The ninth floor. This one is different than the rest, so far. Something that is almost immediately apparent as soon as they had reached this point. It’s almost like there is something in the air. But more than that, it is how the scenery is strangely off and there is less of an Undead presence.

  For once, the adventurers of the Golden Mare are able to move quickly. Their stays under the cover of foliage are shorter. Patrols of Undead birds flying overhead are scarce. And lastly, whenever they do encounter resistance, the pockets of Undead or less than usual. Instead of being hordes of twenty or more rotting creatures, it might just be an occasional five or six milling about, or even just a single zombie wandering around aimlessly.

  It's confusing and worrying. Where are all the zombies? The pattern has been that their number has only grown as they’ve delved deeper, but here. Here it is quiet.

  Still, they can’t not take advantage of this chance. They move quickly, gaining more ground than they have in days of travel and making up for lost time. Along the way, Vincent slowly healed, going from needing to be half-carried, to being able to limb along by himself, to finally being able to walk. Truly, potions are a gift from the Goddess. Just have to make sure to use them properly and in correct dosage, or else you could have some really bad and embarrassing stuff happen… Thankfully, they Arther to ensure that nothing like that will happen.

  As they are walking, Susan can’t help but to look around at the weird, shiny growths on the branch. Unlike with the other floors, this one isn’t all just fleshy, fluffy mushrooms and mold. There are growths on the wood where the some of the mushrooms grow from, growing upward like the long stalk of a singular tree before blossoming.

  In a morbid and disgusting way, it is beautiful. Like walking into an alien world and being greeted by strange new plant life.

  Wish we could just burn all this to the ground, Is Susan honest opinion after the beauty of it all wears off and it goes back to just being disgusting.

  “What are these things?” Carther eventually has to ask; the tank walking up at the front with his buddy, Mikey, close behind.

  He to, and as is most people in the group for a while now, has been looking at these shiny growths. Yellow, black, and red, they reflect the light of the dying artificial sun wherever they aren’t covered in mushroom growths.

  Ben shrugs, “Does it matter? Let’s just keep moving.”

  Susan can feel as his Field shifts slightly. It isn’t too hard to read a mage when they have their Field expanded like this. He wants to burn the mushrooms too, and badly. Which isn’t too surprising. He is a Fire Mage after all, and any problems they face, usually their first solution is to try and burn it. It is probably eating him up right now that he can’t just set this whole place on fire and be done with it.

  Well, he could. But everyone would most definitely die in the process. With how heavily this entire layer is coated in spores and explosive mushrooms, this place would almost instantly turn into a blazing inferno of a forest fire. One that not even a Fire Mage, with their natural resistance to fire, would be able to easily survive.

  In the vanguard and to the right, the groups second remaining tank besides Carther, Dillan, just shrugs and walks over to one of the strange growths. Using his shield as a makeshift shovel, he scoops the spores out of the way and then brushes away some of goop off of the shiny material. Ripping away a couple of mushrooms, he nods to himself and then calls over his shoulder.

  “They’re just dead ants.”

  He moves out of the way to reveal the body of a giant ant, a yellow one. They are the common inhabitants of this floor, and are well known for their massive three-way war that's been raging down here for years now. Something of a tourist attraction honestly, especially with each of the ant queens being well known boss monsters that drop some decent loot.

  I guess the Undead finally put a stop to that…

  Those that are interested wander a bit closer, observing the dead ant.

  “Why does it look like that?” Elaine ends up asking.

  Susan quickly figures that she isn’t referring to how the corpse looks semi-exploded, where the mushrooms had clearly grown out from the inside and torn apart its body in the process. Instead, she is probably curious about why it is standing on its own head, its jaws clamped onto the branch with the rest of its body hoisted up in the air. The mushroom that is growing like a tree from its body, is growing out of what is left of its thorax and abdomen, practically splitting its body in half down the middle, its remaining legs sticking out like crooked branches.

  “No idea… are they all like this?”

  Everyone looks around at the numerous mushroom trees and sort of unanimously decide to take a break from walking to find out. There isn’t any Undead around right now anyways, so they’re safe.

  Susan and Elaine walk over to another one nearby and uncover it. It is the same as the first one and standing on its head.

