CHAPTER 138: SOUND FROM ABOVE

The last severed tendon slid into Maggie’s bag with a dull sound. The stench of blood and warm entrails thickened in the humid air, a perfume of death that would inevitably attract other scavengers.

Not that Maggie wasn’t starving herself.

She wiped her soiled dagger on a pant leg without ceremony, her gaze constantly scanning the surrounding ridges and dense thickets of reeds. The tension hadn’t left with the boar’s life—it had simply shifted.

"We move," she announced in a hoarse but firm voice, closing her bag with a sharp tug. She stood, one hand gripping the hilt of her flail-halberd, still smeared with mud and black blood.

Dylan groaned as he pulled himself from the mud where he’d collapsed. His face was ashen, hollowed by the dull pain gnawing at his chest and the exhausting resonance of his stigma. He leaned heavily on his jian to stand, his knuckles white. An uncontrollable shiver ran through him, quickly suppressed. "About damn time. This place already reeks of carrion."

Elisa, who had carefully wrapped the pulsating anima gem in thick cloth before stowing it deep in her pack, nodded. Her fingers still trembled slightly—remnants of the superhuman effort to control her lance and projectiles. Her green stigma pulsed faintly beneath her sleeve, like smoldering embers. She tilted her chin toward the east, where the valley narrowed against an even more imposing mountain than the ones they’d already crossed.

"Not that way," she said, her voice slightly strained but clear. Her eyes, bloodshot with fatigue but still sharp, studied the steep, rocky slopes ahead. "That mountain... it’s steeper. A sheer cliff on the northern face. And the air..." She narrowed her eyes, focusing her heightened perception. "...it vibrates. I don’t know how to explain it, but I hope you understand that up there, there are likely things clinging to the rock, waiting for a misplaced step."

A fleeting image crossed her mind: agile, silent shadows, falls into the void. "We go around to the south. The pass is longer, but the slope is gentler. Fewer footholds for... whatever might make us slip."

Maggie followed her gaze, weighing the suggestion. The thought of scaling that menacing slope—exhausted and potentially under threat from unseen enemies—twisted her gut. Elisa’s vision, honed by her strange connection to the world, was worth more than any scout’s report. "South, then," she agreed quickly. "We follow the stream to the ravine fork. That’ll keep us clear of most of the marshes, too."

Without further discussion, they set off. Their steps were heavy, weighed down by battle fatigue and lingering tension. Dylan took the rear, his gait slightly dragging, but his jian ready, his eyes ceaselessly scanning their backs and the shifting shadows among the rocks.

Maggie led, carefully choosing each step in the spongy ground, her weapon held low but ready to rise in an instant. Elisa, in the middle, kept one hand near the lance floating weightlessly at her side, the other pressed to her sternum as if containing the heat of her stigma.

She cast frequent glances upward, watching for any suspicious movement, any unnatural ripple in the gray veil of the atmosphere.

They left the muddy clearing and the massive corpse of the boar behind, abandoning the battlefield stinking and thrumming with death. The distant roar of the river they followed at first partially masked the sound of their footsteps.

The valley seemed to hold its breath around them. Only the occasional cries of unseen birds and the ominous rustling in the denser reeds broke the oppressive silence.

As they reached the fork Maggie had mentioned—a narrower ravine opening southward, winding between the foothills of the cursed mountain—Dylan froze. He raised a hand, silent. Maggie and Elisa stilled instantly, senses on high alert.

There was a sound. Not a growl, not a cry. A dry, repetitive scraping, coming from above, to their left. Like claws on dry stone.

Elisa turned her head slowly. High, very high, on a ledge barely visible in the low mist, a silhouette briefly stood out against the leaden sky. Not massive like the boar. Sleek. Agile. With dark, gleaming reflections—carapace or scales. Then it vanished, as if melting into the rock.

"There are more," Elisa murmured, her stigma pulsing hotter, stronger against her skin. "Climbers..."

Maggie tightened her grip on her weapon. "Did they see us?"

"Can’t tell," Elisa replied, eyes fixed on the now-empty ledge. "But they’re there. And they know the valley just served up a feast."

"Then we move faster," Maggie ordered, resuming her march without hesitation, plunging into the narrow southern ravine. "And we don’t look back. Not until we’re out of this damn basin."

They pressed into the rocky defile, the shadows of the walls thickening around them. The air grew cooler, heavy with the scent of damp stone and moss. The feeling of being watched—of being potential prey for things lurking above—hung over them like a leaden cloak.

But ahead, the ravine opened onto a gentle, grassy slope leading to lower hills and a less menacing horizon. A longer path, perhaps, but one that offered them a chance to keep their feet firmly on the ground. A path to walk out of the valley alive—one that hadn’t yet tried to swallow them whole.

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The gentle slope widened, covered in low grass and wind-twisted shrubs. An eerie silence hung there, as if the world itself had hushed to avoid betraying their presence. The group slowed despite themselves, panting, muscles still stiff from exertion and wariness. The exhaustion was real, even for awakened bodies like theirs.

Maggie paused, catching her breath. She glanced back. Nothing moved in the ravine behind them, but the stillness was anything but reassuring. The danger had simply blended into the landscape—patient, like fangs beneath snow.

"Temporary camp?" she murmured under her breath. "Just... an hour or two. No more."

Elisa surveyed the area, then closed her eyes for a few seconds. Her stigma pulsed softly—a steadier rhythm, less frantic. She sensed no abnormal energy in the immediate surroundings. Just the wind. Finally, she nodded. "Here is... neutral. I don’t feel anything too close."

Dylan, without a word, collapsed more than sat. He leaned against a moss-covered stump, his jian within reach. His heartbeat made his eyelids tremble, yet he refused to sleep.

Maggie lit a discreet fire—barely visible—with dried moss and short branches. Not enough to cook, just enough for warmth, a living flame to fixate on. They didn’t need light. Just an anchor in this shifting world.

Elisa pulled out the anima gem, still wrapped in cloth. She placed it on the ground between two flat stones. The reddish light pulsing within throbbed slowly, like a heartbeat beneath glass skin. Maggie eyed it warily, uneasy around these condensed souls torn from the dead.

"You taking this one?" she asked.

Elisa nodded, hesitated. "Yes. I figured since you two absorbed the last ones..."

Dylan let out a dry chuckle. "Perfect. You know I love it when you play the bold one."

Elisa smirked but didn’t reply, her eyes locked on the gem. She reached out slowly, as if touching a sleeping beast.

Her fingers curled around the cloth, which she unfolded carefully. A wave of invisible heat rose instantly, warping the air like a mirage over embers. The exposed gem pulsed, alive.

"It feels like it’s holding heat," she said, more serious. "Direct extraction... it’ll strain my already drained mind."

Maggie nodded wordlessly. She stood slowly, adjusted the flail on her back, and scanned the surroundings. The faint fire cast subtle shadows in the grass. Nothing moved, but that was never a guarantee. Dylan, still seated, lifted his head slightly.

"What’s the worst that could happen?" he asked lightly, though his hand rested on his jian’s hilt.

"That the gem’s unstable. That it reacts badly to my energy. That I become a beacon for every creature sensitive to negative energy. Or that I burn myself out trying to fuse with it."

Dylan raised a brow. "Great. Now I feel involved."

Elisa closed her eyes, placed both hands on either side of the stone. Her stigma, previously faint, glowed beneath her collarbone like a green firefly. A gust of wind stirred the grass around her. The gem trembled slightly.

Then, it opened.