Chapter 70: Subject 4314

The monstrous, deafening scream of the mana beast echoed violently off the jagged stone walls, causing large chunks of loose shale and dried black mud to rain down into the stagnant puddles below.

The giant predator did not spend another microsecond mourning its severed connection to Julian’s spatial mana. Its six red eyes violently locked onto the two freshmen, shining with a demented frenzy.

BOOM!

The beast aggressively tensed its multi-jointed insect legs and pounced directly toward them, its massive blackish-green lizard torso blurring through the dark with terrifying velocity. Julian was still visibly weak from the prolonged siphoning, his legs shaking slightly beneath his tattered emerald cape as he struggled to dodge the attacks. Seeing his companion completely compromised, Thomas steeled his unyielding resolve. He forced his body to move first, stepping directly in front of the High-blood to become the one actively defending the perimeter while Julian provided whatever ranged backup his shallow mana pool could afford.

Thomas didn’t waste a single frame of motion. Utilizing the full reverse-engineered skills of the Trap Assassin Talent, his long fingers twitched in a rapid, seamless sequence. He violently slammed his palm flat against the damp stone floorboards.

Clack-clack-clack-clack!

A massive, hidden matrix of grinding rock gears and mechanical teeth violently erupted from the earth right beneath the monster’s landing coordinates, aiming to crush its multi-jointed joints. But the beast swiftly dodged all the incoming traps, its body fluidly twisting mid-air with an impossible grace that completely bypassed the snapping stone teeth.

"You cannot defeat me child!" the talking mana beast hissed, its dual-toned voice laughing and weeping simultaneously right against Thomas’s ear canals. "I can see, hear, and perceive every single thing within my domain! Every root is my eye!"

Before Thomas could even realign his center of gravity from the strike, a massive, bleeding black root violently shot up from the ground directly beneath their feet. The sheer kinetic displacement launched both freshmen ten feet into the freezing air currents of the cavern. Realizing they were completely airborne and defenseless against a follow-up impalement, Thomas reached out, aggressively grabbed Julian by his long cape, and violently twisted their bodies mid-air. He dropped his shoulder, positioning himself beneath the High-blood while instantly activating the hyper-dense, armor of his Diamond Skin across his entire back.

CRUNCH!

They crashed heavily against the jagged stone floorboards, the immense physical density Thomas had integrated from Gerald holding the absolute line, absorbing the brutal impact and breaking their downward fall without allowing his spine to snap.

The moment they stabilized, Julian immediately pushed off Thomas’s chest with an irritated scowl, brushing the swamp dust off his silver armour. "I had it control, lesser," Julian spat coldly, adjusting his silver-rimmed glasses with absolute pride.

Thomas slowly rose to his feet, his face remaining perfectly hard and smooth as glass as he wiped a line of dark copper blood from his jaw. "Yeah, right."

Julian side-eyed the ceiling where the remaining root network was still pulsing with mana, his bare ebony eyes narrowing behind his lenses. "What should we do about this situation? The others outside are actively being drained of their mana."

"We have to fight our way completely outside this cavern if we want to have a single chance at running," Thomas said flatly. "Inside this cave, the beast has absolute supremacy through its root connections."

Julian looked at the massive mana beast, which was already repositioning its eight insect legs and making its rapid way back towards their coordinates across the grond. He turned his head toward Thomas, his voice dropping into a serious weight. "You have to distract the entity head-on while I recharge, if we are to have a shot at escaping this cavern."

Thomas didn’t flinch. "How long will it take?"

"About two minutes," Julian replied cleanly, his fingers twitching in a tight circle as he began drawing ambient energy from his surroundings.

"Okay," Thomas responded.

He thought about how long it had been since he first arrived inside the cavern, matching it against the rapid degradation logs his system had displayed. His thoughts turned to Lina. With her shallow Grade D capacity, she was running entirely on fumes. He wondered if her core could realistically last a few minutes longer before collapsing entirely, or if this distraction would cost her life. He had to draw the beast’s focus completely away from the siphoning lines.

Thomas stepped forward into the grit, his dark eyes wide open as he looked straight into the monster’s cluster of six red eyes.

"Give me your name," Thomas commanded smoothly, his voice cutting cleanly through the howling gale-force winds of the cave.

The massive mana beast paused its advance for a brief fraction of a second, as its six eyes stared intently down at Thomas’s muddied linen shirt. The question seemed to strike an ancient, forgotten chord deep within its twisted intellect, the demented frenzy in its gaze briefly flickering into a hollow, confused void.

"My name..." the beast muttered softly, its dual-toned voice echoing weirdly off the stone pillars as its mandibles clicked in a slow rhythm. "Subject... 4314. That is what they called me before labeling me a failure."

Julian’s bare ebony eyes violently widened into circles of pure, unadulterated shock behind his glasses, his mana gathering briefly stalling. "Subject 4314... That would mean he was entirely man-made."

Thomas offered a single, slow nod of his head, his face remaining perfectly unreadable as he filed the terrifying historical data away behind his eyes. He didn’t offer a theatrical display of fear, nor did he pull back his stance. He simply took a firm step forward into the sand, his right arm subtly pulsing as his Gaseous Shift ability he had received after his fight with the freckled senior in the subterranean grids flared to life.

"Subject 4314," Thomas said, his flat voice dropping into a dangerous, razor-sharp octave that gave the entire cavern actual chills. "My name is Thomas. And I am pissed."

With that definitive declaration, Thomas violently shifted his weight onto his heels and jumped straight forward to attack the beast head-on, his gaseous fist drawn back as he launched himself directly into the dark.