  “This one is red.” Elaine says to herself. “Black over there. And then more yellow, lots of yellow…”

  Dale, apparently hearing her comments, pulls a map out of a chest pocket and unfolds it.

  “We are pretty deep into yellow territory right now. Hmm, normally, red and black shouldn’t be this far in. The nearest battlefield isn’t for some distance… The Undead must have sent everything into a mess around here.”

  Elaine is still looking around. “But why do none of them look like they were fighting each other?”

  “Hm? No, you're right. Normally, you would find their corpses still locked together or laying around with their limbs ripped off. What is going on here?” Dale asks himself as he looks around at the veritable forest of corpses. Each and every one of them is the same.

  Each one of them is standing, as if they had chosen a spot to die and simply… remained there.

  No one says anything for a long while, just standing there, surrounded by corpses and an eerie silence.

  “Well, this is creepy as fuck.” Mikey eventually has to say to help break the silence.

  “Right, let’s keep moving. Come on people, we still have a lot of ground to cover.” Dale orders, and no one hesitates to follow.

  They keep moving along the branches, occasionally making their way to the trunks of the massive trees and carefully going through them, checking rooms as they go for ambushes and only occasionally finding a fight or two, or maybe a left-over trap that is too jammed up with fungous to even function anymore.

  Eventually, as they are making their way towards a large intersection of branches that will take them where they need to go, Dale gives the order for everyone to stop and hide. Quickly running to get under some cover, they watch and listen, the sound of buzzing growing louder and louder by the second.

  Peeking out from behind cover, they see as a swarm of thousands of giant bees go flying past their branch, the buzzing growing to such a level that it becomes deafening, the swarm practically blocking out the sun as they fly up and off into the distance.

  “Goddess! That is a lot of bees!” Mikey curses as they finally pass, the buzzing growing fainter as they fly away.

  “Didn’t look like they were Undead. Where are they going?”

  “No idea, but as long as we don’t have to deal with it, that’s all that matters.”

  Once they are sure the coast is clear, they get moving again. The further they go, the denser the growths of ant mushroom trees become, eventually growing to the point where the adventurers have to hack their way through in order to progress.

  When they reach the trunk of the next tree, they come across a strange sight.

  “They… blocked off the entrance?”

  “Looks like it, but why?”

  Before them is the entry way that should lead into the tree, but instead, it is clogged full of ant carcasses and debris, a small mountain of bodies blocking their way in.

  The ants, all of different colors, had died holding onto each other. Mandibles locked together, legs intertwined, thoraxes layered over one another. At first glance, it might have looked like they had died fighting each other, but with how they are layered and held together, they are clearly linked together intentionally.

  “What in the world is going on down here? Were they trying to keep something out? Are the ants working together or something?”

  “I want to say they wouldn’t do that, not after all the years they have been fighting, but… they are Dungeon monsters. Maybe normal doesn’t really apply to them.”

  “Still, we need to get through here. Get to work on getting this open.” Dale orders and cuts through the chitchat. With a swing of his war hammer he also smashes through a layer of ant corpses, getting to work on personally clearing the way.

  Mikey and Carther move up and join him as well, helping to hack through the pile of interlocking corpses and pull chucks away. While they work, everyone else takes this chance to rest and take care of their gear.

  It takes a while to get through the blockage, the pile also filling in part of the hallway inside of the tree. When they get inside, they are ready for a fight, Susan leading from the front with sword drawn and held at the ready, but there is nothing inside. Not even mushrooms.

  Moving down the halls and past rooms, they find more piles and blockages, all the windows being sealed off so tightly that the spores can’t even get in. There are no monsters inside at all, and when they reach the other side of the tree, they simply find another pile blocking their way out.

  “Why would they seal off this tree like this? Were they trying to accomplish something?” Elaine asks curiously while the men work on clearing a path again.

  “No idea. I can’t imagine what the Dungeon is up to. But if it makes our journey easier, then I’m not going to complain.

  “Hmh…”

  The barricade is cleared, and they walk through. As they are leaving, another flight of bees is buzzing past, heading in a similar direction as the first.

