Supreme Monarch

The group set out at daybreak, along the widest path amongst the many in the hills that led to their destination.

"We should be at the Fabelt Pass soon."

Larut spoke loudly from the front of the carriage. He sat at the driver's seat as he drove the carriage through what they still considered to be amongst the safest parts of their journey. 

The others in the carriage nodded in response as the carriage ride continued in silence for several more hours without any monster encounters. Yesterday had been quite the eventful one so the group had mentally prepared themselves for an, even more, tougher journey ahead of them today, but to their surprise, it had been smooth sailing so far.

They decided to stick with their original plan and ride on the carriage through the safest parts of the region and walk in their usual arrayed formation through the more dangerous parts. However, they had only encountered low-level monsters so far and of course, the group would quickly dispatch them even without Tyler's help so they had earned quite a lot of cores today alone.

After traveling inside the carriage for a few more minutes. Larut finally spoke the words everyone wanted to hear the most right now:

"We're here."

As Tyler alighted from the carriage with everyone else to take a look at the place, his eyes went wide at the stunning sight before him. The place was a vast area of large hills in uneven plains with very few trees and Tyler could see largely broken stone columns scattered across the vast plain of uneven earth. The snow that had covered everything around them overnight, had made the place look even more boundless and vast

Tyler could see the ruins of a giant city in the distance and broken parts of large stone statues and sculptures of mythical monsters were lodged almost everywhere. Tyler and Nadine both took the impressive sight in with a breath as the group prepared to enter the Pass. 

According to the group's information, this place was the most dangerous part of their trip as the entirety of this Pass was filled with monsters, most of which were extremely dangerous and some were even quite intelligent. There were also dangerous demi-humans living somewhere in the pass and they were usually hostile to outsiders so the group had to be fully prepared.

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Or at least, as prepared as they could be. Larut brought out the map from his pouch and began studying it intensely while the others prepare their weapons, items, and potions for easier access in a heated battle. This made Tyler feel more and more like a noob as he had no such supplies to gear up with.

Well, it wasn't like he needs such things anyway. Once Larut was done plotting out the team's route and giving them further and more detailed explanation on the plan for the rest of their journey, the group promptly got into their usual arrayed formation with Tyler and Nadine seated at the front of the carriage in the driver's seat.

They then marched into the pass with extreme caution and Larut led them through what he believes to be the safest and shortest route to the place they had stumbled upon the Grade 3 Gold mine.

The mine was located at the base of a steep hill by the side of a large rift in the earth. They planned to go around the hills until they get to the top of the right hill, thereby avoiding the lairs of several of the more troublesome monsters on the way there.

They had obviously learned their lesson from the last time they were here and we're currently playing it extremely safe. Most intelligent monsters normally wouldn't stray too far away from their territory so they wouldn't climb to the top of the hills to search for food as it would also make them easy targets for flying beasts, which were also one of the deadliest predators in the pass and the groups biggest concern.

However, although the thought of the monsters that could be encountered in their had made everyone tense, someone amongst them actually seemed to be excited. Eagerly searching around for any such monsters with childlike anticipation. Nadine was intrigued by Larut's description of the various monsters that roamed these skies and was eagerly hoping to challenge one of them.

Be it fortunately or unfortunately, she could not find a single one of such monsters anywhere in the sky. In the end, they had managed to reach the top of the large hill in no time at all. 

Taking a look below, they could see the entrance of a cave by the base of the snow-covered hill. Their eyes also traced along the path down the hill and they saw several other smaller caves by the base of the several hills in the area. It would normally be hard to tell which one of these caves was connected to the Grade 3 Gold mine but the group had obviously marked its location on the map and was sure it was the cave directly below them.

The cave was also the closest to the rift and thus could not be mistaken no matter how the landscape had changed due to the thick layers of snow all around them.

Since it would be dangerous to leave the carriage here unattended, the group located a path for the carriage to travel down to the base of the hills. The path went through the entrance of a few monsters lairs but lucky for them, they did not attract any unwanted attention from them. 

