Christopher couldn’t hide his repulse upon watching the baby ghoul.

“Look, there’s another one there,” Jules said, pointing to another nook in the wall. “And another one just after.”

Suddenly, despite the dim light, they identified two dozen cavities around them, most containing baby ghouls of varied sizes. They were all busy gnawing on their limbs, some having already amputated theirs.

“He is eating his own hand,” Jules said.

“Yeah, I can see that. Disgusting.”

“Don’t you see the similarities?” Jules asked, rolling back his eyes.

Christopher realized what he was talking about.

Just a moment before, he had been gnawing on his wrist, just like the baby ghoul, and even right now, he was busy scratching his hand as hard as he could.

“Let’s get out of here,” he suggested, and Jules nodded in agreement. Even though Jules hadn’t shown any symptoms yet, he feared if they spent more time here, they would exit the maze without hands and feet.

Christopher turned around, ready to leave; however, feeling that Jules wasn’t following him, he glanced back and saw Jules raising his blade.

“What are you doing?” He asked in alarm.

“I’m killing them,” Jules said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“They are babies!”

“They are monsters!” Jules replied. “They would eat your brains if you let them. What do you think that piece of disgusting gunk I stepped on before was? Probably the leftovers of some poor guy who couldn’t outrun these terrors!”

Christopher's eyes darted between the small monstrosities and Jules's blade, unsure what to do.

“Look, I won’t force you to do it, but you can’t stop me,” Jules said, his eyes shining with a severe light. Not losing any more time, he raised his blade and easily put an end to the creature.

Christopher opened his mouth to talk, but Jules interrupted him.

“Don’t worry, I won’t loot them,” he reassured him. “I’m not a monster.”

Jules progressed quickly, moving from crevice to crevice, easily finishing the baby ghouls inside.

“Come here,” he whispered after a while. He stood near the wall, his blade dripping with blood. His voice was low, almost calm, but Christopher could detect a faint feeling of repulse.

He approached the boy and peeked at the niche on the wall.

Inside was a baby ghoul, perhaps a bit smaller than the others but already old enough to gnaw on his foot. Nesting beside his head were two tiny lumps.

Two little hands, no bigger than a farm mouse, rested peacefully. Despite their cute size, they had the same creepy characteristics as the others they had seen, except for not being stuck inside a ghoul's chest.

Suddenly, Christopher realized the strange scene they had witnessed, where the hands appeared to painfully burrow inside one of the ghouls to escape the light–those were some kind of parasites.

“I thought they were part of the ghouls,” Jules said.

“Me too,” Christopher confirmed. “It’s disgusting. Everything here is disgusting and creepy.”

“Come on, I’ll get this over with.”

Jules took out the baby ghoul with a clean stab and then crushed the tiny hands with the base of his swords. A faint sound of the tiny bones cracking echoed in the chambers around them.

All hell broke loose.

A swarm of hands, varying in size, burst from the rocks and crevices in the wall, clawing out of every nook and cranny. In seconds, they completely covered the ground and the walls, writhing and twitching as they crawled over one another.

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Christopher and Jules exchanged a horrified look as the swarm started climbing up their legs, using their tiny nails to try and tear through their clothes.

“What should we do?” Jules asked, horrified. There wasn’t much his blade skills could do against this type of enemy.

“Run!” Christopher screamed, lunging towards the end of the chamber.

To his surprise, he picked up speed faster than expected.

He wasn’t slow by any means, but ever since he entered the Labyrinth, he realized his athleticism could not compare to Jules, who appeared to push the limits of the humanly possible.

But now, it didn’t take him more than ten seconds to leave Jules behind. He realized with a smile that it had to be the effect of spending those free stat points on Grace. Only two points had made that much of a difference. He couldn’t help but be amazed.

Crunching sounds followed their footsteps as they trampled the creepy hands; however, no matter how fast they were, they couldn’t evade them all.

