The cave was a living thing, its damp walls closing in with every breath, exhaling a clammy mist that clung to their skin like a second layer of flesh.
The air reeked of moss and decay, a sour, rotting undertone that burrowed into their lungs and refused to let go. Xin slumped against the jagged stone, his fingers raking through his tangled, sweat-matted hair as he stared at the makeshift alchemy station sprawled before him. Sone Vials of murky liquid glinted faintly in the weak, greenish glow of luminescent fungi—their only light in this stone prison. Scattered instruments....crude tools really, fashioned from bone and scavenged monster parts—lay in disarray, reflecting his fractured focus.
For days, he'd pored over the poison that had nearly claimed Belial. He'd dissected it, broken it down to its essence, cataloging the familiar components: the acrid bite of hydrogen cyanide, the slow burn of monster venom. But there was something else...an alien thread woven into its fabric, a shimmering, unnamable wrongness that defied his understanding. Each time he thought he'd grasped it, it slipped away, mocking him with its elusiveness. His hands trembled as he set down a vial, the glass cool against his feverish skin. He was close...agonizingly close...but the answer remained just beyond reach.
Raven, meanwhile, was a shadow among shadows. Clad in his black armor, he'd taken up a vigil near the cave's mouth, his broad frame a silent bulwark against the unknown. There wasn't much to watch—just the endless dark beyond the crevice, a void that seemed to pulse with menace—but he stood there anyway, as if his presence could hold back the inevitable.
They'd run out of food two days ago.
The meat from their last haul—tough, stringy strips scavenged from a fallen beast had dwindled to nothing, leaving only the hollow ache of hunger.
At first, it was a dull gnawing, a background noise they could ignore. But now, on the eighth day, it had sharpened into something vicious, a parasite burrowing into their guts, their bones, their minds. It wasn't just their bodies wasting away. Their sanity was fraying, thread by thread, unraveling in the suffocating stillness.
Xin felt it most keenly.
His thoughts moved like molasses, sluggish and thick, each sentence a labor to form. He'd stopped talking much, his voice reduced to murmurs when he bothered to speak at all. The constant damp, the endless dark—it was a mire dragging him under, drowning his clarity. He caught himself staring at the fungi too long, their faint glow warping into shapes—faces, eyes, whispers he couldn't quite hear. He shook his head, fingers pressing into his temples, but the haze lingered.
Raven was no better.
The man who'd once been a rock, unyielding and steady, had become a ghost.
He sat in near-total silence, shifting only when his joints stiffened too much to bear. His dark eyes, usually sharp with purpose, were dulled, staring into nothing. Once, Xin had seen him trace a finger along his gauntlets, as if testing its reality—or his own. The gesture chilled Xin more than the hunger ever could.
But Belial—Belial was a storm trapped in a cage.
He paced the cave relentlessly, his boots scuffing against the uneven floor, each step a thunderclap in the oppressive quiet. His muscles coiled tight beneath his skin, his jaw locked so hard Xin half-expected to hear teeth crack. His fingers twitched at his sides, restless, itching for action—for a fight, for anything to break the monotony. A week without progress, without the clash of steel or the rush of ether, was a torment he couldn't endure. His violet eyes burned with a feverish intensity, darting to the cave's mouth as if he could will the world beyond to bend to his need.
He wanted out.
He needed out.
To him this was a prison, a slow death by stagnation. Sure, the poison had caught him off guard, a searing agony that had nearly ended him. Being trapped here, with no food, no way forward—that hadn't been part of the plan either. But Belial thrived on overcoming the impossible. Setbacks were fuel, not chains. He could adapt, he could push through. And he had a plan.
They'd go back to what they knew: hunting monsters, siphoning their ether. But this time, they'd do it faster, smarter. No more scavenging scraps—they'd take what they needed, consume the energy at a pace that matched their desperation.
Time was a luxury they'd run out of, and Belial refused to let it bury them.
The horror that had driven them here...that unseen, lurking nightmare might still be out there, waiting in the dark. He didn't know, couldn't know, not from this damp hole. But staying meant surrender, and surrender wasn't in him.
He stopped pacing abruptly, his silhouette stark against the faint fungal glow. His voice, when it came, was raw, scraped from a throat parched by hunger and frustration. "We're going back out."
Xin barely lifted his head, his shadowed eyes sunken into his skull, rimmed with exhaustion. "We don't know if that thing's still out there," he murmured, the words sluggish, heavy with doubt.
Belial's fists clenched, knuckles whitening. "Then we'll find out."
The silence that followed was a living thing, thick and suffocating, wrapping around them like the cave's damp walls. Xin's gaze flickered to Raven, seeking some sign of dissent, but the armored man offered nothing—just a long, unreadable stare that locked with Belial's. Then, slowly, Raven rose, his movements deliberate despite the stiffness in his limbs.
That was answer enough.
Belial drew a deep breath, the air tasting of wet stone and despair. It coated his tongue, settled in his chest, but he forced it down. He knew the risks he knew they might step out into jaws waiting to snap shut, into claws eager to rend them apart. Death was a shadow that loomed closer with every passing hour, its breath cold on their necks. But staying here, letting the hunger and the dark eat them alive from the inside—that was a death too, slower and crueler. He'd rather face the horror head-on, blade in hand, than rot in this tomb.
"Gear up," he said, his voice steadying as purpose took root. "We move slow, stay sharp. If it's out there, we kill it. If it's not, we take what we need and keep going."
Xin hesitated, his fingers brushing the edge of a vial as if it might hold some final answer. But there was no more time for study, no more room for caution. He pushed himself to his feet, wincing as his joints protested, and gathered his tools into a crude satchel. Raven adjusted his armor, the clink of metal a faint echo in the cave, his silence louder than words.
They moved toward the cave's mouth, a trio of battered shadows against the distant, eerie light of the outside world. The crevice loomed ahead, a narrow slit that promised freedom—or annihilation. Belial took the lead, his steps measured but resolute, his sword drawn and ready. Xin followed, his breath shallow, the weight of his uncertainty dragging at him. Raven brought up the rear, a dark sentinel whose presence was both comfort and warning.
The air grew colder as they neared the exit, the fungal glow fading into a pale, unnatural shimmer filtering through the opening. Belial paused, his hand tightening on his hilt, and peered into the darkness beyond. The world outside was still, too still—no wind, no rustle of leaves, just a void that seemed to swallow sound itself. His pulse thudded in his ears, a steady drumbeat against the silence.
"Ready?" he whispered, glancing back at the others.
Xin nodded, though his eyes betrayed his fear. Raven gave a single, curt dip of his helmet.