Trap or no trap, Henry decided that they should just bolt for the exit. He would take care of any trap in the way. With an unknown assaint stalking them and with the threat of those lizard wolves looming close, they no longer had the luxury of being careful and slow. Henry worried not for his safety, but for others.

  “I hate escort missions,” Henry grumbled under his breath as he led the group through the vast cavern. He had no doubts in regards to his own defence, though he didn’t have the same confidence in regards to others. Should the predator emerge right not, out of nowhere, he wasn’t sure he would be to react in time. Therefore, he was pouring all of his concentration into his surroundings.

  “Henry, wait!” Chloe called out suddenly.

  Henry stopped and turned around. “What?”

  “Look.” Chloe pointed at the ground. There were carvings on the ground. A work of something sharp. The carvings were spelling out the word, help, along with an arrow that was pointing to a tunnel “There are more survivors.”

  “Thank the gods…” Barry sighed. “More survived.”

  “This is unwise,” Henry said.

  “Unwise or not, we can’t just abandon them knowingly,” Chloe responded sternly.

  “They could already be dead.”

  “Maybe they are, but I’m still going to look for them. I won’t abandon them without ascertaining their fate. I’m going to search for these survivors, with or without you, Henry.” Without waiting for Henry’s response, Chloe turned and strode in the direction of the tunnel.

  “Fuck…” Henry sighed. “Escort, search and rescue, I really hate all of them.” If a battle broke out, it would be a mess of a sughter. He was sure. However, he couldn’t say no, because this was the quest entrusted to him by his patron. He suppressed his compints and frustrations and followed Chloe.

  “Are we going?” Ani asked. “Isn’t this unwise?”

  “Like Chloe said, unwise or not, we can’t abandon them. Nadea would be pissed, or disappointed, if I did.”

  Chloe smiled wryly. “I’m sure she would.”

  “Can we wait here?” asked Barry. “I’m carrying a person here.”

  “Maybe they can rest here and I stand guard for them, while you and Chloe go and search for the survivors,” Ani suggested.

  “No,” Henry instantly rejected the idea. “That’s stupid on so many levels. We are sticking together. We don’t know how far away the survivors are, and we don’t know if we would be using the same path back out. So, we are staying together.”

  “But I’m tired,” Barry compined. “I can’t keep carrying him.”

  Henry rolled his eyes. He approached Barry. He pulled Alex off of him and threw Alex to the ground. He then spped Alex lightly on the face, repeatedly, until the man was awake.

  “Wh-what the fuck!?” Alex jolted out of his slumber and sprang to his feet. “Wh-what’s going on?”

  “Good, you’re awake. Now, you can walk by yourself.”

  “Walk by my— Ow!” Alex groaned, clutching his back. “I think my back’s done for.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. You’re fine. I didn’t hit you hard. Not hard enough, if you ask me. Now, walk on your own or we’re leaving you behind.” Henry didn’t wait for Alex’s answer before continuing on the detour.

  “He looks like he’s in agony,” Ani whispered.

  “I bruised him. I didn’t break his bone or rupture an organ. He’s fine. It’s just superficial injuries. He’ll live and recover in no time.”

  “And I thought you weren’t coming,” said Chloe, who was waiting by the entrance of the tunnel.

  “And I thought you had gone on ahead.”

  Chloe snickered. “I noticed you were following, so I figured I might as well wait for you.”

  “Then, let us dawdle,” Henry said and walked into the tunnel. However, he took a step back as soon as he took his first step into the tunnel. “Oh…”

  “What is it now?” Chloe asked worryingly.

  “Chloe, what sort of sharp tools do you and your teammates have?”

  “Um… a dagger?”

  “Is it standard-issued, or do you people simply carry your own daggers?”

  “It is standard-issued. Why?”

  “Anything else? Not just bdes or knives.”

  “I suppose climbing picks would count.”

  “Which would be sturdier, the dagger or the pick?”

  “The pick, of course. Standard-issued.”

  “Is that the pick by your waist?”

  “It is?”

  “Give me.”

  Although Chloe was baffled by Henry’s strange line of inquiries, she didn’t argue or hesitate. She simply handed Henry the pick.

  With the pick in hand, Henry struck the ground with it and then dragged it across the ground. The pick made a grating noise as the tip was dragged across the ground of solid rock. “Huh… You’re the only superhuman on the team, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay… this is suspicious.”

  “Alright, are you going to tell us what’s wrong now?”

  “I doubt the authenticity of the message on the ground.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I have to use quite a bit of strength just to carve such an obvious line. Yet, your supposed team members could carve out a message so clearly with just a pick. And that’s not even taking into account the state your team members were in when they were carving this message out. They would have been exhausted from running. How do you suppose they carve that message out, given the state they were in and the tools that they had?”

  Everyone’s faces immediately turned pale as realisation dawned on each of them.

  “Then… who carved that message?” asked Ani.

  “My best guess would be the predator. Or predators.”

  Chloe had a conflicted look. “That’s… that cannot be. It’s not certain. We can’t be sure. We must—”

  “No,” Henry said assertively. “You are not going inside. Barry said the predator had the face of your dead teammate. What if they don’t just steal the faces, they steal their memories or intelligence too?”

