The Weeping Tunnels earned their name.
It wasn't just the constant, echoing drip of condensation falling from the jagged stone ceiling. It was the wind. The air currents moving through the narrow, twisting claustrophobic passages created a low, continuous moaning sound that resembled a thousand crying voices.
I stumbled against a damp wall, my hand instinctively pressing against my side. My ruined undershirt was soaked with warm blood. The Holy Knight's blade hadn't hit anything vital, but the cut was deep, and the residual holy magic radiating from the wound burned like acid.
"Keep moving," Lyra hissed from the darkness ahead. "If you bleed out here, the scent will attract Rot-Crawlers. I'm not carrying your corpse."
"How romantic," I wheezed, pushing myself off the wall and forcing my legs to move. "And here I thought we were bonding."
Lyra didn't laugh. She moved through the pitch-black tunnels with terrifying grace, completely unbothered by the lack of light. I had to rely on the faint, ambient glow of my System interface just to see where I was stepping.
[WARNING: Host Health decreasing. Current Health: 42/100 (Status: Bleeding, Holy Burn).]
[Mana: 6/10]
I was losing health fast. If I didn't stop the bleeding soon, my newly acquired Reality Editor class wasn't going to save me from bleeding to death in a sewer.
After what felt like hours of agonizing walking, the tunnel finally widened. Lyra stopped in front of a solid wall of collapsed masonry. To anyone else, it looked like a dead end. But Lyra knelt, running her hands along the bottom edge of a massive, cracked stone block.
She pushed. There was a grinding sound, and the heavy stone swung inward on a hidden, well-oiled pivot.
"Inside. Fast," she ordered.
I didn't argue. I slipped through the narrow gap, Lyra following right behind me. She pulled the heavy stone shut, plunging us into absolute, suffocating darkness. A second later, the sharp scraping of flint echoed in the small space. A spark caught, and Lyra lit a small, oil-soaked rag sitting in a rusted iron bowl.
The dim orange light revealed a surprisingly dry, square room that looked like it had once been an ancient storage cellar. The walls were lined with rotting wooden shelves holding an assortment of scavenged junk: rusted tools, tightly sealed clay jars, and coils of frayed rope. In the corner was a bedroll made of stitched-together wolf pelts.
This was her safehouse.
"Sit," Lyra commanded, pointing to a wooden crate. She didn't wait for me to comply. She immediately moved to the shelves, rummaging through a small wooden box.
I collapsed onto the crate with a heavy groan. The adrenaline from the fight was finally fading, leaving behind a wave of exhaustion so intense my vision blurred.
Lyra walked over, holding a small vial of foul-smelling green paste and a roll of surprisingly clean linen bandages. Without asking for permission, she grabbed the hem of my ruined undershirt and ripped it upwards, exposing the brutal, searing gash across my ribs.
She sucked in a breath. "That's a Holy Strike. The magic prevents natural clotting. Normal bandages won't stop the bleeding, Valerius. You need a Healer, or you're going to die in a few hours."
"I don't need a Healer," I gritted my teeth, fighting the wave of dizziness. "I need you to give me a minute."
I pulled up my System interface. I had 6 Mana. It was time to see if the Editor could fix biological code as easily as it fixed swords.
"System," I whispered, ignoring Lyra's confused stare. "Select Host. Target Condition: [Bleeding, Holy Burn]. Can I edit my own status?"
[Affirmative. Self-editing permitted. Cost depends on the severity of the condition and Host's Intelligence stat.]
I looked at the glowing blue letters spelling out my impending doom.
--- HOST CONDITION ---
Status: [Bleeding (Severe)]
Status: [Holy Burn (Active)]
-----------------------
"How much to delete both?" I asked mentally.
[Calculating... Deletion of foreign magical properties requires overwhelming Mana force. Cost: 15 Mana. Insufficient funds.]
Damn it. I couldn't just erase the damage. I had to be smart. I had to hack my own body.
"If I can't delete them, can I modify them?" I focused on the word [Severe] next to [Bleeding].
A cursor appeared.
[EDIT - Cost: 3 Mana]
I mentally clicked it. The word [Severe] became editable. I quickly typed a replacement.
[Status updated: Bleeding (Clotted).]
