The battle still raged on around them. Although the slaves had received reinforcements, dealing with these monsters was nevertheless no easy task. Gruff and his goons enforced some semblance of organization on the panicking group, and they had already managed to trap and slay a centipede. Yet casualties were mounting further on the slaves' side.

 

Red estimated that almost 30 people had died in this tunnel. To their benefit, however, he and Viran had managed to take out the biggest threat. The man was currently occupied sawing away at the other scythe arm of the giant monster.

 

"Here kid, take it!" He shouted and threw the severed bladed limb in Red's direction.

 

The boy didn't move to catch it, avoiding the object as it clattered to the ground. Looking at it closely, the arm segment was longer than he was tall, about a meter and a half. After sheathing his knife and taking care not to wound himself, Red tried to pick up the scythe near the cut-off joint where he could find some grip without severing his hand.

 

The youth had to use both hands to barely be able to lift the thing, resting it over his shoulder with many difficulties. Looking over at Viran, he merely shook his head. There was no way Red would be able to move around swiftly while handling something this heavy.

 

"Bah, stop complaining!" The man laughed at him. "That's even better than your average metal blade up on the surface, just get used to its weight!"

 

"Was that the culprit?" Changing the subject, Red asked the question that had been on his mind for a while.

 

Viran didn't respond, looking around at the situation of the battlefield. He didn't seem to be in a hurry to help the rest of the slaves.

 

"Maybe... I doubt it." The man finally replied. "Either way, we need to get rid of these things first. Follow behind me, and pay attention." With that, he was off.

 

Red followed behind him to the best of his ability, carrying that polearm-like insect body part atop his shoulders. Viran soon found a target, a centipede that was too distracted with the other humans to notice its doom approaching.

 

All it took was a single massive one-handed swing with the scythe-limb and the monster was bisected before it even detected the man's approach. The slaves, including some of the runaways, cheered out loud as their savior took to the field.

 

"Finish it off!" Viran screamed at them, pointing with his unoccupied hand at the two wriggling parts.

 

He ran past them before they could even reply, seemingly becoming faster. Red struggled to keep up as the rest of the slaves threw confused looks at him.

 

Their next victim was a giant horned beetle, but this one saw their approach from far away. It started charging in Viran's direction, but the man didn't stray from his path. As they were about to crash, the man held his weapon sideways, blocking the horn of the creature with a loud collision.

 

Instead of what one might expect, the man didn't give way, his feet merely sliding backward a few steps as he held firm against the strong monster. The beetle, however, seemed to be fairly stunned from the impact.

 

"Now is your turn kid!" Viran barked at him.

 

Instead of arguing with the man, Red simply decided to do as he was told. Approaching the beast from its side, the boy hoisted the scythe-arm in the air above his head with both of his hands. Before the weapon started to weigh down too much on him, Red brought it down aiming at the creature's neck in an attempt to decapitate it.

 

CRUNCH

 

With a sickening sound, the improvised blade managed to find purchase, cutting halfway into the monster's neck. The beast roared in pain and Red found to his dismay that his weapon was stuck in its body. Before he could make an effort to take it away, however, Viran stepped on top of his blade and forced it the rest of the way down with his weight. The creature's head was completely separated from its body and the boy almost fell backward as a result of trying to pull his weapon free

 

"It was a nice idea, kid, but beetles' necks are quite thick." The man explained as he patted Red's shoulder. "Unless you're confident you can go through it in one strike, you should just try to go for its legs or something."

 

The boy was already vastly surprised he had managed to cut a beast this much with his new weapon, but he still took the advice to heart. When it came to fighting, Red could never claim to know as much about it as Viran. Anything he could learn from him would prove of use in the future.

 

Over the next few minutes, the duo went through all the creatures, dispatching them one by one with the help of the slaves. Well, the veteran soldier did most of the work, but Red was there to learn and cut the insects as he was told. His body felt tired but at the very least the youth felt more confident in wielding the large bladed arm segment.

 

The group of survivors stared in wonder at Viran as he stood amidst the corpses of the monsters. In the past, the man proved to be far stronger than any of them thought was possible, but today he had simply gone even further beyond their expectations. Even Red felt surprised by the ease with which they had dispatched the monsters.

 

"Don't be shocked." Viran told him, seemingly able to guess his thoughts even through the boy's impassive expression. "This is the difference a good weapon makes. When you open your Spiritual Sea, you'll have your magical arts to contend against these monsters, but until then," He patted his scythe. "You're gonna have to rely pretty heavily on these things."

 

With that understanding, Red looked at the weapon he held over his shoulder with new eyes. The youth didn't know if he would be able to keep it, but just wielding it had given him a new feeling of power.

 

"Gruff!" Viran roared, and the man approached him from amidst a group of slaves.

