The darklings coming out of the hole were a completely different design from the huntress.

First, they were smaller, not even reaching half the length of any of the huntress’s legs, although relative to the boy they were a tiny bit larger.

Second, they did not have any tails nor pincers, instead were armed with two sharp mantis like claws that were jagged at their sides and pointed at their tips. The claws resembled curved serrated blades and judging by the damage they did to the metallic gate the boy had no doubt they could easily saw through flesh and bone.

The only physical similarities between the huntress and these smaller darklings were the pitch-black exoskeletons, the eight rapidly scurrying legs, and the curved fangs peeking out of their eyeless domes.

Personality wise, they seemed to be a chip off the old block with their blood thirsty nature.

The dark bugs had come sprawling out of the hole, as if it were an entrance to a godforsaken realm of monstrosities.

They did not flow in linearly toward the boy and the drones. Instead, they scurried randomly, crawling away in all directions around the torn hole.

It looked as if the hole was oozing blobs of flowing black liquid.

They scurried forward, left, right, and even up the wall directly above the opening, trying to encompass the entire surface with their forms.

“They don’t have eyes so they’re just moving everywhere randomly!”

The boy had his eyes fixed on the visceral sight in front of him, his blade was ready in hand to cleave any darkling that entered his range.

Suddenly his line of sight is broken by several flashes of white light as the floating security drones unleash their aether blasts in a volley, hitting the wave of darklings that were sprinting forward into the chamber.

The aether shots burn clean through the first row of darklings and rip into the row immediately behind. Burrowing inside them they expand and explode into tiny spheres of plasma, blowing the darklings’ bodies into pieces.

Their black blood and organs fly in all directions, forming dirty black splotches on the pristine white floor, all while the darklings at the front thrash in pain from the gaping holes in their body.

Immediately the swarm shifts its movement, perceiving the attack somehow.

The darklings’ erratic and random scuttling stops and they all change directions toward the mass of their dead numbers.

The uncoordinated sprawl suddenly becomes a focused assault as the swarm barrels toward the drones’ and boy’s direction in a unified charge.

“They’re moving toward the dead darklings…their dead must be giving off pheromones to attract others. Exactly like ants.”

As the swarm advances, the drones continue their periodic firing, each of their shots killing or incapacitating two or more darklings.

In less than a minute, the floor becomes littered with burned black flesh and wounded darklings thrashing wildly from pain.

However, none of that has any effect on the swarm’s march. The dark bugs emotionlessly crawl over their dead and injured as more continue to pour out of the door.

The boy’s eyes reflect the scene of carnage in front of him, periodically lighting up with the white flashes of the drones’ aether shots.

The scouter in his right eye was beeping incessantly as it caught sight of a new darkling every passing second.

Darkling lvl 16

Avg Aether Count: 82

 

Darkling lvl 15

Avg Aether Count: 77

 

Darkling lvl 17

Avg Aether Count: 87

 

According to Arya the gray rats he had fought had an average aether count around 51, with a margin of error of one or two points.

His own avg aether count, including his sword and battle suit combined, was 623, a lot higher than the darklings. Even without his armaments it was a little over 123.

A significant difference.

Although the specifics of the darklings’ ATK, DEF, and SPD were not clear, the boy could still tell which way their aether weighed by the color of the aura enveloping their bodies.

He knew ATK aether was red, SPD was gold, and DEF was blue which gave him enough insight to make his estimations. The aether channeling through the darklings’ bodies was predominantly a mixture of red and blue with no sign of the other colors.

Quite different from the golden maroon aura of the rats he had fought.

“Their ATK and DEF must be their highest values. They’re overlapping all the rest of the colors.”

Thanks to his sword and suit, he had them beat in those categories by a large margin.

He could also roughly estimate the count of their SPD aether, not because he could see it, but by its absence. Despite their rapid and erratic movements, in his eyes they seemed slow and clumsy.

“Having a high SPD aether is so much of an advantage.”

With their aether counts, the darklings could never hope to catch him and that was just his own SPD aether. The suit’s DEF aether alone was over 1500 so even if they somehow did manage to catch him, they would only break their claws and fangs on the suit’s barrier.

However, even with all this advantage he kept a careful distance and remained cautious.

No matter what the scouter was telling him, their intimidating appearance and sheer numbers were making him nervous.

Sure a single darkling was not that strong but together they were like a wave of darkness come to life.

The swarm was rapidly closing into him.

“If I believe the aether counts then I should be able to take them without a problem but this amount is just not fair at all.”

He backs away from the incoming horde, letting them advance further into the chamber.

If he can get them to fill the entire chamber and then spray the chemical, they’ll be easy pickings.

But things seldom go so smoothly.

The swarm had advanced about halfway into the chamber but it wasn’t moving beyond that point.

The reason were the security drones.

They were still floating near the entrance, shooting down at the darkling swarm indiscriminately.

“Shit! Those drones are pulling all the aggression toward themselves.”

The darklings killed from their shots were releasing pheromones that attracted even more darklings toward that spot, creating a loop.

The black mass of darklings was concentrating below the drones, searching for the enemy in a frenzy that was floating above them. They were scuttling around in circles, mindlessly crawling and climbing over each other.

The drones kept on shooting periodically, undisturbed by the angry mass of sharp fangs and claws. Some of the darklings seemed to realize they were above them, as a few of them were pouncing blindly in the air.

“It’s not really a part of the plan but it seems to be working?”

Suddenly, the swarm changes strategy.

Many of the bugs in the center of the dense concentration stop scuttling in circles, and instead turn around with their heads down, raising their rear ends in the air.

One by one they start spraying droplets of some black liquid in the air in random directions, not even bothering to aim.