A painful moan escaped Christopher’s lips as he felt a piercing sting on his foot, rapidly followed by some others in his shins, tights, and abdomen. The creepy hands clinging to him had finally managed to pierce through his clothes and were now digging into his flesh.

Not daring to stop, he desperately ran his hands through his body, shaking off the terrors as best as he could manage. At the same time, his mind raced in panic, trying to come up with a way to push back the wave of terrors. His spear was useless, and even if he could use Triangulation Beam, it wouldn’t help.

There were simply too many hands to take care of.

Behind him, he heard Jules screaming in pain. He turned back his head and saw the boy tripping and falling onto the ground, the wave of terrors rapidly washing over him.

The boy did his best to roll on the floor, trying to crush the creatures with his own body, but to no avail. There were too many terrors, and even if he managed to crush the smaller ones, the others could shrug it off and crawl back on top of him like bloodthirsty spiders.

Christopher had to think of something fast, or Jules would be devoured.

He ran back towards the boy while taking the light crystal out of his pocket, and without hesitation, he cracked it with as much strength as he could muster.

Intense light illuminated the chamber, and as it did, the waves of spider hands froze before silently retreating as fast as possible. They ran away from the light as if it were their nemesis, finding refuge in the shadows.

Not all of them ran away, however. Christopher cried in pain as some of the hands still clinging onto him redoubled their efforts, digging faster into his flesh.

He grabbed them one by one, throwing them to the ground and loudly crushing them with his boot. Meanwhile, Jules, lying in a pool of blood, desperately tried to kill the hands still assaulting him.

Christopher ignored his own bleeding wounds and leaned over the boy. He had managed to get rid of most hands; however, one of them appeared to have managed to dig deep into Jules’ abdomen.

“Cut it open,” Jules cried. His face was pale, and his body weak, and he barely managed to utter those words before passing out. There were so many wounds on his body Christopher was surprised he hadn’t bled out yet.

“Shit!” Christopher cursed.

With trembling hands, he grabbed the boy’s blade and used it to cut a deep wound on his belly, aiming at a repulsive mound of movement beneath his flesh.

Trying his best to ignore the gushing blood, Christopher dug through Jules’ guts, finally finding the disgusting writhing hand that he mercilessly crushed. Finally, he took a short breath before igniting his blood and using Crimson Proof to heal Jules's wounds.

He finally interrupted Crimson Proof once he ran dangerously low on energy. Unfortunately, he found himself in a worse state than expected–not only was he too exhausted to heal his own wound, but he hadn’t even managed to heal Jules fully.

Christopher glanced around, the light crystal following his eyes, and he noticed how the shadows moved.

He shivered, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

In the shadows, thousands of hands waited, ready to pounce at a moment's notice. Christopher didn’t know how long the light crystal would last, but as soon as it went out, he would be finished.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm down, filling his lungs with foul, acidic air. An unbearable itch assaulted him, and he had to expend a great deal of mental energy just to avoid dropping the light crystal and scratching his hand.

Christopher grabbed Jules’s arm and started dragging him toward the end of the chamber while holding the light crystal as high as possible. They had to get out of here, no matter what.

It was a difficult and exhausting task, and he soon regretted not having invested those two free stat points into Might instead. He could hear the terrors following him, their nails clattering against the floor, trying their best to keep up without exposing themselves to the light.

“Fuck you!” Christopher swore, waving the light crystal in a futile attempt to scare them away.

He advanced slowly, his whole body aching, either due to his wounds or exhaustion, and he had to pause multiple times to catch his breath.

A feral growl jolted his senses. He turned his head and saw an enraged ghoul rushing in his direction. He hastily let go of Jules and stuck the light crystal on his waist beside his Tale.

Immediately, the circle of light around him diminished, and he heard the five-fingered terrors approaching him, taking advantage of the large shadows. But right now, he didn’t have time to worry about them.

He stepped over Jule’s body and braced the spear with both hands.