CHAPTER 649: CLAWS IN THE DARK BELOW (4)

"That’s it," he breathed, awe and disgust mingling until his voice quavered. Thalatha’s free hand brushed his elbow—steady.

Runes snaked around the roots like manacles, ancient Binding glyphs twisted into cancerous spirals. Wherever the lines crossed, the wood jutted spines, as though trying to tear them free yet forced to grow with the corruption.

Mikhailis advanced one cautious step at a time, boots clicking on crystalline sap deposits. He unclipped a sterilized vial from his belt, gloved fingers trembling. In and out. One sample, proof for the Elders, maybe a cure. Rodion shadowed him, torso low despite mangled legs, humming a sub-bass counter to the room’s eerie buzzing.

Thalatha watched the surrounding balconies—wooden ledges half-crumbled into jagged jaws—arrow ready but breath shallow. Her lantern light danced along her cheekbones, turning sweat to emerald pearls.

"I’m going," Mikhailis whispered, more to her than himself. He reached the trunk. A tendril of sap detached with a wet snap, seeking his warmth like a leech. He flicked it aside with the vial’s cap, grimacing at the stringy residue.

Scalpel in hand, he measured a thin section of petal, chose the least active pulse node. Blade met tissue—soft, almost gelatinous—and parted it with a muffled squelch. Black sap beaded at the incision.

A single heartbeat later, the entire flower-heart convulsed. The dull core brightened to a lurid orange. Petals snapped wider, flinging viscous globs in all directions. Spores—tiny, midnight-blue motes—jetted from hidden pores with a sound like fizzing soda.

"MOVE!" he shouted, lungs already stinging. He slammed the vial shut—one droplet writhed madly within—and stumbled back. The scalpel fell, vanishing beneath a carpet of spore haze.

Thalatha didn’t hesitate; she grabbed him by the back of his coat and propelled him toward the runic doorway. Rodion pivoted, rear vents blasting compressed air that carved a temporary hole through the cloud. Even so, every breath tasted of mildew and metal filings. Mikhailis’s eyes streamed; he could hear spore filaments scraping his throat.

They burst through the arch as Mikhailis jammed a slip-knot barb into the stone frame. Thalatha mirrored him on the opposite jamb, her barb glowing hot as it bit into corrupted grain. The two anchors spat strands of silver light that laced together, slamming the door leaf in place. Within seconds runes surfaced across its surface, welding bark to bark.

Undead claws hammered immediately, rattling the barrier like a drum. Dust puffed from joints. The sigils flared, dimmed, flared again.

Mikhailis coughed hard, doubled over. Spore dust poured from his lips in grey clots. Thalatha’s own coughs came sharp, shallow—her wounded lung refusing full breaths—but she stayed upright, bow raised in shaking hands. Rodion’s frame ticked: internal filters switching to black-level purge. A brief cloud of sterilizing mist vented from a hidden grill, stinging their eyes but thinning the spores around them.

The corridor ahead sloped away steeply, swallowing lantern light in endless night. A sluggish draft wandered up it, thick with swampy odor. Every few heartbeats a shudder traveled through the floor, as though massive gears turned far below, straining wood and root.

Neither spoke; words would only waste breath. Rodion’s flickering chest diode—now the color of old steel—cast just enough light to keep feet from misplacing. Mikhailis set the pace, one hand on the slime-slick wall, guiding them down the spiral of living root like descending an esophagus.

Minutes—or lifetimes—later, the air thinned. The oppressive rot gave way to a cool stillness that smelled faintly of ozone. The passage ended abruptly in open space. A ragged opening—more wound than doorway—led onto the bridge.

It was no bridge in any engineered sense: three cords of braided hyphae, mottled white and bruise-purple, stretched across a gulf too vast for Mikhailis’s glowshard to penetrate. The strands flexed under some unseen breath, creaking as though annoyed by their own existence. Each braid glistened slick, and odd pulses of green light coursed along inner filaments, racing down into bottomless dark.

Below, nothing solid reflected light. Instead, pulses of mana steamed upward in towering currents—ghostly columns that shimmered like auroras trapped underground. They twisted slowly, illuminating the far walls of a colossal pit where crystal roots embedded in shale pulsed in languid answer.

