CHAPTER 203: THE ECLIPSE

The next day, the sky dimmed like a curtain being drawn over the world.

Kai has not moved from his spot. Not since he fought whatever that ’being’ was.

The moment the sun vanished behind the moon, a rush of unnatural cold swept through the mountains. The wind died. The sound of waves below went still, as if the ocean itself was holding its breath. Kai’s skin prickled, every hair standing on end. It wasn’t just the eclipse.

Something had changed.

Those faint mana signatures he had been tracking for days, the ones skulking at the edges of his sight, suddenly moved.

All of them.

In perfect unison, they turned toward where Vepice stood.

From the west, a faint glimmer broke through the darkness.

A flickering, swirling light.

Kai’s boots hit the stone as he leapt down from his perch, landing beside the carriage below.

He’d reinforced his legs with strengthening magic and cushioned his landing with wind magic enough to spare his bones from shattering at the bottom of the cliff.

The horses screamed, their eyes rolling white, straining against their harnesses as the pressure in the air thickened. The fog below began to boil and twist, rising up the cliff like a living tide.

"Keep an eye out for the sign!" Kai barked, eyes scanning the horizon. "West!"

Vepice spun, her face pale. "I don’t see-"

Kai didn’t wait. He pulled in the mana around him, shaping it through his core, and let it explode outward in a burst of compressed air. A blast of wind roared from him like a shockwave, scattering the suffocating fog in every direction.

For the first time, they saw what hunted them.

Vepice shrieked, staggering back, her hand flying to her mouth.

The things that emerged from the haze... weren’t beasts. Nor were they like any arcane creatures either of them had seen before.

Some had the vague shape of wolves or bears, but their bodies sagged as if half-melted, bones visible through translucent, weeping flesh. Others crawled on too many limbs, all with warped, broken forms dragging themselves forward with unnatural jerks. Dozens, maybe hundreds, their hollow eyes glowing faintly blue in the dim eclipse light.

Kai felt no necromantic energies emanating from them.

’They’re not undead...’

"Wha-what’s wrong with-" Vepice began, her voice shaking.

Her words cut off as a wave of miasma surged forward, rolling off a hulking, two-headed dog. Each breath from its twin maws exhaled a cloud so corrosive it hissed against the earth, dissolving plants, soil... and even chunks of rock.

The mountain itself seemed to melt where the vapors touched.

"Run!" Kai snapped.

Vepice stood frozen, her body trembling. Not with defiance, but sheer, paralyzing fear.

The stench of decay, the sound of bones creaking inside those warped bodies... it rooted her where she stood.

Kai didn’t waste time. He grabbed her around the waist, hoisting her up like a sack, and bolted.

There was no time to carry her respectfully.

The fog surged to meet them again, reforming faster than his wind magic could scatter it. He kept blowing it back, shaping bursts of air with every other step, his lungs burning as he sprinted toward that faint western light.

’No... I saw it. I know I did.’

The creatures gave chase, moving like a single, coordinated swarm. The sound of their distorted limbs scraping against stone echoed in the gloom, a chorus of hollow growls and wet, gurgling howls filling the air.

Ahead, the shape of the light took form: a massive ring of ancient stones, weathered by time but still standing in a perfect circle. At its center, a spinning point of pale light, like a miniature sun, turned lazily above the structure.

Kai’s legs burned as he vaulted the final stretch, clearing the last rise of rock and landing inside the circle. The ground here was smooth, unnaturally so, as if untouched by centuries of erosion.

The center of the ring wasn’t empty. It dipped inward, forming a deep, perfectly circular pit. Within, two intertwining streams of carved stone, one dark, one pale, spiraled in a pattern like yin and yang.

At the places where light and shadow met, a faint blue glow pulsed, tracing out intricate runes in the air.

Kai jumped down, still holding Vepice, and landed within the structure.

The moment Kai’s hand brushed the pattern of light, the entire circle trembled.

The stone beneath their feet spun, the yin-yang structure rotating faster and faster until the sound of grinding rock drowned out the distant shrieks of the approaching creatures. The pit opened wider, lifting upward in segments, revealing a massive spiral staircase of the same black and pale stone, descending into the depths.

A breath of frigid air wafted upward, smelling faintly of salt and something older, something metallic, like rust and blood left too long in the rain.

Kai glanced down. A soft hum vibrated through his boots as the pattern shifted. "This is it..."

Before he could make another move, Vepice yanked his hand. "Then what are you waiting for? Come on!"

She dragged him toward the stairs, and together they descended into the pit.

Once they’d descended a few steps, the ground shook once again, and the staircase rotates the opposite way, and the light of the fading eclipse disappeared as their exit closed up entirely.

Kai stared into the depths, eyes narrowing.

’Not allowed out until we’re done? Or is this some kind of... trial?’

Behind them, the swarm of malformed horrors reached the edge of the circle, slamming against the stone. They clawed and screeched, unable to breach the boundary.

For now.

Vepice squeezed his hand, tugging him forward. "Then we don’t waste time. Whatever’s down there... it has to be better than that."

He could tell she was relieved to put distance between them and the monsters.

They stepped down together, the sound of their boots echoing in the cavernous space.

Kai glanced up once more. "Guess we’re not turning back."

His fingers flexed, shadows writhing faintly around his arm.

’I could blast our way back to the surface...’ he considered

But he cut those thoughts short. The thought of those horrors swarming from above, trapping them between whatever ancient thing waited below and a thousand malformed predators, made his jaw tighten.

"Forward, then," he muttered.

’What have you got in store for us, Ebonbrand?’