The air grew heavier, colder, as the winding staircase spiraled them downward. The hum of the light dials was fainter here, their glow struggling against a darkness that felt ancient and absorbing. The walls were no longer finished stone but rough-hewn rock, glistening with a perpetual, cold sweat.
"We continue to descend," Vista observed, his voice a low rumble that barely disturbed the silence. "We must have moved beyond the castle's foundations by now."
Galit nodded, his sharp eyes tracing the seams in the rock. "It is very probable. We may be in the very heart of the mountain itself."
Dalton walked beside them, a deep frown etched on his face. "To think this was here the whole time," he muttered, his voice thick with a king's frustration. "Right under our feet, and none of us knew."
Haruta, a step ahead, glanced back. "It's one of the many lost secrets of our world. Buried by time, or by those who wanted it forgotten."
"But what could need this level of secrecy? This kind of security?" Dalton's question hung in the damp air, unanswered.
The staircase ended, depositing them into a vast, natural cavern. Before them, the path split into three towering archways, each carved directly into the living rock of the mountain. The arches were not ornate, but imposing in their sheer, brutal scale. And above each, illuminated by a single, ghostly light dial, was a massive, weathered bas-relief.
Riggs squinted. "Which way do we go?"
"What are those symbols?" Haruta asked, pointing.
Galit stepped forward, his analytical gaze sweeping over the carvings. "One looks like a bear, standing on its hind legs. The other, a wolf baring its fangs. And the third... a stag, with a magnificent rack of antlers."
Dalton shook his head, baffled. "What could they mean? A test? A choice of paths?"
Marya tapped her chin, her golden eyes narrowed in thought. "Is it a test," she mused, "or an intentional diversion? Or are there simply three different locations to explore?"
The pondering of the adults was abruptly cut short. With a gleeful shriek from Chessa and an answering "Bloop!" from Jelly, the two resumed their chaotic game of tag. A blur of blue and patchwork fur, they darted past the stalled group and vanished into the dark mouth of the archway marked by the stag.
"Hey! Wait!" Dalton called out, his voice echoing uselessly down the stone tunnel.
Marya simply shrugged, a faint smirk playing on her lips. "Looks like the decision is made."
One by one, the others nodded or shrugged in acceptance, beginning to follow.
Dalton stood baffled, his hands held out in a gesture of pure disbelief. "But what about—?"
Marya didn't even look back as she strode after the children. "What about what? You can explore the other passageways later. What if they all lead to the same place anyway?"
Letting out a groan of exasperation at their collective nonchalance, the king of Drum Island hurried to catch up.
Far below, at the sunken base of the mountain where the roots of the Drum Rockies pierced the frozen tundra, a forgotten stone door, camouflaged by centuries of ice and scree, slid open with a deep, grinding shriek that was swallowed by the howling wind. The sound was too low, too alien for any human ear to detect.
But it was heard.
A massive white wolf, its fur thick against the eternal cold, lifted its head from a half-frozen stream. Its intelligent, blue eyes narrowed. It turned toward the sound, a sound that resonated with a part of its being it could not name but instinctively obeyed. As it loped toward the source, its form began to shift. Its body swelled, muscles thickening and contorting. Patches of fur receded, replaced by rough, grey hide. Its snout shortened, and from its skull erupted a terrifying crown of massive, jagged antlers. It was no longer a wolf, but a hulging, bipedal yeti-like creature, a fusion of beast and ancient magic. It stooped and entered the dark opening, the stone door sliding shut behind it, sealing the mountain once more.
The group moved quickly, following the distant echoes of giggles and happy bloops. The stag's archway led into a tunnel that smelled of damp earth and old leaves, a surprising contrast to the sterile stone behind them.
Then, the sound came.
It was a deep, bone-deep thrum that vibrated through the soles of their boots, followed by a long, mournful bellow that echoed through the tunnels like a challenge. It was the sound of something massive, something ancient, and something deeply unhappy about their intrusion.
