CHAPTER 65: ZONE OF DARKNESS

The group set off from the village after a restless, uneasy night.

They’d tried to get Eri to talk—to explain what she saw or heard after touching the statue—but she hadn’t said a word, just curled up in a chair, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at them with eyes that looked... hollow—not broken. Not wounded, just gone.

Carlos had barked at her all night. Low, frantic growls that never stopped, like something in her presence disturbed him to the core. None of them got much sleep.

Now, walking along a cracked stone road leading east, Eri trailed behind the rest of the group, her boots dragging as if her legs moved on borrowed instinct. Gindu and Llarm had each tried speaking to her—calmly, jokingly, gently—but she never responded. She moved forward, stiff and silent, like a marionette whose strings were pulled by something they couldn’t see.

Whenever Lucy used Soulreading on her, he felt it again: a crushing dread—paralyzing fear.

He wanted to press her, to demand answers. What happened at that statue was dangerous. It could still be a threat. But... he held back.

He knew what it was like to see something that shattered how you looked at the world.

’Come find me.’

The whisper from his nightmare echoed again in the back of his mind.

’Who? What? And why?’

He turned the questions over like stones in a river, hoping for an answer.

Then shrugged it off.

’Eh. It’ll come to me eventually. Not the time for cryptic dreams—I’ve got real problems right now.’

And he did.

Bruma had warned them back in the village that they’d reach a region known only as the Zone of Darkness after a few days of travel, where light was swallowed whole.

They stood at its edge now.

It wasn’t just dark. It was an absence, like someone had taken a knife to the world and carved out a section of reality. The jagged curtain of pitch-black stretched across the path ahead, impenetrable and featureless, and yet it seemed to ripple as if breathing.

The light behind them—soft purple sky, streaks of gold, sun-washed stone—contrasted violently with the nothingness ahead. And from within the blackness, a sound: whispers, hushed and incoherent. Lucy couldn’t make out the words, but something in his gut recoiled.

"Is this what you meant, Bruma?" Lucy asked, half-joking.

"Are all humans this sharp, or are you just gifted?" she shot back dryly.

Lucy chuckled. "A little column A, little column me."

Llarm stepped closer to the barrier, reaching out a hand.

"It’s like something out of a fairy tale," he murmured. "Where light and darkness meet at the edge of the world."

"Hey! Don’t touch it!" Lucy snapped. "Did we learn nothing about randomly touching ominous crap?"

Llarm grinned. "Right, my bad."

His grin said he wasn’t even a little sorry.

"I don’t know about you guys, but I want to go inside," Fenric said, cracking his neck. "Think of all the things we might get to fight in there."

He looked at Eri, expecting a sharp, sarcastic jab. Nothing.

She didn’t even look up. Just kept staring at the ground like the weight of the world had settled on her spine.

Gindu stood beside her, hands resting gently on her shoulders. Silent. Reassuring.

Then a soft whimper broke the moment.

Carlos, perched atop Fenric’s shoulder, trembled. His dark fur bristled, his tail tucked, and his ears low. Lucy didn’t need Soulreading to know he was terrified.

"What is it, buddy?" Fenric murmured, rubbing the pup’s head.

Carlos only whimpered louder, then buried himself in Fenric’s hood.

Lucy turned to Bruma, lifting a brow. "It’s safe to enter, right?"

Bruma nodded, though slowly. Her violet hair bounced slightly with the motion.

"Yes... mostly. I’ve never been inside a zone like this, and they’re poorly documented. But I’ve read accounts. Some say people walk in and return unharmed."

Lucy narrowed his eyes. "You read any accounts where people walk in and turn into flesh-eating husks the second they cross the threshold?"

"That would be interesting," Bruma said, unfazed. "But no."

"Well then," Lucy turned back to the group. "Listen up. Once we’re inside, we won’t see Jack beyond a few feet. Bruma’s lantern will give us a small radius, so stick close."

"Llarm, I want you circulating wind—let me know if anything moves around us. Gindu, keep Eri safe. Fenric... do what you do and make sure Carlos doesn’t get eaten."

They all nodded.

All except Eri.

Lucy glanced at Bruma, instinctively ready to assign her a role too... but stopped himself.

She wasn’t officially one of them. Not yet.

Without another word, Lucy stepped forward and pressed his hand against the veil of darkness. It was cold—not just to the touch but in his bones—like the chill of a bad memory.

