Ichor Cell-Chapter 32: The Core I

They had been heading deeper into the dungeon for over an hour now.
The slope was barely noticeable at first—just enough that the cart could roll forward under its own weight—but the further they went, the clearer it became that they were descending. The air grew cooler, the faint blue glow of the walls deepening into a dusky violet, and the texture of the floor shifted from rough dirt to something smoother, almost like glass.
Nevertheless, the scenery around them remained mostly unchanged. Every new turn revealed more endless tunnel, stretching to the next turn.
Despite how long they had walked, they hadn’t actually advanced very far from how often they came across their own footsteps. With every turn they made correctly, five times as many would send them back the way they came or to a completely different section of the maze. They had taken to marking the ground just to ensure they didn’t keep going in circles.
The monsters were the only thing breaking the monotony.
Every few minutes, something would crawl out of the darkness to attack them—misshapen beasts of bone and sinew that came and died to Alex one after another. At first, they had been easy to dispatch, then they required a slight effort on his part, until he took every fight seriously.
Alex noticed the pattern immediately. The deeper they went, the stronger the creatures became.
He could feel it in his bones too.
That strange buzzing in the air—the one that he had felt faintly when they first entered—was growing stronger the lower they went.
“Another one,” Duran said, his voice calm as he hefted the axe.
Alex sighed. “I see it.”
The thing ahead of them crawled on six limbs, two of which jutted out from its shoulder blades like some sort of demented wings. Its head was fused into its torso, teeth lining what might have been its ribcage. The air rippled faintly around it, distorting the light like and leaving it hard to make out.
‘An ambush predator, huh?’
Alex noted.
‘Thank god this dungeon is just a series of tunnels. That could’ve been bad.’
As he faced more and more monsters that seemingly had nothing in common, he realised that the dungeon’s residents were not here… naturally. The cow should have tipped him off about how they got in, but now he was certain.
“You’re not in your home turf, bud.” He got into a fighting stance and taunted the creature. “Unfortunately for you.”
It screeched and hurled itself forward, claws scraping deep gouges in the glassy floor.
Alex darted to meet it, but the creature was faster than he expected. Its six limbs slammed down with enough force to shake the tunnel, sending shards of crystal skittering across the ground. The first blow missed his head by a hair. The second didn’t—its claw raked across his shoulder, tearing through flesh before he could twist away.
He hissed through his teeth, already feeling the familiar burn of regeneration.
The creature followed up immediately, trying to crush him under its weight. Alex leapt back, but the tunnel was too narrow for clean movement. The beast’s tail lashed out, the spiked appendage flaying the meat off his leg and slamming him against the wall hard enough to rattle his bones.
Duran surged forward when he saw Alex screaming on the ground, swinging the axe in a heavy arc. The blade bit into one of its limbs but didn’t go far—the creature’s hide was tougher than it had any right to be. It shrieked, jerking back, nearly tearing the weapon from Duran’s hands.
“Fall back!” Alex barked through the pain, recovering his footing as he healed.
Duran jumped back without hesitation, but not before the monster left a series of slices across his thigh with its claws.
Alex flooded his right arm with mana and dashed in again, ducking under a snapping chest maw to drive his fist into its side. The impact cracked something, but green ichor spilled out instead of blood, hissing where it hit the floor. A biting odour filled the tunnel, burning his nostrils.
The creature twisted violently, catching him across the chest with an uppercut that lacerated his skin and sent him into the ceiling. Pain flared, though thankfully he wouldn’t need a new set of clothes; he had long since abandoned wearing them, a mere loincloth covering his modesty.
The monster reared back, its entire body convulsing before it spat a glob of the same sizzling fluid straight at him. Alex dodged immediately, but some of it still got him in the torso, the fluid eating through skin and muscle. He gritted his teeth and lunged forward through the burning pain.
Twisting his whole body, he sent an empowered kick rocketing straight into one of the creature’s limbs, snapping it like a twig. His own leg didn’t come out of the ordeal whole either, as evidenced by the agonizing pain that lanced through the point of impact.
The creature screeched in pain, the noise reminiscent of a whale’s haunting call. Its claws scraped wildly across the floor as it tried to regain balance, its tooth-lined chest snapping in a desperate attempt to bite him.
Alex danced out of the way, the twisted jaws closing on empty air. He drove a follow up knee into its gut, but the creature barely stumbled, instead once again flicking its spiked tail in his direction.
Already having experienced it once, he had no desire to be flayed alive a second time. However, he did not expect the monster to have kept a move in reserve until now.
Stolen story; please .
Despite having seemingly dodged the blow, agony suddenly lanced through his chest as a fountain of blood erupted from his chest.
He stumbled, taken aback. “When the…”
Squinting through the haze surrounding the creature, he saw that the tail now had a very noticeable gap in the layer of spikes covering its tip. Sure enough, he looked down to find three inches of keratin sticking out of his right pectoral.
“Of course spitting acid blood is not enough.” He coughed out a stream of blood. “It can also shoot spikes from its tail.”
Grasping the end of the shard, he gave two short breaths and yanked it out with a furious scream, the tip thankfully not barbed.
“That’s it.” He muttered. He forced himself upright, regeneration knitting muscle as fast as it could.
Duran dragged the axe forward and tossed it to him. “Just take it. I don’t think it’s about to turn its attention away from you.”
Alex caught it mid-air and didn’t argue. The creature lunged, shrieking, and he met it head-on. The first swing bit into its shoulder, half-severing the limb. The second took it in the middle of the back, right where he estimated its neck would be. Judging by the creature’s mournful wail, he was right.
It didn’t die quietly. It convulsed, flailing its remaining limbs in every direction. One caught Alex in the thigh, and a few tail darts came dangerously close to hitting the retreating Duran, but he kept his footing, lifted the axe again, and buried it deep into the creature’s skull.