"What the hell was that?!" Haruta hissed, his hand flying to the hilt of his sword.
Ahead of them, the playful noises ceased. Two small figures came pelting back down the tunnel, their faces pale. Chessa and Jelly scrambled behind Marya, clutching at the edges of her long coat.
Marya didn't hesitate. Her hand reached over her shoulder, her fingers closing around the worn leather of Eclipse's hilt. The air around the cursed blade seemed to grow colder still.
Galit's voice was tense, his own hands resting on the grips of his whips. "Do we continue?"
Marya's gaze was fixed down the dark tunnel, toward the source of the sound. Her expression was calm, but her eyes held the sharp focus of a predator.
"There's no point turning back," she said, her voice low and steady. "Whatever it is, it knows we're here. And I suspect it will not just let us leave."
The tension in the corridor was a physical weight, thick enough to taste—a metallic tang of fear mixed with the damp, earthy smell of the deep mountain. The only sound was the ragged rhythm of their own breathing, and then… the crash.
It started as a distant rumble, a tremor through the stone under their feet. Then it grew closer, a cacophony of shattering rock and splintering ancient wood, a violent, chaotic approach that echoed off the narrow walls. Something was coming, and it was coming fast. Hands flew to weapons—swords, whips, a massive blade—each person bracing for the impact.
The first thing they saw were the eyes. Two points of feral, intelligent amber light, burning in the darkness far down the tunnel.
"Ready yourselves!" Galit's warning was a sharp crack in the silence.
The creature exploded into the dim glow of the light dials. It was a monstrous fusion of nature and nightmare, a towering, bipedal horror of matted white fur and thick, corded muscle. Its head was a nightmarish mask crowned by a jagged rack of antlers that scraped against the ceiling, sending a shower of dust and pebbles onto the floor. It roared, a sound that vibrated in their teeth, projecting spit and a grizzled, meaty stench as it bared fangs longer than a man's hand, filling the colossal corridor from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.
"What the hell is it?!" Haruta yelled, his voice thin against the creature's bellow.
"That," Vista replied, his tone grim as he settled into a practiced stance, "is a question requiring an answer at a later date."
The beast charged. Its movement was shockingly fast for its size, an avalanche of rage and muscle.
Galit was the first to meet it, his Vipera whips snapping out like striking serpents. They wrapped tight around one massive, fur-covered forearm. But instead of slowing the creature, it barely seemed to notice. With a contemptuous jerk of its limb, it yanked Galit off his feet, sending him crashing to the stone floor with a grunt of pain.
Vista and Haruta moved as one, a blur of coordinated motion. They dove in from either side, their blades flashing. Steel bit deep into the creature's flanks. Blood, dark and steaming hot in the cold air, sprayed across the walls in a violent arc. The creature screeched, a sound of pure agony and fury, its massive hands clawing at the new, searing wounds.
Enraged, it turned. It lifted its huge, clawed palms and brought them down in a devastating slam that would have crushed both men into paste. Vista and Haruta threw themselves into desperate rolls, the shockwave of the impact rattling their bones as they scrambled clear.
Vista rose to one knee, a dry chuckle escaping him. "That could have gone better. We may be getting rusty."
Haruta wiped a spatter of blood from his cheek, a wild smirk on his face. "Speak for yourself. I'm ready to slay one hundred of these beasts."
"Wager accepted," Vista shot back, rising to his full height. "I will slay one hundred and one."
They lunged again, a whirlwind of slashes aimed at the creature's hamstrings. But the beast was cunning, its pain making it unpredictable. It twisted with unnatural agility, avoiding the worst of their assault, its antlers gouging great chunks from the wall.
Marya watched this ridiculous display, one dark eyebrow arched in a mixture of amusement and impatience.
"Are you going to do anything?" Dalton asked, his voice tight with a king's frustration at being a spectator in his own domain.
Marya sighed, a soft, exasperated sound. "If only to end this so we can continue on quickly."
