CHAPTER 59: TUNNEL

After the chaos, everything had fallen silent. There was no trace of the roar, the screams, or the creature. Only the four of them remained, advancing through a tunnel shrouded in darkness. Each footstep echoed louder than usual against the stone, and Rhys and Eun-woo’s labored breathing filled the tunnel, ragged and uneven.

Nebu floated ahead, guiding them with its faint glow. The creature moved silently. The glow it emitted barely reached the outline of the tunnel, but it was enough to keep them from stumbling.

Rhys kept an arm around Eun-woo, almost carrying him. He felt the tremble of his body beneath his palm. Every few steps, the other stumbled, as if his legs no longer knew how to support him.

Then Eun-woo stopped dead in his tracks. He didn’t say anything, but his breathing became more ragged, as if he couldn’t catch his breath. He fell to his knees without warning, one hand on the floor, the other clutching the damp wall.

"Eun-woo!" Rhys immediately bent down, holding him by the shoulders. "Are you okay?"

Eun-woo nodded slightly and forced himself to sit up, leaning against the wall in an attempt to stand.

"I’m fine," he murmured.

"You’d better rest for a second," Rhys insisted, placing a firm hand on his arm.

"We can’t stop now," Eun-woo replied. "Rong Ye needs medical attention, and this cave could collapse at any moment."

Rhys gritted his teeth.

"Stop thinking about other people for one damn second!" he yelled. "Look at you, you can’t even stand! What’s the point of continuing if you collapse halfway down?"

Eun-woo looked down, but said nothing.

"Just... sit down," Rhys insisted, lowering his voice a little. "We’re going to rest for a moment. It’ll be okay if we do. Just a few minutes. Okay?"

Eun-woo hesitated, but finally gave in. He let himself be guided to the wall and sat down carefully, his back against it and his legs stretched out in front of him. He turned his head toward Nebu.

"Wait for us, please," he whispered.

The creature stopped in front of them, its faint glow still illuminating the hallway.

Rhys sank down beside him, settling onto the dusty floor. His legs ached, his muscles burned, and his palms were still trembling. He sat pressed shoulder to shoulder with Eun-woo, close enough to feel the heat of his body through the fabric.

For a few seconds, neither of them said anything. Nebu’s dim light illuminated their faces, highlighting the shadows beneath their eyes.

Rhys looked down and reached for Eun-woo’s hand. He hesitated for a moment before interlacing his fingers with his, slowly, not squeezing, just making sure he wouldn’t let go.

Eun-woo didn’t move, but his body seemed to relax. The trembling in his shoulders gradually subsided. Then, without saying a word, he rested his head on Rhys’s shoulder.

Rhys didn’t take his eyes off the tunnel, but he gently squeezed Eun-woo’s fingers.

His mind was still reeling from recent events. He could still see the moment Eun-woo reached out toward the creature and it began to disintegrate... and Eun-woo didn’t even blink.

For the first time, Rhys understood why so many people saw Eun-woo as a weapon. Why they locked him away, why they wanted to control him.

And yet Rhys wasn’t intimidated.

He glanced at Eun-woo’s face, still leaning against his shoulder, eyes half-closed, breathing slow. Something in his expression still felt vulnerable. Fragile. Human.

Eun-woo wasn’t a threat. He was just an exhausted boy, who trembled every time he took on more than he should. A boy who had done the impossible to save others, without thinking about himself.

Rhys remembered that thin red trickle running from Eun-woo’s nose as he closed the Rift. He remembered the trembling of his body, the tremendous effort, and the way he nearly collapsed right afterward.

What if one day the price for using that power was higher than Eun-woo could pay?

Rhys squeezed his hand a little tighter.

He wasn’t going to let that happen.

Not while he could help it.

Besides, Rhys couldn’t help but wonder what had really motivated Nolan. He couldn’t understand how someone like him could have done something like that.

What was he after? Power? Revenge? Destruction?

But what puzzled him most was how he’d managed to conspire with creatures from the Rift without Jess noticing. Jess always seemed to know everything. She had that uncanny ability to detect lies, to smell danger before it appeared.

How did this escape him? Was he protecting it? Did he ignore it? Or were those creatures just so good at hiding?

Rhys lowered his head slightly, feeling that the more he tried to understand it, the more tangled it became. And the fact that Nolan was still out there left him with a feeling he couldn’t shake.