  “You don’t know that, Henry. They could still be—”

  “H-help….”

  It was a call for help, but it sounded like the throes of the dying. The sound snapped everyone’s attention to the tunnel. There was no light in the tunnel. It was total darkness.

  “Jules? Is that you?” Barry called out.

  “H-help… Please…”

  “It’s Jules, right? It’s gotta be him, right?”

  “I’m not so sure about that, Barry,” said Alex. “They can steal faces. Why not voices too?”

  Chloe was looking more conflicted than ever. “Henry, what do you see? Tell me.”

  “Damn it,” Henry cursed. He could barely see a thing. Though he had innate night vision, it only fully worked if he was also in the darkness. Much like how the light would be blinding if one looked out to it from the darkness, vice versa. He couldn’t see much into the darkness, except for a faint silhouette of a person, shuffling ever so slowly towards them.

  “Help…. Me…” the voice continued to plead.

  “This is horror one o one,” said Henry.

  “This isn’t a movie, Henry,” Chloe baulked. “This is real, damn it!”

  Henry sighed and picked up a small piece of rock at his feet. With a light flick, he tossed the rock at the faintly approaching figure.

  The figure yelped and flinched from the toss.

  “H-help….”

  “Definitely not your man,” Henry said and picked up a rge piece of rock, and tossed it at the figure.

  This time, the figure dodged the throw as if it had blinked out of the way.

  “Definitely not human!” Henry shouted.

  Then, the figure attacked. It emerged from the tunnel, leaping out of the darkness.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Henry gasped.

  Barry and Alex shouted in horror. Ani backed away and brandished her sword. Chloe donned her armour and took a battle stance without moving from her position.

  The monster was indeed humanoid, and it was indeed wearing the face of a human. It was as if it had carved out its victim’s face and grafted it on its own face— nay, it was not on its own face, but on its tongue, or something simir to a tongue. It was grafted onto an appendage that came out of its wide, gaping mouth. Its body was humanoid, but its head was an utterly beastly and monstrous shape.

  Henry used Jetstream Breath, but the monster moved faster than the wind. The high-powered air struck the walls behind the monster, leaving deep scars and cracks that shook the cavern. “Shit!” he uttered. “Stupid. Stupid,” he admonished himself.

  The monster lunged at Ani, the seemingly most vulnerable one in the group. It screeched in a manner that one could only take as glee.

  To Ani, the screech was an insult and also hubris. She let training and experience guide the path of her bde as the monster reached her. The monster’s cws were sharp and long, but they were brittle in the face of steel that was further strengthened by Murux. Ani sliced off the monster’s cws. Not letting up, she twirled, pivoting her bde, and sshed at the monster’s torso, which was left open after its failed assault.

  The monster howled in pain and retreated to the ceiling with a hop.

  Henry stopped himself from using Gravity on instinct. The cave might be tough, but it was nothing in the face of his power.

  Chloe transformed her arm into a rge bde and went after the monster with an impressive leap.

  The monster snarled in shock at Chloe’s capability. It crawled away to avoid the bde, but its left hind limb was not fast enough.

  Chloe stayed on the ceiling by transforming her other hand into cws and gripped tightly onto the ceiling’s surface. She turned her bde arm into a whip that chased after the monster like a snake.

  The monster swerved and weaved across the ceiling with slippery grace and devious precision. It was relentless. Though outnumbered and wounded, it remained adamant in catching at least a single prey. It moved on from the girls to the men. Henry was out of the question, and its hunting gaze fell on the two men in kevr suits. It sprang towards them with a hiss.

  Henry moved in between the two and the monster. He assumed his humanoid dragon form. In this form, his reach was also increased, allowing him to easily grasp the monster. Without missing a beat, he crushed the monster in his grip. End of story, or so Henry would like to believe. He was not naive, at least not as naive as before.

  The monster was still moving. It detached itself from the crushed parts of its body. It leapt off Henry’s grip and quickly scuttled back into the tunnel before anyone could recover from their shock.

  “Damn, it’s getting away!” Chloe yelled.

  “Let it!” Henry stopped her. “Remember, we’re not here to hunt and exterminate the monsters. We are trying to get out of this cave.”

  “What if it comes back?”

  “We’ll deal with it then.”

  “B-but the survivors… they—”

  “There are no survivors, Chloe. Face reality. We have a hard time killing that thing. Your men wouldn’t have stood a chance. Look, the more we remained in this cave. The less likely we will be able to get out in one piece.”

  “...Okay. Okay. I understand. I just… the repercussion of this debacle would be… immense, to say the least.”

  “Bollocks. It’s not your fault. They threw you into the unknown and expect you to handle everything perfectly just because you have a superpower. That is just pin arrogance and ignorance. Most likely, they knew this operation would fail, and they put you on the team, just so they would have a reason to get rid of you.”

  “Now, you’re reaching.”

  “If I were a despicable and insecure bureaucrat, with a ton of hate and an inferiority complex against the superhumans, this is what I would do.”

  Chloe giggled. “Sounds like you have some experience working with such people.”

  Henry smiled wryly. “I have.” It was a bitter memory, but at the same time, it was also a pleasant one, as it was the spark of a new and novel beginning in his life. If it had gone a different way, he wouldn’t be here now.