The creature, as if sensing her dismissive intention, forgot the two men harrying its legs. Its burning amber eyes locked onto her. It let out another deafening roar, a direct challenge, and charged, a force of pure, single-minded destruction.
Marya didn't move. She simply raised Eclipse. The obsidian blade seemed to drink the light around it, the air growing deathly still. With a single, arching motion, too fast for the eye to follow, she swept the sword through the air.
There was no visible projectile. Only a leathered wave of pure will—Conqueror's Haki, sharpened to a killing edge—that shot across the space.
The creature stopped mid-step as if it had hit an invisible wall. Its roar choked off into a strangled gasp. It staggered, clutching at its chest, its massive frame heaving for a breath that would not come.
For a heartbeat, there was silence.
Then, a fine line appeared across its fur-covered chest. It welled, then split open, and a curtain of dark blood sprayed into the air. The creature took one stumbling step backward, a low, confused whine escaping its throat. Heaving, wounded but not felled, it turned and with a final, pained glance, lurched back into the darkness from whence it came, its staggering footsteps fading away.
Haruta rounded on Marya, his composure shattered. "You couldn't have done that earlier?!"
She slid Eclipse back into its sheath with a soft click. "You looked like you were having a good time," she replied, her voice flat.
From behind her coat, a small, trembling voice piped up. Chessa peered out, her face pale. "D-do you think it will come back?"
Marya took a slow breath, her golden eyes fixed on the dark tunnel. "I don't know," she said honestly. "But if it does, I don't think it will be so quick to challenge us."
The group collected themselves, their weapons still held ready, the coppery smell of blood now a permanent layer in the cold air. They pressed on, the corridor finally ending not in another archway or staircase, but at a seamless metal wall with a single, circular door set into it—an elevator, its controls glowing with the same soft, ancient light as the dials above. It was a promise of descent, deeper into the mountain's most closely guarded secrets.
*****
The ruins they entered were less a town and more a fossilized scream in stone. Towers of black, glass-like rock twisted towards the sky in agonized spirals, their surfaces unnaturally smooth, as if melted and refrozen in a single, catastrophic instant. The ground underfoot was a mosaic of fused debris and strange, metallic slag that gleamed with a dull, internal light. The air itself tasted of old lightning and dust, and a low, almost subsonic hum vibrated through the soles of their boots, a ghost of the power that had once raged here.
Perona floated ahead with an air of profound boredom. "Well, this is it. The middle of nowhere. Happy?"
Souta's eyes scanned the impossible architecture, his tattoos restless. "A direction would be useful."
Charlie stumbled over a half-buried spar of metal, his gaze darting everywhere. "Ahem! It is profoundly challenging to ascertain a starting point! The structural degradation is near-total, yet the energy signature is… persistent! Miss Perona, have you ever explored these ruins?"
"Explore this dump?" Perona scoffed, floating in a lazy circle. "Why would I? There's nothing cute here. It's all just… broken."
Bianca wasn't listening. Her eyes were fixed on a mostly-intact wall of a structure that might have once been a municipal hall. A symbol was carved above its gaping doorway—a stylized, geometric eye surrounded by intricate, interlocking gears, all rendered in a dark metal that had resisted the ravages of time. Her own breath hitched.
"Look," she whispered, but it was less an alert and more a realization. She didn't wait for a reply. She broke into a run, her boots crunching on the strange gravel.
Ember, seeing movement, squealed with delight and gave chase, thinking it a new game. "Wait for me!"
In a blur of silver, Aurélie was suddenly walking beside Bianca, her pace matched effortlessly. "Where are we going?" she asked, her voice low.
"You don't recognize it?" Bianca said, her voice tight with excitement. She skidded to a halt in front of the wall, pointing a trembling finger at the symbol. "That! That's our sigil! The Con…. I mean our home and that is my department!"
