Once Neto crossed the threshold, a cool sensation spread across his skin like water. It seeped through his clothes, settled into his bones, and wrapped around his mind like a familiar blanket. The tension in his shoulders eased. His breathing slowed.
The spatial rift opened into a vast cavern that stretched beyond the reach of sight.
Columnar basalt comprised the floor and walls, hexagonal pillars rising from the ground like the bones of some ancient giant. Small blue crystals studded the stone at irregular intervals, their soft glow casting the space in shades of azure and shadow.
Where the basalt columns met, soft patches of moss grew in the seams, their emerald green a startling contrast to the cold geometry of the rock.
Thick air pressed against his ears and made silence feel like sound.
Neto walked a few paces into the cavern, his boots finding easy purchase on the uneven stone. Zhenyue's massive body, which should've been heavy on his slender shoulders, grew trivial to hoist, as the properties of the unbound became apparent.
He found a relatively flat stretch of basalt and lowered Zhenyue to the ground. The gold-bar lay on his back, chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of drugged sleep. His face was peaceful. Almost innocent.
Neto crouched beside him and studied that face for a long moment. The strong jaw. The close-cropped beard. The faint lines at the corners of his eyes that spoke of years spent squinting into sun and shadow. A handsome face. A confident face. The face of a man who had grown accustomed to being the strongest person in any room.
What did you do, Neto wondered, to earn this death?
Neto reached towards the defenseless giant with senses that had nothing to do with sight or sound, extending his awareness into the space around Zhenyue's body. And there it was.
It clung to the man like smoke. Thick, cloying, and familiar.
Human death. Dozens of them. Perhaps hundreds. Their echoes lingered in the air around Zhenyue like ghosts, silent and accusing.
Most delvers accumulated some measure of it over their careers. It was unavoidable. Conflicts arose. Rivals clashed. Sometimes you had to kill to survive.
But this was different. The sheer density of it. The way it pooled around Zhenyue like a second shadow. These weren't the deaths of enemies met in fair combat. These were the deaths of the helpless. The innocent.
Neto's expression hardened. The bounty he received for this man was from the underworld auction group. All they told him was that Zhenyue was a loose end that needed to be tied up, and offered a bonus if the death was painful.
He drew his dagger and, without ceremony, drew the blade horizontally across Zhenyue's abdomen.
The scream that tore from Zhenyue's throat echoed through the cavern like thunder, bouncing off the basalt columns and multiplying into a chorus of agony. His eyes flew open, wild and desperate, blazing with pain and fury. Defying common sense, the gold bar lurched upward, his hands clutching at the wound that wept crimson across his fingers.
Instinctively, Neto pounced away from him.
For a moment, confusion dominated his features. The unfamiliar surroundings. The blue-lit darkness. The cold stone beneath his back.
Then his gaze found Neto, and understanding dawned.
"You," he snarled. The word came out thick, slurred by the drugs still coursing through his system. "You motherfu-"
He was on his feet before Neto could blink.
Even gutted and drugged, Zhenyue moved with the fluid grace of a born predator. His sword cleared its sheath in a single motion, the blade catching the crystal-light and gleaming like a shard of fallen sky. He fell into a fighting stance that wavered but held, his free hand pressed against his wound, blood seeping between his fingers.
Neto rose slowly, dagger held loose at his side.
"You should stay down," he said. "You're only making this harder on yourself."
Zhenyue's laugh was a wet, ugly thing. "Stay down? Against a bronze-bar with no epiphany?" He spat blood onto the stone. "I've killed men twice your size with worse wounds than this."
"I believe you."
Well, I don't believe the part about worse wounds…
They stood facing each other across ten feet of basalt, the blue crystals casting their shadows in strange directions. The cavern was silent save for the drip of Zhenyue's blood against stone and the rasp of his labored breathing.
Then Zhenyue moved.
He crossed the distance between them in a single hop, his sword describing a vicious arc aimed at Neto's throat. The attack was impossibly fast, even accounting for his injuries. This was the speed of a gold-bar delver, honed by years of combat against things that would tear a lesser man apart.
Neto twisted sideways, feeling the wind of the blade's passage against his cheek. The scar on his neck ached, and the hidden bandage came undone.
