"This is the last one," Louis muttered as he pulled his spear out of a Forest Krawlen's body. Blood dripped slowly from the blade, trailing along the sacred metal that shimmered beneath the morning light.
Serenglyn—an Arcanum weapon passed down through the Gwinfael family—had served three generations. No one truly knew who forged it. If someone wanted to know, they could always ask his grandfather. But of course, not many were close enough to dare.
Elara approached with steady steps, her Enerma still shaped as a longsword. The tip quivered faintly, still warm from the fight.
"Forest Krawlen have been surfacing more frequently these days," she murmured. "I know it's the start of the year, but I didn't expect this many."
Her eyes scanned the bodies scattered across the forest floor—dozens of creatures now lying still and cold.
"Their corpses will be eaten by something else. Hopefully without leaving even a scrap behind," Louis said as he cleaned his weapon.
This hunt hadn't been part of the plan. But anyone venturing near the southern outskirts of Leondhardt knew the fringe of Nhal Vireth was wild territory. Forest Krawlen often roamed here—especially during early-year summers. Usually, they could be avoided. But this morning... they had come too close. And too hungry.
Forest Krawlen—or Thornsoul, as old wanderers called them—were among the most common variants of the Krawlen species. They dwelled in the forest's deepest hollows, far from human paths, in places where sunlight dripped like blood through the ancient canopies or seeped between natural cave mouths carved by time.
Their bodies were lean and muscular, cloaked in moss-green skin that drank in light, rendering them nearly invisible in shadow. Bony protrusions—sharp, branchlike spines—lined their shoulders and backs, tools for both camouflage and violence.
Their eyes were large, solid black, and never blinked—capable of catching the twitch of a lizard's tail. They didn't speak. They didn't scream. Their language was a primitive mix of rapid clicks and brief pulses of dim light flickering in their chests.
When one Forest Krawlen revealed itself, there were usually two or three more already nearby, melded with tree trunks, roots, or foliage. They didn't strike out of fear. They struck… because it was the only way they knew how to survive.
Many mistook the Krawlen for wild beasts. But they were not savage. They were the oldest product of vis selection and the forest itself: silent, swift, and unforgiving.
The sky above them hung in pale blue stillness, low and tense, as if holding its breath. Morning light pierced through sparse treetops, casting long, wavering shadows on the damp earth. In the distance, the great chasm finally came into view—Nhal Vireth. From where they stood, it would take an hour on foot to reach it. But the weight in their chests was heavier than the road ahead.
Elara turned to Louis, then glanced at the open path before them.
"Shall we?" she asked.
Louis gave a small nod. No more words were needed—anything longer would just waste breath.
In a blink, they took off. Their bodies slipped through the narrow trail formed naturally between the trees. Their sheer speed sent leaves whipping backward, rustling violently in the wake like curtains pulled by a passing gust. Their footsteps left almost no mark—only whispers of motion and fleeting shadows.
Despite their urgency, there was a strange calm in the way they moved. As if their feet had long memorized the terrain, and their bodies danced in rhythm with the world.
No conversation. No heavy breaths. Only the hush of parting leaves, the soft crush of soil, and a world that, for a moment, matched the quiet stride of two souls who—despite their cold exterior—were secretly savoring the purity of a silent journey.
To Elara, this was meditation—one of the few ways her mind could remain untouched by the world.
For Louis... silence wasn't avoidance. It was clarity. In quiet, he could truly think.
It wasn't long before the trees began to thin. A light mist curled between the stones of the valley. The air shifted—heavier, older.
And then, before them, the view that never failed to steal breath:
Nhal Vireth—the ancient chasm that swallowed the world.
On the edge of the ravine, a group of explorers lounged near the cliff. One smoked. Another sharpened his blade. A few simply stared into the depths, perhaps asking themselves: How far can I go today?
Elara and Louis halted behind the tallest slanted tree, just meters above the main path, beside a crumbling ruin. They didn't move. Didn't speak. For a moment, they were shadows embedded in the land.
Elara had never mastered camouflage magic. But she didn't need to. She knew when to hold her breath, how to align herself with the world. Her psychology was sharpened. Her observation, precise. She wasn't a hunter, but she knew how to become unseen.
Louis leaned lightly against the bark, not fully hiding, but unbothered. To him, observation was the art of reading patterns—and weakness was born from rhythm.
"Too many gaps in their tempo," he whispered. "If the first layer already has them resting like this, don't expect them to last past the first thousand meters."
