Chapter 70 – The Path Below
They were falling.
Not through air—
But through sand, shadow, and silence.
The tunnel had tilted without warning, like the throat of a beast shifting to swallow. It bent sharply, sliding into a 45-degree slope, and suddenly the floor beneath them became a deathtrap of slippery black glass and loose, grating sand.
Moon's scream never made it far.
The moment he opened his mouth, sand blasted into his face—vicious, stinging, alive. It stabbed into his eyes like tiny glass needles, clinging to every moist surface, searing like acid.
His vision blurred to red, then black. He blinked rapidly—nothing helped. He couldn't see.
His ears filled next. Grit poured in like static electricity, muffling the world with a gritty hum that was half silence, half whispers—
Whispers that didn't belong to Moon.
He clawed at his face blindly, coughing, trying to spit the sand out, but the tunnel's slope was increasing.
They were sliding faster now, deeper into the underground maw.
Kai, just a few feet above, wasn't spared either.
He coughed violently—a rasping, choking bark—as he inhaled, and the fine grains of sand slithered down his throat like worms made of shards.
His esophagus burned.
His chest spasmed with every breath.
Each inhale felt like razors scraping raw skin.
They were trapped on a tilting death-slide, their bodies scraping along a surface too smooth to grip, too steep to resist. The sand was thick—almost deliberate—as if it had been designed to infiltrate every opening.
Kai tried to speak again, but his voice cracked.
"MOON!"
His shout echoed, but not as he expected.
It came back wrong—distorted, warped, like it had passed through layers of water, or the vocal cords of someone pretending to be him.
Then—
A distant, hoarse voice replied.
"Yeah... I'm here!"
Moon's voice. Real. Barely.
It came from somewhere below—maybe to the left—maybe right in front.
It didn't matter. It was all they had.
Blinded, suffocating, they began gliding toward the only thing anchoring them: each other's voice.
They pushed through the unknown, following sound like it was light.
Then—
Ting.
A chime.
Too clear.
Too artificial.
As if reality had paused to allow a single, precise sound.
Kai's blurry, sand-coated vision flickered.
Through the haze, a faint translucent glow bloomed in front of his face. A system window—half transparent, glitching slightly at the edges—pulsed into existence:
---
> [System Notification: 200 km Remaining to Quest Location.]
---
Even in the chaos, his mind caught it.
They weren't just falling randomly.
They were being led.
This tunnel wasn't a mistake.
It was a path.
But before that idea could root itself—
A pressure wave slammed into his skull.
The world lurched sideways.
The tunnel vanished—at least in his senses.
The air turned thick, syrupy, as if time itself twisted.
His body spasmed.
The floor beneath him—was it still there?
Or had it become liquid, a melting, shifting membrane dragging him downward?
His ears popped.
The whispers returned. Closer now.
They didn't echo. They slithered.
Kai's thoughts fractured.
Something tore inside his mind—not physically, but mentally, like his consciousness had hit a sharp corner in reality and been cut open.
The last thing he felt was weightlessness.
The last thing he heard was his own heartbeat—slowing, distant, cold.
Then—darkness.
??? — Later
When Kai awoke…
He wasn't falling anymore.
But that made it worse.
Because something about being still—completely still—felt wrong.
His body was sprawled flat, stiff against a surface that didn't feel like earth or stone. It was too smooth. Too cold. Too… unnatural. His eyelids fluttered half open, weighted as if they'd been sealed shut for hours, days—centuries.
Above him loomed something he thought was sky at first glance.
But the longer he stared, the more wrong it felt.
It wasn't sky.
It was a dark canopy, stretched taut like wet animal skin, glistening faintly as if breathing.
It didn't move with wind.
There was no wind. No sound. No stars.
Just that fabric of darkness, and the unsettling feeling that something massive—something faceless—was resting its head just above it, inches away, listening to his heartbeat.
His head throbbed.
Not a dull ache—no.
This was deeper. More invasive. Like a set of fingers had clawed their way into his skull while he was unconscious, and scratched around with curiosity.
Every thought felt bruised.
He winced. Tried to sit up.
His arms didn't move.
Panic whispered its first note.
His muscles were dead weight, unresponsive. A shiver ran through him—not from cold, but from the realization that his own body no longer felt like his.
Like it belonged to someone else, and he was borrowing it.
