CHAPTER 40: PERCHEL ZONE 2

"We have to stay sharp. It feels like the difficulty of this dungeon has increased," Kael Vi-rel muttered, his tone steady but cautious. His eyes flicked across the uneven stone corridor, following the trail of moss that seemed to pulse faintly as if alive. The air was damp, almost too heavy to breathe, and every footstep echoed like a warning.

"How did you know that?" Selene Whitmore asked, narrowing her eyes at him. Her silver daggers gleamed faintly in the dim light, but her suspicion gleamed brighter. Selene Whitmore had been through too many dungeons to take vague instincts lightly.

"I just... had a feeling," Kael Vi-rel replied quickly, dodging the question. His voice carried that same evasive edge he always used when he didn’t want to explain something.

Selene Whitmore wasn’t buying it. Selene Whitmore tilted her head, her gaze sharp enough to cut. "So you’re not going to tell us, huh?" Her words came like knives, and her eyes followed suit, boring into him with an intensity that made Kael shift his stance. It was as if she was trying to drill holes straight through his body.

Before Kael Vi-rel could respond, a sound echoed through the dungeon low, guttural, and inhuman.

"Grrrrkkkrr!!""Grrrrkkkrr!!""Grrrrkkkrr!!"

The vicious growl reverberated against the dungeon’s stone walls. The echo bounced again and again, twisting around them until it felt as though the noise came from every direction. The air itself seemed to shudder.

"Get ready!" Kael Vi-rel barked, summoning his sword with a flare of energy. The steel manifested in his hand with a resonant hum, threads of light wrapping along the blade’s surface. His eyes sharpened, scanning the darkness beyond the flickering torchlight. "They’re coming!"

From the shadows ahead, three dark figures emerged. Their bodies flickered like flames struggling to stay alive, their edges dissolving and reforming in a way that was both spectral and unsettling.

"Rank D Specters," Kael Vi-rel hissed under his breath, tightening his grip on his blade. His stomach sank. Specters weren’t particularly dangerous alone, but they were parasites of fear multiplying danger through sheer numbers and relentless aggression.

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Kiiikkk!!" "Kiiikkk!!" "Kiiikkk!!"

The nearest Specter shrieked, a bone-chilling cry that pierced the air. The wave of sound struck them with invisible force, a paralyzing vibration meant to disorient and freeze prey before the kill.

Kael Vi-rel moved instantly. His sword shimmered, runes glowing faintly as he slashed through the intangible wave. The soundwave split, the edges scattering harmlessly against the dungeon walls. His defensive technique left the air buzzing like struck glass.

"Clara Winslet, are you ready?" Kael Vi-rel shouted without looking back.

Clara Winslet, already standing firm, didn’t waste a second. Sparks had gathered around her fingertips, dancing eagerly up her arms. Lightning flared across her hands, illuminating her determined face in sharp flashes of white and blue.

"I’m ready," she said, her voice calm but firm. Her stance was solid, but her eyes flicked nervously at the tight corridor, as though measuring how much space her lightning could safely reach.

The Specter retaliated immediately, its form rippling as it fired several dark energy cannons. The blasts shrieked toward them, tearing the air apart. Clara Winslet raised her hand and hurled her lightning forward.

The forces met in midair with explosive violence. The corridor shook under the impact, sparks scattering wildly, shadows ripping apart in bursts of light. For an instant, darkness and lightning consumed each other in equal measure before finally dissipating, leaving the air thick with smoke.

Clara Winslet’s ability was different. Unlike others who drew upon rigid schools of magic, hers was innate an elemental attribute she had been born with. Lightning was pure, volatile, unyielding. And against Specters, it was lethal. Their incorporeal forms had no defense against such direct elemental force.

"Selene Whitmore!" Kael Vi-rel called out again.

But Selene Whitmore was already gone from her spot. She was a streak of silver darting through the shadows, her movements fluid and impossible to follow. Her daggers cut clean arcs through the dimness, flashing with precision. She struck one Specter directly through the chest, her blades slicing its flickering body into halves.

The creature screamed, its sound so shrill it made the torches waver, before collapsing into ash that scattered along the cold floor.

Two more specter surged forward, jerky and violent in their movements, their glowing eyes fixed on her.

"Clara Winslet! More lightning!" Kael Vi-rel commanded.