"May I judge them?" Elara said softly, glancing once at Louis before returning her gaze below.
"A bunch of Platinum Ranks, aged twenty-five to thirty-something. Just another exploration guild from the capital?"
She paused, eyes scanning each member of the group.
"Distance. Formation. Risk potential." Her lips curled ever so slightly.
"They're too comfortable," she murmured without turning. "And comfort in a place like this... usually means one of two things: foolishness, or too many near-deaths to care anymore."
Louis didn't reply immediately. He watched the mist roll slowly along the chasm's edge and exhaled.
"Maybe they've survived. But that doesn't mean they know why.
They haven't even descended yet, and they already look like they want to go home."
His voice was low, nearly a hum.
He looked at Elara, then added with a faint smirk,
"But judging people is kind of fun, isn't it?"
"Let's go."
By the time Louis turned, Elara was already on the move. They glided down the rocky slope, their steps featherlight on the dry stones, leaving no sound in their wake.
The trail to Nhal Vireth's edge wasn't a main road—but they knew it by heart. Through a narrow gap between two stone pillars, then over the gnarled roots that clawed out from the cliff's wall.
A few of the explorers glanced up as pebbles rolled down the rocks, but they were too slow to see anything.
In mere seconds, Elara and Louis reached the rim.
The wind from the depths greeted them like the breath of a world yet unfinished.
The mist parted slowly,
and Nhal Vireth opened before them—
not just a hole in the earth,
but an eye... staring back.
The Mist's Edge, First Layer of Nhal Vireth
Midday, Luminisday, 1st of Mesiis, Year 1014
The Mist's Edge marked the highest layer of the Nhal Vireth chasm—where the world began to change without warning.
A thin fog floated across the air, shattering visibility and birthing subtle whispers from cracks in the stone—like the chasm itself was murmuring secrets. The energy of vis began brushing the skin of any who entered here; not yet burning, but enough to raise every hair in defiance.
From the surface, Nhal Vireth looked like a primeval black maw yawning wide in the heart of the earth. There was no visible bottom.
To the right of the abyss, a natural spiral path curled downward—a massive stone corridor etched into the cliffside. Ten to fifteen meters wide and seven to ten meters high, it was large enough for two people to walk side by side. Its surface was rough, lined with slick moss and hairline fractures that occasionally glowed faintly with raw vis.
To the left, nature had carved great gaps into the wall, resembling jagged windows. From there, explorers could glance up at a sky slowly fading… or down into a void that stared back. Fortunately, jagged, gnarled rock formations grew along the cliff's edge, forming a crude but sturdy railing.
Standing there, the cold breath of the deep would often rise, whispering faint echoes from below.
But the true tension lay to the right.
That cliff wall was riddled with cracks, shallow caves, and narrow black voids. Some were large enough for a person to enter. Others were too deep, too tight. No one truly knew what lived within them. Yet sometimes... sounds escaped—scraping, breathing, or the faintest steps that never showed their source.
"So this is what the first layer looks like up close," Elara muttered.
She stood cautiously at the edge, gazing into the endless void below. The air around her felt heavy—not from altitude, but from something unseen... something unfriendly.
A gentle breeze pulled the fog upward, stretching like cold fingers trying to touch anyone who lingered too long at the threshold.
Narrowing her eyes, she traced the spiraling path that descended along the stone wall. From her position, it resembled a slumbering serpent carved from the bones of the earth. Her mind moved reflexively—estimating radius, gauging incline, calculating weight distribution and potential rest points.
"We'll probably need a few days," Louis murmured beside her, half-turned toward the abyss. To him, the spiral resembled some ancient carving—endless, formless, constantly winding downward.
"I wonder how deep it truly is," he added. "Most explorers' records don't make it past the third layer."
Elara nodded slightly. "One loop measures approximately three kilometers in length. If the pitch of the spiral is twenty meters per rotation, then we'll need fifty full loops to descend a thousand meters." She paused for a moment, running the calculations again in her mind. "That's over a hundred and fifty kilometers of ground to cover—just to complete the first layer."
She looked down at the spiral path vanishing into the mist.
"If what they said was true, the first layer alone will take us several hours."
"I agree," Louis said simply. "We should start walking."
Elara stepped down onto the first stone ledge of the spiral, her body melting into the curve of the wall. Louis followed in silence, and together they descended along the sloping path—each step defying the human instinct to rise, to turn back.
The mist grew thicker. The sounds of the surface faded, replaced by the echo of their own breathing… and whispers that didn't entirely come from below.