Fear bubbled in his stomach as he realized that his decision to grant go for the bonus might have been a grave mistake.
He brought his dagger up in a counterstrike, aiming for the tendons of Zhenyue's sword arm, but the older man was already moving, pivoting on his heel and bringing his sword around in a horizontal slash that forced Neto to leap backward once again.
"This much should've been enough" Zhenyue spat a dark red ichor, pressing forward.
His face was pale, sweat beading on his brow, but his movements remained sharp. Precise. Deadly. "Heh. Quicker than I expected. But speed alone won't save you."
He launched a flurry of attacks, high, low, feinting left before striking right, each blow carrying enough force to cleave through bone. Neto parried what he could, deflecting the sword's edge with the flat of his dagger, and dodged what he couldn't, his body bending and twisting through spaces that seemed too small to occupy.
Finally - THUNK
One of Zenhue's attacks slipped through and pierced Neto's neck, striking the spine but not severing it.
The gleam of victory shone in Zenhue's eyes, but was soon replaced by fear, and finally, understanding.
"So that's how it is. Heh. Ha! HAHAHAHAH!
The cavern rang with the clash of steel against steel as Zenhue continued his onslaught.
Neto, despite his mortal wound, was still very much alive, albeit shaken by the blow.
"You. To kill you I need to sever your neck, don't I?"
Zhenyue's style grew in his desperation. He fought like a storm, each attack flowing seamlessly into the next, building momentum until his opponent drowned beneath the onslaught. It was a style that rewarded strength and stamina, that crushed defense through sheer relentless pressure.
However, in his current state, Neto was barely able to keep his head above water. He refused to drown.
Endure, Neto told himself, sliding beneath a decapitating swing. Endure and wait.
He circled right, forcing Zhenyue to turn, keeping the man's wounded side toward him. Every movement, every step, every breath was calculated to extend the fight. To make Zhenyue work. To drain him.
"Stop running!" Zhenyue roared, his frustration mounting. He surged forward, sword blazing with the pale fire of unbound energy. The attack carved a glowing arc through the darkness, beautiful and terrible, and where it passed, the very air seemed to scream.
Neto threw himself sideways, rolling across the stone as the strike shattered a basalt column behind him. Fragments of rock exploded outward, one catching him across the temple and sending stars cascading across his vision.
Where the rock struck him, he should've bled. His body expected the warmth of blood, but he knew there was no warmth left in his body.
Zhenyue was breathing hard now, his chest heaving, his face a mask of pain and rage. The wound in his belly had widened, the movement of combat tearing at flesh that had begun to knit. Blood pooled at his feet, black in the crystal-light.
"Jiangshi bastard," he gasped. "Who's your master?"
Neto wiped the stars from his vision. "I don't know."
"Lies." Zhenyue raised his sword, but the motion was slower now. Heavier.
"No Jiangshi doesn't know who their master is."
"And yet, somehow, I don't."
"Impossible! Tell me! Who sent you?"
Zenhue's expression wavered.
Neto sighed and braced for another attack.
""You should know."
"Hmph so you're with Foren? I'd know your face if you worked for that man."
They clashed again. Zhenyue's attacks were still powerful, still dangerous, but the intervals between them had lengthened. The drugs were asserting themselves. The wound was taking its toll. His body, magnificent as it was, had limits, and he was rapidly approaching them.
Neto pressed the advantage.
He darted inside Zhenyue's guard, accepting a glancing blow across his ribs in exchange for a deep cut to the man's sword arm. Zhenyue hissed and retreated, his grip on his weapon visibly weakening.
Lost in the rapture of battle, the towering man seemed completely unconscious. His jaw tightened as he raised his sword one final time, gathering what remained of his strength. Unbound energy crackled along the blade, brighter than before, drawing on reserves that would leave nothing behind.
"Then let's finish this," he growled.
He charged.
The attack was everything he had left, a single, devastating strike that tore through the air like a falling star. A magnificent and terrifying blow that certainly ended countless fights.
Unfortunately in Zenhue's current state, it left a fatal opening.
He moved.