  “Hm, well that’s not good.” Dale says, as he watches the bees fly away.

  “Why?” Asks Mikey.

  “That’s the direction we need to go.”

  “Oh… I don’t think I can fight that many bees.”

  “Well, let's just hope that we won’t have to.”

  “Well, this is just fucking lovely!” Mikey curses as he is looking at what everyone else is looking at.

  “At least we know where all the monsters are now…” Carther comments beside him.

  Off in the distance, up ahead, an army of ants in three colors, so thick in numbers that it looks like the branch is moving and alive, is in the middle of a massive war with the Undead. Right at the crossroads where they need to get through in order to reach the stairs…

  “How do we get through?”

  “We don’t, none of us here can handle that. We’ll need to backtrack and find another way.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Hah… days. This is the shortest route by a longshot. We’ll have to retrace our steps for about a day's walk and then take another route that will lead us around.”

  “Will our water last that long?”

  “Maybe. We should do an inventory of all our supplies and figure out a way to further ration them. Arther, how is-”

  While they are talking about what need to be done, Susan and Elaine are looking out and watching the battle. It is practically chaos in motion, but if you watch closely, you can see where the ants are clearly fighting with a plan of some sort.

  In the front, larger ants with flat heads are forming what can only be a shield wall, holding the hordes of the Undead back with sheer determination. In the small gaps between and beneath their bodies, the smaller ants are attacking anything they can bite, grabbing ahold of zombies and forcefully pulling them through the gap. They are promptly ripped to shreds and the broken bodies are then carried off to the side and thrown over the edge. Aside from that is the gigantic super majors. The massive ants are simply stomping their way through the Undead hordes, crushing dozens of rotten things underfoot as they run about.

  Surprisingly, the bees are here as well, helping in the fight by swooping down and snatching up their targets. Flying up high, they then drop the zombies into the abyss, letting gravity do all the work. But the air isn’t solely the bees' domain, as they are seen having dogfights in the sky over the branches, fighting against flocks of Undead birds and wrestling to maintain air supremacy.

  But the strangest thing is when one of the ants or bees becomes too wounded to keep fighting, or they become infected by the mushrooms. They simply stop what they are doing and make a dead sprint for the side of the branch, willingly throwing themselves off and to their deaths. For the bees, they just simply stop flying, allowing gravity to take hold as their falling bodies are torn apart by angry little birds.

  “They’re killing themselves before they can become more Undead, willingly sacrificing themselves…” Elaine says to herself as she watches a wounded super major, its body covered in zombie spiders, run straight off the side of a branch without any hesitation.

  Off to one side, another two, a yellow and a red, are fighting against some giant amalgamation of flesh, similar to the Rose of Death, that might as well just be a giant pile of moving meat.

  As she watches, the meat monster surges up and tries to consume one of the super majors whole, but even as it is being eaten, it fights to lift and carry the abomination over the edge, the second ant helping to push them both over with all the effort it can spare.

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  In a great crash that has hundreds of Undead falling to their doom, they go over and tumble down towards the surface, exploding on contact with the hard ground, not too far away from a lake full of tainted water.

  “Alright everyone! We need to turn back. We’ll be heading back some distance and taking another route down. Hopefully, this one won’t be blocked. Let’s get going.” Dale calls out once they have a plan worked out.

  Those who were watching the battle turn away, moaning about how they were so close to getting to the stairs. Mikey and Carther exchange mana crystals with one of the archers, having apparently been making bets on a fight they were watching and lost.

  Turning away from the fight, they start hiking back the way they came, leaving the battle behind. However, they don’t get very far until they start to hear something. With small vibrations moving through the weakening branches, the sound of giant, stomping feet only grows louder and louder. They move to hide, waiting to see what it is that will emerge, and are a shocked to silence when they see a black figure climbing up the side of the tree they had arrived from.

  With frost radiating off its body in waves, and poison seemingly pouring from the many wounds across its body endlessly, a massive black spider climbs up and onto the branch. Even missing a couple of legs, the thing moves with a horrible grace and speed, easily taking up the entire width of the branch with just its body alone.

  The humans move to hide even further, pushing themselves deeper into the foliage of mushrooms and covering their bodies in spores like they are hiding under the snow.

