"The cave floor trembled faintly. A low-frequency vibration. Not a seismic tremor, but footsteps. Many of them."
I slowly turned the lantern toward the dark tunnel behind me.
The yellow light swept across the black.
Two glowing red dots. Four. Eight.
A Cave Spider. A giant arachnid, easily two meters tall. Its mandibles clicked wetly, dripping a corrosive fluid that hissed as it met the stone floor.
It didn't view me as a threat. It viewed me as protein.
The creature lunged. Fast. Unnaturally fast for a body that bloated.
I didn't run.
Distance calculation: 15 meters.
Target velocity: 40 km/h.
Ceiling structure: Unstable.
I turned off the lantern.
CLICK.
The world plunged into absolute black.
I held my breath. Closed my eyes—they were useless now anyway. Shifted all focus to my hearing.
Skitter... skitter...
The sound of stiff, bristled legs brushing against stone. Twelve o'clock. Closing in. Ten meters.
The rancid stench of rot grew sharper.
I took three steps back. Spatial memorization. To my right was a wooden support pillar, rotting and eaten away by cave termites.
Five meters. Its hissing breath sounded mere inches from my face.
Right here, I whispered internally.
I swung the pickaxe sideways with everything I had. Not at the monster. At the wooden pillar.
CRACK!
The ancient wood shattered. The support structure collapsed. Gravity took over. Tons of granite broke free from the tunnel ceiling's embrace.
BOOM!
The sound of the cave-in was deafening. Dust plumed outward, flooding my lungs, choking me. Then, a shrill shriek. The sickening crunch of a hard carapace being pulverized under thousands of kilograms of dead weight.
Silence.
I reignited the lantern with trembling hands.
The monster was mangled beyond recognition. Half of its body had been reduced to pulp.
I stepped toward the creature's pinned head. Calmly, I drove the tip of the pickaxe into the joint of its neck, searching for the core crystal.
Found it. Dark purple. Pulsing weakly.
I gripped it. A warm current flowed in, carrying the creature's final, fleeting spike of terror just before death.
I pocketed the crystal and returned to the black seam in the wall.
Ignoring the stench of the carcass. Ignoring the suffocating dust in my chest. I had an unfinished job. And the trek back, dragging a sack full of this dense metal, was going to be far more exhausting than killing the monster.