JUDICATOR JANE 6 - CHAPTER 40

What Lurks Below

Mint dove beneath a skittering claw, heart pounding with a mix of fear and adrenaline. The dense darkness of the Great Woods swallowed everything in shadow, broken only by the flickering light of Eli’va and Nadine’s ember blades—fiery arcs that danced wildly through the black.

“Ahhh!” Jeric screamed off to his right, scrambling over the bisected body of a furry Burrcritch. Two wasp-like creatures dived after him, their foot-long stingers stabbing through the air like javelins.

Eli’va moved—but not fast enough. Both stingers punched into the young king’s legs, sending him crashing to the ground.

“Jeric!” Mint dashed forward, thrusting out his hand. A surge of green healing energy burst from his palm, knitting muscle and sealing the wounds just as Eli’va spun in and bisected the wasps in a flash of blood and flame.

Jeric was back on his feet instantly—barely pausing—before bolting left, a stream critch chittering after him.

Mint didn’t watch. He couldn’t. Another Burrcritch barreled toward him and he leapt aside, landing hard and rolling as its bristles scraped past.

Just like dodging stingy shopkeepers in Dawnskeep, he told himself grimly. Eli’va and Nadine were the real front line—blades slicing, burning, cleaving through the mass of critch with terrifying precision. All he and Jeric could do was dodge, heal—and try not to die.

Nadine dropped from above, a shadowy blur, slamming her arm blade into a critch’s thorax before it even registered her presence. The creature shrieked once—and went still.

Moments later, it was over.

The clearing was littered with twitching limbs and black ichor. The smell of scorched shell clung to the air.

Jeric stood hunched, panting hard, hands braced on his knees. “I… I don’t know if I can take much more of this…”

Eli’va snorted and walked past without a glance. She reached down, tore a chunk of steaming meat from a fallen beetle, and took a bite with mechanical indifference.

“It’s not a matter of can or cannot,” she said flatly. “You will take more—or you will die.” She chewed, swallowed. “Be grateful. You've gained a great deal of experience from these battles.”

Mint sat down beside her, grabbing a strip of critch meat for himself. The taste didn’t matter—just the substance itself. At least it's better than the Moongrass. He triggered Vitality’s Eye and turned his attention to Jeric.

Let’s see how he's doing.

Jeric Arctavian (Level 107)

Human

Constitution: 44

Regeneration: 0

Health: 440/440

What Eli’va said was true—Jeric was gaining levels quickly. Three since they'd entered the Great Woods. Too bad I’m lower than all of them, Mint thought, biting back a sigh. If I were higher, I wouldn't be getting reduced experience. Instead, he had to rely on actively using his skills to make most of his progress. But in a place like this, full of danger and chaos, opportunities weren’t exactly scarce.

A deep rumble passed beneath them, shaking the earth like the thunder of a passing storm.

Mint froze. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled.

A titan.

Without a word, Eli’va and Nadine sprang into action. The two demons clawed into the soft forest floor with frightening speed, carving a shallow trench barely large enough for the four of them. Within minutes, they had a makeshift grave dug, and all four of them huddled inside. Nadine yanked the rolling wooden cover over the top, hiding them away from the surface.

Mint shut his eyes tight. Please don’t let us get stepped on. Please don’t let us get stepped on…

He repeated it like a mantra, the words echoing uselessly in his mind.

Through a thin gap in the cover, he saw it—an enormous white pillar of moss-covered flesh. One of the titan’s legs. It passed slowly, and the tremors rolled with it, rhythmic and awful. For a moment, it looked like the trees themselves were marching.

Mint shivered.

Jane confronted one of those? He couldn’t even begin to picture it. Even in his nightmares, nothing had ever been so massive. So unnatural.

The tremors eventually faded. Nadine ripped the cover away and leapt out, vanishing into the shadows like smoke in the wind.

“Do you think we’re getting close?” Mint whispered to Eli’va.

She rolled up the cover, then lashed it to her back, dirt still clinging to her claws. “Perhaps,” she said after a long pause. “We can only keep moving forward. Eventually, we will find her.”

Mint nodded slowly. Once we meet up with Jane, everything will go back to normal… Whatever that meant. With Jane, the definition of “normal” was up for debate.