"I'm surprised explorers can endure this kind of atmosphere," Louis said, scanning their surroundings.
They had only walked a few dozen meters when the passage changed. The fog grew heavier, the air denser—like something ancient was waiting, coiled, beneath the silence.
To the right, a massive hollow yawned in the stone—not an ordinary cave, but a vast chamber.
Inside, shadows moved.
Figures stirred in silence. Slowly, they emerged.
They made no sound. No growls. No screams.
They simply watched—part of the living dark.
Cave Krawlen.
But not like the ones they had fought above.
These ones had gray-brown skin that perfectly mimicked the surrounding stone. Smaller than Forest Krawlen, but quicker—built for tight, unforgiving spaces.
From the other side, Cave Wolves appeared—lean and stretched thin, with dull brown fur and two long fangs jutting like daggers from their jaws. They moved slowly, circling, waiting for an opening. Their eyes didn't glow… but they saw. Perhaps not light—but vis.
Above them, clinging to the cavern ceiling, hung larger creatures: massive bats with speckled wings and snouts as sharp as spears.
Spined Echobats, as they were cataloged in the academy's bestiaries. Sensitive to vis. Able to paralyze prey with deafening sonic pulses from malformed lungs.
Louis didn't need orders. He crouched low, one hand already brushing the shaft of Serenglyn.
The creatures didn't move—until one of them noticed the trail.
The stone Elara had stepped on still radiated warmth.
Their heads turned, all at once. Eyes locking onto two figures that didn't belong.
"Enerma," Elara whispered sharply.
In an instant, her sword dissolved, reforming into a graceful arc of vis—a perfect bow in her hands.
She drew its string without an arrow, but the vis obeyed.
A gleaming red projectile formed in the air, long and hardened.
"Pyro Magi: True Pierce," she said coldly.
The arrow shot forward, leaving a whisper of fire in its wake. Mid-flight, it split into three without losing speed. One pierced a Cave Krawlen's chest—igniting it from the inside. The other two skewered a pair of Cave Wolves, ending their movement with brutal precision.
"Elara, leave some for me," Louis chuckled.
He burst forward, his movements ghostlike as he slipped through the fog.
In his grip, Serenglyn gleamed.
With a fluid motion, the white spear plunged into the chest of another Cave Krawlen emerging from the wall. No splash. No cry. Just the muffled tear of flesh—and a lifeless body collapsing.
Louis didn't pause.
He pivoted, leapt against the wall, and launched toward a cluster of descending Spined Echobats.
With a single thrust, Serenglyn pierced two in one stroke—silencing them like parchment torn by light.
When the skirmish ended—quick, clean—Elara and Louis stood in the dark, surrounded by still bodies.
No celebration.
Their mission had just begun.
They began gathering what was left.
Elara picked up a faintly glowing white crystal, estimating its value—ten bronze coins, give or take. Decent.
Around the corpses, she also found useful materials—metal shards, compounds for crafting.
Louis scanned the area, ensuring no further threats lurked nearby.
He packed the items with practiced ease.
"We can use these later," he said, slipping the crystal into a pouch. "Could come in handy for weapons, or tools when we go deeper."
After a few quiet seconds, they returned to the spiral path.
Elara stepped down first, Louis right behind her, resuming their descent into the waiting depths below.
The mist thickened.
Their footsteps echoed faintly—until even that began to vanish.
The outer world faded.
And with each step, they realized: the deeper they went, the fewer chances they'd have to turn back.
"The beasts in this first layer don't even count as a warm-up," Louis muttered. "And we haven't even been down here ten minutes."
He moved to the path's left edge, gazing upward.
The sun hadn't reached its peak.
But the fog clung low, obscuring most of the light.
Behind the drifting clouds, a dim glow still pierced through—just enough to outline the cliff walls and those distant window-like gaps. But something else moved.
In the heart of the vast hollow, winged silhouettes began to appear.
They hovered between fog banks, too far to identify, but numerous enough to confirm one thing:
They were not alone.
One of the creatures flew lower than the rest—far larger, gaunt like a starving wyvern. Its wings were torn in several places, yet still strong enough to carry its body along the inner spiral.
Without warning, Louis exhaled—
And leapt.
His body surged forward, springing off a jutting stone on the cliff's edge, and shot toward the creature at blistering speed.
In a blink, Serenglyn plunged into the beast's neck from above, causing its massive body to falter.
Its cry was muffled by fog, but loud enough to turn heads.
Louis didn't linger.