Nebu began to vibrate erratically. His ethereal body, still stretched out like a stretcher to support Rong Ye, was shaking.

The change was subtle, but enough to alert Rhys. He felt a shiver run down his spine, from the base of his neck to his lower back, like an instinctive warning.

Eun-woo slowly raised his head, his eyes still tired but alert, fixed on Nebu’s unusual behavior. They both knew something wasn’t right.

A tremor ran through the ground beneath their feet, at first slight, almost imperceptible, but within seconds it grew strong enough to make some loose rocks around them creak.

Rhys jumped up and helped Eun-woo to his feet, holding him tightly by one arm. They both looked down the tunnel. There was no sound, but something was moving toward them. They couldn’t see its shape clearly, only a pulsing blackness that spread like a thick tide, devouring the light in its path.

"It’s the gelatinous darkness." said Eun-woo. "Nebu, show us the way, quickly!"

The creature turned sharply and began to move quickly down the tunnel. Rhys grabbed Eun-woo’s wrist, and the two of them began to run after Nebu, their hearts racing and the echoing footsteps at their heels.

Despite the frantic pace, Rhys felt an icy breeze brush against the back of his neck more than once, as if something invisible was about to reach him. He turned his head a couple of times, but couldn’t see anything beyond the gloom. He didn’t know if it was just the natural darkness of the tunnel or that gelatinous darkness.

Rhys didn’t know how long they’d been running, only that the sound of their footsteps, Eun-woo’s ragged gasps, and the growing weight of fear was all that filled the space around them.

Suddenly, Nebu stopped dead in its tracks, extending a translucent mass like a barrier. Rhys nearly collided with it, braking just in time. At first, he didn’t understand why the creature had stopped. He looked further into the dim light cast by Nebu, and then he saw it.

Nolan stood there, in the middle of the tunnel, his eyes fixed on them. He had a pistol in his hands, but it wasn’t just any pistol: Rhys recognized it instantly. It was one of those weapons the Guides used to fend off Rift creatures.

They didn’t have time to react.

Nolan pulled the trigger.

Nebu let out a sharp, unexpectedly shrill cry, like a wounded cat or a terrified puppy. His body jerked from the impact, and he fell back, dragging Rong Ye’s unconscious form with him. A thick, purple substance began to drip from his side, evaporating upon hitting the ground.

Instinctively, Rhys stepped back, and so did Eun-woo. But as they did, their backs collided with something thick, motionless, and icy.

Rhys spun around.

It wasn’t a wall.

It was the gelatinous darkness.

When he turned back, Nolan watched them with a crooked, almost amused smile. He raised his pistol slightly, one eyebrow raised, and said dryly:

"Unless you have another trick up your sleeve, Eun-woo... looks like the road has run out."

Rhys immediately felt Eun-woo tense up again beside him.

He didn’t need to look at him to know it; he knew him well enough to notice that subtle change in his posture, the way his breathing became shallower and his jaw clenched as if he were desperately searching for something inside himself he could use. Perhaps just one more spark of power, even if it left him on the verge of collapse again.

Rhys reacted on instinct and gripped his hand firmly. A clear gesture that said "don’t".

Hoping to stall for time, Rhys stepped forward without letting go of Eun-woo’s hand and faced Nolan.

"Stop acting like your secrets matter more than our lives. Tell us why you’re doing all this. What do you gain by betraying us?"

Nolan let out a humorless laugh.

"And why would they want to know if they’re going to die?" He raised the pistol. "I won’t waste my time explaining."

Rhys looked away for a second, scanning the tunnel for any other route. But the dim light emanating from Nebu barely illuminated more than a few meters, and shadows danced about freely, obscuring any hope of escape.

Beside him, Eun-woo seemed to understand his intention and spoke in a firm voice.

"Then it doesn’t make sense for you to go to such lengths to kill us if the creature that was helping you is no longer there."

"It’s incredible that someone as stupid as you turned out to be an esper. Do you still not understand? Some of the creatures of the Rift obey me." Nolan’s smile widened. "Not all of them, of course," he added disdainfully, looking away at Nebu.

And it was that last sentence that sparked something in Rhys. An idea. Maybe absurd, maybe dangerous, but in a situation like this, it was all he had. The hard part wouldn’t be executing it. The hard part would be finding a way to make Eun-woo understand, without saying a single word.