Tying the Tentacles
“What’s our counter?”
Choi Muhyun asked.
“Best not to get caught in the first place. But that ship’s sailed, so let’s think from here on out.”
Kim Jun replied.
“Doesn’t it have a weakness?”
Yeom Sang-taek asked.
“Sure it does. Problem is, that weakness is the main body, buried deep underground. Chopping off one or two tentacles that poke out won’t cut it.”
Skyla answered.
“Formicans have no eyes. Block their sense of smell, and they won’t find us.”
At Yoo Min-jeong’s mutter, Skyla’s eyes widened.
“Ah! Smash the Ulpen Saurus cores. They spew that godawful stench when broken. Even a Formican couldn’t sniff us out through that.”
The team’s faces lit up in unison.
Kim Jun immediately rummaged for his storeback. Safe under the rock pile, he pulled out an Ulpem and brought it over.
The screams of monsters trapped in the pit were fading.
Kim Jun gripped one Ulpem in each hand and smashed them together hard.
But clang! A sharp ring echoed, and his hands went numb.
Choi Muhyun tried next, but no dice. The Ulpem held firm.
“This won’t be easy.”
Choi Muhyun grimaced.
The screams cut off abruptly. In their place came the crunch of rocks and earth as something approached.
A tentacle-like leg slithered into the light’s edge.
“Skyla, freeze it.”
Kim Jun drew his Cheonroegeom and said. Skyla nodded. At the same time, he tossed the Ulpem into the air.
“Hah!”
With a low shout, Skyla unleashed an Icicle Bolt at the Ulpem. It froze white with a crackling pop.
Kim Jun leaped up and brought the Cheonroegeom down on the frozen Ulpem. Sparks flew wildly as a foul stench erupted, impossible to endure, spreading everywhere.
The approaching Formican tentacle halted abruptly.
The stench had masked Pink Team’s scent.
But Formicans were tenacious.
Sucker-lined legs began sweeping the stinking area. The hairy suckers sniffed like nostrils, snuffling the air.
Kim Jun eyed a leg creeping toward the immobile Yoo Min-jeong. He bent, grabbed a pebble, and hurled it the opposite way with all his might.
Thud, roll roll.
The legs recoiled in unison, vanishing toward the sound.
“Phew.”
Yeom Sang-taek exhaled in relief, then coughed. The stench was brutal.
Kim Jun moved to the pit’s edge and inspected the wall.
Too smooth for handholds. The fall’s impact suggested at least 30 meters deep—maybe 50.
Returning to the team, Kim Jun pulled water bottles from his storeback and passed them out. Everyone downed theirs fast.
“Got good news.”
Kim Jun said.
“What?”
Yeom Sang-taek replied.
“Formican cores—Formium—go for over 800 million won each. Catch one, and we shatter the raid record here.”
Choi Muhyun chuckled. Life and death hanging by a thread, and he drops that. Kim Jun was the best.
“Bad news?”
Skyla asked.
“There’s some?”
Kim Jun pursed his lips in mock surprise.
Watching his bright expression and easy tone, it hardly felt like they were in dire straits. Incredible. Skyla stared at Kim Jun anew.
The others felt the same.
Kim Jun spoke again.
“We can take it down. But we all gotta pull together.”
He explained the plan in detail to his rapt teammates.
A pitch-black hole.
Kim Jun peered inside.
Yeom Sang-taek’s light orb didn’t reach the bottom. Sticky fluid dotted the narrow cave walls.
“Hoo.”
Kim Jun took a deep breath to steady his nerves.
No telling how deep the Formican’s body lay. No clue how long he’d crawl this tight tunnel.
What if he met a leg coming up while descending?
No room to turn in such confines.
Couldn’t even swing his arms. He’d be helpless, snared by those grotesque tentacles, dragged down alive to feed.
Kim Jun pondered one last time if there was another way out without descending.
Decision made, he leaped into the hole.
Silver icicles pierced repeatedly, and the Ulpem finally shattered.
Dark brown powder scattered from within, releasing more stench.
Choi Muhyun nearly sneezed. Skyla covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve, stepping back.
“Let’s start.”
“Yeah.”
Skyla put 20 meters between her and Choi Muhyun.
Choi Muhyun unleashed his Geumgangkwon. Golden energy pierced the dark, slamming the ant hell’s outer wall. A boom echoed from the hard cliff, sending rock chunks tumbling.
The roar spread wide in the mortar-shaped pit, reverberating everywhere.
Choi Muhyun scanned calmly.
Vibrations hummed through his soles.
It’s coming.
He glanced at Skyla.
She met his eyes, tense.
A massive octopus leg sliced through the dark. Its suckers snuffled, sucking in dust-mixed air and puffing it out.
Dark red wrinkles dripped thick gray fluid.
The sucker leg probed between them, hunting the tremor’s source. Touch and smell—Formican’s honed senses.
Choi Muhyun raised his hand.
At the signal, Skyla fired her prepared Icicle Bolt at the leg.
Three silver icicles buried deep—one into a sucker.
