CHAPTER 428: AFTER THE FALL

"Ugh..."

Lane let out a groan, scrunching his face.

His whole body was in pain. His head was pounding, his back was aching, if he was not wrong, he had multiple fractures and external wounds, not to mention his right arm, which was still trapped under the rocks! Well, his entire body was covered in rocks and debris, but his arm was particularly squashed. Not to the point that it was nothing but bloody pulp, but still. Even with Lane’s SS-ranker’s recovery speed, it would probably be mostly out of use for a while, until he got it healed.

It seems that he might have miscalculated a bit. Getting injured had been a part of his plan - he had to make the ’accident’ believable - but he hadn’t thought that the rockfall would be this bad.

Regardless, it was still fine. Lane was used to pain, he could endure this much. The collapse must have made a lot of noise, attracting the rest of the team’s attention, and they would surely soon start their rescue efforts...

And Lane still had work to do. Falling into the lower cave system was only a part of his plan. He didn’t count on the rocks to kill Ethan.

He could already hear pained groans and moans not too far away. Although the other three men were incomparably weaker than him, Lane had taken the brunt of the rockfall upon himself, pushing the others out of the way, so it was likely that everyone survived.

For now.

Wasting no more time, he freed his right arm from underneath the rocks, and scrambled onto his feet.

It was pitch black everywhere. The lanterns that they had brought into the pool cave with them had either been buried completely underneath the rocks or destroyed. Without them, there was no other source of light, not even the faintest, and with absolutely no light, even Lane couldn’t see anything...

But that didn’t matter. Of course, since he had planned this ’accident’, he was prepared for this as well. He reached into his spatial bag, and took out...

A blindfold.

He wrapped it tightly around his eyes, and after making sure that they were perfectly covered, he activated his Mana Scan. The thick material didn’t obstruct his ability at all, but it blocked the azure glow. If he just used the Mana Scan without the blindfold, not only would it reveal his location, but also the fact that he had an extra ability which he hadn’t reported...

And that could be problematic. If his plan failed and Ethan didn’t die, he would report it. On top of that, Adrian and Jasper were with them. Lane didn’t care much about them, so he would be willing to kill them if he had to... But he should still try to avoid any unnecessary casualties. For Damien’s sake, if not anything else.

With the Mana Scan on, Lane could finally take a look around. It wasn’t perfect, since the Mana Scan only allowed him to see, well, the Mana, but in an active dungeon environment, it was still pretty good. He could see where the other three men were, and even tell who was who - they were an Esper, an A-rank Guide, and an S-rank Guide, so it was easy to tell them apart. On top of that, the water trickling down the rocks had Mana in it, allowing Lane to see some of the obstacles. The walls had traces of Mana substances, and among the rocks, there was also Toxic Ooze...

The last one having come from Lane, naturally. There was a reason why the ground had collapsed so easily - Lane had corroded it from underneath beforehand, when he had left the team for a while a few hours prior. Now, he quickly collected as much of the sludge as possible, storing it in his backup spatial bag. Although the Toxic Ooze would blend in well with the other substances in this dungeon, it was best to leave as few traces as possible... Just to be safe. Even if he didn’t have time to clean it all up properly.

And he didn’t. Rescue efforts aside, he could see that Ethan was already getting up. Of course, he couldn’t do much on his own, but he still had his spatial bag with his equipment on him... And while Lane wasn’t going to attack him personally, he had to at least make sure to lower his chances of survival to the best of his abilities.

He approached the Guide just as Ethan took something from his spatial bag. Judging by the shape and the type of Mana emanating from it, those should be night vision goggles...

It was a good sign. It meant that he likely didn’t have any spare lantern on him, or any other reliable source of light. Or perhaps he believed that it was simply safer to use the goggles.

But Lane couldn’t possibly have Ethan using them, could he? Although night vision itself wouldn’t work with no light at all, the high-quality goggles that Ethan had also had the thermal vision function. And for that, no light was required...

That’s why, just as Ethan was about to put them on, a rock ’unexpectedly’ fell from the ceiling, hitting him right on the head.

"Ouch!" Ethan yelped, wincing. The rock was big enough to knock him off balance. He stumbled forward, eventually tripping over another rock that was on his path, and fell down... Dropping the goggles in the process.

Naturally, the goggles didn’t fall too far away from him. However, for some reason, as he tapped the ground around himself, trying to feel them out, they seemed to be nowhere to be found...

That was, of course, because they were already floating in the air, flying towards Lane, until eventually, ending up in his spatial bag.

He was just going to ’borrow’ them for now. Hold onto them, so that Ethan wouldn’t lose them again! He would put them back in place later, when the rescuers were about to arrive.

For now, he simply observed as Ethan crawled forward, feeling the ground.

"Ugh... What... what happened?" Another member of their team, Jasper, finally came to. "Where is everyone?" he called out.

No one answered him, though. Adrian was still out - alive, but unconscious - Lane didn’t want to talk for obvious reasons, while Ethan was too busy looking for his goggles to care. Priorities, right?

Lane was very happy about it. Because in the direction that Ethan was crawling...

"Ouch!" Ethan yelped once again, hissing from pain, and pulled back, as if he were burned. Or... At least he attempted to.

Because whatever it was that he put his hand in was sticky like super glue. No matter how Ethan tugged, he couldn’t free his hand.

"Wagner? Is that you?" Jasper called out, recognizing Ethan’s voice.

Ethan hesitated for a moment. However, since it was Jasper, not Lane, he assumed that it was probably safe to respond... Especially since he was currently stuck.

"Yes! I need some help! Can you come here?"

"Uh... Yes, I’ll do my best..." Although Jasper couldn’t see anything either, he could at least try to follow Ethan’s voice...

Just as he scrambled onto his feet, and took a few limping steps in Ethan’s direction, there was a loud rumble, as another rockfall descended right in front of him, blocking his path.

Man-made rockfall (or, Lane-made, to be precise), but in the dark, who would be able to tell?

"Uh... I think I’m blocked..." Jasper called back to Ethan, as he tried to feel the rocks in front of him. There was a path not far away from him, actually, but... The only person who knew it was Lane.

And he had absolutely no plans to speak up.

"How useless..." Ethan muttered, swearing under his nose. Biting his lip to hold back the tears that welled in his eyes from the burning sensation in his hand, he reached into his spatial bag, and took out a small lighter. This and his phone were currently the only sources of light that he had, and while he initially wanted not to use them unless it was absolutely necessary... Since he couldn’t pull his hand out, he needed to check the situation first, to see what method he could use to free himself...

Click!

A small red flame appeared, enlightening Ethan’s face. He slowly brought it closer to his trapped hand...

It was entangled in something that seemed to resemble some sort of pale web. As Ethan moved the lighter around, he could see the web stretching everywhere...

...He had a bad feeling about it.

He set the lighter on a rock next to him to have some light, and quickly reached into his spatial bag again, this time pulling out a Mana knife. The plan was to first cut his hand free, and then try different salves that he had to remove the rest of the residue... Either way, he instinctively knew that he had to free himself as soon as possible.

And he was right. Although he, with his Guide senses, couldn’t hear anything, Lane could. Soft tapping of multiple legs, quickly approaching.

The real apex predators of the dungeons.

Finally, they were getting to the climax of Lane’s ’eliminate the pest’ mission.

A pleased smile blossomed on Lane’s face. He waved his hand, knocking the lighter off the rock with his telekinesis. It fell into the sticky webs spreading everywhere...

And the flame was extinguished. Although the lighter was Mana-powered, it was still a simple device. It couldn’t contend with the substance that made up the web.

The cave once again fell into darkness.