The squad slowly progressed through the floors with the occasional argument. The floors consisted of laboratories, armouries, a floor filled with test tubes, soldier barracks, and many more.
Despite Ash's and Steven's hot tempers, all of them were experienced Divers, and they progressed quickly after the initial holdup.
They saw a few other Divers a couple of times who paid them no mind. The squad soon reached floor 20 without seeing a single Voidbeast, which caused Steven to naively believe the expedition was going to be a breeze, while Ash seemingly paid it no mind, and Reko became concerned.
'It's definitely not impossible, but it's quite unlikely not to have run into any lower rank Voidbeasts. Maybe we should turn back...'
Reko took a look at Ash, who looked like he was about to blow a fuse from not being able to blow anything up.
'Not happening,' Reko sighed.
'We're close anyway, so maybe we will be fine,' Reko thought naively.
The squad continued through the last couple of floors before reaching the 28th floor. The Essence here was already quite dense, and Reko could feel himself struggling slightly. Steven seemed to be faring a bit worse, but he was getting by. Ash, on the other hand, seemed completely fine, even a bit more energised.
Reko felt something was up on this floor in particular, and he felt like he should turn around right now, but greed got the better of him. He'd spent all the effort to get here and played peacemaker for those two hotheads all day. He wanted his damn reward and then to go back and take a nice long shower.
"We should move fast. I got a bad feeling about this floor," Reko warned.
Surprisingly, Ash nodded.
"I agree. I don't like the feel this place is giving me."
"What, you two scared? You need some more guts," Steven immediately mocked.
Ash only shot him a glare, but didn't say anything and moved to the front of the group.
"We should be careful, though. Sorry," Steven muttered, knowing getting careless could still spell their doom.
The floor they were on was a maze of the same metal hallways with open spaces and occasional rooms. They all progressed cautiously through the dimly lit hallways, keeping a lookout for any macabre scene where they could find a corpse. They ignored all scraps and tried to find the corpse as quickly as possible.
After lurking in the halls for a while, the seemingly indestructible walls and floor of the hallway became covered in dents and scratches. The group looked at one another and silently followed the path of havoc laid by unknown forces.
As the group rounded the corner into an open area, which was even more torn up than the nearby hallways, they saw it. The giant, mutilated carcass of a creature that wore a human skull as its head, which was filled with dark flesh.
The creature had a long, dainty body and arms, which were adorned with nails the length of a forearm. Its dark torso was scoured with deep cuts, and chunks of its flesh were missing, leaving a puddle of dried-up blood all around the creature. The already giant creature was missing its lower half, either already harvested or cut off in battle.
The group stared, frightened, at the creature. This was definitely not one of the low-rank Voidbeasts they had grown used to over the years. It felt much more dreadful than anything they had encountered during their many expeditions into the Pit.
Reko's thoughts quickly wandered on, however. He carefully scanned the injuries on the monster's body.
'The scars on its body seem to all come from one weapon. Who could've done this to such a high-ranking creature? A Storm Blessed? Why the hell was this request even available to us!? This thing's way too valuable and probably dangerous even if it's dead.'
Ash and Steven also stared in disbelief.
"Some Gifted really gave this thing a hell of a beating," Steven commented.
"This thing's flesh looks tough. How could I have blown it up?" Ash pondered.
Reko set aside his barrage of questions for now and gathered everyone's attention.
"We can't take the entire thing back with us, so we've gotta harvest what we can. Start with all the more sensitive parts you think you can cut off or pull out, like the fingernails or the flesh inside its skull head thing."
They threw their backpacks off and got to work.
Since they didn't want to stay here for too long, even Ash helped out. He may have acted hotheaded, but he was by no means stupid. He, too, knew this place wasn't safe due to the stench of blood.
Reko pulled out a bone drill from his backpack and got to work on the flesh inside the creature's skull. Steven worked on removing the vital organs, like the heart and lungs, from the gaps in the creature's flesh. Ash got to work on the nails.
After around 30 minutes, all three had completely exhausted themselves and barely managed to get a few parts of the creature. Reko's bone drill barely worked, Steven was covered from head to toe with black blood, and Ash was covered in gunpowder smoke from having to blow off the nails. They put their trophies in their bags and plopped down to rest.
Ash shook himself a bit to clear off some of the gunpowder stuck to him.
"Damn, those nails were tough. Makes sense, though, if the creature used them to fight."
"But look at you, blood monster," he grinned.
Steven frowned, then a bright smile bloomed on his face.
"Yeah, you're right. Let's celebrate your grand victory with a big hug! Come here, you two!"
Ash stumbled away from the bloody Steven next to him, and as Reko was about to laugh at the two, the ground shook.
Everyone went silent instantly. They all got up and turned to look in the same direction, like deer caught in headlights.
There, in the distance of the dark hallway they had come through earlier, they saw a cloud of darkness emerge.
It seemed to have noticed the group already, as the giant, purple eye in the cloud scanned its prey meticulously. It seemed elated to have found a couple of new toys.
There was a moment of silence.
Reko had seen and defeated plenty of weaker Voidbeasts in his years down here. However...
'We can't handle that.'
With his honed instincts, it took Reko only a moment to come to this conclusion.
Suddenly, the cloud surged forward. Its gaze was playful as it stared intently at the squad.
Everyone had already stood up and begun running.
Without hesitation, they dove into the dark, twisting hallways nearby and began their game of cat and mouse with the unknown horror.