Their collective sprays form a fine black mist that encompasses the space above them.

“Is that some kind of poison?” The boy wonders.

His guess proves wrong.

Although it was not poison, it was something equally terrible.

One of the drones flies through the mist and all of a sudden, every darkling in the swarm turns toward it, as if they had all grown eyes.

Much to the boy’s shock, even when the drone changes its flight path and starts floating in the opposite direction, the darklings follow its trajectory, as if they could physically see it.

Oblivious to the danger, the drone hovered cluelessly and continued shooting.

The boy realized what was about to happen as soon as he spotted some of the darklings’ aether spiking.

As the drone passes above them, a group of five darklings instantly jump toward it with their claws extended back, ready to pierce its outer shell.

Two of them completely miss the mark, but the rest of them manage to latch on, frantically clawing at the drone’s smooth surface.

Unable to bear their weight, the drone struggles to stay afloat in the air while withstanding their assault.

Rotating the energy rifle on its side, it manages to shoot one darkling in the face, blowing its head clean off.

The headless darkling still manages to land a few more stabs before losing strength and tumbling down.

Just as it seemed like the drone would survive this ordeal, one of the latched darklings stabs it on the top of its shiny dome with its red aether infused claw.

The stab damages some integral part inside, because the drone and its charged aether rifles immediately lose all power.

It falls down to the floor like a dead bowling ball with the latched darklings still stabbing at its motionless body.

The boy observed the entire scene, amazed and terrified by the blind bugs’ ingenuity.

“Of course, they know how to fight enemies in the air. These darklings are some stone-cold killers. But I can’t let that happen again. It’s all over if I lose the drones.”

The drones were the prime distraction he needed to divert the swarm if things became too hectic for him.

In front of him, within the swarm, more darklings were assuming the same posture, raising their rears and spraying black liquid into the air.

The mist catches another unlucky drone as it passes through it, attracting the swarm’s attention.

“Looks like its time for me to step in.”

He channels the red ATK and the gold SPD aethers through his body, igniting a flaming golden maroon aura, and bounds straight toward the swarm.

“Since they have no eyes, they don’t know I’m here.”

While running he keeps his eyes focused on the marked drone and the darklings underneath it.

As he draws near, he spots some of the darklings’ aether spiking in preparation for a leap.

In response he quickly musters more SPD aether throughout his body which raises his speed even higher.

He closes in on the swarm just as four darklings leap toward the unsuspecting drone.

“Oh no you don’t.”

Using his speed as momentum, he makes a broad jump toward the drone with his sword ready in his arms.

One of the darklings misses its mark so he dismisses it from his thoughts but the other three manage to latch on. When he gets in range, he unleashes a wide arching swing that cuts through these darklings’ claws and legs, freeing the drone.

The darklings screech from pain as they drop down to the floor with the boy following right on top of them.

Pointing his blade downward, he lands on top of a darkling with severed legs, skewering its dome.

The blade passes through its dome and exits its maw.

It instantly goes limp and he jumps off of it with his sword raised above his head, aiming for the injured darkling that had fallen beside it.

It was obliviously grooming its severed claw, trying to stop the bleeding when he lands and slices at its large crab like dome.

 The blade easily passes through its tough exoskeleton, slicing the bug into two uneven parts.

As he’s absorbing their experia the pheromones from their dead bodies attracts a small group of darklings from the swarm a couple of feet in front of him.

The group of about 8 darklings quickly charges toward him with their claws raised, ready to pierce any target they can detect.

But to his senses they were abysmally slow.

Raising his sword with both arms, the boy waits for them to enter his range.

He thought they would struggle to pinpoint him since they had no eyes but surprisingly the darklings make a direct beeline for him.

“How are they so accurate?”

The first one enters his range and brings both claws down on his head, trying to pierce his skull. He swiftly rotates the sword’s hilt in his hands, twirling the blade in an anticlockwise swing that severs both of its claws.

The darkling screeches loudly but he silences it with a quick and light horizontal slash that cuts through its whole body.

Before its body hits the floor the rest of the group is upon him. Two darklings rush into him from both sides with there claws high above their domes.

Driven by powerful muscles, their claws come down with lethal force, but they stab into empty floor since he had backstepped.

The entire group shifts their trajectory toward his changed position and continue in his direction.

“They know exactly where I am without any eyes, how are they doing that?”

Taking a quick glance at his sword, he felt like an idiot for not figuring out sooner.

His sword was coated with their blood, which meant it was probably coated with their pheromones as well. They were simply following the pheromones coming off his sword.

“Hmm but maybe I can use this.”

The group of angry darklings close in on him with their claws ready but he felt no danger.

Channeling the full extent of his SPD aether throughout his body, he rushes toward them at max speed.

Even though the darklings could sense his rapid approach, their claws barely reacted in time.

Rotating the sword’s hilt with lighting quick movements, he zips through the group’s center while twirling the blade in fast wide arching slashes.

The blade rises through the body of the darkling to his immediate left, whirls around and down through another darkling on his right.

As both of them collapse, a darkling suddenly jumps in front of his path and attempts to stab him with its claws, but the boy had seen it coming from a mile away.

Utilizing his ATK and SPD aether with effective precision, he bounces off the floor.

Passing over the attacking darkling, he twirls in the air like a gymnast, his entire body upside down.

When he is right over it, he stabs his blade half way into its dome and quickly pulls out.

The entire motion happens in less than a second and when he lands on his feet, the darkling collapses.

Despite his effortless kills, the remaining group marches toward him fearlessly, as if incapable of feeling any fear.

The black bloodshed was beginning to attract larger numbers from the swarm toward him.

“Looks like I have to kill a whole lot more if I want to get the entire swarm’s attention.”