A bizarre screech erupted.
Like a scream mixed with deflating balloon.
The wounded leg thrashed like a giant whip, smashing rocks and pounding walls.
Dust and thuds filled the air.
Choi Muhyun flattened himself. Skyla leaped airborne.
Another sucker leg entered the light.
No—two more, from different directions. The three legs scoured for their attacker.
Choi Muhyun hurled his prepped pebble into the dark. One leg veered there. The others still hunted.
The passage narrowed.
Kim Jun crawled on elbows and knees. His carrier suit tore fast, skin scraping bloody. Dirt and pebbles stung wounds, but he ignored it.
“Ugh!”
Sudden pain jolted him—like a spike to the neck.
He touched it: squishy, clinging leech. Yeom Sang-taek’s light let him see it sucking blood.
It clung fiercely.
He wedged his dagger between skin and leech. Skin tore, but it fell. The tiny straw remained embedded.
Luckily, his recovery pushed it out; the wound began healing.
“...Damn.”
Kim Jun smelled blood drawing a leech swarm from the hole. To reach the Formican body, he’d plow through them.
Hesitation was brief.
Damn it! Fine, suck away for now!
He accelerated.
Thrilling hide-and-seek.
Blindfolded seeker hunts by nose and ear. Fun, but caught means death.
Skyla recalled Sun Tzu: Know thyself and thy enemy, invincible in battle.
Formican tentacles were menacing, but once their patterns clicked, dodging was straightforward.
Frustrated, they battered rocks like mallets on laundry. The noise and quakes let Skyla and Choi Muhyun move freely.
Choi Muhyun beckoned.
Skyla slipped between tentacles to his side.
“What?”
She whispered.
“Way to seal them off.”
“How?”
Choi Muhyun whispered in her ear.
Skyla smiled. Youth bred bold creativity.
“Let’s do it.”
Skyla fired an Icicle Bolt at a precariously balanced rock. Tentacles rushed in.
Choi Muhyun tossed a pebble; they swarmed there too.
Luring them back and forth tied them into a massive knot. Chasing sound and scent blindly, they never saw it coming.
Comedy ensued.
Bound and restricted, they thrashed, biting each other. Hidden teeth in suckers sank into wrinkled flesh.
Funnier: they fought fiercer, as if under external assault.
Three tentacles shredded fast.
Two severed midway, blackening and shriveling. Black fluid oozed from limp suckers, soaking the ground.
Choi Muhyun extended a hand downward. Skyla high-fived him with a grin.
The cave ended.
Kim Jun surveyed from the ledge.
Vast chamber. Bluish glow from walls and ceiling dimly lit the crouched Formican body below.
He touched the nearby wall.
Damp moss. The stimulus brightened the glow slightly.
Walls and ceiling covered in this moss.
Enormous.
Ten-ish legs. Those extending through wall holes twitched faintly.
Kim Jun eyed the drop: about 15 meters to the floor.
Dizzy. Leeches had drained plenty despite removal.
He cleared his head and jumped.
Kim Jun rolled on landing to absorb shock. Rising, he tripped on an unseen white structure, toppling it. Fragile despite looks, it crumbled.
What the—oh!
Standing, Kim Jun was speechless.
Huge ribs, pitch-black eye sockets in a skull, sturdy femurs formed a white forest.
All bones?
Clean of flesh, preserved like fossilized dinosaur digs.
Swallowed whole, digested to bones.
Something approached.
Kim Jun burrowed under old bones.
A tentacle grazed his spot. From hiding, he watched it quiver and retreat up another hole. Others followed upward.
What’s happening?
Kim Jun peered up intently.
No legs left.
Team’s nailing it up top.
Grateful anew, ideas for the assault clicked.
At least 30 seconds till legs returned.
Formican defenseless meantime. Smash its head in one go. That was the plan.
Exiting the bone pile toward the body—
Skreek skreek!
What’s that sound?
Leg noises gone, a subtle one took over. Kim Jun traced it.
Realizing his misjudgment.
Big Bugs.
Cockroach-turtle hybrids swarmed into view.
Not a few—hundreds? They blanketed the Formican like chainmail.
Too many; he’d missed them.
Of course it wouldn’t be easy.
Main body defenseless—Big Bugs filled the gap. Kill them to kill it.
Kim Jun grinned.
Inexplicable thrill. 800-million-won core monster. Had to be tough. Let’s hurry—time’s ticking.
Kieeeek!
As Kim Jun lunged upward, the unexpected hit.
Main body screeched; Big Bugs streamed off, vanishing along tentacles into holes.
Now, few enough to count visually.
What?
Kim Jun puzzled, then got it.
Something big topside—Pink Team, surely.
Chance!
Drawing his Cheonroegeom, Kim Jun burst from the bones toward the body.
Prodding the severed tentacle with his dagger, Choi Muhyun turned to Skyla.
“What if we end up taking down the Formican?”
“Might happen.”
“Problem’s that.”
Choi Muhyun pointed his dagger at the cliff.