Tristan's body plummeted through the air for a few seconds before crashing into the ground. The impact was strong, but his body was resilient.
He lifted his eyes.
Peering through the darkness, he could make out a tunnel ahead. In front of it stood a small figure. At first glance, he thought it was a child, but he quickly recoiled in shock upon realizing the creature was holding a rock the size of its own body above its head.
The rock came flying toward him.
Everything went black.
***
A sting.
Tristan felt an itch on his nose. He opened his eyes and saw a fat ant biting him. He grabbed the insect and flung it away. Then, he noticed tiny movements on his body — beetles, cockroaches, and other bugs surrounded him.
He tried to get up, but his legs were shaky. His head throbbed. Then the memories began to return.
'Where am I?'
While trying to make sense of what had happened, the first thing he noticed was that his body felt lighter. He reached for his back.
His backpack was gone.
'Shit, they stole my sword!'
His frustration eased slightly as he slipped his hand into the inner pockets of his shirt.
Relief.
His money and a few items he had stored were still there.
'Whoever it was, either wasn't very thorough or didn't care about that.'
Irritated, Tristan circulated his essence through his body and prepared himself — but his concern grew as he realized how low it was. It had been a while since his last meditation.
He looked around and quickly noticed he wasn't alone. Instinctively, he took a combat stance, assuming his captors were nearby.
But he hesitated.
In front of him weren't armed enemies, but a group of dying youths — some barely recognizable as martial artists. As he examined them more closely, he recognized a few faces.
'Flying Sword Sect disciples?'
He saw the bodies of Xiao Mei and Xiao Ning lying on the ground, along with Jin, the boy who used to clean the sect halls with him. There were also other vaguely familiar faces, though he didn't even know their names.
Beyond them, there were two distinct groups of youths Tristan didn't recognize. On one side stood tall, robust boys who looked about four or five years older than him. On the other, smaller, refined-looking youths — their bodies were slender and, despite being covered in filth, their clothes seemed fine and expensive.
Why were those cultivators from Zaguhan here?
Tristan frowned as he observed. That group was clearly beaten down, their expressions empty, almost resigned. The atmosphere was heavy, saturated with hopelessness.
A doubt arose.
Those people had probably not attacked him. They were in such a dire state that they hadn't even noticed he had stood up.
Then who had done this to him?
He remembered the figure that attacked him didn't seem human.
Tristan started paying more attention to his surroundings. He was in a deep pit, and a grate made of bones blocked the exit above.
As he looked up, he saw a creature watching him.
He quickly disguised it, pretending he couldn't see in the dark. That knowledge might give him an advantage later.
Moving his head in random directions and acting confused, he focused on what he had seen.
The creature was short, with skin wrinkled like a hundred-year-old man's. It resembled crumpled old cloth. The top of its head was bald, with only a few strands of hair on the sides. It had a long, protruding nose — and no ears.
The creature's small, dark eyes — the size of olives — stared at Tristan. In that gaze, he felt a latent murderous intent. The being seemed to be restraining itself from attacking him.
"Why?"
Tristan searched his memories. He had only seen the upper part of the creature's body, and since it wasn't wearing any clothes, he noticed there were no visible runes. At first, he had thought he might be in the hands of the mysterious sorcerer he'd seen earlier.
"This thing isn't a Marked one. It might be able to use magic, but the sorcerer was much taller... hmm, could they be related?"
Tristan kept pretending not to notice the creature's presence, though he could feel its furious gaze tracking his every move.
He looked at the youths around him. There was only one way to get more information.
Talking.
"Uh... hi?"
The sound of his voice broke the gloomy atmosphere and startled those present. Suddenly, the oppressive mood was replaced by a different feeling.
A young man stood up. He turned his head in the direction where he assumed Tristan was.
"You're still alive? Whatever... your companions, do you know if they're okay?" Yan Rui asked with a flicker of hope. Then, he shrank back and muttered:
"Could they call for help?"
"They must've been captured together," Tristan deduced.
"No... I don't have any companions. I came to this region alone," he replied calmly. "What's going on here?"
A look of surprise crossed the boy's face for a brief moment, but it quickly faded, replaced by a heavy expression. Yan Rui sat back down on the ground, hopeless. Upon hearing that Tristan was alone, the brief spark of emotion in the others also vanished. Heads lowered. No one else seemed interested in talking to him.
"Dusk? Is that you?"
Tristan recognized the voice. It was Jin.
He approached him but kept a slight distance.
"Yes."
"So... you got captured by them too. What bad luck."
"Them? Who are they?"
"The Ckryllophiterros."
The word meant nothing to Tristan. He had never heard anything like it.
"Can you tell me what you know?" he asked. Although he had spent months with Jin at the sect, they had never been particularly close. His relationships with the other disciples had always been distant or contentious.
But Jin showed no animosity toward him. Tristan had never paid much attention to the boy before; all he knew was that, like himself, Jin also spent most of his time alone.
Now that he thought about it, Tristan recalled that Jin had been in charge of cleaning the halls before him.
"Either he caused some trouble and got punished too, or maybe he was bullied and forced to take on those chores."
Normally, the disciples were supposed to rotate weekly in carrying out the sect's manual tasks.
There wasn't much information about Jin that Tristan could draw from his mind at that moment. But in this situation, it seemed like that person was the only one who could help him understand the danger he was in.
"Alright. I don't have anything better to do anyway."
Jin began recounting what had happened since they arrived in that region — the encounter with disciples from other sects, the confrontation with the triplets, and finally, the moment they were captured.
"We're in an underground prison, part of the Ckryllophiterros' city. They're a people with a high affinity for Earth magic and have lived underground for millennia."