The water finally thinned, the current easing until it became no more than a stream wrapping around their boots. The narrow crawlspace opened up into a chamber, the air suddenly dry and still. Gray emerged first, coughing as he dragged himself out of the narrow gap and collapsed against the stone floor. Adel followed next, drenched from head to toe. Her mist shimmered faintly in the light that seeped through cracks above. Aurelle came last, wiping cold sweat from his temple and looking back at the narrow gap they had just passed through.
"Remind me," he muttered, "to never follow you into another flooded tunnel again."
Gray smirked weakly, his breathing uneven. "You're the one who said this was a shortcut."
"Shortcut, yes. Drowning hazard, no."
The chamber they now stood in was wide and circular. The faint rumble of moving water echoed far behind them, while before them lay a pair of massive stone doors— taller than any of them by several heads. They were carved with faded reliefs of people kneeling before a radiant sun, though time had eroded much of the detail. The air smelled faintly of dust and iron.
Aurelle ran a hand over the carvings, tracing the grooves. "This wasn't built by scavengers," he murmured. "These markings… they're ancient. Same design language we saw in the jungle ruins."
Adel glanced around cautiously. "So this connects? The jungle and here?"
"Maybe. Or maybe it's older than both."
Gray stepped closer. His breath condensed faintly in the cold air. "Only one way to find out."
Together, they pressed their palms against the stone doors. The surface groaned and shuddered under their combined effort. After a few seconds, it gave way with a thunderous rumble. Dust and stale air rushed out like a breath released after centuries. The doors opened inward, revealing a long corridor that descended gradually, lined with pale light.
They stepped through.
The moment the last of them crossed the threshold, the doors slammed shut behind them.
The echo was deafening.
Adel spun around immediately, mist flaring instinctively around her hands. "What the—"
Aurelle stepped back toward the doors and pushed. They didn't move. "It sealed itself," he muttered grimly. "We're not getting out the same way."
Gray stared ahead. "Then we keep moving."
The corridor ahead opened into a vast underground hall. And there it was—that strange, unnatural light. It wasn't torchlight, nor the faint glow of Vyre crystals. It was soft, pure, and white, emanating from veins in the ceiling like liquid moonlight. The glow washed over the carved stone arches and walls, revealing intricate reliefs and runes that twisted in ways Gray couldn't decipher.
Adel's mist rose around her as she whispered, "It's… beautiful."
But it wasn't warm light. It was cold. Empty. Like the radiance of something that had forgotten what life meant.
They walked deeper, the sound of their footsteps echoing softly. Along the sides of the chamber were alcoves—some containing stone coffins, others empty. Every coffin had markings, identical patterns that wound across the surface like veins of silver. Gray felt a chill as he passed one, a whisper of something old brushing against his mind.
Aurelle's tone was low. "If this really is a tomb, it's been sealed for a long time. No one's touched this place for centuries."
Adel vanished into mist. "I'll look ahead," her voice echoed faintly, distant and hollow.
Gray and Aurelle waited in silence, listening to the faint hum of the light around them. Then, slowly, Adel reappeared from the mist ahead, her expression unreadable.
"Nothing," she said. "No movement, no heat signatures. It's… empty."
"Empty," Aurelle repeated quietly. "In a place like this?"
Gray frowned, scanning the endless arches ahead. "That doesn't sound right."
They moved forward. The hall stretched endlessly, and the silence pressed in heavier with each step. Then, faintly, Gray heard something—a rhythmic pulse, quiet and distant.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Gray froze.
Aurelle noticed immediately. "What is it?"
Gray reached into his pocket and pulled out the Vyre orb. The sound was coming from it —faint, but steady. Its surface flickered weakly as if trying to warn him. He injected a thread of Vyre, and the orb responded with a brighter pulse.
The beeping slowly came to a halt.
'Why am I getting this weird feeling...as if something—no someone is watching me?'
Gray stepped forward cautiously, following the sound. The orb seemed to be bwating as if it was alive, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. Then, beneath his boot, something sank—just slightly, like a pressure plate giving way.
There was a faint click.
