant.

"What do you mean? I didn't overreach, I simply did what you told me to do."

There was a moment of silence before Victors voice answered William this time seemingly being a bit more tired. But even with William staring right where the voice came from he still didn't see anything.

"Misunderstanding can easily happen and you can never know how someone or something will respond. It will probably be fine this time but just be careful in the future. For now, you have a queen to hunt."

Even if William wanted to continue the conversation that was apparently one sided. William turned around as he decided to try anew after hunting the Queen.

The tunnel lead into a second cave identical to the first except the bones. At the other side of the cave stood a two meter mantis which had bright red lines all over itself. At the center of the cave stood ten different Guardian mantises, four which were variants. There were two fire variants, one that was similar to the variant that had raised it's defense outside the nest, which William believed held the earth affinity and the last one was green like the one that had healed itself.

This would be a though fight for William but he didn't think it was impossible.

William didn't ask Rigel or Victor to deal with any mantis, instead rushing towards the closest guardian.

The mantises let out a low hiss before rushing towards William. Being inside the nest had made them more aggressive. There was also the possibility that they were the last line and so there was no reason to be defensive as there was no reinforcement that could help them.

William slashed out holding nothing back. The slash was stopped but William immediately changed his pose as he angled the stopped sword and stabbed towards the mantis. The stab didn't hit the head as intended but instead cut into the mantises neck. William backed away as another guardian attacked him. The stab wasn't enough to decapitate the mantis but it did leave the mantis bleeding out.

The moment the first mantis fell there was a overpowering shriek coming from the two meter mantis which was still standing in the back of the cave.

William couldn't afford to cover his ears as he was in the middle of the fight. But as the shrieking continued he had no choice because he was sure it would damage his ears. William had so far not been injured by any fight during this mission so he wanted to avoid it now when he saw the finishing line. William discarded attacking and focused on dodging while using his now free hands to cover his ears.

There was little effect on the guardian mantises as they continued attacking.

He tried to reach the shrieking mantis but the moment he tried the other mantises became even more aggressive forcing him to retreat. For the rest of the shrieking William was forced to dodge and kick the mantises as an attack. Even if defensive fighting wasn't his style he thought he did decent as he managed to destroy one of the fire variants forelimb and the leg of a normal guardians with only kicks. The shrieking finally stopped as William was about to stop caring about his ears being hurt and draw his sword.

There was a small tickling feeling that started at Williams ears and ran downwards as blood flowed from them now that his hands didn't block them. There was a constant high-pitched buzzing sound that muffled all other sounds that came from the different mantises which were rushing towards him.

William felt a smile reach his face as his heart started beating faster than it had for a long time. As William felt his sword finally return to his hands the smile on his face grew wider.

William moved towards the closest mantis while drawing his knife. He used his sword to block one of the forelimbs while using his knife to block the other blow as it came down, putting away the knife after the strike had lost its force . William wrapped his free hand around the mantis forelimb before it could attack again. William started bending the mantises forelimb at the joint breaking the limb and then pushing the scythe into the eye of the mantis.

He turned around towards another mantis as it attacked him. William stepped closer to the mantis shifting his position to avoid one of the strikes while blocking the other with his sword. Grabbing the mantises with his free hand and using all of his strength reinforce with Qi to crack the weak point of the exoskeleton of the mantis.

Throwing the now dying mantis at the mantis attacking from the left while moving towards the right. The fire variant with a broken forelimb tried to slash William as he dodged to the side of the broken arm and cutting of its head.

Filled with adrenaline William closed in on a normal guardian, stabbing it's head before it could properly dodge backwards and escape the swords range.

The other variants were now fully using their Qi to enhance themselves.

Running towards the healing variant William slashed upwards, countering it's downwards slashes before stomping on the variants leg making it lose its balance. William brought up his knife and stabbed the knife in the mantis's eye deep enough to kill it. This time the knife came out of the mantises eye, William simply sheathed it and turned around.

The fire variant mantis was on him as he was forced to block the mantises attack. William couldn't dodge backwards as the corpse of the healing variant was laying there making him decide to attack instead. William got a few shallow cuts as he focused more on attacking which ended with a sword slash that cut the head of the mantis in half.

