I sneeze and something crawls over my grave. I feel strangely uneasy.

"This part is seriously eerie." I comment uselessly.

"I guess..." Aria cocks her head.

It's probably the architecture. Without sense or reason, built by a madman, or in this case, a mad spirit?

It switches randomly between resembling a crypt, a cavern and a black dungeon. A whole host of crazy, and the eerie quiet since we slew the Veloper hasn't helped.

We go outwards into another open cavern. This one is circular, with a spiked pit in the centre. Its things like this that highlight its design madness. If that is meant to be a trap, it’s totally in the wrong place, isn't it?

"Mmm... there is... something wrong here..." Seria says.

"I know right? Who puts a spiked pit in the centre of the room?" I say.

Seria rolls her eyes.

"You're right, Seria-sama. Michael is very uneasy about this room."

"Even you should feel it, boy." Seria mentions.

Come to think of it, it feels like my spirit is very quiet, like it is watching carefully with wide eyes. Paranoid?

"Hmm..."

I nod after a moment.

"Maybe something I said does occasionally fix itself in that head of yours. Fufufu..."

Seria's cackle seems nervous though.

BANG!

A thump noise resounds, echoing through the whole room, and making everyone jump.

Shit! What the hell was that?

Suddenly I notice something silently and rapidly extending down from the ceiling towards...

I dash forwards and tackle Aria on to the floor, rolling aside with her.

"W-what!? N-now is not the place for this...!" She stutters, blushing.

"Above!" I shout. "Something is!"

Thanks to my warning, Kiku ducks, spins and quickly slashes upwards. She takes off a pincer like appendage at the wrist, which gushes green pus over her.

Suddenly there is a roar shaking the chamber.

The girls cluster together instantly in battle stance, and I roll off Aria.

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Now I'm looking upwards.

Oh god. What the hell is that?

A thing covers the ceiling. It looks like a massive centipede, around forty feet long, armoured in black plates, coiled around a large stalactite. But it forks into two, giving it two roaring sandworm mouths, and each heads first four arms have pincers it has extended down like dangling ropes.

"Cave Crawler!" Kiku shouts.

Oh for fucks sakes. A crawler’s relative? I should have known that my first explosives kill would eventually come back to haunt me.

"Clear! Move!" Aria shouts as she jumps up.

This time she tackles me and honest to god throws me over her spare shoulder. I cough up something from suddenly becoming a sack of potatoes.

But Aria just saved my life again.

Over her shoulder, I see the cave crawler drop from the ceiling with a boom, throwing up dust and making us all cough.

It is clearly not happy about losing a pincer.

It moves hugely fast and charges Kiku like an out of control train. She goes wide eyed, but barely flash steps out the way, raking the side plates ineffectually with her blades in an ear-splitting screech noise as it rushes past.

I get dropped unceremoniously, but manage to barely pull off a forward roll, and leap to my feet in a surprising display of acrobatics.

Heh... looks like I can dodge the ground with Precognitive Dodge as well. Handy.

This is a bit of a disaster though; the surprise attack has split all the girls up in a circle around the thing.

"The underbelly again!?" I shout in query.

"Yep, but only the back part is vulnerable in these. The pincers need to be dealt with. And Sendervil's mercy this one is huge..." Aria responds, looking uneasy.

"We've also got stronger!" I assure her, and she gives a wry smile, hoisting up her spear.

Fucking caterpillar cerberus! How damn unfair. This things like twenty-man raid material!

Showing way more mobility than the Veloper, the thing twists adroitly, avoiding the cavern wall. The girls try to consolidate, but as it faces us its damn hookshot pincers shoot out once more. Kali knocks Rishya to the ground in a cartwheel, barely preventing her head from flying off. Rishya screams.

Kali then seems to momentarily emulate it, scuttling like beetle for a second, but then suddenly somehow uses her momentum to do a rising uppercut at the 'arm' of one of the extending pincers. It is blown upwards in a burst of flames, throwing off the trajectory and causing the pincer to smash into the ground.

It roars again. Kiku doesn't miss the opportunity and severs this one too by throwing a sword.

Gods. I'm still hesitating as Aria jets off, her spear starting to glow with prismatic light.

She smashes into its side, and from her meteoric charge and super strength, pierces one the armour plates like a sentient anti-tank round.

It buckles in the middle in agony, roaring, and starts retracting all its pincers. Aria nearly gets taken upwards, but shouts and yanks out the spear, jumping backwards.

A fountain of black blood erupts from where she left a gaping hole.

Maybe that's it! It's like that Starship Troopers scene! I need to get a vial in there! I grab one and start to run as it thrashes around furiously.

"Boy! Get down!" Seria shouts out urgently.

Oh shit! It looped one of the pincers round as it retracted!? What the fuck!?

I feel myself dodging automatically as usual... but it's way too fast. Its...

It comes at me in slow motion as my adrenaline spikes. Seria incants furiously, but she's been interrupted too much already. She won't make it.

I'm gonna be snapped in half!

Then... the pincer explodes in white fire with a massive shockwave, severing it.

Kraaakoom!

What? A vial?! My ears whine in high frequency at the point-blank explosion.

But it won't be enough, still. It is severed, but still possesses the same momentum. More, in fact. I'll just be splattered into smithereens rather than chopped in twain.

"Ikazuchi no Yaiibaa!"

For some reason, even in my deafness, I still hear this strange phrase. Thunder blade?!

Then, I am then no longer in front of the pincer. I watch the now severed lump of chitin crash by.

A clap of thunder accompanies me as I fall prone on my ass with a clang of my breastplate.

Seria? No.

And as electricity surges around, the thunderbolt that was carrying me suddenly turns into something.

A ninja girl straddling me.

Kaede. She’s...

She bends forward, and steals my lips furiously, hungrily.

She's back.