"On it!" Clara Winslet’s voice rang out, crackling with the same energy sparking around her. Clara Winslet thrust her hand forward, releasing bolts that jumped toward Kael Vi-rel and Selene Whitmore. Their weapons drank the lightning greedily, arcs of energy wrapping around their blades like chains of light.

Empowered, Kael Vi-rel and Selene Whitmore rushed to meet the incoming Specters. They struck together, weapons ignited with electric fury. Their synchronized blows carved into the spectral bodies, shredding them apart with flashes so bright the entire corridor lit up.

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Grrrrkkkrr!!"

"Kkkkkkk!!!" "Kkkkkkk!!!" The monsters screamed, their incorporeal flesh unraveling. In seconds, their bodies collapsed into dust, fragments of blackened essence smoldering before fading away.

Kael Vi-rel exhaled deeply, his shoulders easing slightly. "As expected, we have the upper hand in close combat," he thought, watching the last of the ash scatter across the dungeon floor. For the first time in the fight, a flicker of confidence touched his eyes.

But the darkness was far from empty.

A low hiss stirred the silence. Then, from deeper within the corridor, dozens of faint glows appeared.

Kael Vi-rel’s breath hitched as the lights grew closer eyes. Glowing eyes, so many that they painted the shadows with pale fire. A tide of Specters drifted forward, their ghostly forms flickering in and out like broken lanterns in the night.

Selene Whitmore swore under her breath, spinning her daggers into a ready grip. Clara Winslet’s sparks sputtered for an instant as the sheer number became clear. The faint light revealed their faces drawn tight with tension, though neither retreated.

Kael Vi-rel’s stomach tightened.

"Everyone! Don’t kill them all!" he shouted suddenly. His voice cut through the tension like steel. " make sure to keep one alive!"

"What?!" Clara Winslet’s head snapped toward him, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Why would we keep one alive in a place like this?!" Her voice trembled, frustration and fear mingling. She had never once heard an order like that from him.

"There’s something I need to check," Kael Vi-rel said firmly, his words clipped as his blade cut down a lunging Specter. Lightning burst from the strike, scattering sparks across the stone floor.

"You still want to check something after seeing this horde of monsters?!" Selene Whitmore’s voice rose in disbelief, edged with fury. She twisted midair to dodge an attack, her dagger catching the creature’s flickering head. It split apart with a screech, collapsing into fading ash.

"You’re way too relaxed for this!" she snapped, her tone as sharp as her dagger.

Kael Vi-rel didn’t answer. His body fought instinctively, but his mind was racing elsewhere. Sweat ran down his brow as his sword met another Specter head-on, the collision sending shocks up his arms. His muscles strained under the repeated impacts.

He knew he couldn’t hold out like this forever.

"Obviously, taking on one Specter alone isn’t a real threat," Kael Vi-rel growled between clenched teeth, swinging his blade upward. The attack tore through another body, scattering its fragments. "But in numbers like this..."

Before he could finish, three more appeared behind him. He spun, striking one down, but the other two pressed hard. His jaw tightened, his thoughts cutting sharper than his sword.

"I need to reduce their numbers... but more than anything I need one alive. I have to confirm something."

The dungeon pulsed with their shrieks, filling the corridor with a chorus of distorted screams. Shadows surged from every direction, oppressive and suffocating. The walls themselves seemed to bend under the echo, as though the entire dungeon was alive and conspiring against them.

Yet Kael’s voice rang out again, louder and steadier than before, carrying command that refused to be ignored.

"Focus your strikes! Take them down, but remember leave one standing!"

Selene Whitmore and Clara Winslet exchanged a glance, a silent flash of doubt and trust colliding in that instant. No time to argue. No time to question.

Clara Winslet clenched her jaw, hurling another bolt that split the front line in two. Selene Whitmore darted past the opening it created, her silver daggers a blur of arcs and sparks. Kael Vi-rel followed, his blade carving through the center, each swing a burst of steel and lightning.

The tide of Specters closed in again, endless and merciless. Yet despite the chaos, the three of them moved in rhythm each step, strike, and breath aligned by unspoken understanding.

Lightning blazed again. Steel flashed.

And so the battle against the endless tide of Specters raged on relentless, unyielding, and darker than ever.