Not away from the strike, but toward it. Into the narrow space between Zhenyue's body and his extended arm. Into the blind spot that every swordsman possessed, only accessible to Neto at Zhenyue's weakest, the tiny wedge of vulnerability that existed for only a fraction of a second between the beginning of a swing and its completion.
His dagger found Zhenyue's throat.
The gold-bar's eyes went wide. His sword completed its arc, carving through empty air, the unbound energy raged against Net's skin, sizzling and bubbling the flesh until half of his body was completely charred. Despite this, Neto lived. Every nerve in his body screamed and a faint moan escaped ruined vocal chords.
Neto slumped against the lifeless body of Zhenyue and pressed his lips to the man's open throat. Slowly, he sucked blood from the wound.
Time passed in the unbound realm unknowingly. Slowly, Neto regained the ability to stand. He looked at his skin, which had returned to its usual pale hue, and shuddered. Certainly, this had been a mistake. He underestimated the realm of a gold bar delver, and wouldn't forget this narrow victory.
If he were human, he'd be dead. If he were human…
This fight was his total defeat.
He looked down at the body for a long moment, then turned away. The job was done. There was nothing more to—
SCREEEEEEEEEE
A hideous sound exploded through the cavern. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, reverberating off the basalt columns, multiplying into a chorus of fury that drove into Neto's skull like a spike.
He staggered, pressing his hands against his temples. The pain was immense, skull-cracking, as if something was trying to force its way into his mind through his ears. His vision blurred and thoughts scattered.
Whether it was the blood, the death, or the discharge of unbound energy from Zhenyue's final attack, something in this space had awakened. And it was angry at the intruders that disturbed its nap.
Neto fumbled for his artifact and pressed the bone disc against his palm.
The artifact hummed to life, resonating with his consciousness, and suddenly he could see—not with his eyes, but with something deeper. The shape of the rift spread out before him like a map of light and shadow. The entrance he'd come through, now pulsing with malevolent attention stretched far beyond a reasonable distance. And, if course, the entrance was completely gone. Some distance away, a dark slit pulsed on the artifacts map.
He ran.
The scream followed him, growing louder, more furious. The blue crystals flickered and dimmed as he passed, their light seeming to flee from whatever was pursuing him. He didn't look back. Looking back was death.
The exit manifested as a seam in the basalt, a vertical line of impossible thinness that nevertheless called to him like a beacon. He threw himself toward it, felt the familiar sensation of crossing between spaces—
"Enjoy the snack, Grand Void."
And stumbled out into the cold night air.
Neto collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath. His head still throbbed with the echo of that terrible scream, but the pain was fading now, receding like a tide.
He forced himself to think. Loose rifts, unregistered spatial anomalies like this one, operated on principles that most delvers never fully understood. You couldn't exit the same way you entered; that was common knowledge. But what fewer people knew was that both entrance and exit didn't always lead to the same location.
In exceedingly rare circumstances, the exit might deposit you leagues away from the entrance, or in a place that didn't quite exist in the normal world. But such circumstances were so uncommon that most delvers went their entire careers without encountering them. Many didn't even know such exceptions were possible. Thankfully, Neto found himself on the right side of luck again.
He pushed himself to his feet, steadying his breathing, forcing his expression into something approximating concern. Then made the trek back to the camp.
Suyue was stirring.
Quickly, He exchanged his clothes for the reserve pair and buried the ruined ones before rushing to her side.
Her eyes fluttered, her brow creasing as consciousness slowly reasserted itself. She mumbled something unintelligible and shifted position, her hand reached up to rub at her temple.
Neto placed a hand on her shoulder and shook her urgently.
"Suyue. Suyue, wake up."
Her eyes opened, unfocused at first, then sharpening as they found his face.
"Neto? What's going on?" She winced, pressing a hand to her head.
"I don't know." He let calculated fear bleed into his voice.
"I woke up a few minutes ago and Zhenyue was gone. His pack, his sword—everything. I've been looking everywhere, but I can't find him."
Suyue struggled upright, alarm cutting through the fog of her drugged sleep. "Gone? What do you mean, gone?"
"I mean he's not here." Neto gestured helplessly at the clearing. "I thought maybe he'd gone to relieve himself, but his bedroll is cold. He's been gone for a while."
