Chương 60: Chapter 57: The Swarm

As we got closer to the holes in the walls and ceiling, we could see they were roughly five inches in diameter. They became more and more numerous the deeper into the cavern we delved. Mike couldn't see any trap mechanisms that would trigger something pouring out of them, but that didn't mean there wasn't one. His trap-finding ability was still sitting at middling beginner ranks, leaving a lot of room for error. With no other obvious paths to take, we simply had to keep moving forward.

When we were about two-thirds of the way across the cavern, another tunnel came into view, leading further down into the mountain. It was at this exact moment that we heard a sudden, dry rustling motion coming from our left. The team pivoted toward the noise just in time to see a large snake drop heavily out of one of the wall holes. I didn't even need my inspect ability to recognize the distinct markings; it was a rattlesnake.

The moment it hit the ground, it coiled up tightly and shook its tail, the warning rattle echoing sharply off the stone. I drew and fired an arrow in a single motion. The shaft caught the snake mid-body, pinning it flat to the dirt floor, but the strike wasn't enough to kill it. The creature coiled aggressively around the wooden shaft, thrashing wildly to free itself. Before I could nock a second arrow, another snake dropped from the ceiling closer to the downward tunnel. This one was faster.

It hit the floor, coiled, and shot straight toward our front line like a spring. Joe caught the snake squarely on the face of his shield, then brought his axe down in a swift, heavy arc, severing the reptile cleanly in half. Within seconds, the rustling turned into a cascade as several more snakes tumbled out of different holes, launching themselves at us. As the team swung at the incoming reptiles with our various bladed weapons, I realized we were fighting a losing battle trying to hold the center of the room.

I called out over the noise for everyone to fall back.

"Get clear of the holes! Alex, once we're backed up against the entrance tunnel, build a waist-high wall in front of us as a barricade!" Dozens of snakes were now pouring out of the walls, and the sound of hundreds of rattles vibrating at once grew deafening. As the team scrambled to get clear of the drop zones, a heavy weight dropped directly onto my shoulders from the ceiling. Before I could shake it off, a sharp, burning pain flared in my neck as the snake's fangs sunk deep into my skin.

With a loud, painful grunt, I reached up, gripped the thick body tightly, and ripped the snake off my neck before throwing it hard against the stone. Without even glancing at my user interface, I knew I was dealing with a combined poison and bleeding effect. My priority was immediate triage. I immediately cast my minor heal spell on myself, targeting the wound on my neck to force the flesh to close and stop the bleeding debuff.

Once we had backed up far enough to establish a choke-point, Alex stepped to the front and channeled his mana into the floor. A dense bramble wall tore upward from the dirt, forming a thick, thorny barrier right in front of our line. Showing incredible foresight, Alex didn't stop there; he also summoned two long vine whips to the front left and right of the bramble wall, which began striking out aggressively at the lunging snakes.

The rest of us spread out along our side of the barrier, cutting down any reptile that tried to squeeze through using a flurry of bladed and blunt weapon strikes. With the immediate pressure managed by the wall, I took a quick second to pull up my status screen and look at the damage notifications. You have taken 15 points of damage. You have gained the "Bleeding" debuff. You take 2 points of bleeding damage per minute for the next 10 minutes or until healed. You have taken 10 points of piercing damage.

You have been poisoned. You take 5 points of damage per minute for the next 10 minutes or until cleansed. While these rattlesnakes were highly venomous, a single bite only inflicted five points of poison damage per minute. This was actually slightly lower than my own natural health recovery rate of six points per minute. If I managed to avoid taking any additional bites, my passive regeneration would clear the venom without my health bar ever dropping a single point.

The real issue was that I had done more damage to myself by panicking and ripping the snake off my neck, tearing the puncture wounds open and triggering the bleeding debuff. But looking over the bramble wall, the sheer volume of the horde made the math terrifying. If the barrier fell and we were overrun, we would quickly succumb to dozens of overlapping stacks of venom that would melt our health bars instantly.

I reported the numbers to the group, shouting to be heard over the almost deafening roar of the rattling tails.

"Save your healing potions until you absolutely have to use them! For now, just call out if your health drops too low, and I'll hit you with my heal spell!" The next few minutes dissolved into an unceasing, exhausting blur of steel. Dozens of snakes rapidly multiplied into hundreds.

My sword easily sliced through multiple targets on a single swing thanks to the cleave ability, meaning I didn't have to put much physical force behind the strikes, but the sheer repetition was draining my stamina bar at an alarming rate. Glancing down the line, I could see the rest of the team was feeling the exact same drain. Both Pete and Mike had to pull stamina vials from their rings mid-combat to keep their arms moving.

I was forced to cast my healing spell sporadically, hitting myself and the others whenever a stray snake managed to leap over the thorns or snap through a gap. If it wasn't for Alex's bramble wall and his twin vine whips, we would have been completely swamped. The vines were a blur of motion, repeatedly swatting snakes out of mid-air before they could reach our line, but even the magical flora was starting to show signs of wear under the sheer weight of the swarm.

Finally, just as it felt like the barrier was going to give way entirely and we would be overwhelmed by the writhing mass, Joe yelled across to Pete.

