Chương 30: A Price Worth Paying

The roar tore through the cavern again, closer, vibrating through the stone beneath Caleb's feet. Dust cascaded from the heights above. Whatever made that sound was massive, and it was moving. Fast. Run! He spun on his heel, his only thought to flee back through the tunnel he came from, back toward the memory of sunlight. Heavy footfalls thundered from the darkness behind him, each impact a drumbeat of mass slamming into rock. They were close. Too close.

The sound built with terrifying speed, a freight train of muscle and bone hurtling through the black. Caleb pulled, panicking as he tried to concentrate Stamina into his legs for a desperate [Dash] down the tunnel. The energy began to pool, his muscles coiling with compressed power. A displacement of air rushed into his back, a wash of fetid heat and the stench of rot so thick he tasted it. Crumb! He threw himself sideways in a graceless dive, releasing the Stamina before he could use it.

Claws shrieked through the space where his head had been a heartbeat before. The sheer air pressure of the creature's passing added to his tumbling, his shoulder slamming into the cavern floor as he rolled. Coming up in a crouch, his spear was still somehow in his grip. Caleb snapped his perception beam toward the threat on full blast, pushing through this new creature and everything beyond. A gargantuan obstruction filled the cavern.

The creature's aura blazed a nauseating red-black that felt of crushing earth and tasted like the grave. Its core nature felt so deeply repulsive that Caleb's gorge rose. His perception struggled to resolve the spatial fuzz, finally locking onto its horrifying scale. The mass had the general structure of a goblin, but magnified to a dense concentration of power that pulsed over eight feet high at its apex.

Two arms and two legs extended from the central mass, ending in what his perception registered as tapered, dangerous points. The appendage that had to be its head swiveled and its entire vicious intent narrowed, drilling into him. The creature shifted position deliberately, moving its colossal bulk to block the tunnel mouth. Each step was purposeful and patient as it sealed his only escape route. Then it charged. Caleb's body reacted before his mind could process the danger.

He channeled Stamina through his legs, the energy surging from every cell in a systemic draw. The power gathered, compressed, then he exploded away. [Dash] carried him to the left in a blur of motion. A sound like grinding boulders erupted in his wake as the creature's talons scored deep gouges into the ground where he'd been standing. A heavy tremor vibrated up from the stone, rattling into the soles of his boots. It snapped its head toward him with preternatural quickness, then lunged again.

He perceived the head-mass elongate as its maw opened wide. A wave of carrion-reek washed over him. Caleb triggered another [Dash], this time backward. Fire seared through his legs as the Stamina discharge left his muscles burning. Each activation was a controlled detonation that built up damage in its wake, the technique punishing repeated use. His back hit a stalagmite. The beast's teeth clamped shut inches from his face, but he rolled right, the monster's follow-up swipe missing by a hair's breadth.

I can't keep this up! Two dashes and my legs are already cramping! It came on, constantly herding him away from the tunnel outside while Caleb's Stamina reserves plummeted. Each full-power [Dash] was a fire hose blasting at a thimble-sized problem, and he'd need every scrap of spiritual energy to survive this. There had to be another way. He recalled his initial tries at the technique before mastering the correct form.

The shorter, incomplete burst where he'd failed to hold the energy through the middle of the technique. Failures at the time, but... The creature feinted left, then struck right. Caleb channeled only a fraction of the Stamina, releasing it almost immediately. The result was a two-yard hop backward, sufficient to avoid the worst of the strike though the beast's claws still scraped his cuirass and failed to penetrate. Yes! Less distance, but a lower cost!

He began incorporating the abbreviated dashes into his movement pattern. A quick hop left to avoid snapping jaws. A rear skip to dodge a backhand swipe that would have shattered his ribs. The micro-movements let him stay mobile without destroying his legs or depleting his reserves as quickly. The creature snarled and its assault grew wilder, as if it were confounded by prey that refused to hold still. As the fight continued, the beast ended up aligning itself perfectly between Caleb and the cavern's far end.

