Dimensional Summoner: Infinite Growth in a Leveling Apocalypse

"Order of movement," I said. "Sela, how many people can be on the rungs?"

"Two safely. Three if the third is light and the brackets hold."

"I go first. You follow far enough back to call bad rungs. Teo and Wren, build Marek’s seated loop with my rope and the cart lashings. Aria holds the chamber."

Nobody argued. That was the useful difference between frightened civilians and frightened professionals.

I handed the rope to Teo, shoved my knife and pry bar through my belt, and climbed.

Feline Grace made the ladder a different problem. My feet found the centre of each rung and accepted my weight without negotiation. I still tested every third bracket before trusting it. Thirty metres of old iron above a wounded group was not a good place to discover that confidence and structural integrity were unrelated.

"Skip the fourth above you," Sela called. "Left bracket is gone. It will roll."

I climbed past it. Sela followed until she was high enough to see the hatch, then stopped on two sound rungs and clipped her belt around an upright with a spare strap. The light beneath us shifted as the others prepared Marek.

The resin cap was worse close up. Nearly thirty centimetres thick at the centre, layered over the whole hatch. My knife went in two centimetres and stopped.

I did not shoot it. I had no idea what was above the hatch, and a ricochet inside a shaft would come back down through six people.

Instead, I pressed close and listened. The centre returned a dead, solid note under my knuckles. Along the hinge side, the sound changed. A thin draught carried the smell of wet grass through the frame.

Something moved on the surface above us. Slow. Heavy. It crossed the cap, paused, and moved away through the scrub.

"Working the hinge side," I called. "The seal is thinner at the frame."

I cut where old iron met new resin. The position made the work worse: one foot braced against a rung, one knee against the wall, both forearms burning while crumbs of resin fell past my face. Below, metal struck chitin once and stopped abruptly.

Aria’s voice rose from the chamber. "Do not let it reach the wall."

"I noticed," Wren said.

The fight stayed controlled because it had to. No explosive techniques, no shield blows against the floor, no room to retreat without trapping the climbers above them. Every few seconds, a vibration climbed the ladder and reached my hands.

I opened a seam long enough for the pry bar. The hatch frame gave me a fulcrum, but the first pull only bent my arms and scraped skin from both palms.

"Again," Sela called.

I moved the bar half a handspan and heaved. Something cracked across the cap.

The third attempt tore the resin away from the hinge side. Cold air spilled through the opening. I got both hands under the hatch and levered until the remaining plug broke free and rolled across the ground above.

Daylight came down the shaft.

[Manifestation Remaining: 00:07:41.]

I climbed onto a hillside of wet scrub and allowed myself two seconds to feel the cold air. Then I turned, anchored the rope around a rock spur, and put my head back over the opening.

"Clear! Sela, come up."

The connector breached below.

I heard Aria give one short order, followed by chitin striking stone at speed.

"Three scouts," Wren called. "Burrower under the chamber floor. Heavy behind them."

Sela came over the lip on her stomach, dragging the bad leg. The moment she was clear, she rolled to the rope and checked my anchor without being asked.

"It’ll hold," she said. "Bring Teo."

He climbed fast for a man who had been empty for hours. Once he reached the surface, the three of us took the rope while Wren secured Marek below.

"Loop set!" she called.

"Haul!"

Marek rose in the seated loop with his hands locked around the line. Wren climbed beneath him, one arm around his hips, keeping the splinted leg away from the wall.

"Hold," Sela called. "Bad rung above his left shoulder. Wren, move his knee out."

The rope stopped. Wren shifted him. A loose rung turned under Marek’s boot and fell, ringing off the wall all the way down.

"Clear," Wren said.

We hauled again.

Teo and I dragged Marek over the lip and away from the shaft. His face had gone grey, but he was conscious.

"Excellent service," he said. "One star for comfort."

"Save your strength," Teo told him.

"I was saving the other four stars."

I looked down.

Wren had returned to the chamber floor. She held the low line with her shield while Aria killed anything that climbed above it. The burrower had broken through behind them and was circling left, hidden from Aria by the shield and the bodies in the connector mouth.

"Wren, climb!"

Aria stepped into the space before Wren had both hands on the rungs. Wren climbed with the shield strapped tight against her back, slower than the others because every bracket had to take the added weight.

At the bottom, Aria gave ground one pace at a time. A scout came over the shield line. She killed it, turned its body sideways with her boot, and made the heavy push through its own dead.

The burrower continued around her flank.

I rested the rifle across the hatch frame. Thirty metres down, Wren was still in the shaft, but the wall kept her out of my line. I let the sights settle and waited until the burrower showed the overlap between two back plates.

"Aria—left and low. Your seven."

The Coordination Link carried it. She shifted before I fired.

The round struck between the plates. It did not kill the creature. It made it flinch into the wall for less than two seconds.

Aria used all of them. She put her sword through the leading scout, kicked the body into the heavy’s legs, and reached the first rung.

The System filled my vision before she began to climb.

[Combat contribution verified.]

[Class-Assisted kills confirmed.]

[Experience transferred.]

[Level increased.]

[Adrian Vale has reached Level 16.]

[Active summon synchronisation complete.]

[Manifested Level: 15 → 16.]

[Attribute and energy ceilings increased.]

[Existing injuries unchanged.]

[New energy capacity: unfilled.]

The change passed through the Link. Aria’s posture corrected by a fraction. It did not close the cut on her forearm or return the energy she had spent, but it gave her body a slightly higher ceiling for the climb.

I left my three new attribute points unspent. There were bad times to consider permanent changes to my body, and leaning over a shaft while an insect colony climbed after my summon qualified.

Wren cleared the lip. Aria came up behind her faster than I had seen any human climb a ladder, placing each boot precisely and never looking down.

The heavy entered the shaft after her. Its front limbs reached the third rung before the old iron tore loose under its weight.

Aria caught the edge of the hatch frame.

I grabbed her wrist as Wren seized the back of her armour, and together we pulled the last person out of Carrow Deep.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!