The victory over the scouts had come at a brutal cost. Artur's leg was a symphony of pain, and his body was nearing its limit. He knew he wouldn't survive another direct confrontation—especially not against the horde still waiting beyond the main breach. Brute force had reached its end.
It was time for cunning.
He scanned the workshop again, no longer as an arena—but as an arsenal of potential traps. His gaze settled on a massive industrial shelving unit. Nearly sixteen feet tall, stretching over thirty along the north wall. The shelves were loaded with what looked like the shop's inventory: solid steel die blocks, some the size of car batteries, each weighing dozens—if not hundreds—of pounds.
A wall of death.
Just waiting to fall.
The metal frame at the base looked sturdy, bolted into the concrete. But the vertical supports…
Maybe they had a weakness.
A plan—born from desperation and necessity—began to take shape. He would have to lure the next wave into the kill zone beneath the shelving.
He limped toward the wide breach in the wall, where the larger monsters—the arachnid things and the brutes—still clustered, watching. Waiting.
He made himself visible.
"Hey!" he shouted, voice raw. "I'm right here! Come get me!"
He slammed the flat of the axe against a steel beam. The clang rang out like a challenge bell.
It was enough.
The collective mind, faced with wounded prey daring them to act, finally moved.
The first of the arachnid monsters squeezed through the breach, another following close behind. Slower than the scouts—but bigger. Stronger.
Artur didn't wait.
He turned and ran—a limping, agonizing sprint—toward the back of the workshop, disappearing into the narrow aisle between the loaded shelves and a row of heavy lathes.
The two creatures followed, funneling into the confined passage exactly as he had hoped. The tight space denied them the advantage of size.
He kept moving until he reached the end of the aisle, forcing distance between them. Then he turned.
They advanced slowly now, claws clicking, their chitinous mass filling the corridor.
He had inspected the shelving earlier. One of the vertical supports at the end of the aisle had been damaged—maybe by a forklift. Slightly bent. Rust creeping along its base.
That was the target.
He waited until the first creature was only a few yards away.
Then, trusting the newfound resilience of the walnut handle, he struck the weakened support.
Not with the blade.
With the axe head—the flat, heavy poll—like a demolition hammer.
BAM.
The entire structure shuddered. Steel blocks rattled on the upper shelves.
BAM.
One of the anchor bolts tore loose from the concrete. The unit tilted a few inches.
The creatures sensed the danger. The one in front shrieked and tried to retreat—but the one behind blocked its path.
BAM.
The third blow finished it.
With the tortured groan of failing metal, the support buckled. For a single suspended moment, the structure seemed to hang in defiance of gravity.
Then the domino effect began.
With a deafening roar of tearing steel and colliding metal, the entire shelving unit collapsed inward—into the aisle.
Tons of solid steel die blocks cascaded down like an avalanche. A metallic landslide. A storm of crushing mass.
The two creatures were swallowed instantly.
There was no time for a scream.
Only the sickening, pulverizing sound of chitin and bone being ground beneath the weight of steel.
The floor trembled.
A cloud of dust swallowed the air. When it began to settle, the aisle no longer existed. In its place rose a mountain of twisted metal and scattered die blocks.
From beneath the wreckage, a dark purple liquid began to seep slowly outward.
The trap had worked.
Artur didn't stay to admire it.
The noise would draw more.
He scanned the workshop, searching for a way out.
An escape.