Drake and Elwin’s party, and the five Silver Crane Sect disciples were standing at the centre of the last floor of the mines, facing three passageways on the other side.

‘So only one of these is the path of treasure,’ thought Drake, recalling the words spoken by the mysterious voice. ‘And the other two are certain death, and a crueller fate?’

Drake also recalled the last two lines, ‘A wise choice must be made in time, else face the darkness of the mines… so there’s a time limit to figuring out the right path and reaching the treasure? Else we’re going to be attacked?’

Everyone turned to Sylvia again.

Sylvia closed her eyes and willed her pixie spirits to enter the three passageways. However, the moment they reached the entrance, the spirits let out a tiny, high-pitched screech, before dissipating.

Cough! Cough!

Sylvia coughed as she suffered a backlash from the sudden death of her spirits. She took a moment to recover before facing the others.

“It seems we need to do this the hard way,” she said plainly.

Everyone hesitated. What were they going to do now?

“Should we split up?” asked Derald.

Farisa shook her head. “No. If we did that, two of the groups will meet certain death.”

“Then what other choice do we have?” asked Ivan.

Drake spoke up. “We should explore it one by one,” he proposed, and everyone turned to face him. “There’s a chance we could get lucky and find the correct path in the first or second try.”

‘Makes sense,’ everyone thought. But… who would go first?

“I’ll explore the first one,” Drake volunteered.

Elwin placed a hand on his shoulder and furrowed his brows. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Drake replied, then raised his hand to show his ring. “I should be safe with this.”

However, Elwin didn’t seem happy. He had just reunited with his brother. If something happened to him now, he would never forgive himself.

“I’ll go with you,” suggested Sylvia.

Elwin glanced at her and sighed. “Very well then, please look after him.”

Sylvia just nodded gently before turning around to face the first passageway on the left. Drake joined Sylvia and the two walked into the passage together.

The mines were dimly lit to begin with, but this passage had virtually no lighting. Drake poured mana into his amulet and it began glowing very gently, but enough for Drake and Sylvia to see their surroundings with their heightened senses.

The duo carefully tip-toed through the passageway. Their movements were so soft that there was no echo at all. At the same time, their eyes kept scanning the surroundings - left, right, up, down, forwards, backwards - making sure nothing was sneaking up on them.

They walked for ten minutes, but didn’t discover any danger at all.

‘Could this be it?’ Drake wondered. Was he really so lucky? Did he find the correct path on their first go? ‘If so, I should go back to call the others…’

Drake froze and so did Sylvia.

What’s that!?

With the dim lighting, they could barely make out several metres ahead of them. However, much further than that, they spotted two specks of dark red light.

‘Was that… the end of the passageway?’ Drake thought. However, he got a sinking feeling in his stomach. He quietly turned to face Sylvia and the two came to a silent agreement.

They had to see what it was!

Drake stepped forward, followed by Sylvia. Their minds and senses were working on overdrive as they crept through the passageway. Soon, another set of dark red lights appeared in the distance, and then another. Quickly, several dozen pairs of dark red lights appeared in the passageway.

Then, they felt something.

What a powerful aura!

No!

Auras!

Drake felt the auras of dozens and dozens of pseudo-commander class demons and came to a standstill. Sylvia was no different. They didn’t need to communicate this time - this was definitely not the right passageway.

For some reason, the demons didn’t react to their presence. Were they sleeping or something? Or were they just good at hiding their presence? Maybe the two of them were just lucky. In any case, they had to get out of here, fast. If all those demons attacked them, there’d be no way to escape.

Drake and Sylvia turned around and started walking back. They moved even more slowly and carefully this time while hiding their auras as much as they possibly could. Slowly but surely, they were able to make progress. It took them fifteen minutes to reach the halfway point, but the two didn’t let down their guards now.

‘Almost… there!’ thought Drake as he saw the lighting of the bottom floor again. Sweat trickled down his forehead as he continued hiding his presence and moving forward quietly.

Eventually, they stepped back into the light.

‘We made it!’ Drake and Sylvia exclaimed mentally. Drake wasn’t sure how the demons didn’t detect and attack them, but he didn’t want to question his blessings. After a string of bad luck ever since entering this inheritance, this was the first time his luck had worked out for him and he was very happy.

