*Crack*
A crisp cracking sound was heard. It wasn't too loud, but everyone heard it.
"Hm? Where did that sound come from?"
"From over there, I guess."
The attention of the newcomers focussed at the center of the crater. A girl was crouching there, her back facing the other newcomers.
*Crack*
Another cracking sound was heard. However, this time, it was louder than the previous one.
*Ka*
*Crack*
"Hey! What's going on?" A male newcomer touched the girl's shoulder and discovered that she was frozen stiff.
*Thud*
Her legs seemed like to give in. She fell on her rear end. There was a terrified expression on her face, and her chin was trembling uncontrollably and continually.
"Hey! Calm down. Tell me what happened!"
Her tears started to pour down from her eyes, staining her cheeks.
"I-I touched... I-I merely... touched it. Then w-why?"
"What?"
Naturally, the male newcomer couldn't understand a thing.
He dropped his gaze and searched for something that might have frightened this girl. Before long, he discovered the possible reason for the girl's fear.
In front of the girl, there was a small crack on the surface of the floor. It was at most one meter long. The strange thing was, in the middle of the crack, there was a metallic colored 'thorn.' It was no bigger than a pinky.
"Did you mean this thing?" He looked at the girl and asked while pointing the thorn with a finger, but all he could see was her terrified expression and shivering body. She wasn't in a condition to answer him.
In the middle of this strange crater, on the smooth surface of the steel-like ground, there stood a suspicious pinky-sized thorn.
There was no way he was touching this thing! Especially after he had seen the behavior of the girl!
But, there was something called curiosity inside of every intelligent being. On the other hand, there was also something called greed.
It might be a treasure.
He no longer heard cracking sounds. It didn't look dangerous to him anymore.
Whatever was the problem with this thorn-like-thing, it shouldn't be his concern as long as he didn't touch it directly.
The other newcomers were coming toward here. He had to be fast!
He pulled his sleeve, covered his fingers with a thin layer of cloth... and touched the thorn!
Nothing happened.
As he applied strength to the thorn, his serious expression gradually disappeared and transformed into a hideous smile.
"Heh he, come to daddy, treasure." He pulled it with all his might.
...
Cracking sounds were intriguing for the newcomers. At first, they didn't understand where the sounds came from, but after looking around for a while, they discovered the strange behavior of those two newcomers.
A girl was sitting on the ground, looking paralyzed, and a male newcomer was trying to pull something out of the ground.
Anyone who looked at them could understand that they found something.
"Hey, you two! Stop right there!"
Vance was one of the group's leaders. Naturally, if an item or treasure was found by the newcomers, they had to bring it to him first. As a leader, he wouldn't allow something contrary to happen.
However, those two newcomers didn't give a response to his voice. They didn't even move in the slightest. As if they didn't hear him.
"I said stop right there!" yelled Vance in an angry tone of voice and quickened his steps.
*Crack*
*Ka*
*Ka*
At this time, a series of cracking sounds started to come from their front again. However, this time, they were much stronger and didn't sound like they would come to a stop in the near future.
The crack was dangerously expanding on the surface of the ground. Before too long, an earthquake started to accompany the cracking sounds.
"W-What's going on?"
"Did those two did something?"
Alongside an ill feeling of foreboding, confusion and panic quickly spread among the newcomers. Nathaniel and Iona were no different. They were quietly watching the newcomers from the crevice in the crater's wall.
[Unique monster appeared!]
At this time, every newcomer in The Lower Catacombs heard The System's emotionless voice in their head.
"U-Unique monster? W-Where?"
Similar comments were arising from the group. Most of them were frantically looking around in order to spot the monster, but there wasn't anything in sight.
"D-Don't tell me..."
It definitely had something to do with those two newcomers!
[Anomaly... de... tected!]
*BOOM*
Vance and Jeffrey were about to make a move to the two, but the ground in front of the two newcomers exploded outwards at that moment.
Pieces of sharp rocks pierced their bodies, and the force of the impact sent them flying all the way to the other newcomers. Several trails of blood created a red colored path between the blasted ground and the newcomers who were speeding toward those two newcomers.
The sharp steel-like pieces of rocks had thrust through the corpses. There were even some broken pieces of organs in some of the bloody holes. Their faces... It was no longer possible to recognize them.
Each of the corpses was too gruesome to look at them. Some of the newcomers immediately closed their eyes in disgust, and some of them shifted their gaze to somewhere else, to where the explosion happened.
Unexpectedly, that strong explosion didn't create a big hole in the crater. It didn't produce a dust cloud either. Thus, everyone could see that 'thing'.
It was definitely a skull, but it didn't belong to a human nor to anything they knew. It was as big as a normal human's torso, had a metallic-black color, and currently, a blackish grey glow was covering its surface entirely.
There were four different sized horns on both sides of the skull. Two of them looking upward, and the other two were looking downward.
The 'thorn' that those two newcomers touched had to be one of its horns. If they had been alive now, they would have been in a shocked state. 'So it was actually a horn' they would say.
