A Stylish Finish... or Is It?

Sticky blood still clung to the white spider leg skewering Isa. Its other foreleg was already raised high, its sharp tip aimed straight at her head.

A flash of fire erupted in the dim cavern. Leonora's fireball wobbled and struck the spider's compound eyes. Its power was pitifully weak, but the sudden wave of heat caused the spider to freeze for a split second. A split second was more than enough. Erich leaped down from the Pearl Mother's back, his longsword tearing through the air and slicing the spider in two.

【EXP Gained: 700】

The system notification flashed at the edge of his vision, but Erich didn't have time to look. A skin-crawling scuttling sound echoed through the underground cavern. A dense swarm of bone-spine spiders was pouring out from all directions, their purple compound eyes forming a sea of light in the darkness.

Erich spun around and slit the throat of the black-clad figure with a single slash, then gently lifted Isa off the spider leg pinning her to the wall.

“Don't close your eyes,” Erich said.

Isa's eyes were half-open. She didn't answer.

He hoisted Isa onto his back and rushed over to Leonora in a few strides. The little princess's face was pale, her eyes filled with terror. Erich gently placed Isa inside the shield, resting her head on Leonora's lap.

“Watch over her.”

Before Leonora could reply, Erich had already turned around.

They were backed against the rock wall of the mine, which meant he only had to face a hundred and eighty degrees of enemies in front of him. But that only eliminated half the angles; there were still at least a hundred spiders swarming toward them.

Behind the swarm, the Bone-Spine Pearl Mother, sporting the massive wound he had carved into it, slowly rotated its eight purple eyes. The bone spines on its back were already beginning to regrow.

Here they came.

Blood-red bone spines shot from the Pearl Mother's back, whistling through the air toward Erich. He sidestepped them, letting the spines slam into the rock wall behind him and shower him with stone fragments. Amidst the continuous barrage of bone spines, the spiders on the ground swarmed before him.

Activating Vertical Slash, his blade drew a sweeping arc, slicing the three leading spiders clean in half. He took a step forward, keeping up his momentum. Every strike claimed at least one spider's life, and EXP notifications kept popping up at the edge of his vision.

From inside the shield, Leonora stared at his back.

His white robe was already stained a dark, reddish-black with spider blood, yet his movements never faltered for a second. The longsword danced in his grip like a living thing, every slash landing precisely on the spiders' joints and vital spots. But there were simply too many of them. For every one he killed, two more took its place. They scrambled over the carcasses of their kin, throwing themselves wave after wave at the white figure.

Isa's breathing grew weaker and weaker. The little princess could feel the warmth draining from the body resting on her lap. Blood seeped from the wound, staining her skirt red. She pressed her hand against the wound, but it was futile; the warm liquid spilled out through her fingers. The brown-haired girl who had been standing in front of her just moments ago now lay there as silent and still as a broken doll.

Tears streamed down Leonora's face.

She remembered why she had come to the Abyss in the first place. It was because she had heard Erich Edmond was here—that bastard who had publicly ripped open her scars, the most notorious playboy in the empire. She had wanted to capture him herself and make him pay. She had contacted an information broker, ignored her guards' warnings, and barged into this man-eating place with a few loyal knights.

Now, those guards were all dead, killed by the black-clad figures, their corpses dragged away by the spiders.

Yet the ones standing in front of her now, shielding her, were a boy and a girl she didn't even know.

“I'm sorry,” the little princess sobbed, her tears dripping onto Isa's pale face. “I'm sorry. This is all my fault.”

Isa's eyes fluttered open a crack. With great effort, she raised her hand and used her blood-stained fingertips to brush away the tears on one side of Leonora's face. Then, another hand reached in from outside the shield, gently wiping her other cheek.

Leonora looked up.

Erich was kneeling in front of the shield, though she couldn't tell when he had gotten there. His hood cast a shadow over his face, obscuring his expression. Behind him, the corpses of over a hundred spiders littered the ground. Silence had returned to the cavern, broken only by the Pearl Mother's uneasy breathing in the distance.

“It's going to be fine. Because I'm here.”

Erich slowly rose to his feet and turned to face the behemoth looming on the spiderweb.

The Bone-Spine Pearl Mother let out a low growl, the newly grown bone spines on its back bristling. Sensing the threat, its eight purple eyes locked onto the tiny figure simultaneously.

Erich exhaled slowly. His body blurred into a white afterimage, leaving a trail in the air that was nearly impossible to track with the naked eye. In an instant, he appeared directly above the Pearl Mother, his longsword raised high. Having reached level ten and undergone a qualitative transformation during the chaotic battle, he unleashed Vertical Slash. The longsword erupted into a pillar of blinding light, so intense that it forced the eyes closed.

The Pearl Mother shrieked in terror, its eight legs thrashing as it tried to retreat. But its massive body was wedged in the center of the web; there was nowhere to run.

The pillar of light slammed down, cleaving the Pearl Mother straight through the middle of its skull. The entire monster was split in two, blood and organs spraying outward to drench the cavern.

【EXP Gained: 10,000】

Just as Erich touched down, the Pearl Mother made its final, desperate death rattle.

Dozens of bone spines shot out from its splitting body in all directions in a chaotic, indiscriminate barrage. Without even looking back, Erich swept his longsword in a perfect arc around himself, deflecting every single bone spine flying his way.

He spun around, intending to sheathe his sword with a stylish flourish.

And then he saw it.

Leonora was kneeling inside the shattered remnants of her red shield, while a bone spine thicker than an arm had pierced straight through Isa's chest, pinning her to the ground.

Isa's eyes were still open, staring blankly up at the glowing moss on the cavern ceiling.