Chapter 343:Stream

Chapter 343: 343:Stream

Following the stream turned out to be easier than following the queen’s route, but only for the first hour.

Silver initially considered the difference almost luxurious. The stream gave him a clear direction, the tunnel surrounding it was wider than most of the passages he had endured, and the ground remained relatively level.

He no longer needed to stop every few minutes to decide which scratch marks belonged to the queen or whether some narrow opening was actually part of the route. All he needed to do was keep the moving water on his right and continue in the direction it flowed.

For the first time in what felt like days, he managed to walk without climbing. His body appreciated that immediately.

The four hours of sleep and recovery medicine had restored most of the damage from the previous fights, but rest hadn’t erased the accumulated strain in his legs.

His feet still hurt inside his boots, and every now and then one of the blisters reminded him that his body had limits regardless of how many system medicines he swallowed. Silver adjusted his pace accordingly, moving steadily rather than quickly.

The cavern gradually narrowed into a long natural passage. Water rushed over dark stone beside him. His headlamp illuminated ripples, wet walls and patches of vegetation he hadn’t seen anywhere else in the cave system.

At first it was only moss, dark green patches growing wherever water continuously splashed against stone.

Then Silver noticed thin pale roots hanging from cracks overhead. He stopped beneath one.

The root was almost white, probably because it had never seen sunlight, but it was unmistakably alive. He stared upward, there was no visible opening.

Still, roots meant vegetation somewhere, perhaps much higher above. That was encouraging. He reached out and touched one. It was cold, and damp which meant it was real.

Silver smiled slightly.

"I’ll take anything at this point."

He continued.

Another twenty minutes brought something stranger. Small clusters of translucent fungi grew from the walls.

Their rounded caps reflected his headlamp with a faint bluish sheen. He didn’t recognize them, so he activated Insight rather than touching anything.

[Insight Activated.]

[Palewater Glowcap]

[Classification: Underground Fungus.]

[Toxicity: Low.]

[Edibility: Not Recommended.]

[Primary Trait: Absorbs trace minerals from moisture-rich environments.]

Silver stared at the final line.

"Not recommended is enough."

He left them alone.

The farther he travelled, the more alive the route became. Tiny insects moved across the wet rocks. Long-legged cave crawlers vanished into cracks whenever his light approached.

Small fish occasionally darted through deeper sections of the stream, colorless and almost transparent. He didn’t bother hunting any of them.

The system meals tasted increasingly depressing, but they were safe which mattered more than variety underground.

He checked the network module after another hour.

[Searching for External Networks...]

Silver watched, his heart in his mouth.

[No External Signal Detected.]

His expression didn’t change much this time. He had stopped expecting miracles. He stored it and continued.

The stream widened enough that he could no longer step across it easily. In several places, the water spread over the entire passage floor, forcing him to walk through ankle-deep currents.

The cold seeped through his boots.

Silver disliked that.

Wet boots combined with blistered feet sounded like the beginning of another problem. He started using exposed stone along the bank whenever possible.

The route remained promising, though. More roots appeared overhead; some were thicker. One section contained so many that they hung from the ceiling like pale ropes.

He looked up.

"That has to mean something."

Maybe the surface wasn’t directly above. Large root systems could extend surprisingly far, still, he hadn’t seen anything like them deeper underground.

He was moving somewhere different and that mattered. Silver pressed forward.

Hours passed.

The stream gradually changed character. The clear rushing water became slower and the stone floor gave way to softer earth.

Silver noticed it immediately when one boot sank several centimeters. He pulled it free and it come off with mud.

"Wonderful."

The tunnel widened into a low cavern filled with damp soil. Water spread into multiple shallow channels before rejoining farther ahead.

The air smelled different too; earthier with less mineral, more like an old swamp.

He slowed.

His earlier optimism became caution. Vegetation thickened around the water. Pale reeds grew along the banks, their thin stalks nearly colorless. Broad-leafed plants pressed against wet stone, some had dark purple veins.

Silver used Insight whenever something looked suspicious. Most were harmless but some weren’t.

One cluster produced a warning.

[Insight Activated.]

[Drowsing Reed.]

[Classification: Mutated Underground Flora.]

[Hazard: Releases sedative pollen when disturbed.]

Silver immediately moved away from it.

"Good to know."

Another plant had barbed leaves capable of injecting irritants. He gave that one even more space.

The environment was becoming gloomier the further he moved. His headlamp no longer reflected cleanly from stone since mud absorbed the light.

The water darkened as sediment increased. Small insects became more common.

He stopped several times to remove leech-like creatures from his boots before they found a way inside.

He even began missing the stone tunnels, at least stone didn’t crawl.

Another hour passed.

Silver’s feet sank deeper. The stream had slowed enough that it resembled a narrow muddy river in places.

He tested the network module again, still nothing. He kept moving.

The queen remained somewhere behind him.

Silver didn’t know that yet. He didn’t know worms had already begun searching the tunnel network. All he knew was that the stream still flowed forward.

So he followed.

Eventually he reached a section where the water became significantly wider. The passage opened into a marshy chamber.

Silver stopped at the edge.

The stream crossed the middle, perhaps five or six meters wide now, though still relatively shallow near the banks. Mud covered most of the ground.

Pale vegetation crowded the edges. The ceiling remained low enough that Silver could see most of it with his headlamp.

He activated Spatial Sense.

[Spatial Sense Lv2 Activated.]

The chamber formed around him. It was just the usual. He frowned and expanded farther; still nothing threatening.

He deactivated the ability.

Something about the place bothered him anyway. Maybe it was simply the terrain. The mud meant poor footing, water meant hidden movement, and vegetation meant blind spots.

Silver drew his handgun.

He continued carefully along the left bank. His boots sank, every step producing a wet sucking noise.

He hated it.

He tried moving closer to the rocky edge which was better. The stream bent around a cluster of stone.

Silver followed.

At that moment, something moved in the water , he stopped instantly, but the surface settled before he could even get a feeling of it.