Chapter 69: From The Inside

[Gore Content Warning.]

*Cough!*

A mouthful of blood sprayed from his mouth as he forced himself up with shaky hands...

His vision darkened at the edges and pain flooded his system.

Ethan forced his eyes back into focus and found the Cyclops still standing a few feet from him with its gold eye narrowed, and slender hands flexing as if disappointed the human had was still alive.

Ethan’s gaze moved to the raven lying down beside him. It was still alive—he could feel it through his link. But the raven’s side was bashed in and the green light in its eyes began flickering.

’I’m glad I was able to make it in time...’ he thought.

In the half second before the finishing blow landed, he had slammed a desperate command into the bird and threw it into the path of the strike.

Rank C flesh and bone were not Rank B, but mass was mass. The Raven had taken the worst of the momentum as he could see its wings folded inwardly towards it’s bashed side.

Because of that last minute command, the strike had only grazed him. The bird was in ruins in the link now but if he hadn’t thought fast, that would have been him.

The raven sank into his shadow as Ethan dismissed it into storage. For now, he needed to think of something.

The Cyclops stepped in and swung

Ethan rolled on pure panic and reflex the moment he caught the blur of an arm moving, and slender hand punched stone where his head had been.

He crawled, then forced his legs under him through swimming vision. He dodged another strike that created a hole in the wall.

Those hands weren’t a design flaw at all...

It was just him and a giant one eyed beast now.

His eyes moved to the spot the Crawlers lay buried, still thinking of who useful they actually could be

**WHAM**

"ARGH—!" The Cyclops kicked him hard, sending him skidding across the floor.

The kick would have been fatal but Ethan brought his hands up in time to block.

He stumbled out and barely dodged another swung aimed for his shoulder. He fell, rolled and came back up covered in blood and bruises...

It was brutal... Ethan moved like an antelope trying to escape from a lion. Each time, he dodged two attacks, he would always be hit with a third— whether it was a kick or a punch.

His arms were wrecked, his clothes were soaked through in blood, and the blood from his head leaked into his eyes, leaving a burning sensation in its wake.

A plan... he needed a plan and he needed it quick.

He looked at the spot the Crawlers lay again. He still couldn’t figure out a way to use those beasts.

He managed to crawl behind a pillar of stone, just fast enough that the cyclops probably didn’t see him.

He took a moment to catch his breath. Did he actually waste energy raising a useless beast?

The cyclops soon became agitated as it began ramming into the wall, and flinging stone in every direction.

It was only a matter of time until it found him.

’Come one Ethan, think. This is a dungeon. There are no useless raises.’

He opened his system and looked through the list of his active undead. He didn’t have anything to help. Both Bef and the Raven were wrecked. And the two other Beowolves wouldn’t stand much of a chance either...

His eyes settled on the Crawler tab, and the screen changed.

```

[Undead: Crawler — Rank D]

[Traits:]

- Soft bodied multi-segment structure

- High-speed subterranean movement

- Can force entry through soft ground, fractures, and compromised armor gaps

- Body can compress and elongate beyond living range under certain conditions

- Optimal use: ambush, internal disruption, joint/organ attack after entry

[Limitation: Poor durability in direct exchange]

```

Ethan’s eyes widened at first. Since when did the system give him information about his undead?

He looked through the list and something caught his eye...

Burrow into anywhere the surface allowed.

Stretch.

Causes damage from the inside.

Ethan read it all slowly and felt the shape of a plan slowly form in his mind...

He did not need the Crawlers to win a fist fight with Rank B monstrosities. He needed them inside to do what they did best...

"I got it!"

He rolled away from a flying bolder and ran straight towards the cyclops.

"Crawlers, on my right." The furrows began speed towards him, dodging every blockade of stone or dense dirt.

Ethan pushed his legs harder and darted towards a stone shard.

He sped towards the beast, slid under its legs and scored a shallow cut behind its knee and another one at the ankle joint.

The cyclops bent and looked between its legs and when its eyes met Ethan’s, he gave the command.

"Now."

The Crawlers shot up through ground immediately.

The first hit the Cyclops at the ankle joint and did not try to bite it. It compressed, forced itself into the narrow behind tendon and skin and elongated up the insides of the leg. The second one crawled up and forced itself into the behind its knee and started moving up.

"Stay away from the bone and avoid eating too much muscle. Destroy the organs." He commanded. A necromancer had no use for the organ of a beast. It would rot upon death anyway..

The Cyclops convulsed.

Its singular eye widened as it noticed the intrusion.

It clutched its head, and wrapped it’s hands around it’s back trying to reach for what ever was moving through it but it was useless. The Crawlers were already doing damage.

It clawed into the skin on its ribs and forced its own hand inside as he tried to catch the intruders, but the crawlers were just too fast, and the cyclops’ hands weren’t long enough to reach its back.

Ethan felt the Crawlers through the link, and resisted the urge of activating Death Link as he didn’t want to see what was happening inside.

He clutched his ruined ribcage. "Eat."

What followed was probably the most disgusting thing Ethan ever saw since he transmigrated here.

The Crawlers stretched and tore, its mouths designed for digging and burrowing now working on Rank B monster from the wrong side of the skin.

One forced a path along the beast’s thigh and ruptured something critical— dark liquid sprayed rom the Cyclops’ inner thigh as the soft bodied undead bored higher.

The other climbed the cavity behind the ribs, segments bulging so hard, that Ethan could see it moving through the skin. It shredded through, taking in as little muscle as it could but when it found a larger cavity, it ate — the lungs, connective bands, the entire system that kept a Devil-class upright.

The Cyclops screamef in pain as dark liquid began leaking from its eyes. The sound shook blue light from the veins in the walls and it slammed itself into stone trying to crush the things inside it.

The impact staggered Ethan and sent fresh agony through his ribs, but the Crawlers were not on the surface to be crushed. They dug deeper, away from the outer surface, and kept feeding.

A slender hand jabbed into its neck and reached deep, but found nothing. It stabbed itself in its torso and Ethan could see it grab one of the undead.

However the beast roared again and when it’s hand came free, Ethan saw multiple holes on it and caught sight of the crawler rushing back into its body through the arm.

The Cyclops dropped to one knee.

Its abdomen opened from the inside out as the first Crawler found a soft exit and tore free in a flood of black-red viscera, dragging loops of organ meat with it like trophies.

The second forced its way up through the throat. The single eye bulged, then burst outward in a spill of fluid when the Crawler’s mandibles punched through from behind the socket. Slender hands clawed at empty air and the hulking frame shuddered, tried to rise, and when both hand came back down, it was almost lifeless.

Both Crawlers converged in the ruined torso cavity and ripped outward in opposite directions, spraying liquid and viscera all over the place. The cyclops’ blood spread across the floor in a dark lake. The gold eye, or what remained of it, stared at nothing.

The chamber went quiet, now filled with the scent of blood.

Ethan stayed on his feet until the crawlers came to rest besides him. Then his knees gave out as hecaught himself on one hand, ribs screaming, and looked at the corpse through watering eyes.

Devil class monster: dead.

He had actually met the exit condition. It was no longer something he could only dream of. He actually killed a Devil by himself. Without any help...

He fell flat on his face and rolled himself on his back. He took heavy breaths as he stared at the ceiling....

He gave a short laugh. "I... I did it."