As the others began to react, he twisted midair and leapt again—this time toward a second, larger creature…
The moment his boots touched that fleshy, muscular surface, Louis glanced downward. Four legs. A wide snout. Bear-like claws. Thick, leathery wings beating with effort.
"…Wait. Is this a bear?" he muttered, realization dawning a second too late. "A flying bear?"
With one last burst of force, he launched himself back toward the spiral path, landing just a few steps behind Elara. Dust scattered, but his breathing remained steady. Above them, the first Gravifera Caelothrix spun downward, swallowed by the mist.
Elara cast a quick glance skyward, then shook her head lightly. "You do realize we're supposed to be going down, not up."
"I just wanted to make sure they weren't a threat," Louis replied calmly, though his eyes remained fixed on the creatures drifting above.
"Let's go," Elara said, curt and cold, before vanishing forward in a swift leap.
Louis had no choice but to follow. Part of him still wanted to study—or fight—those strange creatures, uncertain if they'd ever encounter such beings again deeper below. But Elara was already over twenty meters ahead, moving with unnatural speed. Her form seemed to float, gliding along the spiral like an arrow loosed from the bow of the world itself.
She didn't say a word, but Louis could guess what she was thinking. That earlier battle had been more than enough. She'd gauged the strength of the first layer's creatures, and her verdict was simple: not worth the time. No rare drops. No relics. Just beasts too trivial to bother with. So she ran—each second wasted here a sin against her sharpened mind.
From the second loop onward, they didn't stop. Not because the way was clear, but because nothing they encountered was worth acknowledging. Creatures emerged from the right wall in silence—Spined Echobats, crawling things, even a pack of Cave Krawlen—but not one laid a claw on them.
It's been almost an hour, Elara thought. The deeper we descend, the dimmer the light gets.And this fog… it's thicker. Her eyes scanned the left side of the spiral where the natural windows gaped open into the void. I could jump down to the next loop through one of those, but... too risky. I still don't know how deep this pit truly goes.
Each time a creature lunged from the shadows, she shifted direction a fraction of a second beforehand—almost as if she instinctively knew where it would be safe. She didn't slash, didn't shoot, didn't speak. Her focus was singular: downward. To her, a fight was only worth having if there was something valuable to be harvested from the corpse. And here? Everything was a waste of time.
At the thirtieth spiral, Elara came to a halt.
A massive creature stood ahead—the King Cave Wolf. Over five meters tall, with pitch-black fur and twin dagger-like fangs jutting from its gaping maw. Around it, smaller cave wolves gnawed hungrily on an unrecognizable carcass.
Their footsteps shattered the rhythm of flesh being devoured. In an instant, every head turned toward them. Glowing eyes. Parted jaws. They were ready.
But this time, Elara didn't leap. She didn't dodge.
"Enerma!" she commanded.
Her weapon shifted in an instant—becoming a two-handed shield, wide enough to cover half the path. With one firm stomp, Elara braced herself as the King Cave Wolf lunged.
The impact echoed. Claws scraped metal. Stone trembled.
But Elara didn't budge.
On the other side of the shield, one of the smaller wolves pounced from the right—quicker than the others. Louis was ready. He swung Serenglyn in a smooth arc, aiming beneath its throat. But at the last moment, the wolf twisted—its movement unnaturally agile for something that size.
The spear missed. Just barely.
The creature landed nimbly on the far side, already preparing another strike.
Louis didn't flinch. If anything, a faint smirk curled at the corner of his lips. He adjusted his stance, letting Serenglyn spin lightly in his grip.
"Not bad," he murmured, like a man discovering a toy that wouldn't break so easily.
"But…"
He inhaled, then raised his spear.
"Lux Magi: Sky Constellation."
With a single breath, he vanished. Ten piercing thrusts sliced through the air in an instant—so fast they blurred into a flash of white light.
Each strike hit a vital point: joints, throats, ribs.
Blood sprayed in four directions. The wolves collapsed—almost simultaneously.
Louis stood in the middle, as if he hadn't moved at all.
Elara moved next. She rammed the Enerma shield upward with a powerful drive from her knee and shoulder—an uppercut made of steel.
The King Cave Wolf's head snapped back. Its body lifted off the ground, airborne for a moment, then crashed down the spiral path—vulnerable and wide open. The shield dissolved, returning to its original form in her hands.
She clenched her fist. "With this… you're finished. I need to test it."