  Moving forward on its massive legs, the spider approaches the humans hiding spot.

  “Isn’t that the boss!? What is it doing here?” Elaine asks in a concerned whisper.

  Susan whispers back to Elaine, “It is probably heading towards that battle. Just stay very still and wait for it to pass. We’ll be fine.”

  And it looks like that will be the case, but the vibrations only seem to grow, and the sound of massive feet stomping only grows louder by the moment. And soon, another, much larger spider crests over the side of the branch. Its spike covered legs announce its arrival, and the thing is soon climbing up and over, its massive head seemingly looking around as it minces it mandibles. With enough holes riddling its body to set off a trypophobiac into having a panic attack. And constantly moving about those holes and going in and out, is a horde of tiny spiders about as big as dogs. Finally, the mother of all mushrooms is growing from its back like the mightiest oak atop a hill, a rainbow of flesh cascading down its sides and blowing in the wind like royal banners, spores falling away like pollen in spring.

  Susan goes to say that everything is going to be ok again, but every instinct in her body is currently screaming at her that she is danger. Years of experience in life-or-death battles, telling her that she needs to flee. Right. Fucking. Now.

  The spider turns its head, and eight pairs of red eyes, tinted with swirls of green and black poison, all look straight at the hiding humans, straight at Susan and Elaine.

  Susan doesn’t know it, but the moment their eyes met, Elaine pissed herself. Thankfully, the suit automatically cleaned it up for her.

  “Wh-wh-what is tha-” Elaine tries.

  “I don’t fucking know, run! Run now! Move!!!” Susan screams as forcefully pulls Elaine onto her feet and bolts, dragging the shorter girl behind her at a full sprint.

  The others aren’t as quick to react, perhaps still thinking they can hide, most probably just to stunned at what they are seeing to be able to react.

  The others start to move once they shake it off, Dale first, grabbing Ben by the scruff of his suit and pulling him to his feet after he sees Susan dip. Mikey and Carther move next, almost tripping over each other in a panic. Vincent and Arther are next, Vincent grunting as he tries to run on his still healing ankle. Then Andy, Dillan, and lastly, Farney, who has always been a rather quiet guy, and doesn’t talk much. He is currently screaming bloody murder as he runs with everything he has, his spear getting dropped on the floor behind him without a second thought.

  Then, with no warning whatsoever, the spider that could use a house as a chew toy is suddenly sprinting. One moment it is walking slowly, almost leisurely, and the next is violence. It suddenly becomes a blur of motion as it kicks off the ground and blasts tons of spores into the air from the branch’s surface, the entire branch creaking and bending just from the sheer force of this thing's movement.

  The second spider, who is much smaller and much less frightening in comparison, seems to only just now notice the humans fleeing, now that they had been scared out of their hole. It starts to chase as well but is quickly outpaced by its much larger companion.

  The humans run, some screaming, some cursing, some begging the Goddess to save them. They don’t know why this monster scares them so. But they certainly can feel that it is almost unstoppable. It’s entire presence just screams that it is a machine built for one purpose, and that is to kill and destroy. To cleanse anything that gets in its path.

  Farney starts to gain ground, passing by Andy and Dillan, quickly gaining on Vincent and Arther, the two being slowed by his healing leg and all of the alchemist’s supplies. In a moment of desperation fueled by fear, he pushes Arther out of the way, tripping the two. They scream, but he doesn’t look back. He can’t, nothing could possibly force him to look back at the monster chasing him right now.

  Andy slows and tries to help them up as Dillan keeps running, the stomping only growing louder and louder by the second. With them back on their feet, they run as fast as they can, but a shadow blocks out the sun. Andy looks back and suddenly wishes that he hadn’t.

  All Dillan can hear is the screaming and then sudden silence. His heart pounding in his chest like a drum, he tries to run faster, throwing aside his weapons, his gear, his heavy backpack full of essential supplies that are just weighing him down now. He is speeding up, gaining on Farney’s back. If he can just out pace Farney, then surely, he can get away. He doesn’t need to outrun the spider, just him. If he can just-!

  “OOOoff!!”

