Chương 74: Chapter 75: The Descent of Athtar

The crunch of calcified bone fragments beneath Ethan's bare feet grew denser as the chalk tunnel dipped sharply into the lower bedrock. The low-slung, cast-iron scarab beetle crawled ahead of him with a slow, grinding friction, its six heavy mud legs scooping through thick layers of black, ancient sacrificial ash that had choked this cavern floor for three hundred years. This was no longer a common geographical fissure.

The air was dead, cold, and caked in the heavy, sterile stench of dried copper ore and stale blood. Ethan gazed at the rock faces, revealing rows of sharp, deeply engraved Ugaritic alphabetic cuneiform text scripts detailing an ancient Kipsu ancestral mortuary feast. As he lingered on the engravings, a translucent system notification appeared: [THE DESCENT OF ATHTAR] The Kipsu Shrine of the Fallen Morning Star (Yeridat Athtar).

Historical Log: An un-mapped subterranean fracture vault dedicated to the lesser deity, Athtar the Terrible. Brashly ascending the sacred northern throne of Mount Zaphon, Athtar was found inadequate for the seat because his feet could not reach the royal footstool. Cast out from the heights for his stature, he descended to become the deified ruler of the Underworld. Ethan stopped. Fifty paces ahead, the narrow corridor tore open into a wide, shadow-drenched karstic vault.

Deep within that black amphitheater, a chorus of low, guttural cackles and bone-snapping snarls vibrated through the stone floorboards. Through the gloom, eight pairs of wide, amber-tinted eyes locked in unison. They were massive, feral Rephaim Cave Hyenas —apex subterranean scavengers whose massive, high-density skull frames and hyper-developed jaws were evolutionarily optimised to splinter the dense bones of wild oxen.

Driven down into the deep rifts by the spreading regional drought, they were starved, crazed, and highly territorial. Ethan didn't wait for them to organize a swarm. He immediately backed up five steps, pinning his position directly behind the heavy, iron-plated back of his scarab golem, completely sealing the lower half of the two-meter limestone bottleneck.

Standing firmly on the unpaved cavern dirt, his [Unyielding Frame] passive multiplier initialised, violently expanding his baseline health pool to give his thin 37 Constitution an iron-clad structural cushion. He wedged his torch into the limestone crevice and reached into his leather pouch, pulling out his old, trusted sling. He dropped one of his newly rolled, flash-hardened iron-oxide clay stones into the leather pocket, drawing the twin rawhide cords taut between his calloused fingers.

With a rapid, aggressive motion, Ethan spun the sling over his shoulder. He pulled the line hard using his arm muscles, his shoulder stiffening as he tried to force the trajectory straight toward the pulsating, translucent target node that his 85 Perception and Linguistic Genesis Engine were tracking across the lead hyena's throat: the נֶפֶשׁ (Nephesh). He released the retention cord. Because his swing was stiff and arm-heavy, the manual release was completely out of sync.

The flash-hardened iron stone flew wild, drifting entirely wide of the narrow neck joint. The metallic projectile struck the lead hyena across its thick, dust-caked shoulder muscle with a blunt, dull thud. It registered as a standard, non-critical blow, barely chipping a sliver off the monster's massive health line. The aggro, however, locked instantly. The level-44 pack let out a blood-chilling, cackling shriek that shook the loose stalactites.

They charged down the narrow corridor in a blind, predatory frenzy, their claws tearing through the sacrificial ash. Ethan yanked another stone from his pouch, swinging frantically to reset his stance. He fired a second shot, but his arm-centric form betrayed him again; the bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the low ceiling, showering his leather corslet in white chalk sparks. The numbers advantage of the pack smashed flat against his bottleneck defense.

They were forced to funnel single-file through the tight limestone gap, right into the forward wedge of the scarab beetle. The lead hyena lunged, its massive jaws snapping violently down with hundreds of pounds of bone-crushing pressure onto the golem's carapace.