Aurélie's head tilted. Her compound eyes, usually so unreadable, widened a fraction. She stared at the emblem, then her gaze swept over the devastated plaza, the swirling mountains, the very fabric of the ruined world around them. A cold wave of realization washed over her features. A connection. A deep, hidden thread tying this place of nightmare and lost history to the heart of the Consortium itself. Who else knows? The question was an ice pick in her mind. What does this mean?
"Charlie!" Bianca yelled, her voice echoing off the glassy rock. "Over here!"
"Do slow down, Miss Clark!" Charlie called back, hurrying after her with an armful of surveying tools, his pith helmet bouncing.
Ember clapped, delighted by the yelling. Perona floated overhead, exasperated. "What is the big deal? It's just some old, dilapidated building with a weird scribble on it."
Kuro and Souta hung back, their wariness a palpable force. They exchanged a single, loaded glance. This complication was unforeseen.
Bianca didn't hesitate. She shoved aside a collapsed section of the doorway, squeezing through the gap. Charlie followed, both of them coughing as decades of fine, glittering dust filled the air.
"Which way, Miss Clark?" Charlie wheezed, wiping his glasses.
Bianca waved a hand, her engineer's intuition taking over. "This way! I think this is a lab!"
Perona phased through the solid wall next to them, making Charlie jump. "And how do you know that?" she demanded.
Bianca pointed to an archway where the metal was less corroded. Faint, angular lettering was etched into it. "It says 'Laboratory for Astral-Kinetic Research and Development'."
Perona stared, nonplussed. "You can read that gibberish?"
Bianca shrugged, already moving down a dark corridor. "Like, yeah. It's, like, not that serious. It's just an old dialect of Volcanic Vernacular."
"Understood!" Charlie said, right behind her, already taking notes.
Aurélie, Kuro, and Souta entered the main hall more cautiously. Kuro's eyes, sharp behind his spectacles, took in the scene. "Curious," he murmured.
Aurélie and Souta turned to him.
"There is significant rubble outside, consistent with the rest of the ruins," Kuro observed, his voice low. "But the interior… the damage is superficial. Dust and disuse, not destruction. It is far more intact than it has any right to be."
Aurélie gave a slow nod, her hand resting on Anathema's hilt. "Yes. It is… preserved."
Meanwhile, Bianca and Charlie pressed on, with a complaining Perona and a skipping Ember in tow. The corridors were dark, but light came from the walls themselves—a faint, phosphorescent glow from veins of mineral that pulsed in a slow, steady rhythm.
"Where are we going?" Charlie asked, his voice hushed with awe.
"This whole wing looks like it was for, like, physics and engineering," Bianca said, her fingers trailing along a wall covered in complex equations that made Charlie's head spin. "So, like, one of these rooms should, like, have half-finished experiments or prototypes. We can scavenge parts!"
"I do believe this signage suggests we turn left here!" Charlie pointed at another etched placard.
Bianca nodded. "Left it is." They reached a set of massive, reinforced double doors, one slightly ajar. With a grunt of effort, Bianca pulled one open while Charlie pushed the other.
The doors swung inward with a groan of protesting metal.
A wave of cool, ozone-free air washed over them, carrying the scent of old oil and something sweet, like crystallized sugar. They both gasped, then broke into identical, triumphant smiles.
"Like… jackpot!" Bianca breathed.
The room beyond was vast, a cathedral to lost science. The center was a sunken circle, lined with a dark, polished stone that seemed to absorb the light. Surrounding it were tiers of consoles, their surfaces a bewildering array of crystalline interfaces, brass levers, and glass tubes that coiled like frozen serpents. In the center of the sunken area, a complex armature of interlocking rings, forged from the same dark metal as the sigil outside, hung suspended in mid-air, humming with the same low, subsonic frequency that permeated the island. It was perfectly, impossibly preserved, a frozen moment of apocalyptic research waiting to be unlocked. The air shimmered with latent power, and the hair on their arms stood on end. They hadn't just found a parts depot; they had found the heart of the mystery.