Chapter 71: Tactical Command, The Misfit Formation

"Gabriel, what are you doing?" Riya shouted.

Saile ignored her. He stepped outside the trembling circle of students, walking directly toward the advancing swarm. He reached down to his hip and drew the standard-issue iron sword the Academy had given him. The blade was cheap and poorly balanced.

His true weapon, the Epic-grade Calamity Fang, remained heavily wrapped in canvas across his back.

The first Cave Crawler lunged from the cavern wall. Its compound red eyes locked

onto Saile. Its mandibles snapped open, dripping green acid that hissed violently against the stone floor.

Saile did not retreat. He sidestepped the pouncing beast. He swung the cheap iron blade, aiming specifically for the thin, unarmored membrane right behind the creature’s knee joint.

Crunch.

The iron severed the tendon. The crawler shrieked. Its front leg collapsed inward, and the beast slammed chin-first into the rocky floor, its momentum completely broken.

Saile turned his head slightly toward the terrified students.

"They are just bugs," Saile stated. His voice carried zero panic. It cut through the dark, cold and clinical. "If you stand still, you die. If you listen to me, you live."

The boy who had dropped his fire spell stared up at him, shaking uncontrollably.

"Ignite the light," Saile ordered. "Keep it bright. They hate the heat."

The boy stammered, raising his trembling hands. A sphere of pale yellow fire flared to life, illuminating the damp cavern walls. The encroaching swarm of arachnids hissed, shrinking back slightly from the sudden glow.

Saile pointed his rusted sword at the blind runecrafter.

"Elian," Saile barked. "Drop the staff. Press your palms to the stone. You can read mana currents. Read the vibrations. Tell us where they are dropping from."

Elian swallowed hard. He fell to his knees and pressed his bare hands against the wet rock.

"Three on the ceiling," Elian gasped. His sightless eyes went wide beneath his gray blindfold. "Two circling the right flank!"

Saile shifted his gaze to Riya. The beast-tamer stood frozen, holding two rusted daggers.

"Your centipede," Saile said. "It secretes a paralyzing neurotoxin. Milk it."

Riya blinked, momentarily stunned. "What?"

"These beasts possess thick exoskeletons," Saile explained. He kept his blue eyes tracking the shifting shadows on the walls. "Our weapons cannot pierce their armor. But they have exposed joints. Coat the blades in your toxin. A single scratch will lock their nervous systems."

Riya looked at the translucent bug resting on her collarbone. She understood immediately.

"Shields to the front!" Saile commanded the rest of the class. "Lock your arms. Do not look at their eyes. Look at their legs."

The students hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then, raw survival instinct took over.

Four boys with cracked wooden shields rushed forward, forming a crude barrier. Riya moved swiftly down the line. She ran her centipede along the edges of the students’ rusted spears and swords, coating the dull metal in a clear, venomous slime.

"Above!" Elian screamed. "Dropping now!"

Two Cave Crawlers plummeted from the stalactites.

"Shields up! Brace!" Saile shouted.

The boys angled their shields upward. The arachnids crashed into the wood. The kinetic impact forced the students to their knees with heavy grunts of pain. Green acid sizzled against the shields, eating away the cheap timber. The foul stench of burning wood and sulfur filled the cavern.

"Spears, strike the joints!" Saile ordered.

The students thrust their toxin-laced weapons upward through the gaps in their

shield wall. The dull tips slid into the soft tissue between the crawlers’ segmented legs.

The monsters shrieked. The neurotoxin worked in seconds. The beasts stiffened,

their limbs curling inward as paralysis seized their bodies. They rolled off the shields, twitching uselessly on the stone floor.

Saile walked forward. He drove his iron sword straight through the eye of the first paralyzed crawler, killing it before it could recover.

"Right flank!" Elian yelled.

"Pivot right," Saile directed.

The class moved as one. The panicked, disorganized group of misfits was transforming into a functioning military unit under Saile’s calculated guidance.

Another crawler charged. A shield-bearer bashed its front legs, throwing it off balance. Riya darted forward, slashing her poisoned dagger across the beast’s exposed underbelly. The creature convulsed and collapsed, its heart stopping.

Saile moved through the center of the formation. He acted as the ultimate safety

net.

When a beast slipped past the shields, Saile stepped in. He didn’t use Diamond-Tier speed or flashy magic. He used raw combat intelligence. He tripped a crawler with a precise kick to its center of gravity. He parried a snapping mandible, redirecting the beast’s momentum so it crashed headfirst into the cave wall.