"Gray, wait—"
Aurelle's voice cut through sharply. He lunged forward, grabbing Gray by the collar and yanking him backward. Gray stumbled and lost grip on the orb—it slipped from his hand, tumbling through the air.
"Shit!"
Adel darted forward, her mist spiraling in a sudden swirl. A pool of vapor formed beneath the orb just as it reached the ground, cushioning it like a soft cradle. It rolled gently to a stop.
Then the ceiling screamed.
A massive, rusted blade—a saw the size of a carriage—slammed down from above, shattering the floor where Gray had been standing. The impact echoed through the tomb like thunder. Dust and shards of stone burst into the air.
Gray's breathing came uneven, each inhale scraping his throat raw. His pulse thudded in his ears. It took him a few seconds to realize he was still clutching Aurelle's sleeve, his knuckles white.
Aurelle's voice came quiet, steady. "You good?"
Gray exhaled shakily and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."
The blade still quivered where it had lodged itself in the floor. Dust drifted lazily through the thin white light, turning it hazy and unreal. The echo of metal against stone faded into the far distance, swallowed by the tomb's silence.
Adel bent down, inspecting the blade. Her reflection glimmered faintly in its corroded surface. "Old," she murmured. "Very old. But the mechanism still works. Someone preserved this place."
Gray crouched beside her, running his fingers near the jagged edge—close enough to feel the hum of old Vyre threads still running faintly through the metal. "The energy's degraded," he said softly. "But it's still here. Whoever built this, they didn't want anyone coming back."
Aurelle's gaze flicked around, his hand resting on his sword hilt. "Which means there's more of them. Look at the grooves."
Gray followed his gesture. Across the floor were hairline seams, faint but deliberate. Lines carved so precisely they seemed part of the stone itself.
He rose to his feet. "So we move slow. Eyes open."
"Slow?" Adel gave a dry laugh. "I'd rather say alive."
They began walking again, their boots echoing softly. The silence of the tomb wasn't empty anymore—it was waiting. The air felt tighter, heavier. Every few steps, Gray's eyes darted toward the ceiling, half-expecting it to fall again.
Adel moved ahead, her mist spreading like a second skin along the floor, crawling ahead of them in thin tendrils. It brushed over the seams and carvings, reacting faintly whenever it encountered a new groove. "Pressure-based," she murmured. "Some traps are still active, some not. This place could collapse on us any second."
"Then be on guard," Aurelle muttered.
As they passed beneath another archway, Gray noticed something odd about the walls. The carvings here were different—less like inscriptions and more like warnings. Human figures kneeling before a sun split in two, their arms raised as if in supplication. The artistry was meticulous, but there was an unease buried in the details—faces that looked terrified, not reverent.
'Why is it always the sun? And when did it get split in half?'
From as far as he knew. The sun had always appeared cracked, but it wasn't always like that. Or thats what Korr had told him.
Korr had told him that the sun wasn't always cracked, but it seemed hard to believe.
The sun was something he seen almost everyday. At one point it was the only thing that gave him comfort.
But that comfort was long gone. Buried away just like everything else.
He decided not to mention it. The silence already keeping him on edge.
A few paces later, Aurelle slowed. His gaze drifted to the right wall, narrowing slightly.
"What is it?" Gray asked quietly.
Aurelle didn't answer immediately. He leaned closer, squinting. Between the carvings and cracks in the stone were a series of tiny holes, arranged in rows. Perfectly circular. Too clean to be natural.
"Nothing," Aurelle said after a moment, straightening. But his tone didn't match the word.
Gray frowned. "Aurelle—"
"Later," he cut in. "Just… don't walk too close to that wall."
Gray didn't press. The tension in Aurelle's posture said enough.
They continued onward, deeper into the corridor. The further they went, the stranger the light became—flickering now, like a heartbeat faltering in a dying body. It reflected off their wet clothes, painting faint halos around their movements.
Adel whispered, "This place… it's not a normal tomb. Look at the carvings. They're all kneeling toward something. Maybe the people who built this weren't burying the dead. Maybe they were sealing something."
"Sealing something?" Gray echoed.