His perception beam, still panic-blasting at full power, exposed what lay beyond. A yawning hole gaped in the far wall, an opening easily fifteen yards across. The ground in front of it made Caleb's blood freeze. His perception registered a cluttered, uneven floor, littered with countless small, hard shapes. They were piled in drifts, scattered like debris. The sheer number of them, and the faint odor of decay coming from that part of the cavern, painted a horrifying picture. Bones. A whole graveyard of them.

He remembered the creature had come from another part of the cave and a terrifying truth settled in. He'd stumbled into a shared hunting ground, strewn with carrion like some apex predator's buffet table. And judging by the scale of that dark passage something larger might prowl these tunnels. The intense pressure behind his eyes snapped him back to the immediate danger. He was wasting massive amounts of Mana with his perception beam blazing past his target to map useless stone.

He throttled the beam back immediately, narrowing its focus to just the creature's body. A dull, lingering ache replaced the stabbing pain in his skull, and his thoughts cleared of the mental static. The Mana drain slowed, but the state of the reservoir in his core made one thing very clear: he was running out of time. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Stupid, Foster! Wasteful! Way to go— He shook his head. Focus!

The creature circled and Caleb matched its pace, keeping his damaged left side away from those claws. It was time to go on the offensive. He couldn't run forever. He waited for an opening he'd noted: the brief moment when the creature shifted its weight to change direction. When it did, his [Breaching Thrust] lashed out, aimed for a point of articulation he perceived in its forward arm. The spear tip caught something incredibly dense and skittered off harmlessly.

The jarring impact sent painful vibrations up his arms. It twisted, presenting a section of its upper torso toward him and pulling back its arms. When he tried another thrust, aiming for its flank, the creature simply angled its body so the spear met what felt like an impenetrable mass on its chest. Is… is it learning? Ohhhh, this is bad. His next attack confirmed it. The creature positioned itself to deflect his spear and used the momentum of his blow against him.

As he extended for the strike it stepped into it, letting the spear slide along its armor while bringing its head around for a snap at his exposed hand. Only a desperate micro- [Dash] saved him from losing the limb. Worse, the creature was adapting its tactics. At one point it ignored him, turning to the cavern wall and raking it with its huge claws. Rock groaned and splintered.

He perceived a cascade of falling masses in the dark, and heard the whoosh of their descent and the thud as they impacted the floor around him. Caleb wasted a precious burst of Stamina on an unplanned [Dash] to avoid being crushed. His confidence cracked. The smaller goblins had been manageable. Their auras were thin, fragile things that barely registered as Low-Red in his perception. This creature was something else entirely. Its spiritual signature bore down on him, smothering his resistance.

High-Red, if he had to guess. He'd never perceived any beast so deeply saturated in the Body Triad at his tier. The thing must have been hunting in these caves for years, and every moment showed it. The creature stopped lunging. With a roar that shook more dust from the ceiling, it abandoned patience for a full-bodied assault. Caleb tried to [Dash] left, but his placement among the stalagmites limited his options. The creature had backed him into a corner without him realizing it.

He managed a partial dodge, but it caught him anyway. The impact lifted him off his feet and hurled him against a stalagmite. His pack's contents helped cushion the collision, but his cuirass, already damaged from the earlier fights, tore completely open from the swipe. A trio of distinct, searing pains carved deep as claws found flesh. Caleb hit the ground hard. A hot sensation spread instantly from the wound, a terrifyingly rapid flow of his own lifeblood. He pressed his hand to the cuts, feeling their depth.

The wounds were survivable, but bad. Really bad. He dragged himself backward, away from his tormentor. Its approach turned leisurely, almost casual. Why rush when your prey was cornered and bleeding out? Caleb tracked its movement with his beam as it stalked wide, cutting off any escape route. It was backing him into a corner of the cavern, pinning him to the unknown pit. Behind him, the vast, dark opening in the boneyard loomed at his back.