[Mana Depleted: 3. Current Mana: 3/10.]
Instantly, a strange, crawling sensation spread across my ribs. It felt like a thousand tiny ants stitching my skin together. The warm flow of blood running down my side abruptly stopped.
Lyra gasped, dropping the vial of green paste. "What... what did you just do? The bleeding stopped completely. That's impossible without high-tier Light magic!"
"I told you," I breathed heavily, sweat pouring down my forehead. "I'm a very creative guy."
I wasn't fully healed. The wound was still a gaping, ugly gash, and the [Holy Burn] was still active, meaning it still hurt like hell. My Health stabilized at 35/100, but it wasn't dropping anymore.
Lyra stared at me, her shattered-glass eyes wide with a mixture of awe and deep suspicion. She slowly picked up the linen bandages and began wrapping them tightly around my chest. Her hands were surprisingly gentle.
"You're not Arthur Valerius," she said quietly as she tied the bandage off.
I looked at her, my heart skipping a beat. "What makes you say that?"
"Arthur Valerius was a pampered, arrogant pig," she stated factually, sitting on a crate opposite me. "He cried when he got a splinter during a royal hunt. He wouldn't have survived the fall into the Undercity, let alone crush a Shadow Hound, shatter a holy weapon, and teleport behind an elite tracker. You wear his face, but you don't fight like him. You don't speak like him."
She was sharp. Way too sharp.
I leaned back against the stone wall, considering my options. I could lie, but down here, trust was more valuable than gold. And I needed a guide.
"Let's just say Arthur died on that execution block," I said, meeting her gaze. "The thing that woke up in his body has a completely different set of skills. And a very different goal."
"Which is?"
"To survive," I said simply. "And to eventually go back up there and teach Elara and the rest of the High City that casting people into the dark is a very, very bad idea."
A slow, dangerous smile spread across Lyra's face. It was the first time I had seen her look genuinely amused.
"I hate the High City," she whispered.
"I figured," I smiled back. "So, partner. You saved my life, and I got the Inquisition off your back. We're even. But I need more. I need to get stronger, and I need a steady supply of monsters to kill. The nasty ones. The ones with magic."
Lyra's smile vanished, replaced by a serious, professional look. She reached under her pelt bedroll and pulled out a rolled-up piece of cracked leather. She spread it out on the crate between us. It was a crude, hand-drawn map of the Undercity.
"We are currently in Layer One. The outer perimeter," she pointed to a series of scribbled lines. "Mostly outcasts, thieves, and low-level scavengers like Kael and Jinx. The monsters here are weak. Giant rats, slime crawlers. Nothing that will give you whatever dark magic you're feeding on."
She traced her finger down to a large, empty black circle in the center of the map.
"This is the entrance to Layer Two. The true Undercity. It's a massive, subterranean labyrinth built by the ancients before the High City even existed. Down there, the darkness is thick enough to choke you. It's full of mutated beasts, cursed spirits, and things that crawled out of the deep earth."
She looked up at me. "If you want power, that's where you find it. But it's a death sentence for a noble playing at being a rogue."
"Good thing I'm neither," I said, studying the map. I noticed a large skull drawn near the entrance to Layer Two. "What's that?"
"The Gatekeeper," Lyra said, her voice dropping a fraction. "A mutated monstrosity. We call it the Rat King. It's not actually a rat... it's an amalgamation of corpses and toxic sludge, animated by a corrupted Mana core. It guards the main descent. A Level 10 abomination. Even a squad of Holy Knights would think twice before engaging it in the dark."
I stared at the skull on the map.
A Level 10 Abomination. A corrupted Mana core.
My System loved cores. And if I wanted to survive whatever Elara threw at me next, I needed a massive injection of Mana and new skills.
"A Level 10," I muttered, a reckless, exhausted grin breaking across my face. "Sounds like exactly what the doctor ordered."
Lyra stared at me like I had lost my mind. "You're at death's door, Valerius. You can barely stand up. You can't fight a Rat King."
"Not right now, no," I agreed, slowly clenching my fist, feeling the faint hum of my remaining three Mana points. "Right now, I'm going to sleep. But tomorrow, Lyra... tomorrow, we go hunting."