The wind had changed.
It no longer howled with the rage of beasts, but carried something subtler—a hum, low and rhythmic, as if the very land murmured secrets.
Rey knelt beside a cracked boulder, eyes shut, hand against the earth. He felt the tremors. Tiny ones. Like footsteps. Not from above… but below.
> "Something's moving underground…"
He didn't panic. Two years of survival had tempered his instincts. Instead, he marked the spot, then retreated into a freshly-dug shelter concealed beneath a thicket of ashweed. His underground cave had grown complex—tunnels, trap exits, dead ends. It wasn't a simple hiding place anymore.
It was a base.
Inside, lit by faint blue moss, he checked his crafted tools: bone dagger, jagged spear, reinforced leather vest stitched with spider thread. Each item had saved his life more than once.
But none would help if the ground itself turned hostile.
---
Rey climbed to a perch before sunrise and studied the terrain. The northern path sloped downward now. The dry jungle gave way to charred hills and jagged cliffs. The air was colder, and the cries of monsters echoed like dying thunder.
He noticed something unusual near the base of a cliff—a line of small craters, each perfectly round.
Burrows.
He remembered similar patterns left by fangworms—long serpents that hunted from below. But those usually appeared in loose, sandy terrain.
This ground was rock.
What kind of creature could burrow through that?
Rey dropped low, testing the soil. It was brittle. Cracked. Something had weakened it from within. He smelled sulfur. Not natural.
Something artificial.
---
Later, while navigating toward a stream, he stumbled upon bones. Dozens of them. Scattered like broken twigs—some bleached, others fresh. They belonged to different monsters. But one thing stood out:
Each skull was pierced—a single, precise hole in the forehead.
> "Not crushed… not torn. Something drilled through."
He scanned the area. Silence. No birds. No insects. Even the trees leaned away from the clearing, as if afraid.
That's when he heard it.
A whisper.
Faint. Inhuman.
> "...he...still...alive..."
Rey froze. It wasn't in the air—it was in his mind. The same hum from earlier, now shaped into words.
He bolted.
---
Back at his cave, Rey blocked the entrances with bone-spiked barricades. He clutched his blade tightly, every muscle taut.
Then, without warning, the ground beneath his storage tunnel caved in.
A black tendril, thin and slick, slithered up through the dirt before snapping back like a whip. Rey dove backward, heart hammering.
Dust filled the space. From the hole, a soft voice echoed again.
> "He… bleeds like them…"
Rey ran.
---
He abandoned the cave, racing across cracked plains until nightfall. Only then did he stop, gasping for air.
He looked back. No sign of pursuit.
But in his heart, he knew.
He wasn't just being watched anymore.
He was being hunted.
And whoever—or whatever—wanted him, wasn't from this realm alone.
---
That night, Rey carved new symbols into a slab of wood—his crude record.
He drew a spiral staircase, descending.
Nine circles.
Each larger than the last.
Each representing a realm.
> "This is the 2nd… but something from below is already reaching up."
He stared at the sketch, hands trembling.
To survive, he would need more than shelter.
He would need allies… or monsters willing to make a deal.
But those things didn't exist here.
Not yet.
---