It was only large enough for a single eye to peer through.
Terry surveyed the space below, struggling to penetrate the inky darkness—even with Master of Light.
Ben looked next, his enhanced Physical Attributes giving his eyes a better chance at surveying the scene below.
When he stepped back, his lips were set in grim determination.
“I see movement. Hard to get a count, but…it looks like hundreds.”
“Shit,” Terry muttered, then replayed Ben’s words over System Chat.
Al’Ruzan was expressionless, turning in deference to Mara-Lin-Jaid. She inexplicably closed her eyes and for a moment, Terry felt frustration brew.
Then he noticed her aura coming to life and bit back his annoyance. Not once had he felt her aura during a vision, so he was surprised to feel it now.
They waited patiently as the movement of her aura crescendoed, before finally falling inert.
When her eyes opened, there was a conflicting set of emotions behind them; confidence and yet resignation, too.
[Mara-Lin-Jaid]: I can see our path. I will show you now.
Before Terry could question that unusual statement, her aura reached for him. On instinct, he resisted, but an annoyed glare from her caused him to rub at the back of his neck as he let down his guard.
A series of images flashed in his mind, somehow like Crimson Spear’s aura-memory, yet different. Hers had a sort of flavor to it that was more in line with his own sensations, whereas the ghoul’s had been alien in nature.
More than that, he could feel her own sensory limitations bottlenecking the visions, preventing her from seeing more than her own physical body would normally experience.
The result was an incredibly dark slideshow of images that he had to strain to make sense of. But the longer he considered them, the more they seemed to shift in his mind, the darkness peeling away as his own senses took ownership of the visions.
They began to coalesce into something different and he found himself leaning forward unconsciously to get a better grasp of the images. She suddenly pulled away, retracting her aura and the visions along with it.
At the last moment before she’d withdrawn contact, he’d seen something that he felt he hadn’t been meant to. He cast her a questioning look but she subtly shook her head.
“Did you get it?” Ben asked, oblivious to their expressions.
His eyes lingered on Mara-Lin-Jaid a moment longer, but she looked away uncomfortably, so he didn’t press the issue.
“I got it.” He shrugged. “Or, at least close enough. It’s dark—even in the visions.”
Ben nodded. “It’ll have to do.” He turned to their ghoul escort and switched to their language. “We move with stealth.”
The ghouls acknowledged him with their aura, strapping down their weapons to prevent unwanted shifting.
To Terry, he said, “Whenever you’re ready.”
He nodded, taking a deep breath to steady himself before he began to reach down with his aura.
In the distance, he heard the clash of bodies as the Fleshripper Clan met the incoming sanguine in deadly conflict, but pushed it from his mind.
His aura ranged deeper, feeling for that landmark in Mara-Lin-Jaid’s vision. It was an outcropping of rock that was partially hidden from view and would hopefully keep the light of the portal obscured.
As he found it, he split his focus, readying Master of Light to work simultaneously as the portal opened.
Space parted—a waist-high portal they’d have to crawl through—and he stirred Master of Light through first to contain the blue-white light of the portal.
If he’d done it right, there should have been the briefest flash as it opened, and then total darkness again.
Ben crawled through first, followed by Al’Ruzan, then the ghouls. Once they were through, he nodded to Mara-Lin-Jaid, who finally let her stern mask down. He saw then the devastation in her eyes before she too crawled through the portal.
With a soft sigh, he followed her, feeling his body enter sub-space before arriving into complete darkness. The portal closed behind them with a flex of his aura, then he inverted Master of Light, giving their eyes a brighter view of their surroundings.
It was still dark, but not utterly so.
His eyes traced up, taking in a large cavern—the largest he’d seen in the Underworld by an order of magnitude. Along the nearby wall, there was evidence of structures once carved into the stone, now marred and crumbling—from neglect or sabotage, he couldn’t say.
The structures reminded him of the Bloodsplatter and Fleshripper Clan’s architecture, confirming that this had once been the domain of the ghouls.
Turning his gaze back to the group, he stirred Master of Light one more time to contain their infrared and visible light—except for a small window near their eyes—effectively making them all invisible.
It was a large drain on his concentration and aura to keep the effect active, but he took consolation in the fact that their journey was almost at an end—one way or another.
With Ben in the lead, they slowly climbed over the nearby rock outcropping, heading for the center of the cave. There were a thin series of stone bridges that led to the center and as they followed, Terry glanced down to what lay below.
Though his eyes had difficulty piercing the dark, he could have sworn he heard the slow slosh of liquid lapping against the rock far below.
Had the Blood once risen all the way to this bridge? he wondered.
It filled him with a sense of urgency, a need to restore the Underworld to its former glory. They were doing the right thing and that buoyed his steps.
The bridge they followed was narrow, only wide enough for three of them to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. But they moved single file, giving them plenty of space on the dark path.