 

"Yes, boss?" Unlike other times, the giant seemed to have a pretty nasty wound on his shoulder, presumably due to one of the beetles.

 

"How many did we lose?" The old soldier asked.

 

"We... We have some 50 people left, boss." Gruff responded after some hesitation. "Only lost 7 of the ones who were with us."

 

Viran's face soured in anger as he proceeded to stare at the survivors. Now that their lives were saved, most of these slaves were suddenly reminded about the conflict that brought them to this tunnel in the first place.

 

"Fucking morons... Fuck!" The man screamed in anger. He pointed at the bodies of the dead slaves. "Look at this mess! How are we even going to clean this shit now?! It's all your damn fucking fault for thinking you could disobey me!"

 

No one dared to argue against him, either out of fear or out of shame.

 

"You think I haven't talked to those idiots up top already?! You had the genius idea that the guys who barely give us enough to eat would care whether or not some insects eat us down here?!" Viran continued to yell. "Who was the genius that came up with this?! Give him up right now!"

 

"He... He's dead." One of the slaves said, pointing at a nearby corpse, its skin completely dark from centipede venom. Red recognized him as one of Viran's direct subordinates

 

"What?!" Instead of being relieved, the man seemed to get even angrier. "The bastard didn't even have the balls to stay alive so I could kill him myself! So much for your grand escape plan, huh?!" Walking over, he kicked the corpse of the individual, sending it flying against the cave wall.

 

It took him another minute of screaming and venting at the slaves before Viran calmed down. Truthfully, Red thought this was already very merciful of his part. The old Viran would have likely killed or tortured every single member of the rebel group, but right now they lacked a lot of manpower. The boy more or less understood his decision to let them go with just some mental abuse.

 

"Gather the equipment and prepare to drag the corpses." He finally gave an order. "These monsters dug a tunnel right in this tunnel, so we're going to throw these corpses there before closing it..." The man seemed ready to speak further, but in the end, he let it go. "Gruff, skin the monsters and get whatever you can carry out of their carcasses. We are not leaving anything behind."

 

"Yes, boss..." The giant didn't immediately go to attend to his task, his face full of hesitation.

 

"What is it?" Viran asked, irritated.

 

"Was that... That big thing, the one that was making our boys disappear?"

 

"...We'll talk about that when we get back to the meeting room." It was all the man said before he turned around and walked towards Red.

 

The boy himself had sat on the ground, simply watching the whole proceedings. His new weapon was resting against the wall, and the youth was in the process of wrapping some pieces of cloth around the cut on his back.

 

"What do you think?" Viran asked, pointing at the scythe-arm.

 

"Too big..." Red replied after some thought. "Too heavy, hard to walk around unnoticed with that."

 

"Hm." The man picked up the bladed limb and weighed it in his hand. After some consideration, he used his own newly-obtained cutter and swung it against Red's weapon. The blade snapped in half against the blow and Viran swung around the newly transformed weapon. He then passed it to the boy. "What about now?"

 

Finishing his bandaging, Red stood up and picked the blade. Now the arm had lost nearly half its length, becoming about 80 centimeters long. It resembled more a long cleaver, but it felt far easier to wield in his hand. With a few test swings, Red discovered that using it with one hand was still a bit hard but it would become possible as he grew up and got stronger.

 

The more important part was he could now carry it around without feeling weighed down.

 

"Better." Was the only thing Red responded with.

 

"Good." Viran smiled, before picking up the other broken part of the blade and sheathing it to his waist. "Go help the others skin those monsters. We need to talk when we get back... We'll likely need to speed up our plans." With that, he was walking away towards the center of the room and started to speak with some other slaves.

 

Red had a feeling this was going to be the case. If the mastermind behind this wave of giant insects was still alive, then it was very likely that another hole could pop out of the ground and many other monsters could emerge from it. Albeit taken by surprise, the slaves had still nearly lost half their numbers in this battle alone. Red didn't believe they would be able to defend themselves against several more waves of these.

 

The boy thought to himself while looking at Viran's face. However, at the corner of his eyes, something caught his attention. A wounded slave in ragged clothing was walking towards his leader and a few others who were talking near the center of the room. Red didn't know why but something felt familiar about the man's expression.

 

Suddenly it hit him. The image of the decapitated head they had found earlier today flashed through his mind. Memories of past encounters with that individual came to him. The appearance of the person and the images in his head overlapped.

 

Bertel, who was supposed to be dead.

 

"WATCH OUT!"

 

Red screamed, but it was too late. The figure shot forward with incredible speed. Viran, perhaps feeling the danger as well as listening to the boy's warning, turned around and was about to put up his arms in defense. 'Bertel', however, was already upon him.

 

A shower of blood.

 

An arm pierced straight through Viran's stomach.