The screech cut off mid-note. The monster collapsed to the floor, sending ripples across the puddles of red and bright green blood oozing across the floor.
Alex finally allowed himself to collapse onto his back, uncaring of the extra layer of filth that covered him.
Having given himself a moment to rest, he quickly sat back up and scooted over to the slowly cooling pool of acidic blood. Giving it a fearful look, he nevertheless cautiously dipped two fingers into the spreading pool.
The blood burned—obviously—but less than it had when it was fresh, more like a strong hot sauce than a flesh-eating acid. But when he brought his fingers to his tongue, the taste was so violent it almost made him recoil.
It burned. Literally burned.
He hissed through his teeth, wiping his mouth. “Gods, that’s awful.”
The mana hit a second later. A pulse ran through his veins, hot and raw. It wasn’t much, but enough for him to feel it reach his fingertips. His regeneration quickened for a second, then evened out again.
Now, one might question why Alex would voluntarily consume literal acid, and to that he would point to his latest discovery: The power he gained depended entirely on the strength of the creature it came from. Species didn’t matter—only the mana density. The greater the creature, the greater the gain.
Human blood was still the best tasting by far, sure, but that was only flavour. In terms of strength? It didn’t seem to make a difference.
Unfortunately, this particular creature’s blood, while rich, tasted like molten pepper and left his mouth feeling like he’d gargled acid.
He would live without it.
Behind him, Duran limped closer, favouring his uninjured leg. The cut in his pants revealed the almost bone-deep laceration that bled sluggishly down his calf.
Alex sighed. “You’re not walking like that.”
“I’m fine,” Duran muttered.
“I’m sure you are.” He nodded at the cart. “But you literally cannot use that leg right now. The muscle is almost entirely cut through, and my magic only animates you; it doesn’t move you without your existing biology.”
Duran hesitated but didn’t argue further. He limped over and eased himself down next to Grenil.
Alex turned toward the old man. “You hurt anywhere?”
“I’m fine.” The shopkeeper shook his head, then chuckled. “It’s funny to think that my most interesting adventure happened not in my youth, but as an old man well into his retirement.”
The young man smiled at that, though a hint of sadness flickered in his eye. “Don’t worry. There’s plenty more adventures to come.”
With that, he grabbed the cart’s handles and began pulling again, the soft creak of the cart’s axle filling the silence.
The twists and turns of the tunnel resumed; the omnipresent glow emanating from the floor and walls soon turned completely purple, giving an eerie glow to the surrounding dungeon.
After nearly half an hour, Alex slowed. The silence around them was strange, after the last couple of hours—no scuttling claws, no shapes lurking in the shadows, not even a distant shriek.
Grenil noticed it too. “We haven’t been attacked in a while.”
“Yeah,” Alex said quietly. “I was thinking the same.”
“You think we finally cleared them out?”
“Or something’s keeping them away.”
They kept moving, slower now, every sense on edge. The tunnel continued to widen, until with a last turn it ended, opening up to the world beyond.
A cavern spread out before them like the inside of an enormous bowl—several hundred feet across, sloping down toward the center.
The floor was the same glassy material that had made up the tunnels for the past while, though instead of a smooth, unbroken surface, this was full of razor-sharp ridges and cracked sheets. The walls and ceiling were made of tightly fused wood; twisted and warped into natural arches that rose high overhead.
But it was what sat in the middle that drew their eyes.
Resting at the lowest point of the cavern was an object of dark metal, perfectly intact despite the devastation surrounding it. Its design was unfamiliar—sleek, elegant, yet somehow organic, as if grown rather than forged. Faint veins of violet light pulsed through the surface, in rhythm with the dungeon’s heartbeat.
It was shaped like a piece of equipment—something meant to be wielded. The mana radiating from it was dense, almost physical, thick enough to make the air shimmer around it.
Grenil leaned forward in the cart, eyes wide. “That’s… that’s not stone.”
Alex nodded slowly. “No. That’s a shoe.”
Indeed, laying right there, in the middle of a massive crater of its own making, was a very elaborate looking… boot. Despite the distance and the elaborate designs covering the object, it’s purpose was unmistakeable.
Duran stared at it in silence, his expression unreadable. “You think that’s the core?”
“Oh, geez, I don’t know Duran.” Alex mocked. “Do I think the terrifying looking piece of equipment lying in a crater and emanating visible waves of mana is the dungeon core? Nah, that can’t be it. It must be one of these random pieces of wood we see lying all over the place. Best get to searching!”
Shaking his head in disbelief, he turned back to the core, studying it.
"Right, you guys stay here." He warned as he took a cautious step forward. "If anything happens, I'mma need you to
run
."
He waited for them to answer with nods before setting out to the core.
The descent into the bowl-shaped chamber was slow and deliberate. Each step made the humming in his chest stronger, the pressure in the air heavier. By the time he reached the midpoint, the sensation had become almost unbearable—a mix of anticipation and unease crawling up his spine.
Then something made him stop.
He couldn’t have told you even if you asked.
He tilted his head up.
And froze.
The wooden ceiling was covered in thick knots and roots that wound together like muscles. For a moment, he thought it was just the structure shifting under its own weight—until one of the “roots” twitched.
It wasn’t a root.
There—embedded in the ceiling, blending perfectly into the wood—was something massive. Dozens of limbs folded close to its body, carapace ridged and bark-like, glistening faintly in the dim light.
“Guys,” Alex said quietly. “I want you to head back up the tunnel very,
very
carefully.”
Grenil froze. “What—”
Alex’s eyes didn’t leave the ceiling. “Now!”
The air shifted, a low vibration rolling through the chamber. Dust fell from above.
And the monster moved.