Chapter 162: Into the Heart of the Nest
Leaving the gates of the First Light encampment, Ryan was met with a wave of noxious air. The black mist over the Corrupted Lands hung thick and suffocating, a stark contrast to the warm, steady glow of the camp behind him.
From his last quest, he had earned a rare artifact: the Shadow Cloak. According to its description, the cloak could be used within the Giant Insect Nest and would render its wearer invisible.
The briefing had been clear. Dimia was somewhere deep inside the nest, overseeing a new stage of the Twilight Cult's corruption project. They had managed to seize control of Arachne, the Insect King, and were preparing to unleash the swarms across the swamp, wiping out every settlement except their own hidden laboratory.
Dimia had already risen high within the Twilight Cult's ranks in the Dreadful Mire, high enough that Malga had come personally after learning of her presence. If Ryan hadn't appeared when he did, Malga would have attempted to storm the nest alone three days later, and the quest—and its rewards—would have slipped away forever.
The Giant Insect Nest lay far from the heart of the Corrupted Lands, but Ryan didn't intend to walk. A new flight point had opened after his previous quest, and all he needed was a gryphon ride to the Cleansing Grove, the closest point to the nest.
When he landed, the ground beneath his boots was already hostile. This stretch of the Mire lay directly above the Giant Insect Nest, riddled with traps so densely laid that one misstep often triggered several more in a chain. What should have been a ten-minute walk turned into a trial by attrition. Ryan blundered into more than a dozen traps, each one layering him with debilitating curses and poisons.
He broke them off with a burst of Divine Shield, waited for the cooldown to return, then drew the Shadow Cloak tight around his shoulders before stepping into the nest.
He had expected to vanish the moment he put it on. Instead, the very first guard—a hulking insect nearly his height—swung its mandibles and lunged at him as if he weren't cloaked at all.
The Giant Insect Guards were level thirty-three, and they had a nasty trick. If their health dropped too low, they screamed—a piercing shriek that summoned every other guard within a hundred yards. Left unchecked, the swarm would drown him in seconds.
Ryan dragged the guard away from the others and cut it down quickly, keeping it from calling reinforcements. He wiped the ichor from his blade and let out a frustrated sigh.
"Really? The quest said this cloak would let me sneak right in. So why am I getting jumped the second I step inside?" His voice was low, but his irritation was clear.
He tested his theory on another guard. This time he noticed the pattern: they only reacted when he drifted too close, within five yards. As long as he kept his distance, the cloak worked.
That was useful, but it didn't solve the greater problem. The quest had only hinted that Dimia was somewhere inside the nest, without giving so much as a direction. The place was sprawling, a twisting labyrinth nearly as vast as the Corrupted Lands above. Ryan had explored parts of it before, but the deeper one went, the harder it became to navigate, and he wasn't sure he could find his way back out if he reached the lowest levels.
Arachne, the Giant Insect King, was a level thirty-three elite monster that ruled from the very center of the nest. For players carrying a specific quest, a straight path led directly to him, and once the fight was over, the way back was simple enough to retrace. Everywhere else, though, the nest was a maze of shifting tunnels, strange restrictions, and traps designed to confuse. Anyone unlucky enough to stray too far without preparation usually had no choice but to use a Hearthstone to escape.
Ryan's current quest, Lost Radiance, was already proving different. If the NPC he needed was hidden in one of these uncharted regions, he would have no map, no guidance, and no guarantee of a clean way out afterward. And if some sudden twist in the story cut off his Hearthstone escape, he'd be trapped completely. It wouldn't be the first time. He still remembered one brutal questline where he'd been stuck until a Warlock summoned him out with a portal.
As he pushed deeper, the dangers grew. Giant Insect Guards stalked the tunnels, their patrols broken up by hulking Destroyers that could sniff out hidden enemies. Every so often, the ground trembled beneath the advance of a Ravager, a towering level thirty-four elite whose stunning strike could flatten weaker adventurers before they even had a chance to react.
Ryan kept his distance and pressed on.
About halfway through his descent, he spotted something that didn't belong. Twilight Cultists—robed zealots and lean trackers—were patrolling a section of the tunnels. His chest tightened. They weren't supposed to be here, at least not in the timeline he knew. Either the quest itself had brought them into existence, or in the original line of events they had vanished because this path no longer existed.
The cultists moved in pairs, their pace steady, their eyes sharp enough to pierce stealth. Ryan shadowed them from afar, noting the faint shimmer of a portal at the end of a narrow passage. More cultists were stepping through, one group after another, flowing into the nest like a stream of oil.
He clenched his jaw. If Dimia was anywhere, it would be at the end of their march.
The problem was obvious. These cultists and the giant insects weren't enemies. They moved side by side, the creatures parting as if they were packmates. That meant Ryan had no clean way to tail them unnoticed. The only option was brute force.
Without hesitation, he broke into a run, baiting a cluster of insects into pursuit. Steel met carapace as he unleashed a flurry of strikes, cutting them down one by one until the tunnel was still. He wiped the sweat from his brow, gave a short whistle, and kept moving, leaving a rare stretch of clear ground in his wake.
The cultists ahead never noticed. Their measured march continued deeper into the nest, while the fresh reinforcements spilling from the portal lagged too far behind to sense him. Ryan slipped between the two groups, walking openly now, keeping his focus sharp for the restless scuttling of insects that still darted across the path.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. The twisting network of tunnels swallowed him whole. Every turn felt like the last, every passage blurred into the next until Ryan realized with a grimace that he no longer knew which way was forward—or back.
He was lost.
He let out a dry laugh under his breath, part exasperation, part disbelief. Before he could give voice to the complaint forming in his mind, he turned a corner and stopped dead.
A massive iron door loomed ahead, bolted into the very stone of the tunnel. The air here was unnervingly still. The cultists he had been trailing were nowhere to be seen, as if they had been swallowed whole by the door itself.
Ryan exhaled slowly, gripping his weapon tighter. Whatever lay beyond, he had found it.