  Dillan trips, his foot getting caught in something under the spores, a crack spreading across his visor as he kisses branch with his face. What it is he tripped on; it doesn’t matter. He needs to get back up. He needs to run!

  Shaking his head to clear out the dizziness, he gets back up and takes a single step forward.

  *Slam!*

  Farney is still screaming as he runs. The sound of that monster's feet stomping against the branch are only growing louder and louder. The voices behind him are gone. He doesn’t want to be next!

  “Help!!!”

  He screams and screams, hoping that the others will turn around and save him. Dale with his war hammer could surely crush this spider's head flat! Susan with her curved sword could certainly cut its legs to ribbons with a single swing! Ben could burn it to a crisp with a single fire ball! Elaine could cleanse it of its evil with her light! Carther could defend him with his big shield! Mikey could help in his own way, maybe. Probably as bait!

  Why? Why won’t they turn around and help him!?!?!

  “Help me, please!!!!!”

  But they don’t. The stomping grows closer and Farney finally turns to see what is behind him. All he sees is black as a massive, spiked leg is suddenly filling his vision.

  With a smack, almost every bone is body breaks, his visor cracks and the suits internal enchantments instantly collapse. The next moment, Farney’s broken body is soaring through the air, tumbling end over end as his fading consciousness watches the world go by in a blur. Falling, falling, falling forever, his vision slowly going black. The spore covered floor of the second layer quickly grows larger and larger, wind flying past and whistling into his cracked open visor.

  With the last of his energy and will, he closes his eyes just as the hard floor completely fills his vision.

  Up ahead, Dale is running some distance behind Susan and Elaine, Carther and Mikey hot on his tail. They are getting close to the battlefield. The fighting ants and Undead are growing larger and larger as they grow closer. If they keep running like this, they will have no chose but to charge straight into that fight. And with this thing hot on their asses, and clearly targeting them, that doesn’t sound like a good idea.

  Dale screams out an order.

  “We need to fight! Turn and face it, Ben, your strongest spell. Burn it to a crisp! The rest of us will hold it off!”

  Susan stops and turn at the same time as the others, pushing Elaine behind her before drawing her sword and charging for the massive black spider. Thankfully, the second, smaller spider is much slower than this horrific thing and hasn’t caught up yet. Though it eventually will.

  Carther turns and brings up his shield, Mikey turning with him and drawing a machete and a club in both hands. Dale is moving up as well, war hammer held above his shoulder.

  Ben stops and forces himself to turn and chant, forcing the words out between gasps for fresh air, Fire mana pouring out of his core and filling his Field with sweltering heat.

  The spider arrives and hardly slows as it transitions from a full sprint into a hard stomp. Carther doesn’t bother trying to block that, as it would just end with him getting crushed flat. Instead, he jumps back and avoids the blow. When the attack lands, the entire branch shakes like lighting just struck, spores getting kicked up into the air and creating a smoke screen for the little humans to hide in.

  Susan and Dale charge forward with war cries bellowing from their lips. With a loud clang, sword and hammer both strike the leg, but they are repelled easily, simply bouncing off the hard black carapace like foam weapons hitting steal.

  The thing moves, sweeping its leg to the side. Nothing more than a simple motion, but at its size, everything is a devastating attack.

  Carther steps in front of the two, taking the hit with his shield and digging in hard to hold it back.

  The attack can’t be stopped, and he is sent flying backwards through the air, landing hard. But he slowed it just enough for the other two to get out of the way.

  They move, sticking to the spores and letting it cover their motion, arriving at another leg.

  They scream and attack.

  “Tri-Cutter!” “Heavy Blow!”

  Dale’s hit lands with the force of a meteorite striking the earth, the head of his war hammer glowing red with energy. With a loud crack, the hard carapace fractures and chips, the force of the blow hitting the leg sounding like a massive bell ringing.

  Susan aims for the joint, her sword sliding between plates of hard natural armor and finding rotted meat underneath. The first slash cuts deep, but the second and third deepen the cut, blades of energy trailing right behind her sword’s path.

  The spider buckles slightly as its massive weight nearly finishes destroying its injured leg, but the Undead thing seaming doesn’t care and just attacks with the ruined limb anyways, swinging it like a club.