Vis surged into her palm—dense, raw, untamed. A concentrated glow, pulsing in sync with her heartbeat. It devoured the surrounding chill, forming a razor-sharp aura around her wrist.
One step. One swing. One blow.
Her fist struck the creature's abdomen with bone-shattering precision. The King Cave Wolf hurtled down the spiral, sliding for dozens of meters before vanishing into the mist. The crunch of broken bones echoed long after its body disappeared.
Elara… you're terrifying, Louis thought, still spinning Serenglyn idly to clean the blood from its tip. His gaze followed the trail of the fallen beast—its form limp, half-dangling over the edge, steam rising faintly from its dying breath.
Then, something moved.
From beneath the shattered ribs—warm yellow light began to glow, like a crystal heart trying to breathe.
Louis stepped closer and knelt beside it.
Embedded halfway between muscle and bone, a golden crystal pulsed gently. Smooth to the touch, yet humming faintly with vis.
"A Yellow Core Shard," Louis whispered. "Easily worth a full gold coin."
Elara approached from behind. She didn't speak, nor did she look interested.
Louis knew—this meant nothing to her. Just a byproduct of an efficient strike.
But for explorers, finds like this were life itself.
He pocketed the shard into his vis pouch and stood with a steady breath.
"If something like this shows up on the thirtieth loop," he muttered, glancing downward, "I can't help but wonder… what's waiting for us on the next one."
They continued.
After the King Cave Wolf, no more creatures appeared. The spiral itself seemed to fall silent—as if the earlier battle had convinced the entire layer to hold its breath.
The mist thickened. Their footsteps no longer echoed—walls began to swallow sound. The air felt denser, as though the vis itself had started to respond to their presence.
"Strange," Louis murmured. "No more beasts, yet discarded shields... cheap weapons scattered around." He nudged a bent metal plate, crusted over with vis residue. The remnants of those who tried to descend… but never came back.
At some point, the natural windows that once appeared every few loops grew rare.
Light from above barely reached them now, a faint shimmer like distant stars—far away, and cold.
The rock wall to their left felt heavier, almost pressing inward. The right side began to grow with patches of faintly glowing purple moss.
Even the temperature changed—not colder, but quieter.
A silence not born of absence, but of something holding its breath.
The world didn't seem empty. It seemed... watchful.
Elara paused at the edge of the next spiral turn, peering downward.
No signs of life. No fresh footprints.
Louis caught up, glancing at the vis-clock on his wrist. It had been nearly two hours since they entered Nhal Vireth.
And they still hadn't reached the second layer.
The air shifted once more.
From a narrow gap in the wall, something began to emerge—at first, it looked like an engraving in the stone. But the carving moved. Its body coiled long like a serpent, yet the upper half rose upright—humanoid, with bluish-scaled skin and a head disturbingly similar to that of a man… if one stripped away the nose, the eyes, and all sane proportions of a human face.
Its eyes were blank—white as fog without direction.
Its mouth stretched into a silent grin, too wide, too calm.
No growl. No warning.
It simply slithered fully into the spiral path, rising to stand in the center.
Elara halted at once.
Louis slowed his pace.
They both knew—this creature was no ordinary guardian.
It didn't charge.
It waited.
As if to ask, "Are you worthy of descending further?"
"Geo Magi: Rock Nail!" Elara shouted.
Enerma, still in its neutral form, channeled the vis flowing from her core into the earth beneath them. In a blink, sharp stones burst upward from the path, forming a deadly array of jagged spikes aimed straight for the creature's chest.
The attack was clean. Precise. Lethal.
But in a flash, the creature's tail whipped sideways—crashing into the stone formation from the flank.
Not to block.
To obliterate.
No sparks. No cracks.
Just a dull impact, and the entire formation crumbled as if it had never possessed any structure at all.
Its fog-white eyes did not blink.
It hadn't dodged.
It simply answered—without a hint of effort.
You've got to be kidding, both of them thought at once, their gazes not even meeting.
That was a Rank Platinum-level strike... Louis thought, stunned. And it didn't even flinch.
Then it smiled.
But it was not a smile that spoke of feeling.
There was no warmth.
No malice.
No mockery.
Just a curling of the lips—too human for a beast, too hollow for a mind.
Louis felt tension crawl up his spine.
Even Elara, usually unreadable, narrowed her eyes.
Not out of fear.
But because her mind, logical and precise, resisted what stood before her.
Why—she thought—why would something like that… smile?
Portam pulsavimus quae numquam debuit aperiri.
We have knocked upon a door that was never meant to be opened.