When he finally managed to lift his head, the effort nearly made him vomit. His vision spun. Everything in his body screamed sluggish, as if gravity was pulling multiple times harder than usual.
He clenched his jaw.
Tried to focus.
And with pure will, forced himself upright.
The world swayed. But he stayed seated.
He immediately tried to summon his System Interface—instinctual. His right eye twitched, waiting for the HUD to appear.
Nothing.
He blinked.
Tried again. Harder.
Focused on the neural signal.
Still nothing.
The air around him was silent—oppressively so. Not the peaceful silence of a forest, but the suffocating, choked silence of a dead world.
That's when he noticed.
He couldn't feel it.
His essence energy.
Not even a flicker. No warmth in his chest. No pulsing in his core. No glow under his skin. It was as if someone had reached in and unplugged the divine power that made him… him.
"What's… happening?" he whispered.
But even his own voice startled him.
It sounded small. Raw.
Too human.
Too mortal.
He looked down at his hands.
No glow. No flicker of energy across his fingertips. Just pale, dirt-streaked skin that looked—ordinary.
He clenched them into fists, but even that felt heavy.
"No," he murmured. "No, I'm not losing it."
He inhaled sharply.
Held.
Exhaled.
Did it again.
Calm. Stay calm. Anchor your mind.
He forced himself to observe, to gather information like a soldier.
The ground beneath him wasn't natural.
It was tiled—cracked, ancient, veined with moss and black dust. As if a ruined city had sunken into a forest and forgotten itself.
Except… this wasn't a forest.
Not really.
All around him stood trees, but they didn't look like any trees he'd seen before. They were pale—almost silver—with bark that shimmered faintly, like veins of mercury frozen in place.
Their branches twisted like fingers, clawing upward toward the unmoving sky.
No rustling. No birds. No life.
They looked fossilized. Like they'd been here for thousands of years, caught mid-movement, frozen by some ancient curse.
Kai turned his head, and that's when he saw it.
A path.
Winding through the trees.
Narrow.
And lit by metal street lamps.
They hummed with a low, distorted buzz, some casting dim yellow glows, others flickering between red and white like glitching code.
The air was still.
And heavy.
Like the forest was holding its breath.
Then, in the distance—just beyond the fourth or fifth lamp—
He saw someone.
A body. Lying still.
Covered in black cloth.
Kai's pulse spiked.
"…Moon."
The name barely escaped his throat, thick with grit.
He stumbled to his feet. His balance was off—his body felt slow, mundane, like it had been downgraded. No warrior's poise. No surge of strength. His knees wobbled with every step as he approached the figure.
Ten meters.
Seven.
Three.
Kai dropped beside the body, heart thundering.
It was Moon.
Face pale. Cloak dusty. His black hair clumped with sand. There was a small cut above his brow—dried blood marked his temple.
"Moon! Wake up—come on!"
He shook him, gently at first, then harder.
No response.
"Moon, it's me! It's Kai—wake the hell up!"
Another shake.
Moon stirred—groaning.
His eyelids parted slowly.
"…Kai…?"
Relief flooded Kai's face.
Moon looked around, blinking blearily. Then he tried to sit up—paused—and froze.
His breath caught.
"I… I can't feel it," Moon whispered. "My essence—it's… it's gone."
Kai nodded grimly.
"Mine too."
They sat in silence.
No birds. No wind. No creatures.
Just the flickering buzz of electric lamps in a forest that didn't breathe.
"…Where are we?" Moon asked.
Kai glanced back toward the path.
"I don't know," he said quietly. "But there's a road. And we're going to follow it."
Kai staggered forward, his steps uneven. His body no longer surged with the grace of a warrior. He was slower—mundane. Every cell screamed that this place had robbed him of something fundamental.
They sat in silence for a moment. Listening.
But there was no sound.
No wind. No rustle. No birds.
Just the soft buzzing of distant lamps.
"I think… we're still on the quest route," Kai muttered. "But something's wrong. Very wrong."
Moon looked at him, uncertain.
Kai pointed. "There's a path. We follow it. That's all we can do."
They both got up. Limbs heavy. Spirits heavier.
Step after step, they walked.
Through a world that didn't breathe.
They walked in silence.
The forest around them remained unchanged—no rustle, no wind, no movement. The pale silver trees stood like statues, watching. The sky above, still that strange stretched fabric, loomed without stars, without moon, without time.