Then he stepped through.

The rest followed, swallowed one by one by the black.

As soon as Lucy stepped into the darkness, everything changed.

He first noticed the cold, sharp, biting, unnatural. It was as if the moment he crossed the threshold, something reached into his chest and squeezed. The second thing was the silence—complete, ugly, oppressive. There were no footsteps, no breathing, no wind, only the faintest whispers, distant and indecipherable, slithering at the edge of hearing.

He glanced around.

Everyone had frozen in place, instinctively wrapping their arms around themselves. Even Fenric wasn’t smiling anymore. Still nestled in his arms, Carlos had curled into a tight ball, his small body trembling uncontrollably. The shadow pup’s ears were flat, whimpering, swallowed by the silence.

Bruma’s lantern cast a ghostly violet light barely five feet ahead. Beyond that was a void—pure, unshaped black. The familiar road was gone. Only the glistening silver grass remained beneath their boots.

Lucy stepped forward and opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

’What the hell?’

He tried again, willing the words into sound. "Move forward."

Nothing.

Not even the scrape of his tongue or the sound of his breath.

Llarm caught his confused expression and chuckled—until he realized no one could hear him either. Panic flickered across his face as he grabbed at his throat, mouthing something inaudible. The others—Gindu, Bruma, and Fenric—tried to speak too, but their voices were stolen, silenced by the zone.

Only Eri remained unaffected, standing quietly with vacant eyes, as if she’d expected this all along.

’Alright. Game of charades it is.’

Lucy exaggerated a forward motion, then mimed walking, finishing with a thumbs-up.

The others nodded back.

Formation fell into place without a sound. Lucy and Bruma led, her lantern held high. Llarm, Fenric, and Carlos kept to the middle. Gindu walked behind Eri, keeping a careful eye on her. She still hadn’t spoken a word.

The ground beneath them was uneven. The terrain sloped up and down with hidden dips and jagged outcrops. Several times, Bruma stumbled as her foot caught on something unseen. Lucy had Llarm use his wind to signal any obstacles ahead—but he had to stay sharp.

After nearly slipping on an incline, Lucy activated Soulreading, hoping to sense what lay beyond the lantern’s reach.

He regretted it instantly.

Despair. Endless, suffocating despair.

It wasn’t just a feeling—it was a scream. A thousand broken voices clawing at his consciousness, begging to be freed, pleading for warmth, for light, for death. Whatever these whispers were, they knew he could hear them. They surged against his mind like a tide of desperate souls.

He immediately deactivated the skill, gasping—even if no one could hear it.

A chill brushed across his skin—Llarm’s wind.

He turned to see the elf signaling again, arms miming a wide circle, then lifting an invisible object.

’Boulder?’

Lucy nodded and turned—

Crack.

He slammed face-first into a massive rock, easily the size of Bruma.

’Dammit.’

Lucy turned to see Llarm pointing and laughing silently, along with Fenric.

’Did these idiots plan that?’

He groaned internally, clutching his nose, blood beginning to drip. But again, the silence devoured the sound.

...

They continued like that for what felt like hours. Days? Time didn’t exist here. With no sun, moon, or stars, they had no way of knowing how long they’d been walking. Only the endless dark pressed around them, stretching the minutes into something distorted and unreal.

Ruined structures appeared occasionally—collapsed buildings swallowed by vines of shadow. Trees twisted in impossible shapes. Even statues, their features eroded beyond recognition.

Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Nothing attacked.

But the tension never left.

Then, once more, Llarm’s wind curled around Lucy. He looked back and saw the elf lift his arms, forming a triangle over his head.

’A house?’

Lucy turned forward—and this time, he felt something new.

The cold changed. It was no longer just physical—it was wrong. Malicious.

The air thickened, pressing against his chest like an invisible hand. Bruma lifted her lantern, and the violet light rippled outward, stretching just far enough to reveal...

Stairs.

Carved stone steps cloaked in writhing shadows, leading downward.

And then—just beyond them—a church. Or at least, what remained of one.

Its walls were skeletal and fractured, like the ribs of a long-dead beast. Towers jutted up, half-collapsed, their peaks vanishing into the black. The stone shimmered like ink in moonlight, constructed from darkness itself. Bruma’s lantern barely clung to its edges, unable to pierce what lay beyond.

The whispers grew louder. Closer.

And for the first time since entering the zone, Lucy wasn’t sure they were alone anymore.