“So what do we do now?” Victor whispered as they finally reached the center of the vast cavern.

  The two of them kept looking around, but there was nothing of note. All they could see was the strange, obsidian-like material coating every surface of that terrible place. The light coming from the entrance was the only source of illumination, but it was enough for them to see that there were no monsters to kill in the cavern.

  “I dunno,” Noah replied hesitantly. His plan had been to simply enter the morphus’ lair, kill a few monsters lurking inside, and then immediately get out. He hadn’t intended to stay in that awful place for long. However, there were no monsters to kill. At least not on the first floor. It was clear that the morphus’ lair occupied more than just a single floor, likely extending all the way to the top of the building.

  Victor’s voice shook as he spoke. “Maybe… we should head back,” he suggested nervously.

  Noah pretty much wanted the same thing, his chest tightening with unease. However, sensing the fear in his companion’s voice made him straighten his posture, his instinct pushing him to appear braver than he felt. Inside, he was just as frightened as Victor, but he wanted to appear superior, and pride pushed him to act as if he were composed and in control.

  He forced a smirk, the corners of his mouth twitching with effort, trying to mask the fear he felt.

  “We came here to kill some mutants the morphus has been breeding,” he said to his companion. “And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Imagine how we’d look coming back without a single kill to boast about.”

  “But there aren’t any monsters here!” Victor shot back, desperation lacing his voice. “Can’t you see that?”

  As his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, Noah discerned what appeared to be a door on the far side of the cavern. It seemed to lead to what had once been an elevator shaft. Sure enough, there was no car inside, but its walls were abundantly covered in the same obsidian-like material as the chamber they were in. He realized this was the route the morphus must have been using to travel to the upper floors.

  “No, not here on the first floor,” Noah said, gesturing toward the opening on the far side of the chamber. “But that looks like an elevator shaft. I’ll bet the morphus is spawning its creatures somewhere above us. Come on, let’s check it out.”

  “But the elevator’s not working!” Victor hissed urgently. “How are you even planning to get upstairs?”

  “We’ll find a way to climb,” Noah said with determination. “And if we can’t, we’ll just have to leave.”

  Victor shook his head. “We don’t have any gear for that. Without equipment, I doubt we’ll make it to the higher levels.”

  “We won’t know unless we try, right? So let’s do it. And if we find we can’t make the climb, at least no one will be able to accuse us of not giving it our best,” Noah said.

  With that, he started toward the elevator shaft. Victor remained rooted to the spot, unease written across his face.

  “I don’t like this,” he said.

  Noah shot him a quick grin over his shoulder. “Don’t get yellow on me now.”

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  Since he was looking back while speaking, he didn’t notice a small lump on the ground ahead of him. His foot snagged against it, momentarily throwing him off balance, but he quickly recovered and stayed upright.

  “What the…?” he hissed, lowering his gaze to see what he had almost tripped over.

  Just as he focused on the strange bump before him, it suddenly unfurled like some alien bloom, its fleshy petals peeling wide to reveal a deep, hollow pit beneath. In the next instant, numerous long, whip-like tendrils shot up from the void, ensnaring Victor. Some of them snatched his weapon from his grasp before he could even think to fire a single shot. Some of the other tendrils coiled around Victor’s face, covering his eyes and nose. As he opened his mouth wide to scream, several fleshy tentacles slithered instantly down his throat, stifling his cries into barely audible, choked groans.

  Before he could react, the tendrils yanked him violently toward the pit, his balance lost as he tumbled face-first onto the ground. They then began to forcefully drag him into the opening, which seemed impossibly small to contain his body. It didn’t stop the tentacles from trying, though. They forcefully stuffed him inside the pit, breaking almost every bone in his body and reducing him to a heap of shattered bone fragments and torn flesh in the process. It was a painful but quick death. After that, the flower-like petals closed once more, reforming the lump and concealing the horrific sight from view.

  It all happened so fast, just a matter of seconds. As the first trap was in the process of stuffing Noah’s broken body inside, a second one snuck up on Victor from behind. It, too, blossomed open, unleashing numerous tendrils from its maw. Before Victor could even comprehend what was happening, the same fate befell him. The second cluster of tentacles wrapped around his body and dragged him into the second pit.

  In just a few seconds, it was all over. The two heaps of shattered bones and torn flesh their bodies had been reduced to were now completely hidden inside the two pits. So, it was the trap Jake had developed using the Trap Constructor a few days ago. Originally designed to catch mutants who happened to step into his lair, it proved just as effective at capturing humans.

  He simply called this device the Tentacle Trap. In its dormant state, it appeared as nothing more than a strange mound on the Corruption’s surface. But the moment someone got near to it, the mound would unfurl, unleashing tendrils that lashed out to ensnare its victim. Even more disturbingly, it could crawl, creeping toward prey once it detected their presence.

  As for the bodies of the two humans, they would be put to good use. One of the structures that became available after he upgraded his Mana Core to Rank VIII was called the Dead Matter Processor, which could convert dead bodies into biomatter, albeit at a reduced output. A single walker or human could provide roughly 100 units of biomass, while their dead bodies yielded about 50 units of biomatter. So when processing a dead body, only about half the biomass could be harvested compared to that obtained from a living specimen.

  Jake knew the two bodies were already being transferred to the nearest dead matter processors. Once converted into biomass, they would be moved to one of the biomass storage units. The entire process ran seamlessly, completely on its own. By that point, everything in his lair operated automatically, without needing his supervision.

  Jake took a moment to think. The other two humans were clearly unwilling to follow the first pair into his lair. They stayed in the car, waiting for their companions to return, but they weren’t stupid or reckless enough to intrude on his territory just to see what was taking them so long to return.

  Eventually, their patience would wear thin, and they would head back to Base Samantha. Once there, she would inevitably ask why only two of them had returned and where the other two were, and she certainly wouldn’t be pleased to learn they had entered his lair and never came back.

  Even though he had made it clear that no one who dared to step into his lair would return, she would still blame him for the disappearance of two of her people. Now that she was two men short, her hatred for him was bound to grow even stronger, hotter than ever.

  But the real question was whether this would be the final drop that made her hatred spill over, prompting her to finally make a move against him. Jake didn’t know, but one thing was for sure: an attack would be a grave mistake on her part, given that she wasn’t yet ready to go to full-scale war with him.

  With that, he pushed her out of his mind. He severed the mental connection to the oculus vine and once again saw the world through his own eyes.

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