The situation we found ourselves in seemed absurdly surreal. One moment, we were only a few dozen meters from salvation, and the next, we were completely surrounded on all sides by a literal flood of monsters.

  I always imagined that such crappy developments happened only in movies, but here we were. On the bright side, at least I finally found the culprit behind all of this. Not that it would help us in any way deal with this mess.

  'What to do... What to do...' I frantically scanned our surroundings, searching for any possible escape route.

  Even though we were in a pretty hopeless situation, it was not like I would just roll over and wait for the death to come.

  Sadly, there was simply no way to make it out of this alive. Not only was the only way forward swarming with a myriad of monsters, but the way back was gone, too, collapsed by my own hand.

  'Well, there is one...' I had to reluctantly admit after giving it a second thought. It was the same way the crawlers came in - into the dark hole, beyond which laid the Great Labyrinth itself.

  I knew that going there would be beyond crazy. However, every other option seemed quite enticing when the alternative was a certain death.

  Whatever the case, I had to make a decision. With every passing second, more crawlers were pouring through the breach in the wall, and our already small window of opportunity to attempt an escape was getting even smaller.

  Thus, with no time to waste, I grabbed Gil's shaking hand and dragged him behind me as I started sprinting for the gaping hole in the cavern's side, forcing myself not to think too hard about what I was about to do.

  So far, I had maintained an air of nonchalance about this bloody mess, knowing I could always resort to magic if things got too dangerous. Yet, the situation was already beyond what even I could deal with.

  Thus, like before, our only option seemed to be to run away. Of course, before we could make it, there was still the small issue of the literal avalanche of crawlers blocking our way and the giant abomination prowling behind them.

  'One problem at a time...' Since most of the crawlers were frantically trying to get into the breach and toward the base of the Tower, they didn't seem to pay us much attention as we were going in the opposite direction.

  From time to time, a stray crawler noticed our presence and wanted to make us into a quick snack, but a quick fireball to the maw kept them at bay. That was until we got to the actual breach.

  Things got a bit tricky there as we had to somehow pass all the monsters crawling inside from the dark abyss below.

  Taking a deep breath, I decided it was high time to stop worrying about collateral damage and take this seriously.

  I let the small flame in my hand grow into a roaring pillar of flame and then poured as much essence into it as I could muster, stretching it further and further until I formed an actual firewall.

  It was the first time I ever tried something like this since I found the Earthwall much easier to work with. But thanks to my previous observations, I managed to gather that despite not having much of an effect, the crawlers seemed strangely averse to fire, so it was a perfect deterrent.

  Having completed the blazing curtain of fire, I then pushed it forward directly against the mass of crawlers blocking our way.

  A wave of roaring magic fire washed over the pesky monsters. Their unearthly shrieks filled the cavern as they writhed in the flames. Without hesitation, I grabbed Gil's arm and yanked him forward, charging through the momentary gap in their ranks.

  We sprinted down the newly made path, the scrabbling of countless legs echoing all around us. My lungs burned as I pushed myself and Gil forward. 'We're almost there!'

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Then, we were through. Before us stretched an impossibly wide chasm, its depths lost in swirling mists far below. Its walls were illuminated by strange ethereal blue light emanating from what seemed like luminescent fungi clinging to them.

  "By the gods," Gil whispered beside me.

  I desperately searched for a way down, knowing the hard part still lay before us. Not only were the crawlers both behind and in front of us, still continuing to climb up from the depths, but there was also the damned boss trying to squeeze through the newly made opening.

  Luckily, due to its sheer size, it appeared to have some trouble moving its enormous limbs fast enough, so we were able to weave between them before they had the chance to crush us.

  However, by this point, the giant abomination finally seemed to register our feeble presence and looked at us with mad hunger reflecting in its milky-white eyes.

  To my dismay, there was no way down - everywhere I looked, all I could see were the smooth walls of the gigantic chasm. I could hear the crawlers gaining on us. We had only a few moments before they caught up.

  Right then, I realized there was only one way out of this. Nodding decisively, I once again tightly grabbed Gil's arm while shouting, "Hold tight!"

  "Huh? Wha-"

  Then, I pushed with all my might as I took the leap of faith and plunged into the darkness below.

  Still, we didn't win just yet. Now that the giant crawler had focused its profane focus on us, it didn't want to let us escape its clutch that easily.

  Its enormous mandibles were quick to lunge at us, ready to crush us like a pair of ants. There was no way to evade in mid-flight, and it looked like the monster knew it quite well. That's why its lunge appeared almost lazy as if it was playing with us.

  However, it would be foolish to underestimate it. From the moment its murderous aura enveloped us, I knew there was no point in trying to stop its attack.

  But I didn't have to. After all, I wasn't trying to fight it, only to get away. So, I did the only reasonable thing I could think of. I summoned my essence, releasing the strongest shockwave I could muster.

  "Boom!"

  When my impromptu spell hit the abominable crawler at point-blank range, it accomplished two important objectives. First, it briefly rattled the boss, making it lose its balance and buying us a precious moment.

  But most importantly, it created an opposite force, pushing us into the chasm at enormous speed. So when the pair of giant mandibles met, all they caught was pure air.

  Then, we were enveloped by the darkness as we plummeted into the seemingly endless abyss.

  "Aaaaagh!" I could hear Gil cry in horror, clinging to me with all his might, as if his life depended on it, which, frankly, it probably did. Wind swooshed around us as the walls of the immense crater flew past us, and I hurriedly tried to stabilize our descent.

  First, I created a layer of condensed air to slow us down, but we were too heavy to stop our crazy momentum completely.

  It would take something solid to do so. Luckily, that's exactly what I saw below us. Slightly to our left, I spotted a jagged edge of a small ledge, so I conjured a gust of wind to push us in its direction, creating another layer of condensed air to slow us down even further.

  Still, it was quite a hard landing when we finally reached the rocky outcrop.

  "Ugh!" I yelped in pain as my knees hit the stone floor. Cursing, I quickly checked our surroundings for any crawlers, but it looked like we managed to lose them.

  'At least we no longer have to worry about becoming a monster snack...' I tried to comfort myself as our overall situation looked quite bleak.

  I cautiously looked around as I had no idea where we ended up. It looked like we had fallen pretty deep before I managed to find a spot to land.

  Our only hope was to somehow make it back to the entrance at the Loading bay, but sadly, that would be a pretty tall order.

  Not only did we have no supplies, but we also had to first figure out where we were and how far we strayed from the main shaft. I couldn't rely on my magic sense, so the only way was to resort to good old exploration.

  We needed to search the area for landmarks that could help us navigate. Still, it would be quite difficult. I didn't have any maps of the Labyrinth, and my limited knowledge didn't contain anything below the second floor.

  "Gil, can you cast anything?" I suddenly asked.

  "I-I'm trying!" His voice was still strained with panic, and I felt him trembling against my back.

  "Well, you'll need to awaken your magic really fast if you want to make it out of here alive."

  "B-But there's no way... You see, I've never been very good at that whole meditation thing."

  "I know that normally, it takes weeks or even months. But I heard there is a quicker way to do it..."