CHAPTER 650: CLAWS IN THE DARK BELOW (END)

Dust clung to Mikhailis’s hair like ash, dulling the shimmer of silver threads woven into his cloak. A faint, sour taste lingered at the back of his throat. He sat hunched against a jagged slab of root-veined stone, ribs aching as though a giant’s fist lingered around his chest.

"Ugh... well, that was a gentle fall," he muttered, pressing the back of his glove against a fresh gash on his brow. The cavern swallowed his words in its vast hush, and for a moment all he heard was the echo of dripping sap.

Across the chamber, Thalatha drew a slow, controlled breath, her shoulders rising in a quiet exhale. Her right arm trembled as she tore a strip from her own tunic and wrapped the wound at her shoulder. Crimson soaked the cloth faster than she could bind it, but she tied the knot with deliberate care. Her bow, miraculously intact, rested beside her, and her sharp eyes scanned the cathedral’s shadowed corners as if expecting skeletons to leer from behind the pillars at any second.

Rodion lay propped awkwardly against a massive pillar half-swallowed by twisting roots. A joint in his shoulder hissed sparks, and one optic lens flickered with static.

Mikhailis pushed himself up with a groan, testing limbs one by one. His left arm rose in a small, cautious circle. Something popped in his spine, sending a fresh arrow of pain into his ribs. He grinned through gritted teeth. "Still in one piece. Mostly." Then he cocked an eyebrow at Thalatha. "You good? Or do I need to carry you princess-style through haunted corridors?"

She fixed him with a flat glare, the wound on her shoulder pulling the edge of her lip in a grimace. "Try it, and I’ll stab you with my teeth."

He laughed, the sound brittle in the damp air. He reached down and brushed moss from a nearby altar, revealing curling runes etched deep into the stone. They pulsed faintly, a slow, rhythmic glow that seemed to throb with life—or unlife.

Structural assessment complete. This chamber predates the surface city. Roots indicate necro-organic growths approximately 400 years old. Carvings depict sacrificial rites. Recommend caution.

Mikhailis tapped the runes and shrugged. "That’s Rodion-speak for, ’Welcome to the murder cathedral.’" He crouched beside the AI and eased open a small maintenance panel on its torso. Gears whined in protest.

"Yeah, well, your authorized points are fried. Be grateful your circuits aren’t full of sap," he teased as he peered inside, searching for fractured wiring or clotted valves.

He withdrew a tiny container of psycho-gel from his coat pocket—three capsules left. He checked the ward-stakes at his belt; two remained. His glowshard, though dim, still hummed with arcane energy. On his wrist, the ant-map projector blinked amber.

"We’ve got enough juice to keep walking or die stylishly in the dark. Up to us," he said, voice light but edged with urgency.

Thalatha adjusted her armor strap and tested her range of motion, her brow creasing with pain. "Then let’s choose stylish survival."

Mikhailis offered a wry salute. "To surviving in style."

He stood and projected the ant-map onto a smooth section of wall. Threads of green light wove a spiderweb of tunnels. "Still functional," he noted. "Though it’s barely pulling a signal. The deeper we go, the more interference from these roots."

Confirmed. Root-networks above us interfere with telepathic frequencies. Long-range commands compromised.

Thalatha, kneeling by the altar, crushed a phosphorescent fungus cap between her fingers until it glowed a soft blue. She blew on it, and its surface shimmered. "These’ll last—barely—twenty minutes. I’ll rig a string to your hood."

Mikhailis grinned, brushing a lock of sweat-matted hair from his eyes. "You’re so romantic."

She didn’t answer; her focus was already on looping the fungus around his cloak’s hood drawstring. He helped, adjusting each cap so it hung evenly, casting gentle pools of light that danced across their faces.

Beyond them, a collapsed arch lay half-buried beneath hanging moss. A patch of stone, crusted with Blight, bore faint carvings: "Gate of Withered Souls." Mikhailis ran his fingers over the brittle letters. Despite the centuries of corruption, he could still make out the warning in Elven script.

"Doesn’t that sound friendly," he whispered, eyes flicking to Thalatha.

She nocked an arrow without looking up. "I thought the roots just swallowed this place... but those glyphs are grown around the architecture."

Correct. Architecture and flora have co-adapted. Analysis suggests this was once an Elven temple. Now... integrated into the Blight system.

Rodion’s lens blinked red in disapproval.

"Charming," Mikhailis muttered. He stepped forward and plucked the glowshard from his belt. Its pale radiance filled his hand with warmth. "Three-beat pulse, right?"

Affirmative. Begin infusion... now.

