Wonderful Insane World

The darkness was not a void. It was a living substance, thick, pressing against their eyelids and filling their lungs with its clammy humidity. But for the Awakened, it was only another veil to pierce.

The first to move was Zirel. He hadn't seen the creature reposition itself—he had felt it: a minuscule displacement of air, a disturbance in the stagnant flow of rot and mildew. His arm snapped forward like a spring, the dagger slicing through the black with a dry hiss. The blade struck something hard, then something softer. A wet crack, followed by a hiss of rage and pain that tore through the silence, told him he'd found his mark.

That was the signal.

The tunnel erupted into a chaos of steel and claws.

A soldier, breath ragged, parried a blow coming from his left, guided only by the whisper of air across a carapace. The impact sent blue sparks flaring before his blind eyes. He countered, his sword cutting through empty space before it finally met an articulated limb with the sound of bone shattering.

Maggie, meanwhile, hardly moved. Rooted at the formation's center, she was the anchor, the still point around which the storm raged. Her wide eyes saw nothing, but her mind charted the battle. She read the echoes of every strike, the gasps of each man, the distinctive stench of each beast. She caught the acid tang of Élisa's fear, a sharp note in the violent symphony, and then—suddenly—a surge of raw determination. The girl began to move, her gestures hesitant at first, then steadier. She dodged a low blow—Maggie heard her sliding across the slick stone—and answered with a muffled cry and the dull thud of a blunt weapon against chitin.

"Right, low!" barked Zirel, his voice a flash of command in the dark.

Two blades fell simultaneously at the spot he'd called. They struck something that screamed and thrashed. The ground beneath their boots grew slick, drowned in foul, reeking blood.

They weren't fighting alone. The darkness was their ally as much as their foe. It cloaked their movements, made their counterattacks unpredictable. They were no longer men in armor, but extensions of their senses, predators adapted to the absence of light. Hearing told them where danger came from, smell told them how close it was, and touch—through the trembling of the stone—told them how many.

Then a new sound emerged from the carnage, more troubling than the shrieks of the beasts: a hurried scraping, multiplied, swelling from the walls and the ceiling. As if the first assault had been no more than a probe, and the true pack—drawn by noise and blood—was now upon them.

Zirel sensed it first. A shiver crawled up his nape, instinct older than reason.

"They're coming!" he shouted, wiping some viscous fluid from his face with the back of his hand. "Close ranks! Don't let them through!"

The circle tightened, shields forming a spiked barricade. In the absolute black, they had nothing but will and sharpened senses as armor. The next wave would be worse. It was already here—crawling, ravenous—and it had no fear of the dark. It was the dark.

The scraping grew frantic, a crackling of a thousand legs over damp stone.

Maggie felt every detail, her eyes shut, her mind weaving a map of sound and stench. The soldier at her right was breathing too fast; his fear stank sour. Élisa's breath came in jagged but controlled bursts, and Maggie caught the subtle distortions in the air made by the two leaden orbs spinning above her head like invisible hornets. An interesting power, but so fragile. A distraction, not a weapon.

Her own hand tightened around the short-handled mace, a wooden shaft bound in iron she'd pulled from her belt at the first sign of trouble. In these burrows, a halberd was a death trap—too long, too clumsy. Here, concise brutality reigned.

"Zirel, left wall, three incoming fast, knee height," she said in a low, almost neutral voice, never breaking her stillness.

Zirel's voice thundered an order. Two men pivoted, shields scraping as they lowered them. Something slammed against the barrier of wood and iron with the blunt force of a battering ram. A muffled cry, then the unmistakable rasp of a dagger finding a weak point—a hiss, a wet gurgle.

But Maggie already knew it wasn't over. That attack was a feint. The real danger wasn't from the front or the flanks. It was crawling.

"The ground," she said louder this time.

Beneath their boots, the stone seemed to break open. Long, slimy forms, pale worms with gaping, round maws lined in spirals of teeth, erupted from fissures they hadn't noticed. One coiled around a soldier's ankle, yanking him down with inhuman force. His scream drowned in a wet gargle as a second worm wrapped around his chest, crushing the leather cuirass with a sinister crack.

That was when Élisa struck.

A faint whistle—barely audible amid the clamor—sliced the air. Then a sharp, wet pop, like an overripe melon splitting apart. The creature smothering the soldier burst in a spray of pale flesh and black blood. The second orb must have struck just as fast, for another wet crunch rang out, and the grip around the man's ankle fell away.

"Fall back! Push forward!" Zirel roared, knowing that standing ground meant certain death.

They moved, striking as they advanced, turning their defensive circle into a wedge of steel that split the dark. Maggie followed, her mace swinging with deadly economy. Each blow landed true, crushing a grasping limb, caving in a hissing head. The weapon's weight reassured her—it demanded no finesse, only precision and strength. Both of which she had in abundance.

Her mission—the one the Count had whispered to her in private—flared back into her mind. Mapping was only a pretext. Watching Zirel, yes, but above all: sensing. Sensing whether it was here. The thing that had emptied three expeditions without leaving a single body. The thing that, if rumors were true, did not belong to this world. So far, she felt only the hungry frenzy of fissure predators. Nothing more. But the pit was deep. And they were still descending.

Then—a new cry echoed deeper in the gallery. Not the shriek of a beast, but a challenge, low and resonant, making the very stone tremble beneath their feet.

The immediate attacks ceased at once, as if the creatures were retreating, yielding the way to something greater.

Zirel froze, arm outstretched to halt their advance.

"Silence," he breathed.

In the dark, Maggie felt a presence stirring. An ancient weight, pressing on her mind. The prelude to another kind of hunt.

They were no longer predators. They were prey.