  Susan quickly dodges out of the way, but Dale stays and takes the blow with his hammer, the weakened limb only being able to throw him back a shorter distance than Carther had been.

  The spider moves to continue attacking Susan, but Mikey draws its attention, running around near its head and screaming for its attention. It moves to attack him instead and Mikey just barely manages to dodge a bite as the spider slams it head into the branch, its mouth coming back up full of rotted wood.

  Behind them, Ben finishes chanting.

  “Fire Burning Down!”

  Twice the size of your average fire ball, the spell held above his head is practically a miniature sun. Spinning and turning with barely contained power, Ben had probably poured everything he had left in him into this spell.

  With a throw, the orb of burning death flies high up into the air above the battle, hanging there for a second as Ben continues to hold his arm above his head. When he dramatically drops his arm down, the orb falls.

  Air burns and moves away as it drops, the miniature sun only glowing brighter as it burns hotter and hotter. With a crash, it impacts with the Undead Spider’s back, exploding on contact and forcing its legs to buckle under the pressure.

  With a scream, the thing reels back, its entire body going up in flames as the hungry fire devours the mushrooms growing all over its body. When the flames reach the mushroom tree growing on its back, a second explosion ripples out, tearing the entire back end of the spider clean off and sending it tumbling to its side.

  Burning, it lays there, legs twitching, fire spreading as nearby spores catch fire like oil.

  They don’t celebrate. The second spider is already here, frosty poison spilling from its open mouth like so much drool. It comes charging though the spreading fire, the ice radiating off its body protecting it from the heat.

  Getting back up on his shaking feet, Carther pulls up his dented-in shield and runs forward to intercept it. Susan and Dale are about to follow but stop as they hear Elaine scream.

  They turn back and Susan yells out to her.

  “Elaine!”

  A horde of ants are barreling down the branch and heading their way. Almost on top of the girl.

  Susan weighs her options, only needing a second to think. She needs to save her sister. Dale and the others can handle the second spider.

  She blasts off on the spot, kicking up spores as she moves faster than most humans could only dream of. But the ants are already there, and she won't make it in time.

  The ants reach her and… they don’t attack Elaine.

  They part around her, not even sparing the human a single glance, simply charging forward with all the determination of infantry trying to take a hill.

  They pass Susan, still running, confused, she hesitates to swing down at the nearest ant, and it simply keeps moving. Ignore them then, not a threat right now. She keeps moving and reaches Elaine, grabbing her hand.

  “What is going on!?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Behind them, Dale lands a blow against the second spider's face as it tries to bite him. Its armor is nowhere near as sturdy as the first, and its head almost gets blown clean off.

  The ants arrive and immediately attack, swarming up its legs and biting into exposed wounds. When the cold and poison coating its body becomes too much, they simply jump off and run for the edge to kill themselves, making space for the next ant to take their place.

  Within moments, the spider is completely covered by an army of ants, flailing around and striking at random as it tries to shake them off.

  Susan wants to ask if they have won, but that feeling of dread is still burning in her heart. Her instincts are still screaming at her to run. That the threat isn’t dead.

  The first spider stands back up. Still on fire. Half exploded and half its body missing. But still standing none the less. Like a machine given the order to kill, it wont stop until everything is dead, or it is fully destroyed.

  It attacks, moving almost too fast. A hundred ants are suddenly reduced to pulp and suddenly, one of its legs is where Carther used to be. When it moves its leg, there is nothing there but a red stain and a crushed shield. He hadn’t even seen the attack coming.

  Dale moves in to attack the flaming spider, screaming out in rage. Mikey is screaming out his friend’s name, screaming that he will kill the spider.

  They attack. The spider strikes and Dale is sent flying, his left arm hanging limp as he lands hard and rolls. Mikey dodges the first attack sent his way and swings at a leg, hitting it twice to little effect. The next moment, he is in the beast’s mouth, legs kicking until a crunch break his spine.

  “This isn’t good, we need to run, now! Come on, Elaine!”

  “No, I can help! I can still cast-”

  “It won’t matter! We need to go while it is distracted!”