It had numerous teeth. They were normal at first glance despite being much longer, but the problem was its chin. It was wavy, and because of that waviness, its teeth were wavy as well.
It had a hard-to-imagine-face, menacing and fear-inducing at the same time. Only a devil's skull would have such an intimidating shape.
The newcomers looked at it with horrified expressions on their faces. They couldn't give a meaning to all these happenings. What was this thing?
Then something even more horrifying happened in front of their eyes. Something started to 'grow' from the metallic skull.
Bones. Around the metallic skull, an identical skull was given shape in no time, and it separated itself from the newly created skull. Then from that skull, a spine started to grow. Arms, legs, and even a tail. It became complete in just a few seconds.
This being wasn't exactly a skeleton. With the shape of its red-white bones, it was more like an exoskeleton.
The newcomers were stunned in place. Their minds were frozen. Everything happened too quickly. They couldn't think of anything. But now, they were against a five meters tall creature. If their situation continued, they would be deader than the two bodies lying in front of him.
"R-Run! Run quickly!"
Just a glance to this creature was enough to make them sure; they had no chance against it, there was no way they could put a fight against it, no matter how many newcomers there was. It was way out of their league.
They ran, ran for their lives. Unique monster, anomaly, becoming stronger, clearing The Lower Catacombs... None of these things had a meaning now. Their only desire was to run for their lives at the moment. None of them looked back.
Nathaniel and Iona were watching everything from the crevice. They were feeling the same fear with these newcomers.
They saw that the arm of this creature grasped something within the debris of molten rocks. And with the rattling sounds of chains, they saw that the blackish grey glow of the metallic skull moved toward the creature, covering its entire body like armor.
Then the metallic skull flew toward the hole that opened to the hall. It crashed five meters above the hole and destroyed crater's wall, causing 'a big slab of iron' to close the door entirely.
Nathaniel immediately understood what the metallic skull actually was.
It was a giant flail!
With a swing of the flail, the creature cut the escape route of the newcomers in its entirety. Its intelligence was no less than that of humans.
"N-No! It can't be!"
"W-What should we do now?"
Now the newcomers were thoroughly consumed by panic. No one knew what they should do in order to survive.
Running wasn't an option anymore, so fighting for their lives was the only choice for them, although, deep inside of their hearts, all of them knew… it was futile.
At this time, a heroic voice was heard. It was Vance.
"D-Don't lose your hope! As long as we have a breath left, we still have a chance at surviving! All we need to do is unite as brothers and sisters!" His voice was trembling, but he managed to say what he wanted to say.
Vance was no hero. He was just doing what he needed to do in order to survive. Somehow, this speech was his brightest idea.
He said a few more words, and now the newcomers were running toward the creature. However, there was no trace of fighting spirit or hope on their expressions.
"Guuuuugrrrhhh!!!"
All of them abruptly stopped, and a second later, they fell on their knees one by one. They could not move, talk or think, and something hot was warming up their thighs. All of the newcomers, including Nathaniel, was in the same condition.
They had a steadily growing fear in them from the moment two dead bodies had flown toward them, but this was different. There was no word that could be enough for describing it.
The moment they heard the strange guttural roar of the creature, everything disappeared from their world. They didn't see nightmares or hallucinations. There was only fear in them now, the most pure and primitive of all fears.
Without losing any time, the metallic skull, the striking head of the flail flew again. One by one, it fell on the newcomers.
"N-Noo!"
"Uwaahah!"
*Psshk!*
*Snap!*
*Crash!*
At first, there were newcomers who still could scream and weep, but those sounds also died down one by one. Bloody pulps, mincemeats, crushed skulls, misshaped figures... soon, they were everywhere.
It didn't take too much time for the creature to wipe out all the fifty newcomers. It didn't even move from the place where it stood.
The creature wasn't aware of it, but there was someone who was unaffected from its strange roar. It was none other Iona. She pulled Nathaniel deeper into the crevice while the creature was busy with killing the newcomers.
There was no life in the crater now. The blood and piss of the newcomers soon mixed and created a pool in the middle of the crater, right under the creature's legs.
When death was inevitable, everyone would want a painless death. If we remove the extreme fear they had felt before their deaths, we could say all of them died painlessly, but again, none of them left behind a complete corpse.
The newcomers were right. There was definitely something in this place, and that was a gruesome death.
...
A little time later, the skull flail fell from the creature's hand for an unknown reason. Instead of grabbing the flail from the ground, it grabbed its head with both hands and started to groan as if it was in pain.
A while later, it took the flail from the ground and started to spin it with ever-increasing strength. After completing a few thousands of tours, the metallic skull's blackish grey glow left its place to an intensive yellow glow. Then it suddenly slashed the striking head of the flail toward the ground.
Given the power of the creature, this strike was enough to create another crater within this crater, but the expected result didn't occur. Instead of another crater, this strike opened a space crack, a crack that was hundred percent identical to the one that sucked Dante and Ulfred in.