Chapter 52: Mercy.

Before she could question the system, the tunnel trembled. A heavy, booming sound came from underground, shaking the dirt beneath their boots. It sounded like a massive boulder slamming directly into the wall just a few yards ahead of them. Dust rained down on their heads, making Hunter cough violently.

[Ding!Warning! Host, the tunnel moles seem to be aware of your presence. They do not like uninvited guests.]

"Alright I have one usage of the X-shield left, if only I could pin them in one place. Can you help?" Zyra yelled out loud, forgetting that Hunter couldn’t see the system.

His brows were furrowed deeply, eyes scanning the environment around them. He was calculating the possibilities of danger and exit points, in addition to chances of survival if they were buried inside.

He was also cursing himself for following Zyra blindly. He was a planner. This spontaneous blind fumbling in an underground tunnel was not his style.

Zyra was looking at the items in the system shop, meanwhile.

[Spatial lock gun: It pins the beasts to the ground by creating a powerful gravity field around the target and helps you to tame the beast without harming it.]

Zyra looked at the cost, "100 resonance points and why are the gravity bullets that expensive?" She had accumulated 613 resonance points from the fight against the Shadowcast hyenas. They were being spent as quickly as they accumulated.

[Because, they make the job easier.]

"Buy." She commanded.

Hunter grabbed her shoulder and urged her to move, "We need to go."

He winced as the terrified squirrel scrambled onto his head and anchored its claws into his hair. Its tail was burning even brighter. "Ouch! Easy there, buddy. And watch the fire around the hair, I am no Achilles, but I like my golden locks."

More stomping came from the front.

"I freeze them and you shoot them!" Zyra grabbed Hunter’s collar and yanked him behind a massive, jagged rock protruding from the tunnel wall.

"Freeze....what..." Hunter let out a deep breath and focused his sharp eyes on the distance ahead. He blinked when she suddenly pulled a weapon out of thin air! "How are you doing that?"

"No time to explain. I hope this thing works with precision." Zyra lifted the spatial lock gun. It was medium sized, blue in color and looked like a nail gun.

Hunter sighed. "We have a furious giant mole ahead of us, and you choose a nail gun as a weapon. I know your head is messed up but my dear...please use the knife."

She didn’t explain and before Hunter could offer advice, Tyrant let out a low, rumbling growl. It wasn’t his usual "I’m hungry" rumble; this was a heavy, vibrating warning. We are not alone.

"We have company. It has to be Cade," Hunter whispered, his hand instantly flying to his weapon. "This is an undiscovered hunting field, he won’t leave."

Tyrant’s second growl did something else....it completely shattered the peace of the underground cave. The earth beneath their feet began to vibrate. Rattled by the beast’s warning, the moles panicked. They didn’t just scurry, they threw themselves forward, their razor-sharp claws tearing through the hard soil walls like hot knives through butter, creating entirely new tunnels as they charged. Their black and white fur was glossy, standing out in the dim tunnels.

"I hope you need a new black and white jacket because I am going to skin these rats." Hunter muttered, taking a step back. He flexed his hands like a player prepared to score.

Zyra didn’t waste a single heartbeat. "Less talking, more action!"

She lifted her lock gun, aimed right at the center of the approaching swarm, and pulled the trigger. A strange, pulsing light rippled through the air. The moment the light was released, the leading moles froze mid-leap. One was stuck in the air, its fat little paws spread wide; another was frozen with its mouth wide open, looking incredibly ridiculous. They literally could not move a single muscle.

Zyra casually lowered her gun, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. She glanced at Hunter with a smug grin. "You were saying...?"

Hunter stared at the frozen mole statues, his jaw dropping. "I... uh... I need to get me one of those."

"Good luck with that." Zyra said to him as she locked more moles.

Losing no more time, Hunter took advantage of the free targets. He stepped up and accurately shot the frozen moles straight in the head, shattering their defense.

Meanwhile, Spice slithered along the walls, spitting venom that caused disorientation in the scattered moles. Even the ones that weren’t frozen waddled forward with heavy, clumsy steps.

Together, the two worked like a well-oiled machine. Zyra would freeze a cluster, and Hunter would clean them up. It was a short, chaotic, but surprisingly easy battle. Within a few minutes, the tunnel was quiet again, save for the heavy breathing of the two hunters.

"That was quick," Zyra said, wiping sweat from her forehead.

"Don’t relax yet. Grab the loot," Hunter urged, already kneeling down.

They crouched down to collect the energy stones from the dead moles. Every time Zyra picked up a stone, it automatically vanished from her hands and the measuring cup on her virtual screen lit up.

They had killed 150 moles, low and mid-level. In Zyra’s opinion, the only way this trip got better was if the dungeon had a high-level boss. Hunter could rip it apart and she would get her hands on a high grade energy stone. Maybe even a resonance stone, if she was lucky.

Hunter pressed his ear against a tunnel wall. "More on the other side, I can hear them." He suddenly walked back, and ran forward, slamming his boot against the crumbling wall. It gave way with a thunderous crack, dust billowing into the stale air.

The kind of strength he used was not natural by human standards. It left Zyra with questions that she didn’t dare to ask right then because behind the wall lay a hollow chamber, dimly lit by a faint bioluminescent vine.

They stumbled inside cautiously. Dozens of small, mutated moles blinked at them, their eyes glowing faint red, their claws oversized but clumsy. The creatures squeaked, huddling together in a trembling knot,

Hunter’s gun was raised, instinctively. Zyra caught his wrist. "No," she whispered. "They are just young ones."

The moles sniffed the air, wary but not hostile. Her heart clenched. In this world of ruin, there had to be some limits. These creatures had not invaded her home, she was the one that invaded theirs. "They are just young ones."

He raised his brows, and laughed dryly. She still believed in innocence in a cruel world! How silly!

The system scanned the chamber. Stone shelves of energy stones, rare herbs sprouting from cracks, a small hill of dried cranberries, a few daggers sharpened from bone and a tiny pond of glowing liquid.

Hunter sniffed the air. "That’s harmonization liquid!" It was a rare liquid that stabilized resonance fluctuations in beasts bonded to human partners. It prevented corruption or mutations from unstable emotions.

A single drop could sell for one million high-grade energy stones! "Now, I am glad we came," he laughed.

Zyra strode over, pulling her bag out of the beast domain. She got a bottle and collected as much of the liquid as she could get, while Hunter collected everything else.

Beauty was absolutely crazy with joy; the virtual snake cheered like a little kid in a candy store.

[More, more, more!]

Zyra chuckled internally, feeling a warm rush of relief and excitement. With this many stones and the liquid, all of her debt payment was practically guaranteed.

"Twenty minutes left until the gates close." Hunter reminded her.

Then, a deep, threatening hiss echoed from the darkness of a newly made passage which opened up directly into the chamber. It was a sound that made the hair on the back of Hunter’s neck stand straight up.