William rushed towards the closest normal guardian as he countered it's downwards slash before letting them go as they had lost their force. William pierced the mantis's head as it also attacked again but with less force as it didn't have time to raise it's forelimbs, making them only leave two shallow wounds on both of Williams shoulder.

The last variant was running towards William as its Qi was glowing a light brown. William dodged the attacks while trying to stab the mantis's head which it managed to avoid numerous times as William was forced to shift his posture to dodge the mantis's attack. William ran out of patience eventually deciding to simply stab the mantis in its chest. It took numerous stabs before it finally fell down.

The final normal guardian had it's leg shattered making it the last surviving guardian simply by being the slowest to approach William. William dealt with it by cutting it vertically in half making it split up and revealing the two meter mantis to William.

William felt his smile come back to his bloodstained face as he saw the last mantis, the queen and the final boss.

While running towards the queen William felt his hair stand on ends as a bright light appeared and quickly grew from the Queens mouth. William sensed he couldn't avoid it making him quickly take out one of the barrier talismans from its pouch. Inserting Qi into the talisman made it glow before dispersing in small lights as William put it on his chest as fast as he could making a thin glowing barrier cover Williams body.

The talisman effect was made obvious immediately as the bright light shout out from the mantis's mouth. The light punched into the light barrier, the barrier fully stopped the beam without wavering or anything to indicate that it had blocked a attack. The beam disappeared as fast as it appeared. Even without a developed Qi sense William had still felt the Qi from that beam as it clashed with the barrier and he was sure that the beam would have killed him without any issues no matter how he defended against it.

Fortunately it took a lot out the Queen to shoot that beam as it had a visibly hard time to even stand. William didn't want to end this by borrowing the power of the barrier any more than necessary so he brought his hand towards where he had placed the mantis and dispersed the barrier.

The queen let out a weak shriek that quickly grew stronger as its eyes started growing red. The queen started burning as it's shriek reached the peak.

William ran toward the queen as it did the same. The queen let out faster slashes than any other mantis before. Instead of fully dodging or blocking William countered with his own slashes that drew blood from the queen but also revealed that her exoskeleton was also tougher than any other mantis before it. Truly deserving the position of Queen.

None of the fatigue that was visible from the queen was noticeably anymore as it kept the barrage of slashes towards William going. William dodged with minimal movement while keeping up his own attacks. William being forced to change his posture to dodge the queens slashes made him unable to properly attack leaving only shallow wounds on the queen.

She must have been unsatisfied with the progress of the battle as she opened her mouth again. William feared another beam but was happy to see that a fire breath was released against him instead. He was still forced to dodge but this was still better than death.

The queen kept breathing fire for a handful of seconds as she tried to approach William, but she stopped after realizing that she was unable to close the distance. William approached and attacked again. This time William allowed some shallow cuts to get a better chance at attacking the queen and as the battle continued he got his opportunity.

He dodged a slash and cut upwards as the queens slash came down, letting William cut of one of the queens forelimbs. This indicated the end of the fight as with only one arm to attack him William managed to get another opportunity and slashed off the other forelimb of the queen. With no way to defend herself she opened her mouth to breath fire again but this left her open as a slash cut her head off.

William was about to sit down from exhaustion when he heard movement from the tunnel into the chamber. From the tunnel that lead out from the nest came several soldier type mantises. They shrieked as loud as they could before rushing him when they saw the dead queen.

William didn't know how many mantises he had slayed by now as they just kept coming without any stop. Sometimes there would be a short break before the next group came but there would always be another group coming after a few minutes.

This was the first time William felt this exhausted nor as injured, there wasn't any major injury but his exhaustion had allowed to several different mantises to leave shallow cuts all over his body. He was about to collapse, the only thing keeping him awake being his growing spite towards the mantises and his training.

Eventually Victor and Rigel appeared. They didn't have any time to say anything as William relaxed a little when he saw them which was enough to make him collapse and fall into unconsciousness.