God of Tricksters

After Agata agreed, Theo continued his search in one direction. Unfortunately, he soon found a wall standing in front of him. He rubbed the surface and everything around it before confirming the wall was a dead end.

He didn't find any gap in the wall, so he turned around and walked to the opposite side.

There were more monsters on the other side as he counted them while making his way to the endless darkness.

He had walked for around five hundred feet and found more than a hundred monsters inside.

He had lost count of how many new species lived inside the cave as he kept wondering when the tunnel would end.

To his surprise, after a long one-hour walk, he could finally see the light shining at the end of the tunnel.

Without hesitation, he ran toward the light, ignoring all the monsters.

He was stunned.

The light came from crystals planted around the wall. It was quite bright as Theo could see the tunnel ahead.

He was stunned that the tunnel had become a massive spiral with a sidewalk attached to the wall like that of staircases. The shining blue crystals illuminated the spiral to make sure everyone could see the stairs.

Theo moved to the edge of the spiral and looked up. He found nothing but a ceiling not far above him, so he knew nothing would hide there.

Then, he lowered his vision and could barely see the bottom.

The spiral was around a hundred feet high, and with the dim light from the crystals, he couldn't see what was hiding underneath.

'What should I do? Should I jump or go back to bring the others here? Still…' Theo looked at the crystals. 'Their placement is so perfect and the sidewalk feels so artificial.

'If I take another look at the report, I believe the first group didn't reach this place. So, I can safely assume they don't know something like this exists.

'Else, they would have reported it to them, considering this place looks very artificial. Someone must have built this.' Theo thought for a moment, considering his options.

'I should go back and deal with the monsters first. After that, we can set up a camp here while I'm going ahead to check the route.' Theo nodded with a serious expression, knowing what he should do.

He turned around and walked back as quickly as possible while confirming the number of monsters they were about to kill.

While waiting, the real Theo said, "I feel like an intelligent species is living inside this mountain."

"Huh?" Agata frowned. "What do you mean?"

"There's an intelligent species inside. I can see there's a spiral that leads us to the bottom. I don't know what's waiting for us there, but the placement of the shining crystals are so perfect, making it look like street lamps."

"Hoh?" Agata frowned. "If that's the case, it's going to be a discovery of the century."

"Hmm, is there any record of another species being discovered?" Theo asked with a curious expression.

"I am not very sure. Even if they found one, they would hide this discovery. After all, the world leaders would be pressuring them to hand over this jurisdiction, so they can take advantage of them by saying they want to make contact with them.

"So, I believe there are already a few intelligent species found around the world, but not many know about it." Agata shrugged.

"Fair enough. Those who have lived for so long under this mountain should have been prepared too… Yeah, I'm planning to scout with my ant form."

"That's probably the best. Depending on our discovery, we might need to report or hide this finding." She nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. Anyway, we need to figure everything out first before making a decision. We will proceed with caution."

After that, they discussed a few things regarding their finding. When Ant Theo had arrived at the bottom of the gap, he summoned his Magic Bullets while transforming back into his original form.

The Magic Bullets flew to the other side of the tunnel, alarming all the monsters around the dead end.

"Roar."

"Howl."

Their loud voices echoed inside the tunnel, but the other monsters didn't seem to react to their voices.

"Are they deaf? I know they must be blind since there's no light around here other than the other end… But I wonder if they're deaf too…" Theo frowned, realizing only monsters passed by Magic Bullets were enraged.

They raised from the grounds and headed straight to Theo, ignoring the Magic Bullets that had disappeared before impact. He didn't want to destroy the cave after all.

Meanwhile, Theo, Ava, and Agata entered the gap and skillfully made their way toward the tunnel while Clone Theo was baiting the monsters to chase after him, giving them a perfect place to land.

Clone Theo ended up angering more than thirty monsters before he got surrounded and killed by the monsters.

At that time, the monsters didn't move for a minute as though they were confused about what to do after the enemy disappeared.

After landing, Theo and Agata activated their night vision.

He looked around and confirmed the size of the tunnel. Meanwhile, Agata was searching for the monsters but found no one yet.

Still, she was pretty tense when she kept hearing the noises echoing from afar. It was clear those voices came from the monsters that Theo killed.

Without making a sound, Theo tapped Agata's shoulder and pointed at himself.

Agata noticed this gesture and agreed without hesitation. It seemed the monsters were stronger than they expected, so Theo wanted to be in charge of this area.

Ava, on the other hand, had a serious expression. She followed her instinct which was to transform into her battle form, while walking to Theo to declare her decision.

Ava just confirmed Agata's suspicion, so she looked at Theo, anticipating his answer.

Theo gave a thumbs up and pointed at the darkness. With only 30 feet visibility, Theo summoned his clone along with his Magic Bullets, resulting in a total of 120 bullets.

He shot the bullets simultaneously to lighten up the tunnel while showing the position of their enemies.

Agata and Theo raised their eyebrows when they saw the real form of the monsters.

******

Author's Note: What's species do you think they are?