He glanced over at Jeric, who was brushing dirt off his tattered tunic. The fabric was stained with blood, ripped in a dozen places—each one a reminder of a wound that should’ve been fatal. If not for Mint’s healing, Jeric would’ve been dead a hundred times over.

We both would’ve.

“Did you try that skill of yours again?” Mint asked, crouching beside him. “What was it called?”

“Grace of the Liege,” Jeric murmured. He shook his head. “I… I tried. But nothing happened.”

Mint put a hand on his shoulder, steady. “Don’t give up. One of them has to work eventually.”

Jeric didn’t answer, but he nodded—and for now, that was enough. Since entering the Great Woods, the young king hadn't had time for whining or complaining. Those kinds of words were useless against the critch. Even more so against the two relentless demons who pushed them onward.

“Uh, Mint?” Jeric’s voice wavered with unease as the air turned eerily still. “Where are Eli'va and Nadine?”

Mint turned, pulse quickening. Darkness had swallowed everything around them. The only light came from a faint shimmer of effervescent blue Moongrass in the distance, barely illuminating the underbrush. Eli’va and Nadine were gone.

“She was just here…” Mint muttered, eyes darting. The glowing amber of the demoness’s arm-blades had never left his sight—until now. “Are they digging again? Maybe—”

He turned back, but Jeric was gone.

“Jeric?” he called, heart hammering. Silence answered. "Jeric!"

Then, with no warning, something seized him from below. A crushing grip yanked him downward, pulling him through the earth itself. There was no time to scream. Jagged rocks scraped at his limbs, darkness wrapped around him like a burial shroud, and he shot below at a terrifying speed. The descent felt endless, like falling through a nightmare. He squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to shield them from the dirt scraping by him on all sides. Finally, mercifully, the world flipped—he burst from the ground and slammed face-first into something wet and gooey, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs.

Stunned and disoriented, Mint lay sprawled on a slick surface, ears ringing. Muffled voices echoed around him as he blinked through the haze.

“Mint, Mint! Are you alright?”

Coughing, he slowly pushed himself upright. “W-what happened?” he croaked. The amber glow of arm-blades cast long, flickering shadows across a cramped spherical chamber. Jeric knelt beside him, eyes wide with concern, while Eli’va and Nadine stood alert at either side, blades out and muscles tense.

Mint’s gaze swept the chamber. It wasn’t a natural cave—it was too smooth, too uniform. The walls shimmered faintly, coated in something that gleamed under the dim light.

“I’m okay,” he muttered, checking his Health. Still full. No damage. Just the bruised weight of confusion.

“Eli’va, where are we?”

The demoness prowled along the chamber’s curve, inspecting the walls with a soldier’s discipline. “I do not know. There was no warning. No hint of a threat.” She glanced to Nadine. “Did you sense anything?”

Nadine shook her head, her expression tight. “No. Nothing at all. Even when Mint dropped into the chamber, I saw nothing of our foe.”

Mint stepped toward the nearest wall and reached out cautiously. His fingers met a wet, slimy surface—pink, gooey, and unpleasantly warm. He recoiled with a grimace, wiping it off on his shirt. “Ew. What is this stuff?” He tried triggering Vitality’s Eye—nothing. The System offered no help.

Eli’va didn’t wait. With a flick of her wrist, her arm-blade ignited, and she began slicing through the wall. The goo parted easily, but behind it lay only thick, compacted dirt. She carved into it for several minutes, the sound of cutting and falling soil echoing in the confined space. But the tunnel yielded nothing. Just more earth, heavy and impenetrable.

Jeric’s voice cracked, panic threading through. “What are we going to do? What is this place?”

Mint opened his mouth, trying to form something—anything—reassuring. But the weight of dread pressing at the edges of his thoughts silenced him.

They were trapped.

***

Mint paced the chamber’s curved floor, his pulse quickening with each step. There was still no sign of whatever had dragged them beneath the surface. Was it a critch? One of the titans? He had no idea. Hours had passed since their abduction, and Eli’va and Nadine had spent nearly every moment digging, their blades carving a slow, stubborn tunnel into the ground. But progress was agonizingly slow—mere feet gained for effort that left even the demons breathing heavily. This was hard compacted dirt and rock, not like the surface above.