Ben was in the front, followed by a handful of ghouls, then Al’Ruzan and Mara-Lin-Jaid, and the rest of the ghouls, with Terry in the rear.
They were halfway across the thin bridge when Terry heard the scuffling sound of something crawling beneath him. He froze and saw the ghouls in front of him follow suit.
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But Al’Ruzan and Mara-Lin-Jaid continued on, oblivious.
[Terry]: Stop! Movement beneath us!
Al’Ruzan’s hands snaked out, gripping Mara-Lin-Jaid’s shoulders protectively. At the front of the procession, he noticed Ben stop, his blue-white eyes seeming to reflect unnaturally in the dark cave.
A clawed hand reached up from beneath the bridge, pulling itself forward and into view. It was a large sanguine, its eyes searching about, its nose sniffing quietly.
No one moved for a tense moment, the sanguine climbing up onto the bridge proper. Its hands quested forward on the stone, its head turning back and forth slowly.
Something changed and the sanguine reared its head up.
A ghoul spear flicked into its owner’s hands, then through the sanguine’s brain in a flash.
It wasn’t fast enough.
Though Terry hadn’t heard a sound or felt a flash of aura, the change in the atmosphere of the cave was instantaneous. The sounds of rustling wings and shrieking sanguine filled the air, and Terry’s heart skipped a beat.
“Go!” Ben hissed.
The group took off at a run, rocks skittering to the depths below from their passage.
Inexplicably and against all odds, Py, Juan, Chippy, and the ghouls of the Bloodsplatter Clan, had made it past the latest barricade of the fourth liminal layer, finding themselves out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Literally.
As they emerged from the tunnel leading from the liminal layer, they stopped to stare at the stone plateaus that appeared to have once been connected by bridges. Beneath those plateaus, bubbling lava appeared to be slowly receding.
As Juan threw another fireball and scorched half a dozen sanguine, his lethargy dissipated as he felt the heat of his fire not be the hottest thing in the room.
His senses ranged backward, caressing the pool of lava between them and safety.
He both wanted to cheer and cry.
On one hand, they now had to do another slow retreat across open space using the hoverboards that Py and Chippy swore were safe to hold his weight.
On the other hand, he now had a veritable treasure trove of fire to draw from.
With a flex of aura, he activated his Fire Telekinesis and pulled from the lava below. It was heavy—heavier than pure flame due to the melted rock mingling with the fire. And he was tired, so damned tired.
He cried out in frustration as he threw a ball of liquid magma into the tunnel, missing most of his targets but slowing them down as the heat overwhelmed them.
As he neared the plateau edge, he took one of the hoverboards and pushed his aura into the device with a pained cry.
When he reached the first stone plateau, he stumbled to the rock, slowly picking himself up with the help of Py Dar.
“We can’t keep going like this,” he muttered.
Judging from Py’s confused expression, she hadn’t suddenly developed an understanding of English.
He shook his head, waving away her concern. He had to keep going. His control of fire was their single greatest weapon against the sanguine—especially as the ghoulish spears had slowly been damaged or lost in the constant fighting.
Among the nearly one hundred ghouls, they’d only lost five, but nearly forty of their spears. It was still a powerful force, but one reaching its breaking point.
As the final ghouls were ferrying across the gap with their six hoverboards, the sanguine burst from the tunnel, taking to the air with cries of triumph. Crimson Spear sent out an aura of command and those with enhanced spears aimed at the fliers.
Juan saw it coming like a bad premonition, screaming out in Spanish, then English, knowing that the ghoul wouldn’t understand regardless.
A moment later, it happened.
Two dozen flying sanguine dove—not for the ghouls, like they’d been doing all this time—but for the hoverboards. Even as spears stabbed them to death, the impact of their bodies dislodged the hoverboards from the air. Ghouls fell to the lava below, followed shortly by the now unpowered shields of bone.
Chippy squeaked piteously as Py put all four hands to her face.
Juan looked around, scanning for anymore shields for the two to imbue. There were three strapped to ghoul backs…only three.
He met Crimson Spear’s eyes, seeing the finality in that alien gaze.
[Juan Carlos]: Terry…hey, bro. I…I think we’re cooked.
Terry didn’t immediately respond, which scared the man. If he hadn’t made it, then it was all for nothing.
A memory flashed in his mind, his abuela—always his abuela—scolding him for his attitude.
Juan Carlos, you’ve only lost when you give up! I didn’t raise a quitter, did I?
Last week, he would have shouted back at her: Yes! Yes, you did, abuela!
But that realization angered him, sent a fire coursing down his throat and into his chest that spurred him into action. He reached for his aura and found it diminished but not drained.
With gritted teeth, he pulled on the lava below, summoning it to him with all his might. A massive glob of the melted rock rose slowly, appearing before him like a miniature sun.
