Adela understood precisely what they had stumbled into.
Valleys were unlike ordinary Zones. They were not the sprawling expanses that left space for retreat and manoeuvre, but cramped death traps, pressed tight around all within.
Beneath their floors lay thousands of creatures, packed together in unnatural stillness until a single stir roused them all at once.
When that moment came, there was no thinning their ranks, no breaking through their press. They rose in swarms that consumed ground and sky alike.
And they were the refuse of the world's cycle, dead things drawn together in a semblance of life. A Valley functioned as a graveyard that never ceased breeding, a pit without bottom, its base forever fed by the fallen.
To fight was futility.
The only law of survival in such a place was escape, and escape swiftly, before the Valley's depths truly woke.
The Black Lotus had betrayed the truth, for such a mutated plant did not grow from soil nor draw life from rain or sun. It was a parasite born of corpses, its roots driven into ruin, feeding on the remnants of power or essence the dead had left behind.
To Adela, that was the sign.
Wherever a Black Lotus bloomed, the ground beneath was thick with the fallen. She had already suspected as much, but when she summoned her Item of Hell and felt its dark pull answer, suspicion crystallised into certainty.
***
"Run!" Orion bellowed, and they burst forward together, forcing their way through the brittle stalks of dead flowers without so much as a glance behind. The ground trembled beneath their feet, a steady shudder that seemed to chase them.
The fissures widened and figures began to haul themselves out of the soil.
A piercing screech carried through the air as the first of the creatures emerged. It resembled a warped insect, its ribs forcing the earth apart while its torso dragged upwards. The skull split open to reveal jagged teeth that rattled against one another as it moved.
Another followed, then a third, until the ground appeared to seethe with them.
Na-Ri was the first to meet the rush.
A flicker of shadow crossed her eyes as she turned sharply, her blade cutting through the air in a clean arc. Steel tore into a lunging corpse and flung it back into the dust, its limbs snapping apart on impact.
She pressed on without pause, pivoting on her heel and reversing the sword to drive it low into the throat of another that hurled itself into her path.
Her movements carried a fluid precision, each strike executed as though it had been rehearsed a thousand times. The stranger's blade cut a crescent through the air, spilling black ichor before she broke back into her run.
Orion surged at her flank, the golden rope uncoiling in his grip. Its sharpened tip snapped forward with the speed of a viper, carving a thin arc of light as it tore across a creature's chest and ripped clean through.
With a savage tug, he drew the rope back, then sent it whirling again. The blade swept a circle around them, cutting down three more that had pressed in from the side.
Adela kept close to Kyle, her sword flashing in the dim light. She lacked Na-Ri's effortless grace, but compensated with measured aggression. Every cut landed with intent: shoulders split, spines hacked apart, remnants kicked clear without breaking stride.
'Fuck. Careful with the carcasses, Adela! Those rancid pits are burning my eyes.'
Kyle fought differently. He carried nothing but a jagged rib clenched tight in both hands, and his style was nothing but brute force. He fought with his elbows and weight, driving the bone through eye sockets, plunging it into mouths, smashing skulls until they gave way.
One of the beasts lunged at him from the side, and he met it head-on, tackling it to the ground like a dogfighter. He pinned it into the dirt and drove the rib again and again into its chest until the body slackened.
With a frown, he shoved it aside and pushed on with the others.
The dead began to close faster.
Dozens burst up around their path, hurling forward like wolves.
A corpse lunged at Adela from the flank with its jaws snapping wide. She gasped and brought her blade up too late to block, but Kyle had already driven the rib across in a heavy swing that carried his full weight. The strike connected with a sharp crack that split the creature's skull and hurled its body across the ground.
He shoved against her shoulder, jolting her balance back into place.
"Keep your eyes forward."
Adela clenched her jaw and forced her stance to steady again, her sword cutting back into its rhythm as she met the next advance. Kyle dropped in behind her, raising the rib weapon before crushing down another corpse that dragged itself from the soil.
He stamped its head deep into the dirt, then broke forward across the churned ground to close the distance with the others.
Na-Ri's speed forced the swarm apart as she carved a path with fluid precision. Her blade blurred through the air, and her movements seemed so light-footed that the ground scarcely held her. Every cut found its mark as her shoulders rolled into arcs of deliberate violence. A beast vaulted high, its shadow falling across her face, but her sword was already raised, cleaving the creature in two before it had even descended.
Orion held the wider ground, his rope-blade circling above him in heavy loops before snapping forward with punishing force. Each strike tore through several bodies at once, the momentum dragging carcasses out of the way.
He pulled the rope free from a tangled ribcage with a guttural snarl, then whipped it straight into the skull of the next beast that charged headlong at him.
Behind them, the swarm rose in a chorus of screams as the ground split wider and more bodies forced their way upward.
Kyle drove his shoulder into a corpse that lunged across his path, slamming it back into its fellows before planting the rib weapon through its skull.
His strikes had no elegance, but they carried the raw force of a man unwilling to be dragged into the earth.
When another corpse clawed for his side, he caught its arm beneath his own, wrenched until the bones snapped, and drove his knee into its chest to fling it sprawling.
Adela caught the next advance, her blade plunging into the spine of a beast that had sprung at Orion's back. She ripped it clear before the jaws could close, then wheeled and struck again without pause.
The shriek of another corpse split across her hearing and she clenched her teeth, swinging hard enough to tear its jaw in two.
"Faster!" Orion shouted as his rope-blade snapped through another broad arc. "Do not slow."
The plain of dead flowers stretched ahead without end, yet the pressure of the swarm left no room to hesitate. Na-Ri carved through another line, her blade keeping the path open by sheer speed.
A corpse lunged straight for Kyle's chest. He met the attack head-on, driving the rib into its mouth before the jaws could close.
He cranked the weapon until the jagged bone split the skull, then wrenched it free and hurled the body aside.
His footing slipped, but he caught his stride again with a low snarl and sprinted forward.
Adela slashed the air clean beside him, cutting through another. Orion's rope snapped out again, carving a line so sharp it ripped three heads in one swing. Na-Ri darted ahead, clearing their way.
Still they came, more and more, but the four did not falter. They cut and slammed and hacked, weapons striking with the raw sound of bone on flesh, sprinting with the grim resolve of survival at all cost.
They ran as though the world itself were collapsing behind them.
'...Finally.'
Kyle grinned darkly.
...Ahead of them was a fall, and they all jumped into it without hesitation.