The descent was colder than Cael expected, the air growing thin and stale as they stepped deeper into the forgotten veins beneath the city. Damp stone walls, slick with ancient moisture, closed around them like the ribs of some slumbering beast. Each footfall echoed—a lonely heartbeat in the suffocating darkness.
Cael's fingers brushed the cold, rough surface of the tunnel's walls, tracing the faint, glowing runes that pulsed weakly beneath layers of grime. Their faded light seemed reluctant to reveal the secrets they bore, as if the shadows themselves conspired to keep them hidden.
He swallowed hard, the taste of iron lingering in his mouth, a ghost of past battles and sacrifices. How long had this place been buried? he wondered, And what horrors had it witnessed?
Selene moved silently beside him, her silver hair catching the weak glow as she studied the runes with a wary gaze. "This is the cradle," she whispered, voice barely audible. "The place where the breach first bled into our world. It's more than a wound—it's a pulse, a heartbeat of corruption that never ceases."
A distant tremor rattled the earth beneath their feet, as if the city itself shivered in dread. From the darkness ahead, a jagged fissure tore through the stone, spilling tendrils of black mist that writhed like serpents, hungry and relentless.
Cael's breath hitched. The breach wasn't just growing; it was awakening.
He reached into his satchel and drew out a fragile parchment, worn and fragile like a relic from another era. Carefully, he unfolded it, revealing a sigil etched in trembling ink—a symbol said to bind the restless shadows.
"We need to seal it," Cael murmured, voice steady despite the storm of uncertainty within. "But to do that, we must first understand its nature. What feeds it, what drives it."
Selene's eyes met his, fierce and resolute. "Knowledge is our only weapon. But it comes at a price."
Cael felt the weight of her words settle deep in his chest. Every secret uncovered here would demand sacrifice—of time, sanity, perhaps even their lives. Yet the alternative was unthinkable.
They stepped forward together, into the abyss where echoes of the past whispered warnings, and the fate of their world trembled on the edge of a blade.