She nodded. "Maybe whatever 's buried here… shouldn't be disturbed."
Gray slowly took in her words, 'Comforting thought.'
Their footsteps grew quieter as the air thinned. Every noise echoed too long, stretched out as if the walls themselves were listening. Gray's hand stayed near his weapon, and though he couldn't see anything ahead, he could feel it—that faint, crawling sensation beneath his skin. The whisper of Vyre, disturbed.
Adel's mist pulsed faintly, brushing against the ground as they rounded the corner.
The faint sound of dripping water echoed somewhere deep within the passage. Each drop landed like the ticking of a clock.
Then, without meaning to, Gray's eyes drifted again to the right wall—and he finally noticed what Aurelle had seen. The holes. There weren't just a few of them now. There were dozens. Maybe hundreds. Perfectly spaced, vanishing into the darkness ahead.
A quiet realization settled in his stomach, cold and heavy.
He looked at Aurelle. "Those holes—"
"Yeah," Aurelle replied softly, without looking back. "They're not decoration."
Just as Gray was about to speak Adel halted to a stop, raising her hand to indicate silence.
She turned her head back and whispered, "Movement. Skeletons."
In seconds, they saw them. Shapes shuffling out of the next chamber—human bones fused with stone, their joints creaking like old machinery. Empty sockets glowed faintly, as if something alive still burned within.
Aurelle clicked his tongue. "I can't sneak past those things. Unlike you guys. We'll have to break through."
Gray nodded reluctantly. He drew his katana, the faint gray shimmer of Vyre crawling along the edge. "Don't get careless. They don't die easy."
Adel's answer came with a smirk. "Wasn't planning to."
Adel instantly dashed forward, bones cracking under the first strike.
Adel's dagger split a skull clean in half, scattering bone dust through the air. Before the body could fall, she spun, carving through another with brutal precision. Her movements were silent—not graceful, but efficient, every motion meant to kill.
Aurelle struck next. His blade arced in a wide sweep, smashing through ribs and vertebrae. The blow sent fragments flying across the chamber. A single fluid step back, and his sword flashed again, piercing through another's chest before wrenching free.
Gray stayed behind them, his breath steady, waiting for an opening. Then he moved.
His blade came down in a clean cut, shattering a skeleton from shoulder to spine. Bone splinters bounced across the stone floor.
But even as they broke apart, the remains started to twitch. Fingers crawled toward torsos. Skulls rolled, jaws still opening and closing soundlessly. The broken ones began to reform, pieces dragging back together like iron to a magnet.
"They're not dying!" Gray shouted, stepping back as one of the shattered skulls reattached itself.
"Just keep breaking them," Aurelle snapped, cutting down another and kicking it away before its limbs could reconnect.
Adel darted between two of them, slicing through joints, shattering kneecaps, elbows, spines. But no matter how many she dismembered, the fragments twitched and crawled, slower each time, but still alive.
The chamber filled with the sound of clashing steel and grinding bone.
Gray's shoulder burned as he parried a swipe, the impact numbing his arm. He twisted and rammed his katana through a skull's eye socket, forcing it to the ground and stomping on its chest until it cracked apart.
Adel's breathing grew heavier slightly. "They're slowing… but not stopping…"
"Good," Aurelle said, dragging his blade across the floor to sever three sets of crawling fingers. "That means we're wearing them down."
One skeleton lunged from behind a coffin, half its body missing. It caught Adel by surprise, claws raking across her shoulder. She spun and slammed both daggers into its skull, twisting them until the bone burst apart.
The fragments clattered and rolled—one small piece tumbling across the stone before stopping against a raised block in the floor.
Gray's eyes tracked it without thinking. The block shifted with a grinding noise.
"Crap—" Adel's expression changed instantly. Her eyes widened. "Get down!"
Aurelle's head snapped to the right—the holes he'd noticed earlier along the wall. They were glowing now, faint red light building within them, like embers feeding on air.
Gray turned toward them, heart pounding. "What the hell—"
The light brightened. He heard the hiss of something burning behind the walls.
Then realization hit him.
"Ahh, shit…"
The holes erupted in unison.