Ren saw it, the dead tree, its twisted silhouette cut against the night sky.
The Mirror Mantis was getting closer, and the sound of its broken plates was like a promise of death.
The dead tree was less than fifty meters away when the ground gave way beneath Ren's feet.
Hope had got him distracted.
For one terrible moment, Ren floated in darkness, his stomach lurching as gravity claimed its prey.
His father's kitchen knife flew from his belt. In an act of pure instinct, Ren grabbed it. The blade plunged into the tunnel wall, slowing his fall with strength he didn't know he had.
Earth and stones rained around him, striking his face, getting in his eyes.
Above, the Mirror Mantis stopped at the hole's edge. Its broken plates created a sickly kaleidoscope of fragmented moons.
The creature tilted its triangular head, calculating, hungry.
"No, no, no..." Ren kicked at the wall, searching for a foothold. The knife was slipping.
The earth gave way and Ren fell.
The Mantis jumped.
Its scythes gleamed in the darkness as it fell, the metal of its broken exoskeleton singing a death song. Ren saw his life flash before his eyes, ten short years that would end in darkness, far from his parents, without even the chance to…
A deafening roar shook the tunnel.
The image of the excavator catching him made him drive the knife back in, and in his desperation, he saw a small tunnel beside him.
The parallel tunnel was narrow, barely wide enough for Ren to crawl through. Without thinking, Ren pushed himself toward the tunnel.
But the mantis caught up.
However, just before it could grab Ren as he entered the tunnel…
The wall beneath the mantis opened, revealing the monstrous head of a Night Excavator.
The beast had been hibernating, storing what little mana was available, when the collapse had awakened it.
And now it was hungry.
The Mirror Mantis twisted in the air, its scythes finding excavator flesh instead of its original prey. The Excavator roared in pain, its massive claws emerging from the earth to catch its attacker.
Ren was paralyzed with terror.
Less than two meters away, two nightmare beasts fought in a deadly dance of metal and earth. The Mantis's broken plates created chaotic flashes in the darkness while the Excavator tried to drag its prey into the depths.
To his right, almost invisible in the darkness, Ren distinguished an opening. An older tunnel, its walls smoothed by the passage of time.
He had no choice. The winner would be decided soon.
He crawled into the tunnel while behind him the battle reached its climax.
The Mantis's metallic shriek mixed with the Excavator's roar. There was a horrible crunch, and then...
Silence.
Ren crawled away from the edge, his breathing so loud in his ears he feared the winning beast might hear him.
'I'm alive,' he thought, incredulous.
The mushrooms in his hair provided the only light in the tunnel's absolute darkness, their weak glow barely sufficient to see his own trembling hands.
♢♢♢♢
"Please let the Excavator have won, please let the Excavator have won," Ren muttered while crawling as fast as he could.
Night Excavators were territorial and slow, if it won the battle, it would take its time devouring its prey before considering pursuing him.
But if the Mantis won...
A victorious shriek made his blood freeze. It wasn't the deep roar he'd hoped to hear.
"No, no, no..."
The mushrooms in his hair barely illuminated the path when a fork appeared before him. The left tunnel was irregular, clearly the work of some beast. But the right one...
Ren stopped, panting.
The walls were too smooth, too perfect. Exactly as his father had described in his stories:
"As if someone had melted the stone itself, son. A tunnel of the ancients, from when humans lived here and shaped rock with magic."
Behind him, the wet sound of flesh being torn made him nauseous. The Mantis was feeding. But one meal was all it needed to recover strength and continue hunting.
Ren entered the ancient tunnel.
Now in a much more spacious place... The mushrooms in his hair revealed marks on the walls, symbols he couldn't understand but that were definitely not natural. This had to be the path his father had found.
The tunnel seemed to stretch eternally into darkness.
Ren had maintained a quick pace for what felt like hours, driven by fear and adrenaline, but now his legs trembled from the effort and his breathing was heavy.
He stopped, leaning against the smooth wall of the ancient tunnel.
Remembering what his father said about berries helping recover energy and maintaining a clear mind, he ate some of the ones he'd brought.
He thought about lighting a torch with the flint, but he'd forgotten to collect wood and his mushrooms provided enough light...
With a clearer mind, he began to analyze his situation.
According to his father's map, he should have found the exit by now. Had he taken a wrong turn? Chosen the wrong tunnel?
The mushrooms in his hair provided light in the absolute darkness, but their glow was barely enough to see a few meters ahead. Though they were better than a torch.
They had saved him too...
Ren had been cursing them since he'd invoked them, but now...
"At least you're good for something," he murmured to the spore, still fused with him. "Even if just as a lamp."
He let himself drop to the ground, his legs grateful for the rest. The water from his canteen was lukewarm, but had never tasted better.
While catching his breath, he studied the mysterious symbols on the walls. Some seemed to respond weakly to his mushrooms' light, as if they recognized something in their faint glow.
"I suppose I should thank you for the thing with the toads too," he continued, surprising himself by talking to the world's weakest creature. "Though it was pure luck. You probably didn't even know what you were…"
A distant echo interrupted his words. The unmistakable sound of metal against stone, followed by that blood-freezing hungry hiss.
The Mantis had finished feeding.
And this time there would be no more Excavators to distract it.
This time he would be alone.
And now it was coming for him.
"No, no, no..." Ren jumped up when the metallic hiss resonated in the distance, but closer. The mushrooms in his hair now pulsed with a strange yellowish glow, but he barely had time to wonder why.
The tunnel stretched before him like a black throat. There were no side exits, no places to hide.