He made it look like luck. He made it look like the desperate, sloppy swordsmanship of a frightened commoner fighting for his life.

"You are babysitting," Naicul scoffed in his mind. The ancient God sounded bored by the tactical display. "Let me out. I will turn this swarm into a red smear on the wall."

"Patience," Saile replied mentally.

He didn’t want to slaughter the beasts himself. If he unleashed his true power, the disguise would shatter. He needed the class to do the work.

And while the students fought desperately to survive, Saile’s true objective was happening in the shadows.

Every time a Cave Crawler died, its glowing monster core dropped into the dirt.

Saile stepped carefully over the corpses. He kept his hands low. The Endless Devourer woke in his chest, operating with silent, invisible efficiency. Dark, microscopic tendrils of mana snaked down his legs and slipped into the blood-soaked stone.

The tendrils wrapped around the dropped cores. The dark magic dissolved the loot, pulling the raw energy directly through the soles of Saile’s boots.

Golden system screens flashed quietly in the corner of his vision.

[Target Eliminated: Cave Crawler (Level 42)]

[EXP Gained.]

[Target Eliminated: Cave Crawler (Level 44)]

[EXP Gained.]

No one noticed the missing cores. The students were too focused on staying alive. They stabbed, blocked, and pushed, following Saile’s relentless orders.

"Two more from the front tunnel!" Elian yelled. His voice was hoarse, but he kept his hands firmly planted on the rock.

"Hold the line," Saile commanded.

The final two beasts rushed the formation. Riya threw her poisoned dagger. The blade buried itself into a crawler’s eye cluster. The monster screeched, thrashing wildly before the toxin froze its nervous system.

The last beast reared up. Its throat swelled, preparing to spray a wide cone of corrosive acid over the shield wall.

Saile stepped forward. He threw his rusted iron sword.

The blade spun end over end through the dim light. It struck the beast squarely in the open throat, interrupting the acid spray. The crawler gagged. It collapsed, its internal organs melting rapidly from its own volatile fluids.

The cavern fell quiet.

The clicking sounds stopped. The only noise remaining was the ragged, exhausted breathing of the twelve students.

The boy holding the light spell dropped his arms. The pale fire faded slightly, illuminating a floor covered entirely in dead, purple arachnids.

They had done it. A group of F-Rank commoners, armed with cheap wooden shields and blunt iron weapons, had just wiped out an entire swarm of Platinum-Tier

monsters.

Riya wiped a smear of green monster blood from her cheek. She looked at Saile.

He stood in the center of the carnage. His cheap linen clothes were spotless. His breathing was slow and even. He hadn’t broken a sweat.

"How did you know?" Riya asked. Her voice shook with a mix of adrenaline and raw awe. "How did you know my centipede’s toxin would work on them?"

"I read a lot of books," Saile answered smoothly, retrieving his iron sword from the dead beast.

The blind runecrafter slowly stood up, dusting off his knees.

"You aren’t a normal student, Gabriel," Elian said quietly. "Nobody reads a book and learns how to command a battlefield like a veteran general."

Saile did not reply. He wiped the green acid off his blade using the monster’s hide, ignoring the boy’s suspicion.

"We need to keep moving," Saile stated. "The smell of this blood will attract more."

He wasn’t lying. The Endless Devourer was actively tracking the ambient mana deep within the labyrinth. He could feel the oppressive signatures of high-level beasts lurking in the dark tunnels ahead.

The sabotage had dropped them off the map. There were no safety runes here to

teleport them back to the surface. They were trapped until sunset.

"Form up," Saile ordered. "Elian, take the point. Keep your hands on the walls. Riya, guard the rear."

The students did not argue. They fell into position instantly. Saile had kept them alive, and in the dark abyss of the labyrinth, survival trumped Academy ranks. They trusted him.

Saile fell into step near the middle of the group.

He opened his system interface, keeping the golden screen hidden from his classmates. He watched the experience points ticking upward as the dark tendrils finished digesting the remaining cores in the room.

He smiled faintly in the shadows.

The nobles thought they were sending Class F to a graveyard. They had paid good gold to watch the trash-tier students rot in the dark.

Instead, they had handed the Sovereign of the Fallen God an uncontested buffet of high-tier monsters.

"Eat well, kid," Naicul purred. "We have a long way down."

Saile gripped his rusted sword. The descent had only just begun.