Cal was once again in the midst of fog—only this time it was grayish-black. It was what made his mana tendrils useless. His eyes strained under the dim light as he stared at the horror above. Wisps of lightning skittered over his skin, stirred by his frayed nerves, unfortunately throwing more light on the horror.

He eyed the frayed rope that disappeared into the thick above, doing everything possible to delay looking at what hung from it. Unfortunately, his queasiness had to be forced down; he had to continue, if only to get out of this place quickly. His heart thumped, a chill running down his spine as he stared at the body hanging from the rope.

No. Not body. Bodies.

Cal could see dozens in the glow [Lightning Aura] cast—ropes biting into pale, lifeless necks, faces obscured by hair and shadow, limbs dangling limply to complete the macabre display that no doubt continued beyond what his eyes could see. He shuddered when they swayed, the ropes softly in protest. There was no wind here. The noise itself was the warning.

He couldn’t look away from the clothes the corpses wore. These were alchemists from the Celestial Order. Most were in pristine condition, but some were… missing parts of their bodies, some marked by what looked like bites, others eaten away by the corrosion that had plagued prior areas.

This ‘sinkhole’ is a slaughterhouse that lured these poor souls.

Cal’s thoughts returned to Overseer Marek’s request—though he wasn’t sure “request” was the right word. Surely the guild knew that beginner alchemists were heading to their doom, if not at the start, then after scores had fallen in their attempts to conquer the sinkhole.

He wouldn’t put it past the guild to commit some horror in the belief it would make them stronger as a whole. Not that he thought badly of the Celestial Order; it was simply what was expected. The individual—or in this case, individuals—should be happy to be sacrificed for the whole.

Cal’s fingers twitched toward his storage pouch, once again sensing the gems inside tug toward the hanging corpses.

He wasn’t standing here to appreciate the view. He was wary of how the gems were reacting, and on top of that, confused. This wasn’t the first time he had been near a corpse—Kaelor being the most recent—but it was the first time the gems had reacted… to anything.

Maybe it was the sheer number of corpses. He hoped so. He didn’t know what else it could be, and no other guess felt as benign.

Time ticked by—he’d stood there nearly a minute already. [Lightning Aura] would only last thirty minutes and he couldn’t afford to waste more.

He kept his eyes on the hanging dead as he moved forward. It was worse than unpleasant to walk between them, and worse still to be proved right about more bodies waiting beyond his eyesight. Each step revealed several new corpses the thick fog had previously hidden.

Cal split his attention in several directions: monitoring the corpses, keeping a lookout for any living person or beast—no matter how unlikely—and gauging the gems in his pouch in case their attraction to the dead changed into something else.

He didn’t have to wait long for change. After only a few hundred feet of descent, the pristine bodies were no longer the majority.

The deeper he went, the more commonly mangled the bodies became. It was more of the same damage, but in higher frequency.

Cal couldn’t hold back a look of pity… and disgust. The state of them turned his stomach.

Most of these poor saps must have died in the lava… or to the corrosive air.

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The numbers bothered him, too. If this rate kept up, thousands of alchemists would have lost their lives here—but that couldn’t be right. Losses on that scale would ripple panic across the Celestial Order, wasting years spent promoting Trainees to the specialized Class.

He knew that couldn’t be the case. The guild had sent Masters to block more fools from entering the sinkhole, and they wouldn’t have waited until the losses were catastrophic.

Or maybe they got all the bodies they needed before sending me in.

His mental timer ticked past the ten-minute mark. A third of [Lightning Aura]’s duration was gone, and the distance he’d covered didn’t feel proportional.

I need to hurry, no matter the risk. I can’t lose my only light source.

Cal clenched his fists and increased his eerily silent descent toward where he hoped the void lay. The faster he left this place, the better.

He wove between the evenly spaced bodies with as little thought as he could spare. He wasn’t careless; he just refused to dwell on the increasingly ruined dead around him.

He covered double the distance in the next ten minutes compared to when he’d been cautious. He might have pushed even faster, but the gems in his pouch went abruptly silent, their pull vanishing—an absence that made him slow, wary.

It coincided with a drastic change above him: from horrifying regularity in spacing of the corpses to stretches of empty nooses. As terrible as it was to admit, he preferred the bodies occupying every noose—it kept things consistent. Nightmares were one thing; unknowns were worse.

It feels like one is reserved for me. I need to leave. Leave now.

Cal cycled through his repertoire and again lamented his lack of offensive spells. He hadn’t focused on them, certain he’d be safe for several months, but that assumption had not aged well.

He’d also delayed testing [Mist Walker] for what had seemed like good reasons at the time—but if his thoughts about the power of that [Trait] were true, it would have helped to know the details.

Instead, he wandered in darkness, using his body as a candle, hoping he wouldn’t end up on an empty noose.

Dying at the hands of a snooty brat in his last life had been bad, but he’d somehow found a method of demise even less acceptable.

The corpses had disappeared some distance ago, and the slope had begun to level. In past areas, that meant the void was close.

Let it be true. He wanted—needed—to leave. Something gnawed at his mind, a wrongness in the air, insisting something else was afoot.

He had already decided what to do with the sinkhole. It wouldn’t be what Overseer Marek or the Guildmaster wanted. This abomination needed to be destroyed. If it were in his power, he would do it.

Preserving this place for the guild’s “future” would only draw a stronger power like in his last life—and that would destroy the Celestial Order.

Cal smiled when the void entered his view. Finally, he could get out of—

“What the fuck am I doing?” he spat, disgusted. He shook the cobwebs from his mind as his thoughts snapped back into place. The conflict vanished, leaving only the desire to destroy this hellhole.

He turned with a glare fierce enough to set the fog ablaze, if emotion alone could fuel fire. Something here was meddling with his mind. It spiked his fear and pushed escape above all else.

He swept the dark fog with his eyes as if that could reveal the source. He still had just over ten minutes of [Lightning Aura] left, and he intended to spend each second well.

He circled the void to see if anything stood out. To his shock, something did.

A thick root plunged into the void, and Cal followed it upward to its source. Fear spiked in his head, chills chasing each other down his spine, his instincts urging him to flee into the dark.

Whatever was affecting him was done with subtlety. That only proved he was on the right track.

The fog thinned as the root thickened. Other roots joined it, spreading through the murk in all directions, feeding something truly massive.

He didn’t know how high he climbed before he found himself staring at the tallest tree he had ever seen—by far. The trunk had to be at least several hundred feet wide, and it was so tall he couldn’t see the top.

Cal shuddered and stepped back from the blackened bark. His instincts recoiled. This had to be the source gnawing at his mind.

He tore his gaze from the trunk and looked around. There was no fog around the tree, and it was almost as if he was standing above the entire area. His makeshift lamp, [Lightning Aura], illuminated more than he expected, and his attention was drawn to the distance, where a wall of dense black fog drowned the hanging corpses he knew were inside.

Cal ignored it. Instead, he stared at the ropes growing from the branches high above the fog. His gaze slid from the ropes to the… fruit growing in clustered bunches nearby.

They were identical to the accursed gems in his storage pouch.