CHAPTER 56: TENDRILS

Silva took one step forward toward the man, and then sensed an attack. He looked up when a massive stream of flames was headed his way.

"Get away from him!" the lady yelled. Silva rolled out of the way, dodging the attack, then he used Claw Strike. It hit her right in the arm, cutting deep and almost removing the entire arm.

She screamed in pain, collapsing to the ground. The leader suddenly leaped off the ground and tackled Silva.

He turned his head to look at the last lady. "Do it now!" he yelled. She was a little hesitant.

Silva didn’t know what they were talking about, but his senses picked up a massive amount of energy rising from her body.

He grabbed the man by the neck and tossed him back forcefully, then rushed at her. But before he could reach her, she blasted him with a dark beam.

He crossed his arms at the last moment. It slammed into his hands and threw him back, his body slamming into the ground. He rolled for tens of meters away.

His body was filled with pain. He didn’t suffer damage from the attack, as the gauntlet had taken it all, but the force of the attack had been immense. It made every muscle in his body ache badly.

"Arghhh!" he groaned, rolling and pushing himself up. He staggered but forced himself to stand, then looked up, a cold glare in his eyes. But the cult members had vanished, all of them.

Only the three from the party were still there. He looked around, stretching his senses as far as he could, but he couldn’t find them at all.

"Shit," he cursed.

He kept walking until he stopped at the party. The three of them looked at him with a mix of fear and gratitude. He didn’t bother with them and walked past.

’I should have killed them faster. Tch, can’t believe I let them escape.’

With them gone, he decided to continue going deeper into the gate, when suddenly, the ground broke open and something latched onto his leg.

He looked down quickly. It was a black, slimy looking thing. He tried to pull his leg out, but it yanked hard, pulling him to the ground. It dragged him along the floor, moving faster than an average car.

The speed was intense. It made his brain bounce inside his skull. He slammed into rocks and debris. He tried to pull his head up and attack, but it picked up even more speed, stopping him from doing so.

"What the hell is going on?" he yelled. Nothing he could do now could help him get out. If he turned around at this speed, he would slam his head into a rock and suffer massive wounds to his face.

The only reason he was able to withstand the pull was because of the cloak and battle armor he had on, and even that was getting heavily damaged.

Finally, after dragging him for over two kilometers without stopping, it lifted him into the air and slammed him into the ground.

"Ack!"

Silva nearly passed out from the impact. It finally let go of his feet after that.

He got up and looked around, only to realize he was in another ruin, two kilometers deeper into the gate.

"What the hell is happening?" he muttered, scanning the area. He searched for what pulled him but didn’t see anything, until a few seconds later, the ground broke again and the tendril shot out once more.

He looked at the tendril as it attacked. This time, he dodged, rolling away fast. It hit the ground like a whip, breaking the cold, hard floor.

"What the hell are you?" he asked, but nothing answered. The tendril lashed out again like a whip. He blocked the attack, the tendril bounced off, then attacked again, forcing him to block a second time.

It continued with a flurry of attacks, coming from the left, right, and center. Each one he blocked, charging up the gauntlet with every strike.

Then he sensed lizard men headed his way, each one running toward him. He could already tell they were much stronger than the ones he had fought before.

’There has to be a reason I was dragged here,’ he thought, pushing his mind to the limit. Then he realized there was a beast below the ruins.

It had over a hundred eggs filled with lizard men the size of full grown humans.

’Shit, I thought they were burnt with normal eggs. What the hell is this?’ he thought. He also saw the source of the tendrils, it was coming from the center of the nest, which had more than twenty tendrils, each tending to the eggs, feeding them nutrients pulled from a stack of rotten human bodies next to it.

’What the actual hell is going on? What is this creature? No one told me about this,’ Silva muttered. "Could this be the gate boss? It’s not a lizard, and I can’t sense any cores, but still... it’s possible."

He blocked the next incoming attack, then looked up. The lizard men were already rushing toward him.

"I can’t fight explosively, or I might wake up all the lizardmen in the eggs, and that would be bad," he said, scanning the ruins.

"I have to put some distance." He rushed toward a broken wall, climbed on it, and stood there. The tendril shot fast toward the wall and slammed into it, shattering it, but Silva jumped off before it hit.

He pointed his gauntlet into the air and released the blast. The propulsion shot him higher into the air and farther away.

He thought he was in the clear for now, until two tendrils shot through the air, headed right for him.

"No way," he said, spinning around to face them properly. He used Claw Strike left and right.

They cut through the tendrils clean, but a few seconds later, they regenerated