"I hate this," Mikhailis muttered, throat raw. The words sounded small in the massive hush.

"Fair," Thalatha answered, though her voice trembled more than she likely intended. She adjusted her grip on lantern and bow, then placed one careful foot on the first braid. It compressed an inch beneath her weight, fibers stretching, but held. She glanced back—eyes a mix of resolve and exhaustion—and beckoned.

Mikhailis stepped after. The braid’s surface oozed condensation, slick beneath his boots. He lowered his center of gravity, arms out for balance. Rodion followed last, servos humming at low pitch; he had re-engaged partial hover, taking half his own weight to lessen strain.

Step by step they advanced, each shift accompanied by distant echoes—like giant heartbeats amplified by the chamber’s hollow body. Halfway across, a sharp twang snapped through the quiet. One of the hyphal ropes recoiled an inch upward, fibers fraying where unseen tension finally yielded.

Thalatha gasped, weight shifting. Her injured foot landed on a slime patch and slid. She pitched sideways, arms windmilling. The lantern flew, smashing on the bridge in a spray of jade sparks that tumbled into the abyss.

Her scream punched the silence. She fell.

Mikhailis reacted before thought. He lunged, palm slapping damp rope for purchase, other hand diving. Fingers closed around her wrist—a fragile, terrified pulse hammering beneath the gauntlet. Momentum yanked his shoulder nearly from its socket. Pain flared white, but he locked his elbow, braced feet wide on the swaying braid.

"Got you," he growled, teeth gritted, eyes watering from strain and fear. The abyss inhaled below, vast lungs promising endless fall.

Thalatha’s hair whipped around her face like fire in a hurricane. Her bow dangled by its strap, brushing shimmering mana currents far below. She focused on him; lips moved but no sound emerged, only a tight nod. With his free hand he found a knotting in the rope—a natural bulge—and wedged her forearm against it. Rodion scuttled closer, upper chassis splitting open to extend a stabilizer claw. The mechanical grip latched onto Thalatha’s cuirass backplate, lifting her enough to swing one boot onto the braid’s next strand.

Together—breath by labored breath—they crawled forward. Every meter gained felt stolen. Behind them, the slipped hyphae groaned again, fibers peeling one by one with the sound of tearing parchment.

The bridge cracked once more. A lightning-fast fissure zipped across the braids ahead, fracturing support. A cold updraft roared through, rolling them in gooseflesh.

Below, the enormous chamber ignited. Sheets of violet light burst from the pit’s center, revealing a lattice of colossal crystal roots protruding like ribs from a heart. At its core, a black sphere throbbed—the Blight Core—casting pulses that rippled outward, coloring the wind with malignant fluorescence.

Mikhailis swallowed, throat sand-dry. That...is bigger than the palace courtyard. He glanced at Thalatha. Her eyes, bright with terror seconds ago, now blazed with something fiercer—defiance.

Rodion’s chest diode surged to a white blaze, draining reserve cells. Structural integrity of current footing: ninety-five percent compromised. Suggested course: leap of faith. Destination: exposed root cluster thirty-one meters below. Probability of survival: nine percent higher than remaining here.

"Only nine?" Mikhailis scoffed, adrenaline making him grin. "You’re generous tonight."

Thalatha managed a faint laugh—half breath, half sob. She tightened her grip on his arm.

Another pop. The last intact braid peeled free, fiber by fiber. The bridge sagged dangerously toward the glow.

Mikhailis looked at her; she looked back. No speeches, no grand strategy. Only a shared spark: better to dive by choice than fall as prey.

Rodion’s stabilizers retracted to minimize drag. His arms wrapped around their backs like a metal parent ready to hurl children over a fence.

"On three," Mikhailis said, drawing one last breath that tasted of ozone and fear. "One—"

The braid snapped.

"—Three!"

They jumped.

Wind howled past, ripping sound away. The pit’s sick light painted them ghost-green as they jerked downward, three silhouettes tangled in desperate embrace. Rodion’s thrusters fired erratic bursts, slowing but not stopping the plunge. Crystal roots rushed up like spears. Somewhere overhead, the broken bridge screamed as it disintegrated.

Into the unknown.

Into the Heart.