He cried out as his aura strained against the weight, threw that glob with one final push that drained him entirely. As he collapsed to the stone plateau, he watched that lava completely encompass the tunnel swarming with sanguine.
Their terrible shrieks cut through the air, causing a smile to appear on his weary face.
[Juan Carlos]: We’re not done, yet! Py, Chippy, get those hoverboards a’hovering!
The cacophony inside the Lakarot’s cave nearly split Terry’s eardrums. It was a call-to-arms that he felt in his bones, knew extended not just through the cave, but up into the tunnels and into the next layer.
The time for subterfuge was past—they would need to punch through the defenders before more reinforcements arrived.
Ben came to the same conclusion, his massive aura stirring the air around them. As ice formed along his body, coating him in a blue-white suit of armor, a deadly storm of icicles began to circle.
“Go!” he yelled in ghoulish, his ice-encased feet thudding heavily on the stone bridge.
Terry dropped his Master of Light and activated Master of Telekinesis and Liquefy Metal. The silver bracelet on his wrist liquefied and he formed his razor net of needles.
He ranged it wide, covering Al’Ruzan, Mara-Lin-Jaid, and as many of the ghouls as he could.
They raced forward, stumbling through the dark as the first sanguine dove for them.
Shearing icicles pierced delicate wings and soft flesh. Razor-sharp silver needles caught the stragglers. But for every ten they killed, one or two penetrated their defenses.
But Al’Ruzan and the ghouls were no strangers to close combat. Spears met flesh, before launching the dead bodies over the side into the depths below.
From Mara-Lin-Jaid’s vision, he knew they had a half-mile to travel to reach the Lakarot’s housing. He remembered a large bone structure encasing the housing, hiding it from view. The extent of her vision had ended there, but there was a sense of finality to that location, an intuition that their journey came to an end at that half-mile marker.
But a half-mile swarmed by ten thousand diving sanguine was a gauntlet of death.
He was determined to make it their deaths, not his.
As he directed his needle net to intercept the dozens of fliers swooping low, Juan’s message came in, making his stomach drop. He split his focus to start crafting a message, when one of the sanguine passed through his silver needles and inexplicably lived. He only had time to realize it was one of the elites, before it crashed into his body, sending him tumbling over the side of the bridge.
He was the flame. The flame was him.
Crimson Spear and the other ghouls surrounded him in a shield of bodies as his utter focus was turned to controlling the ball of lava on the far side of the cave.
Sanguine tried over and over to penetrate his fiery barricade, and each time, he spewed lava over them, burning them for their efforts.
The few sanguine that survived in the air above them circled timidly, waiting for reinforcements before selling their lives.
Py and Chippy had managed to quickly imbue the three remaining bone shields, but the trek across the open air was slow, only six ghouls able to go at one time.
And there were seven jutting columns between them and their exit.
Juan and his contingent of bodyguards were the last to go, allowing him to stay as close as possible to the tunnel to ease the pull on his aura.
But once everyone had ferried across, Crimson Spear touched his shoulder, nodding toward the waiting hoverboards. He pulled his attention away from the lava to see Chippy and Py on the far side, ready to descend into the next layer.
He felt a clarity grip him harder than it ever had in his life before. A crystal pure realization that he had finally found meaning in his short existence—could finally do something worthwhile.
Looking up at Crimson Spear, he shook his head.
“No. You go. I’ll hold them off.”
Despite the language barrier, he sensed that the ghoul leader understood him immediately. And he shook his head right back.
Juan narrowed his eyes in confusion.
“Go, bro! Let me hold them back!”
Crimson Spear’s face was flat, his finger pointing at Juan, then across the lava cave to his friends. He followed that finger, seeing even from this distance the confused and distraught looks on his friends’ faces.
[Py Dar]: Juan Carlos, why do you not come?
[Juan Carlos]: I’m the only one that can hold them off, Py. I have to stay behind.
He saw the two of them share a look and he had to force himself to turn away. If he thought too long or too hard about what he was doing, he’d talk himself out of it.
I’m a coward, he thought, but only if I think too hard.
With an effort of will, he unlocked a mode of thought that he’d never experienced before…he shut his brain off.
Instinct guided his aura as he fought the sanguine back. In the corner of his eye, he saw Crimson Spear gesticulating, but didn’t process what the ghoul might be trying to say.
System messages came in, but he ignored them.
Sanguine burned and he felt at peace with himself for the first time.
But something in the back of his mind must have not been entirely shut off, because as another System message scrolled across his vision, his eyes latched on to a single word, snatching his attention with an iron grip.
[Mara-Lin-Jaid]: Juan, you infantile fool! Go with Crimson Spear! You’re messing up my plan!
Patreon, 16 chapters ahead of Royal Road!