"Light 'em up!" Joe and Pete both reached into their dimensional rings, their hands returning with thick glass beer bottles stuffed with raw fabric rags. I couldn't help but smile as the two men struck their lighters, caught the rags on fire, and hurled the Molotovs directly over the bramble wall. The moment the bottles struck the floor, the glass shattered, exploding into a wide wall of roaring fire that swallowed the advancing front line of the swarm.

Joe and Pete kept a rhythmic pace, pulling bottle after bottle out of their rings and throwing them into the crowd until the entire area in front of our barricade was wrapped in a blazing inferno. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. After that, our job became laughably simple. We only had to watch for the occasional, half-charred snake that managed to leap through the flames.

As the fire threatened to die down, the guys would toss another bottle into the center to keep the blaze burning hot. This gave the entire party a much-needed window to catch our breath, recover our physical stamina, and let our health pools stabilize. We waited for approximately ten minutes until the rustling completely stopped and no more snakes emerged from the wall openings.

Once we were entirely certain the room was clear, we let the remaining flames burn down to embers, and Alex dismissed the ruined bramble wall. The system had already informed us that we were out of combat long before the embers died, thanks to the absolute mountain of kill notifications flooding our vision. Still, we stayed on guard for a few extra moments just to be absolutely sure. The battle had been an incredibly loud, chaotic affair, requiring us to scream over the rattling tails and roaring fire.

We had no illusions left; whatever else was sleeping deep inside this mountain definitely knew we were here now. I opened my mental log to read through the battle summary. I had taken a couple of stray bites during the initial chaos, but because the poison rate barely competed with my natural recovery, I was never in any real danger of dropping. What really caught my attention, though, wasn't the total body count, but the specific taxonomy listed in the kill logs. You have killed 556 baby rattlesnakes. EXP gained.

I looked up, blinking out of my interface.

"Joe, have you actually looked at your battle notifications yet?"

"No, not yet," Joe replied, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.

"Take a look at the text," I said.

"The system specifically classifies every single one of those snakes as 'babies.'" I watched as Joe, Pete, and Mike's eyes went slightly distant as they pulled up their own logs.

"What the hell?" Pete muttered, his expression turning grim.

"Those things were easily six feet long and two to three inches thick. And those were just the newborns?"

"Looks like it," I said, looking out over the charred cavern floor.

"That's probably why they only yielded a limited amount of experience per kill. Individually, one of them is an easy target. It's the swarm mechanic that makes them dangerous. I'm really not looking forward to meeting whatever laid the eggs if this was just the first floor's hurdle."

"Agreed," Joe said, adjusting his shield strap.

"We need to be twice as careful moving deeper into the structure. Now that our cover is completely blown, there's no real point in trying to sneak through the main corridors. Don't hesitate to go loud and switch to the AR's if we find ourselves getting cornered." The team nodded in silent agreement, turning back to their interfaces to process the rest of their rewards. You have reached level 11. You have 3 attribute points and 2 skill points to allocate. Skill increase: Sword Mastery: Apprentice 4.

Deals 25% more damage with a 45% chance of a critical hit dealing 50% more damage and causing a stunned debuff for five seconds. I immediately allocated two of my new attribute points into strength and the final one into wisdom, trying to balance my physical and mental capabilities a bit better.

Because my Ranger class progression automatically granted me one point in dexterity and one in constitution with every level up, those two had naturally become my highest scores, and I wanted to keep the rest of my stats from falling too far behind. The moment I confirmed the selection through the interface, that familiar, intoxicating surge of raw energy washed over my skin.

The sensation never failed to bring a smile to my face; it left me feeling instantly stronger, faster, and more durable than I had been a minute ago. Curious to see the updated baseline, I pulled up my complete status screen. STATUS Name: Derrick Miller | Race: Human | Level: 11 Class: Ranger | Specialization: Shadow Ranger Attributes: Strength: 23 Dexterity: 27 Constitution: 24 Intelligence: 21 Wisdom: 20 Charisma: 20 Health: 240/240 Stamina: 270/270 Mana: 210 Carry Capacity: 230 lbs.

Armor Class: 25 Skills: Hand to Hand: Beg 6 Blunt Weapons: Beg 9 Ax Mastery: Apr 3 Sword Mastery: Apr 4 Bow Mastery: Apr 9 Daggers: Beg 8 First Aid: Apr 9 Building: Jour 5 Crafting: Jour 5 WLDNS Survival: Jour 2 Sneak: Apr 5 Herbalism: Beg 5 Alchemy: Beg 5 Inspect: Beg 4 Dodge: Beg 7 Arcane: Minor Heal: Beg 7 Tame Animal: Beg 9 Spike Growth: Beg 3 Dark Vision: Apr 3 Ambush: Beg 0 Hunter's Mark: Beg 5 Marksman: Beg 6 Unassigned Attribute Points: 0 Unassigned Skill Points: 2 Closing the interface, I stretched my arms, feeling the new physical limits lock into place.

We had survived the entry trial, but Floor I was officially behind us. It was time to clear the room and move down.