Eater Blade: Grinding in Apocalypse
Chapter 67: TOTAL HOLE ANNIHILATION.

Chapter 67: TOTAL HOLE ANNIHILATION.

Johnquis had finally figured it out...the game the Digger was playing.

He turned to Dancer. "You too. Slash through. Don’t go deep, go sideways. Diagonal. Hit the thinner walls. I don’t care how, just carve a way out. We’re done going down. We go through now."

Savier clicked his shotgun open. "I assume there’s a reason we’re going rogue digger mode?"

Johnquis nodded. "The Digger’s the one reshaping everything. Kill it, and the whole nest collapses into chaos. No control. No redirection. No more traps."

Dancer’s claws flexed. She understood.

Savier grinned wide. "Alright. We’re done playing pinball."

Johnquis drew his blade. "Let’s see how the architect handles demolition."

They each stood at the edge of their chosen hole. Eyes locked, weapons ready, breath held.

Savier gave his shotgun an affectionate pat. "Hey, just saying—if I get stuck in a wall, I’m haunting your ass, Johnkiss."

Johnquis smirked faintly. "If you get stuck, you’re digging your own grave."

Dancer crouched low, one claw dragging along the edge of the pit, carving a shallow line.

Johnquis looked at the two of them, eyes steady. "Make noise. Force it to react. If we’re loud enough, we’ll flush it out—or piss it off."

Savier cracked his neck. "Either way, sounds like a win."

Dancer’s eyes gleamed silver. "I’ll make it scream."

Johnquis nodded. "On my mark."

They counted down in silence... three, two—

He raised his blade.

"Break it."

They jumped.

Three directions. Three tunnels. One plan: demolition.

All three vanished into separate pits—Savier to the left, Dancer to the far right, Johnquis straight ahead. Stone walls blurred past them in a dizzying rush of dust and grit.

The moment they moved, so did the Digger.

Far below, buried in its shifting cathedral of tunnels, the creature stirred. Its waxy hide shimmered under layers of resin, dirt, and pulverized stone. Shovel-like arms pulled it through the depths with grinding force.

It felt everything. Weight shifts, vibrations, heat. It sensed all three intruders splitting up. Tearing at its system.

That could not happen.

It didn’t dig straight. It curved. Spiraled. Calculated every twist with surgical precision. This wasn’t reaction. This was control.

It wasn’t chasing prey.

It was managing a battlefield. It was playing chess in dirt.

A low rumble echoed through the chamber as the three made their first move.

Dancer struck first—her claws extended in a shimmer of silver, slashing horizontally at the stone wall just beside one of the looping pits. Her strikes were fluid, clean, and fast, slicing into the resin-lined rock like it was half-set wax. Shards splintered off in jagged chunks.

Savier turned and aimed his shotgun at a narrow, sloped corner. He squeezed the trigger.

BOOM!

A new diagonal cavity blasted through the nest’s thick wall. Resin cracked. A screeching echo bounced off the curved stone. Shards flew. Grit rained down.

Savier smiled like a lunatic. "That’s right, mole rat! Your feng shui’s about to look like a crater!"

Johnquis dropped in silence, chain held flat, eyes scanning the twisting walls as he descended. His voice came low, controlled.

"Don’t aim for escape. Collapse it. Carve out what it can’t replace."

The goal wasn’t to reach the bottom. It was to ruin the layout before the Digger could adjust.

But the Digger was already moving.

Below. Inside the dark.

The creature churned through the walls like liquid muscle. Fast. Too fast. Its waxy skin shimmered with dust and resin, caked in layers of dirt and crushed stone. Arms like monstrous shovels dragged it through vertical shafts.

It sensed them. The shifts. The pressure. It understood their positions, saw the plan before it was complete.

It dove toward Dancer’s tunnel first.

A thin crescent-shaped path split open ahead of her, cutting her off just before she could break through to the far wall. The tunnel jerked—

SCHLOOP—SNAP—WHOOSH!

Dancer dropped.

The floor gave way beneath her. She hissed, slashing her claws into the wall, but the resin shattered on impact.

She vanished into the dark.

A long fall... and then—

THUMP!

She landed hard.

Same place. Same goddamn chamber.

Again.

She rose slowly, face twitching with fury. Her claws twitched. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts. And in that split-second of silence, her eyes screamed the truth:

The moment she saw that Digger, she’d rip it apart.

But the Digger was already on the move—too fast, like the tunnels were made of water.

It dove and twisted through the shafts like a serpent of raw muscle, swimming through dirt and stone. Every move collapsed false tunnels behind it, every swipe of its claws redirected the route ahead. A maze inside a maze, and it was the architect.

It couldn’t follow all three, not at once.

So it made a choice.

Sabotage. Delay. Kill one.

Johnquis felt it before he saw it. The tunnel tilted sharply, then steeper, until it dropped into a near-vertical chute.

He clenched his teeth, chain out, ready to hook into the wall but the resin had changed. It was no longer gritty or rough; it had hardened into a smooth, shell-like surface.

"Shit."

He dropped like a bullet, spinning through endless dark. No bottom. No end.

Just the fall.

He shouted into the void, "DANCER! SAVIER!"

Silence.

His tunnel wasn’t just a drop, it was a descent into something deeper. Something unknown.

Savier was the only one still carving.

"YEAH!" he roared, shotgun bucking in his arms.

BOOM!

BOOM!

He blasted open a web of tunnels, shattering supports, creating chaos.

"FUCK your labyrinth!"

The Digger hated that. Every blast was like a knife to its brain. So it came for him. Its face twisted—pure fury. No more misdirection. No collapse.

It wanted blood.

Savier fired again—

BOOM!

Then—

SHRAAAAK!

He screamed. Something tore through the wall beside him. A massive clawed shovel-arm and slashed across his side. Blood sprayed.

"FUCK—!"

The Digger didn’t fully emerge, it didn’t need to; it only scratched, bit, and shoved him off-balance.

Another claw came through from the opposite side—

SHRIP!

It sliced his thigh. Not deep, but bleeding.

Savier fired back—

BOOM!

Straight into the wall. Stone and resin shattered.

Then came the silence. "Fucking Digger... come on. Where’s that damn shovel-arm popping out next?"