Mikhailis inhaled deeply, feeling the raw pulse of mana in his veins before channeling it through his hand. The glowshard warmed against his palm, a small furnace fueled by his will. On the first beat, a tremor ran through the arch’s ancient roots—fine tendrils quivered, unsettling motes of dust that danced in the shard’s light. On the second, thin veins of violet fire snaked along the grooves, illuminating the arch’s runes as if they remembered their old purpose. On the third heartbeat, the spiral of light snapped into place. A low, bone-deep groan rolled through the stonework, and the gate’s aged slabs cracked along their seams. Gravel and root chips tumbled to the ground in a soft shower. With a final creak of protest, the gate parted, swinging inward on iron-wrought hinges that hadn’t moved in a millennium.

Thalatha moved first, her form fluid as she stepped through the opening, bow at the ready. Her whisper cut through the hush: "Stay alert. If it’s silent, it’s already watching."

Mikhailis followed, boots echoing on slick flagstones as he entered the corridor draped with fungus-lamps. Each cap oozed pale luminescence, flickering over slick walls that glistened with mildew. The air tasted of decay—damp earth mixed with sour sap. He cursed under his breath. Nothing like subterranean botany to spice up a screamfest.

They advanced in tandem, senses straining with every drip of condensation. Flickers of movement danced at the edge of the lamps’ glow—shadows that belonged to living things. Mikhailis’s nerves hummed; fear and excitement tangled under his skin like electric bugs.

At the corridor’s far end, two towering wraiths emerged. Their forms rippled between physical bone and spectral haze, claws curving like crescent moons. For a heartbeat, the wraiths stood still, then the ancient door slammed shut behind them with a clang that reverberated off bone-etched walls.

"Of course!" Mikhailis muttered, heart pounding.

Thalatha loosed an arrow, steel whispering as it flew. It struck home, shattering a skull and sending shards skittering along the stone. The wraith staggered but did not fall. Its eyes—hollow sockets—burned with the chill of the grave as it lunged.

Rodion reacted in mechanical harmony. Plates slid aside and a lattice of silk netting burst forth, glimmering blue as it wrapped the creature’s torso. The wraith thrashed, root-rotched ichor oozing from the nets’ edges, but the web held firm.

Mikhailis moved with a scientist’s precision: he threw a psycho-gel grenade at the wraiths’ feet. The gel evaporated in an azure conflagration, acrid smoke curling upward and burning any lingering necrotic wisps. One wraith reeled back, limbs clumsy, then skittered into a side passage with a rasping moan.

"That ought to slow them," Mikhailis panted, wiping sweat from his brow. He offered Thalatha a grin. "Next time, cookies?"

She allowed a half-smile before tightening her grip on her bow. "Focus."

They pressed on to a grand hall shaped like a giant’s ribcage. Arches rose overhead in smooth, bone-like curves, branching roots honeycombing the spaces in between. Phosphorescent veins pulsed along the pillars, casting eerie living patterns on the walls. Every breath echoed, a hollow reminder that this place had been a temple before it became a tomb.

Motes of light drifted in the gloom, and high above, fungal lanterns sputtered. The chamber seemed to breathe around them, each inhalation a sigh of lost souls. Then whispers curled through the air.

"...you... left... them... all... burning..."

Thalatha froze, hand clenching her bowstring. The words slipped through the dark, half-heard and half-dreamt.

"...you... were supposed... to... die..."

Mikhailis’s teeth bit his lower lip. The whispers burrowed into his mind, dredging memories that were not his own. He felt the weight of centuries press in.

Mikhailis felt Thalatha’s fingers tremble on her bowstring as the last ghostly echo of "unworthy... prince..." faded into the dank air. Her chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, each inhale tugging at the tear in her shoulder armor. He slid close enough to catch the sharp smell of her adrenaline and whispered fiercely, "They’re in my head," she rasped, voice tight with pain.

Mikhailis leaned in, jaw set. "This is a psychic field. The whispers aren’t real. Rodion—filter audio."

A faint click sounded from the AI’s chassis as a mechanical valve closed. Audio frequencies outside the human spectrum suppressed. Instantly, the chorus of mournful voices dulled to a distant breeze, barely rustling against their ears. Thalatha blinked, relief and lingering anxiety flickering across her pale features.

He took a breath, letting the silence soothe his frayed nerves. The corridor branching right stretched before them, lit by swaying fungal lamps that cast uneven pools of greenish light. "This way," he said, pointing. "The left looped us back. I’ve got a good feeling about right."

Thalatha straightened, pressing a firm hand to the cloth binding her gash. She inhaled deeply, then nodded once. "Lead on, then."