The warm light danced along the jagged walls of the cave, casting deep shadows and illuminating ancient stone slick with condensation. He stood at the entrance of the Maw, staring into the dark abyss beyond. Behind him stood twenty-seven others: the party Li Wei had chosen for his first dungeon crawl.
Drakon and Thalassa, the Virexian mercenaries, husband and wife, were his deadly right and left hands, weapons drawn and eyes sharp. Mei Ling, the scout recruited from Yanshan, slender and boyish, was a shadow even among shadows. Brother Fatong, the wandering monk, rotund and sweating, clutched his prayer beads tightly in his fingers. Lian Yu, the soft and androgynous boy, followed Drakon like a pet, a young, submissive eromenos.
Twenty elite soldiers, handpicked by Drakon and Thalassa from Li Baotian's garrison, stood grim-faced and disciplined. And at the back, Tenzin and Chodak, the peasant boys from Tserkang, burned with a quiet determination that made them seem older than their years. Tenzin’s sister, Pema, had been taken by the Rakshasas years ago. Chodak’s beloved, Dolma, had been taken only months prior.
They entered the Maw together, descending underground into the cave system.
The stench hit them first.
It was not the usual mildew of a cave, nor the earthy rot of old roots. It was far worse: a putrid cocktail of blood, excrement, and decomposition. The kind of smell that clung to your nostrils and refused to leave. Several soldiers gagged. One vomited quietly into a crevice. The torches flickered as the wind shifted, carrying the foul air deeper into the caverns.
Li Wei did not gag. He was prepared for whatever lay ahead.
Quest Unlocked: Hunt the Rakshasa Horde
Objective: Investigate the Qianlong Valley region. Eliminate the Rakshasa threat.
Reward: Unknown.
Failure: Possible death. No resurrection.
Li Wei acknowledged the system notification with a nod. The others could not see it, of course. The system belonged to him alone, his greatest secret. His cheat. It gave him an advantage, showed him where his actions led, how he was progressing. It was the system that allowed him to survive and thrive in the grimdark world he had been reborn into.
Brother Fatong leaned in close, his whisper barely audible over the crackling of the torches. His hands gripped his prayer beads, his fingers making subtle gestures that hinted at prayer.
"What if there are hundreds of Rakshasas down there waiting for us? We have less than thirty people on our side."
Li Wei met his eyes. Calm. Unshaken.
"That is entirely possible. But I noticed a pattern in the reports. They attack only at night, never during the day. They live in caves without light. What does that tell you?"
"They fear the light," Mei Ling said, understanding dawning in her sharp eyes. "Creatures born in darkness that recoil from fire."
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Li Wei raised his torch, now burning brighter than any mundane flame.
"Exactly. Fire terrifies them. Light disorients them. And more than that, they are insectoid, like cockroaches, like ants. Insects burn. This clan will burn too."
Thalassa smiled coldly.
"The cave is narrow. They will have nowhere to run. Like setting fire to an anthill."
"A good plan, General," Drakon said with a grunt. That was as close to praise as he ever got.
They moved deeper into the cave system, the darkness pressing in around them. Yet the fire did not falter. It lit their way forward and cast long shadows behind them. The tunnels twisted and split, a labyrinth of natural rock and ancient burrows.
To avoid getting lost, Li Wei had implemented a system. Every ten meters, one of the soldiers smeared a glowing compound on the walls, harvested from phosphorescent moss Mei Ling had collected near the cave entrance. The trail glowed faintly in the dark, a breadcrumb path to guide their retreat. It was a small thing, but clever, the sort of detail a high Intelligence stat allowed. He did not plan to flee, but if they had to, they would not die lost and blind.
"There is movement up ahead," Mei Ling whispered. She was the most perceptive of the party and the first to notice what lay ahead.
They halted. Weapons drawn. Torches lifted.
A swarm of Rakshasas charged from the shadows ahead.
They were monstrous.
Each one stood hunched and twisted, a hybrid of man and insect. Chitinous plates covered their bodies, mottled and slick with mucus. Some had clawed hands. Others had mantis-like scythes for arms. Their eyes glowed with pale green light. Their mandibles clicked, dripping with saliva. Their legs bent the wrong way, jointed like centipedes, but they moved with shocking speed.
One had a human face stretched tight over a beetle’s skull. Another had a thorax bursting from a man’s ribcage. A third crawled on all fours, no, not fours, eight legs, like a spider. The smell of decay intensified. Their screeches filled the cavern, high-pitched and echoing.
Drakon did not wait.
He hurled his spear, impaling the first Rakshasa through the throat. It split with a wet crack and fell twitching. He drew his shortsword and shield and charged, beheading the next creature with a clean sweep and crushing another under his shield with a sickening crunch.
Thalassa flowed in beside him, her twin blades flashing. She moved like a dancer, a blur of steel and grace. One blade slashed a Rakshasa’s legs out from under it. The other plunged into its chest before it could scream. She was quicker than her husband, not as physically strong, but no less deadly.
The soldiers surged forward. They did not hesitate. They were elite, trained to kill, empowered by the presence of their warmaster. The narrow passage worked in their favor. The Rakshasas had nowhere to maneuver. The soldiers carried torches and steel. The monsters carried only hunger.
Li Wei stepped into the fight last.
His Fire Affinity surged.
He activated his newest ability.
- Flame Arc (Rank 1): Channel Fire Affinity to unleash a horizontal flaming slash. Deals fire damage in a wide arc.
He swung his sword wide, and a wave of fire exploded from the blade.
It cut through the swarm like a blade through wax.
Dozens of Rakshasas caught fire, their screeches turning to screams. They flailed, tried to flee, collided with each other, burned. Their exoskeletons cracked. Their limbs melted. Their internal fluids sizzled on the stone, white and foul smelling.
The stench became unbearable.
But the way forward was clear.
The swarm broke. What had begun as an ambush ended in a massacre. A slaughter. An extermination. The soldiers stepped over burning corpses, their blades slick with foul-smelling blood.
Li Wei exhaled slowly. His heartbeat was steady.
That had only been the first wave. The first mob of enemies in the dungeon.
There would be more. Stronger ones. Smarter ones. Maybe even Rakshasas who could speak. He knew how this worked. Dungeons followed patterns. The deeper they went, the worse it would get. And at the very end of the Maw, past the tunnels and the darkness and the corpses, there would be the dungeon boss.
The warmaster of the Rakshasa clan.