  Behind them, a red super major stomps its way onto the branch and charges in to tackle the flaming spider. The branch creaks with the weight of their battle as the two giants fight. But soon enough, the second spider is joining in, still covered in ants and being ripped apart, but choosing to help fight the giant ant.

  As the two vs. one is raging on, Dale limp over to the two, a mana exhausted Ben following close behind, mirroring Susan’s opinion.

  “Move, now! While it is distracted, let’s get out of here. We need to finish the mission.” He says seriously, even while holding his broken arm to his chest and clearly feeling the pain.

  Elaine wants to argue, adrenaline pumping in her system as her core is feeling utterly repulsed by the Undead thing that just slaughtered everyone in a matter of minutes. It is weakened. If she could just hit it with one good spell, she could finish it off!

  “Elaine!” Susan yells into her face and shakes her, finally managing to rip the girl's attention away from the fighting giants.

  “We. Need. To. RUN! Now!”

  “Righ-Right, yes, sorry! Run, let’s run!”

  They finally get going, the ants moving out of their way like a parting sea letting them through.

  Behind them, the super major is getting bullied and brutally torn apart, the fight sounding like an earthquake is going on with ever step of their massive legs.

  And then the world shakes. The fleeing humans are brought to their knees. A loud, splitting sound like tortured wood being torn in half rings out. The fighting doesn’t stop, and the ants don’t stop moving, but the humans do as their entire world suddenly shifts to the side and sends them lurching.

  With another heavy stomp, the withering and rotted branch finally snaps.

  The floor from beneath their feet is suddenly gone, splinters and chunks of wood as large as buildings are falling all around them. Elaine screams and flails in the air, Susan holding onto her hand tight. With a pull, she yanks her though the air and into her arms, holding her close.

  Everything is a blur as they fall and tumble uncontrollably through the air, and then, Splash!

  They hit a lake with enough force to blow the air out of their lungs.

  Susan refuses to let Elaine go, kicking her legs and fighting back the pain of her screaming lungs, she swims up and hoists the both of them back up to the surface, gasping for air with all her might as she forces her lungs to work. All around them, huge chunks of wood are crashing down onto the landscape or into the water, ants raining from the sky and exploding as they hit the floor. A blazing spider falls and hits the ground hard, not too far away.

  Worrying, Susan tries to check on Elaine, but she can’t see her face through the visor. She is unresponsive. She doesn’t even know if she is breathing!

  The spider moves. Susan’s instincts scream, her head snapping to the side to see it. The thing is looking horribly broken and burnt. How it could possible still be moving despite its condition is impossible to know, but it moves, nonetheless.

  Dragging itself forward on its last two legs, a broken third twitching as it tries to help, the Undead thing moves forward, its gaze locked solidly on Susan and Elaine.

  She tries to swim away, desperately kicking the water to drag Elaine away from this horrible abomination. This killing machine!

  It enters the water, flames going out, steam billowing up its broken body. The water parts as massive waves with its every motion, dragging itself closer and closer across the lakebed.

  “Stay away! Stay away from my sister, you monster!” Susan screams in desperation.

  But it just draws closer and closer, getting far too close, its massive open mouth full of teeth filling her vision.

  Suddenly, a current picks up and the two humans are dragged away. The water becomes faster and faster. They get pulled away and then around and around, speeding up faster and faster.

  Susan looks over her shoulder and finds a whirlpool of all things quickly forming.

  “Just fucking great…”

  She doesn’t bother fighting it. She can’t outswim a whirlpool. And hopefully, drowning won’t be as bad as getting eaten by a fucking spider. They get pulled under as the current grows too strong and soon, even the spider gets caught. The last thing she sees before her and Elaine are sucked into a hole in the lakebed is the spider trying to reach them underwater, still hellbent on trying to kill them no matter what. But as soon as it gets stuck in the hole, a stone slab slams shut on it and cuts its body in half.

  It goes dark. She orders her suit to turn on its light, the suit being designed to keep out everything, including water. She and Elaine have fifteen minutes of air, tops.

  With the light on, she still can’t see shit, nothing but the walls of metal tubes flying by stupidly fast. At least she can still see Elaine, held tightly in her arms.

  No matter what, she won’t let her go.