Jeric sat slumped near the chamber’s edge, rocking back and forth, his arms wrapped around his knees. His gaze was distant, unfocused. “We’re going to die here. We never should have come into the Great Woods…”

“Don't talk that way. We’re going to get out of here,” Mint snapped, more harshly than he intended. But inside, doubt gnawed at him too. He was supposed to be the calm one. The clever one. But his thoughts were slipping—spiraling. A drop of pink goo plopped from the ceiling and landed cold on his scalp. He winced, shivering at the unpleasant touch as he wiped it away. Whatever this chamber was, it wasn’t natural. Even the ceiling was sealed, no visible seam or passage. Eli’va and Nadine had tried standing on each other’s shoulders, clawing at the upper curvature where they thought they’d been dropped, but it was the same as the walls—sealed tight, coated in slime, and backed with dense earth or stone.

This wasn’t something Jane had warned them about. No stories of people vanishing beneath the forest floor. No talk of chambers like this—silent, hidden, and impossibly sealed. He took a long, slow breath. At least the two of them had Eli’va and Nadine. If anyone could find a way out, it was them. But even that hope was starting to fray. They’d all arrived here unharmed, without so much as a scratch. Not even fall damage. That unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. Is something coming for us?

“Maybe it was the Dirthians,” Jeric offered suddenly, clinging to the thought like driftwood in a storm. “They live underground, right? Maybe they found us. Maybe they’re just waiting to take us to one of the banks!”

Mint didn’t answer. That idea wasn't even worth a response. This place didn’t feel like anything humans or dwarves would build. It felt… organic. The walls had a subtle give when you pressed against them, like hardened muscle beneath a skin of slime. The chamber reminded him more of a hollowed egg sac than any cave. Something that had grown, not been dug.

He stepped to the tunnel entrance, where Eli’va and Nadine were still digging. They’d made it roughly eight feet in, but the pace had slowed significantly. Each strike took longer, the packed earth resisting them more and more. Worse, the chamber was gradually filling with the displaced dirt, mounding around their feet. It wasn’t just exhausting—it was dangerous. Mint watched the tunnel’s narrowing mouth and felt a twist of anxiety deep in his gut.

What if the ceiling or walls collapse? What if it buries them?

Then, he froze—his breath caught mid-inhale.

He gasped.

You have received asphyxiation damage!

-5 HP

Then Jeric's voice rang out again—this time shrill and panicked. “Mint, what’s happening? I… I can’t breathe!”

Mint staggered, his own hand flying to his throat. A sharp pressure was building in his chest, and a glance at his Health confirmed the worst: it was ticking down, five points at a time.

“We’re running out of air…” he said, the words landing like a stone in the pit of his stomach. His eyes darted to Eli’va and Nadine—both still digging, but visibly slowing. A quick scan of their stats showed the same steady bleed of health. They were all suffocating. Trapped in a sealed chamber deep underground, without food, without water—and now, without oxygen. No cracks. No airflow. Just pink slime, packed dirt, and a slow death.

He tried to think. The situation was hopeless. The demons couldn’t possibly dig fast enough—not through earth this thick, not without space to move or air to breathe.

But then his mind caught on something—wasn’t this just damage like any other?

With a spark of desperate inspiration, he pressed a hand to his chest and activated Mending Touch. A surge of warmth rushed through him as his Health shot back to full—only to begin ticking down again almost immediately as the suffocation effect resumed. It was a bandage, not a cure. But it was something.

“Come on, over here!” he called, motioning Jeric over. The boy stumbled toward him, gasping. Mint reached out and invoked another skill, bathing the entire group in a field of gentle, glowing energy—his class’s regenerative skills flaring to life. Healing pulses rippled outward, wrapping around Jeric, Eli’va, and Nadine in waves of restoration.

“We need to stay together,” he said firmly, trying to steady his voice. “I can heal the damage we take from the lack of air. For now, I can keep us alive.”

Jeric nodded, trembling but no longer in full panic, the color beginning to return to his cheeks. The suffocating grip around them loosened, just a little.

Eli’va paused only long enough to give Mint a sharp, approving nod before returning to the tunnel with renewed urgency. Nadine joined her without a word, blades cutting through soil in rhythmic, determined strikes.

They would keep digging. Mint would keep them alive. But the question that loomed over them all—one none of them voiced—was the most terrifying:

Digging to where?