Drake turned to look at everyone else. They were staring at the two, wide-eyed.

“You guys… are alive!” gasped Blaze, his eyes red and wide open. Next to him, Elwin was the same, while Farisa felt relief wash over her. The three of them ran to a confused Drake and Sylvia.

“Why…” Drake was going to ask why they were all upset and worried, but then he realised. They were gone for more than half an hour. Everyone must have thought that they died.

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Elwin ran up to Drake and hugged him tightly, bringing him back from his thoughts.

“I thought… I’d lost you again.” Elwin sobbed. He was going to barge into the passageway himself to find Drake. However, Cain, Imogen, Farisa, and everyone else had held him back. Otherwise, he really would have chased after them.

“You guys…” Drake sighed.

“What took you so long? What did you find in there?” asked Farisa.

“Dozens and dozens of pseudo commander class demons,” replied Sylvia. Everyone gasped in surprise, and Sylvia continued. “Luckily, they didn’t detect our presence for some reason.”

“Hence why we had to be super careful walking back, and took our time,” Drake finished.

“I see…” replied Farisa.

Drake looked around the room and something caught his attention. Among the Silver Crane Sect disciples, apart from Kurt, Ivan, and Derald, the other two were missing.

Seeing him glance at them, Kurt coughed and spoke. “We thought you two were… gone, so we sent out another two people to explore the second passageway a while ago.” As he said so, Kurt looked at the central passage and creases formed on his forehead.

‘Please… be alright…’

As if responding to his thoughts, two distant screams echoed from the middle chamber. However, the screams quickly became louder and louder.

“HELP USSSS!” a man cried out. Kurt, Ivan, and Derald immediately rushed towards the passageway - however, they were interrupted.

BOOM!

A plume of fire exploded from the central passage as its ceiling collapsed. Kurt and the others were pushed several steps back from the force while everyone else covered their ears and turned back, unable to face the bright light and scorching heat.

Cough! Cough!

Cough! Cough! Cough!

Everyone began coughing as dust and debris filled the room.

“Nooo-!” Kurt coughed but forced his voice out, “You guys…! Nooo-!”

Cough! Cough!

This couldn’t be happening. They had already lost Jordon, and now them too!? Half of the Silver Crane Sect disciples had died. All under his leadership! How could he face the sect elders again?!

Kurt couldn’t accept it.

‘No, they had to be alive, they had to be-’ Kurt glanced up to see that the entire passage had collapsed. Combined with the earlier explosion, there was no way that they had survived.

Ivan collapsed to his knees.

“No, no, no, no, no… this can’t be happening!”

However, the group had no time to mourn as several loud screeches suddenly echoed through the floor, followed by quick footsteps. Everyone instinctively jumped and turned around warily.

Several shadows descended from the floor above and rapidly shot towards them. The shadows reached just over ten metres away from the group and stopped, revealing their monstrous figures.

Three large arachnes towered over them.

Their spider halves had long and extremely sharp legs, spanning several feet in diameter, while their humanoid half reached six feet in height, even larger than the one Drake had fought before. Their huge claws, fangs, and eight, blood red eyes were similarly bigger - but that wasn’t even the worst part. Drake noticed that their legs and claws all gave off a black hint.

‘These are mutants too!?’ Drake gasped. At the same time, the arachnes opened their mouths and claws wide, and screeched at the group - each releasing a pseudo commander class aura.

However, one person was unfazed by their sudden appearance.

“I’LL KILL YOUUUU!!!!” screamed Ivan, filled with rage. He stood up in a flash and charged at the nearest arachne.

“No, wait!” yelled Derald but Ivan had already closed half the distance. He sighed, unsheathed his sword, and chased after him.

The three arachnes watched as Ivan closed in on them furiously.

Then, they spat.

Three large spider webs shot towards Ivan from all directions, taking him completely by surprise. He had never fought an arachne before so was unprepared for their unique ability. But it was too late.

He activated his movement martial technique and jumped, narrowly dodging the first spiderweb. However, the other two followed close behind. Ivan watched helplessly from midair as the two spiderwebs crashed into him.