They were also able to locate an empty cave to hide the carriage in until they returned from their dive into the mine that had already become a monster's nest. Maybe even a nest for serval types of monsters which would be quite a disaster.

Anne then cast a spell around the carriage to ward off most low-level monsters and also a camouflage spell to make the thing harder to detect.

They then took a quick break to get themselves in the right frame of mind for a deep dive into an underground mine and soon walked straight into the large cave. 

Upon entering the cave, Tyler saw nothing but rocks, dirt, and some snow which made several red flags go off in his head but he soon calmed down as he took a second and more a careful look at his environment, there was a crack in the wall at the far end of the wide cave that didn't seem to be made from any external means they could think of.

The cracked part of the wall seemed to contain a narrowed path that led deeper into the cave. The lack of any external force that opened the path told Tyler the reason why the Grade 3 Gold mine had not been explored up till now.

The crack in the wall that had revealed the path had most likely only appeared recently and so the mine was unknown to all. 

There was no natural light source in the cave so the only source of light they had right now was the illumination of daylight from the outside of the cave. Therefore, it would only get darker the further they went. Dohel, bing prepare for this already, brought out the only spatial storage box with the group and took out a single iron lantern with basic runes carved on it.

This was a magic lantern that had been enchanted with the spell, continuous light. He handed the lantern over to Larut who lit it up using the inscribed incantation and a bright white light was emitted from it. The light illuminated a radius of about 15-20 meters around them which would be enough for now as they all went through the narrowed path in the wall.

The path before them was incredibly narrow, so much so that only a single person could walk through it at a time so the group had to now proceed in a straight line with Kylyra in front Incase of any surprising attacks. They moved through that path for a few minutes before it slowly began to expand around them as they walked.

After about ten minutes of this, the passage in the cave had finally gotten wide enough to fit everyone and they were now able to get back in formation. The path they went through was slightly sloped which meant they were slowly heading down the further they went.

So far there was nothing special about this cave as it looked similar to the various others Tyler had seen before. To be frank this place kind of gave him an oddly familiar impression as he recalled the place he had woken up in a while back in the Darknar forest.

As they went deeper into the cave, they suddenly began to hear the rattling sounds of something and the dull sounds of tapping. There were several of these sounds coming from further down the cave.

Larut quickly signaled the group and everyone went into action preparing for battle against whatever was making that sound. They proceeded with caution and Tyler finally spotted where that sound was coming from. It took a while but Larut soon noticed it as well and frowned.

"Damn it."

"What, did you see it. Are they coming?"

"No, they're digging."

"Huh!"

Larut seem a little frustrated for some reason and Tyler wasn't sure why. From what he could see, those were all monsters that were not much stronger than the mutated hoppers which the group had handled very easily last night, and there were not even that many of them, so why?

"There are about ten Giant Ants digging a tunnel in front of us."

"What! Ants? not the Night Terrors?"

"No, apparently this cave should have multiple types of monsters nesting in it."

A monster's nest was usually a very dangerous place to handle much less mine In. Even the lowest leveled monster nest would take several higher-ranking Hunters to handle and destroy such a place. 

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So when the group had decided to mine the gold in this place, they actually never had any intentions of destroying the monster nest in this mine. They had planned to only silently mine the gold in one section of the cave while killing any monsters that came close to them. However, there was an exception to this plan.

The problem was, the group had not encountered Giant Ants on their first trip here but had come in contact with something else. Something far more sinister, far more dangerous. And as though that was not enough, the appearance of the Giant Ants in front of them meant that this place was nested by not just one monster, but several.

This was a disaster. Not only because of the monsters but now that the mine had been confined to house two types of monsters. It meant it could be massive enough to contain several more.

With the different types of monsters having different attributes, strengths, and weaknesses, there was no way they could be prepared for all of them. Not to mention, their lack of information meant they would always have to be wary of the unknown.

In the end, this was truly the worst-case scenario.