The only sounds were their footsteps—soft, hollow, echoing off cracked tile—and the faint, mechanical buzzing of the flickering streetlamps that lined their path like grave markers.
Then, several minutes in—
They saw it.
A sign.
Old. Rusty.
Bolted haphazardly to the base of a leaning streetlamp.
Its metal groaned quietly, as if their presence alone had stirred it from slumber. The surface was pitted and scarred with age, but something about it felt... too deliberate.
As if someone had placed it there not to help, but to warn.
Kai slowed first, narrowing his eyes.
There was writing—crude and jagged—painted in thick red strokes that dripped slightly down the metal.
Too red.
Too fresh.
Moon stopped beside him. They stared.
It didn't look painted.
It looked bled.
Kai took a cautious step closer. The air felt heavier here. Each breath pulled in slow, like the oxygen had thickened. His eyes scanned the uneven letters—uneven not from haste, but from shaking hands.
He read aloud, voice barely above a whisper:
---
Rules:
Do not make eye contact with unknown entities.
Don't look back under any circumstance.
If someone calls for help, point in the opposite direction.
Your goal is to reach the city and find a hotel.
Before entering any house or building, look for its rules nearby. If you don't see any rules—do not enter.
> Good luck.
---
The last two words were written in smaller font, almost scratched into the metal, like they had been added as an afterthought… or by a different hand.
Moon glanced at Kai.
"…What the hell is this place?"
Kai didn't answer. He couldn't.
The moment he opened his mouth, the air around them changed.
Thicker.
Colder.
And then—
A voice.
Faint. Fragile.
Female.
Dripping with sorrow.
> "Help… me… please…"
It came from directly behind them.
Both of them froze.
Their spines stiffened. Their breath caught mid-chest.
The voice wasn't loud—it wasn't even threatening. It sounded like a child. Weak. Alone.
Like she was just behind them, only a few inches away.
Close enough to reach out.
To grab a shoulder.
To whisper in an ear.
Kai's heart pounded in his chest.
Moon didn't move.
The urge to turn around was primal.
Every instinct screamed it: Look behind you.
Someone needs help.
Someone's in pain.
But that's when Kai remembered.
> Don't look back under any circumstance.
And the other rule—
> If someone calls for help, point in the opposite direction.
His breath trembled.
His fingers curled into a shaky fist—then slowly extended.
He lifted his hand, arm quivering like it weighed a hundred kilos.
And pointed.
Forward.
Away from the voice.
Moon's eyes widened as he followed the motion—but neither of them dared speak.
The moment Kai's finger pointed—
The voice cut off.
Just like that.
Like someone had pressed mute on the world.
The silence that followed wasn't normal.
It was vacuumed—empty, yet filled with tension.
Like something behind them had been expecting them to fail.
Waiting for one of them to turn.
To break the rule.
But they hadn't.
And now whatever it was… had gone quiet.
Kai swallowed. His throat was dry.
He nodded once. "Let's keep walking."
They didn't look at each other.
They just walked.
Faster now.
Their shoes echoed harder on the cracked tile path, the shadows around them growing longer. The lamps above flickered more frequently. One sputtered, sparked—and died.
And then—
The next one.
And the next.
Behind them, the lamps were going out.
One. By one. By one.
A slow procession of darkness, chasing them with each step they took forward.
Kai didn't turn. Moon didn't turn.
But they both felt it.
Something was back there.
Something had been watching.
Something was now following.
And then—
A shadow stepped into the dying light.
They didn't see it.
But they felt it—like a chill brushing their necks.
If they had looked, they would've seen:
A figure.
Too tall. Too thin.
Limbs too long, arms dangling past the knees, skin the color of ash.
And where a face should've been—
Only smooth, stretched skin.
No eyes.
No mouth.
But it was hungry.
The shadow followed them as they walked.
Not rushing.
Not attacking.
Just… trailing behind, step by step, lamp by lamp—
Feeding on their fear. Waiting for one of them to make a mistake.
But the boys never looked back.
They kept their eyes forward.
Their breathing shallow.
Their minds sharp.
They walked down the path…
Toward the city.
Toward the hotel.
Where worse things waited—
And the next set of rules would decide whether they lived…
Or became part of the forest.
To be continued…