The creature was simply trapping him, but the location made his skin crawl. He was being crushed between an immediate threat and the potential of a far greater one. Did you come down here just to die, Foster? Caleb gritted his teeth and struggled back to his feet. No. No, I most certainly. Did. NOT. His defiance triggered a cascade of memories: Katie at her soccer game, hair in a ponytail, her face a mask of fierce concentration. Jack holding up a drawing, his smile proud and serious.

Evelynn's sleepy grin over morning coffee. He had chosen [Perfect Memory] to preserve them. He would not let them be erased. The desperate last stand became an emotional vow as a hard certainty settled in his heart, displacing the fear. I DID NOT LOSE EVERYTHING JUST TO DIE IN THIS CAVE! He rapidly recalled how he'd overloaded his legs with Stamina during training in the forest. The sensation of holding too much power, of feeling his muscles tear under the strain. He'd released it then, because of the pain.

But pain could be a price worth paying. The monster came then, done toying with its prey. It slowly advanced into a charge, building in speed as it finally moved to end its wounded prey. Caleb had one chance. His normal thrusts lacked the force to penetrate that hide. He needed more power. Much more. As the beast closed the distance, Caleb pulled. A frantic, systemic drain of every scrap of Stamina he could muster. It flooded in from all the corners of his body.

He channeled everything into his arms, shoulders, and back. Then, violating every rule of safe energy manipulation he knew of, he held it there. His muscles rebelled. It felt like his own frame was tearing itself apart from the inside out, each fiber burning with a strength they were never meant to contain this long. Every part of him strained past its limit, ready to burst. Yet he held the energy, ignoring the cries for release.

And holding it was an agony he hadn't felt since the soul integration itself, but he refused to yield. The creature was five yards away. Three. It opened its jaws wide enough to fit his entire head. The world seemed to slow, the creature's advance turning into a series of distinct, horrifying snapshots. NOW! Caleb thrust with everything he had. The Stamina, his will and Intent and rage. Most of all, he thrust with his desperate need to survive.

His spear moved faster than thought, faster than anything he'd managed before. The overloaded Stamina transferred from his ravaged muscles into the spear shaft, turning the simple iron tip into something more. The attack met the creature's charge head-on. The spear tip detonated on impact, the uncontrolled force punching through the creature's armored hide, ripping through bone and muscle. A gout of steaming fluid erupted from the monster's far side and the stench of blood and viscera filled the air.

The kinetic force reversed the beast's forward momentum. Its immense body lifted from its feet and hurled backward through the dark, wrenching the spear from Caleb's grip. It crashed against the cavern floor yards away and lay still. The recoil was just as brutal. A sickening crack rang out as the unrestrained energy slammed back into his right arm. Bones fractured from the wrist to the elbow, and a scream of pure agony tore from his throat. He staggered back, his vision whiting out from the pain.

The Stamina overload's fierce backlash continued to surge through him. It was the burning cramp from his failed [Dash] experiments, but a dozen times worse and consuming his entire upper body. His limbs and back felt seared to the bone. Spasms carved through every muscle. His legs, scoured of their last reserves to fuel the attack, trembled violently and threatened to give way. The warm, slick flow from the wounds in his side intensified, and every breath sent fire through his ribs. But he did not fall.

Caleb forced his legs to lock, planting his feet on the ground. He stood there, swaying in the sudden silence. His right arm hung uselessly at his side. Blood dripped from his torn flesh, forming a small pool beneath him. He was bleeding out, disarmed, and barely conscious. But he was alive. And he was the last one standing. I did it, he thought, the words barely coherent through the haze consuming him. I killed that big bastard. Now I just— A scraping sound came from across the cavern. Then another.

The distinctive tone of claws on stone. With the last dregs of his Mana Caleb sent out a final, wavering perception beam. The remaining goblins were creeping forward from various tunnel entrances. Three of them. They moved cautiously, likely aware the larger beast was dead but unsure if its killer still posed a threat. Caleb watched their spatial signatures advance. His spear lay somewhere in the darkness near the corpse. He couldn't properly wield the knife at his belt with a broken arm and spasming left hand.

He couldn't run. All he could do was stand his ground and watch them come.