“Ahh!” Ivan gasped as he collided with the spiderwebs. The webs’ momentum pushed Ivan through the air and forced him against the wall.

“No! Ivan!” yelled Derald. However, in that moment of distraction, one of the arachne swiped its giant claw. He turned his head just in time to see something huge crash into him.

Bang!

Derald was sent flying across the floor and crashed into the wall as well, opposite to Ivan. The same arachne disappeared for a moment and then reappeared, closer to Derald, before disappearing once more.

It wanted to finish the job.

“NO!” screamed Kurt. He had already lost so many people, he couldn’t lose more.

“Lightning burst!” Blue lightning surrounded his feet as his speed increased several times. In a flash, Kurt appeared before the arachne. He jumped into the air and lightning appeared around his fist.

“Thunder strike!”

The arachne raised its claw defensively and Kurt collided heavily with it. However, Kurt wasn’t going to stop so easily. He followed up with an array of punches and kicks, but the arachne moved its claw rapidly to block all of them.

All this had happened in a few seconds so at this point, everyone else reacted. Cain and Imogen rushed towards Kurt. Blaze stared at the second arachne and ran towards it, followed closely by Sylvia. Farisa, Drake, and Elwin shared a glance before engaging the third arachne.

The floor quickly split into three battlefields.

Seeing this, Ivan felt helpless as he was glued to the wall by the spiderwebs. He was using a dagger artifact to cut himself loose, but it would take some time. Meanwhile, Derald coughed out blood as he stood up. He consumed a few recovery pills and felt his injuries heal. A few seconds later, he opened his eyes and spotted everyone fighting the three arache. Seeing Blaze and Sylvia were the only ones fighting their arachne as a pair, he decided to join and help them.

“Solar barrage!” exclaimed Drake as he shot more than a dozen fireballs at the arachne. However, it easily deflected them all with its right claw.

“Mountain splitter,” yelled Farisa as she poured mana into her hammer. The hammer grew several times in size and pressed down on the arachne. However, it easily blocked the attack with its left claw.

“Hallowed strike!” Elwin shouted as he charged at the arachne, his sword glowing bright, light blue. When he came close, the arachne raised its front leg to block him.

Boom!

Explosions rang out as the arachne blocked the attacks from all three of them simultaneously. The arachne pushed back Farisa and Elwin with its left claw and leg, while swinging at Drake with its right claw. They jumped back in the nick of time to dodge its attack.

Once they were several metres away, Drake stared at the arachne warily.

Their attacks had achieved nothing.

This was a pseudo-commander class arachne unlike the usual, warrior class demons that appeared in this inheritance. The arachne he and his party fought before already had extremely thick and durable claws. Now that it was mutated with black iron ore, he had no idea how long it would take to break them.

Drake sighed. ‘I’ll try that then,’ he thought to himself and closed his eyes. He focused his consciousness on his mana core and willed the mana to move.

Twenty per cent of his mana was rapidly consumed as two orbs of black light floated out of his palm.

Farisa saw this and gasped.

‘He’s… a mage!?’

The two black orbs each condensed into large, X-shaped boomerangs. These were the same as the iron boomerangs he used to summon before, with one difference - they were completely black.

These were made from black iron ore!

Drake had been studying the ore the whole time he was on this floor and when he explored the passageway with Sylvia, and managed to complete analysing it. So, he could now summon artifacts made of black iron ore!

He poured a bit of mana into the black iron boomerangs and activated their singular rune. Fire elemental mana erupted from the runes and spread throughout the boomerangs, covering their body in flames.

Drake looked at the arachne and smirked. ‘Go!’ he ordered mentally.

Immediately, the boomerangs flew towards the arachne while rotating rapidly. The arachne raised its right claw to block the attacks.

Boom!

Another explosion rang out as the boomerangs collided heavily with the arachne. However, to Farisa and Elwin’s surprise, small cracks appeared on its shell.

‘How… is that possible?’ they gasped in shock.

Screeeeeccccchhh!

Furious, the arachne screeched and used its other claw to grab one of the boomerangs. It raised its claw high, ready to bash the artifact into pieces. However, Drake willed and the boomerang began spinning again, cutting into its claw.

The arachne screeched and released the boomerang reflexively while taking a step back.

Drake wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.