"That doesn't make sense."
Suyue looked around, her sharp eyes cataloguing the scene. The cold fire. The undisturbed packs. The other delvers, still deep in unnatural sleep.
"Why would he leave without telling anyone?"
"I don't know." Neto paused, then let his gaze drift toward the treeline, toward the place where the spatial rift waited. "Unless..."
Suyue followed his gaze. Her face went pale.
"The rift," she whispered. "You think he went into the rift? Alone?"
"I don't want to think about it." Neto shook his head. "But why else would he disappear? Maybe he wanted to scout ahead. Or maybe..." He trailed off, letting the implication hang.
Suyue's expression hardened. "Or maybe he wanted first claim."
It was a plausible theory. Delvers were competitive by nature, and the promise of unregistered artifacts, treasures that wouldn't need to be reported to the guilds or taxed by the cities was enough to tempt even honorable men. For dishonorable men with great power, the lure would be irresistible.
"We need to wake the others," Suyue said, already moving toward Fulai's bedroll. "If he's in there alone, he could be in danger."
Neto watched her go, admiring her resolve to help Zennhue despite his bold-faced lie. All things considered, she was still worried about her comrade.
He decided that if no one else, he could trust Suyue in this group. That eased his mind, as she was now the strongest member of their party.
Fulai's luck epiphany might keep him alive, but it wouldn't let him stand against the things that dwelled in unbound space. And Xiaoyan, for all her promise, was still green. Still learning.
As for Neto…
He was exactly what he'd claimed to be. A bronze-bar with no epiphany. A navigator, not a warrior. His victory over Zhenyue had come through preparation and deception, not superior strength. In a straight fight against the denizens of the unbound, he would be as vulnerable as any mortal.
But that was precisely why he wouldn't dissuade them from entering the rift. He needed money wherever he could get it.
Suyue was shaking Fulai now, her voice sharp with urgency. The lanky man groaned and swatted at her hand, but she persisted, and eventually his eyes cracked open. Confusion gave way to alarm as she explained the situation in rapid, clipped sentences.
"Wait, what?" Fulai sat up, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Zhenyue just... left? Without saying anything?"
"That's what it looks like," Neto confirmed, joining them. "His equipment is gone. Everything."
"That bastard." Fulai's expression cycled through disbelief, anger, and finally a resigned sort of acceptance. "I knew gold-bars were competitive, but this? Going in alone just to get first claim?"
"We don't know that for certain," Suyue cautioned.
"What else could it be?" Fulai shook his head. "He's probably in there right now, stuffing artifacts into his pack while we sit here wondering where he went."
Xiaoyan had woken during the commotion, her bronze hair tangled with sleep. She listened to the explanation with wide eyes, her hand drifting unconsciously to the dagger at her belt.
"What do we do?" she asked. Her voice was steady, but Neto could see the fear beneath it. "Do we go after him?"
The question hung in the air.
Neto let the silence stretch for a moment, then spoke carefully. "That's not my decision to make. Zhenyue was your leader. I'm just the navigator you hired."
"You're part of this party now," Suyue said with conviction. "Your opinion matters."
"Then..." Neto hesitated, as if wrestling with the decision. "Then I think we should follow. If Zhenyue is in trouble, we might be able to help. And if he's not, if he really did go in alone to claim treasures, then we deserve our share. That was the agreement."
Fulai nodded slowly. "He's right. We took this job together. Whatever's in that rift belongs to all of us, not just whoever gets there first."
"But without Zhenyue..." Xiaoyan bit her lip. "Can we handle it? The four of us?"
"We have Suyue's magic," Fulai pointed out. "And Neto's artifact. And my luck." He managed a crooked grin. "Besides, we're from the Lotus Guild. We don't abandon our own, even when they're being greedy bastards."
Suyue's expression was unreadable, but after a long moment, she nodded. "Then we go. But carefully. No heroics, no unnecessary risks. If we find something we can't handle, we retreat. Agreed?"
A chorus of agreement rose from the others.
Neto nodded along with them, his face a mask of grim determination. Inside, something cold and quiet settled into place.
Forgive me, he thought, though he wasn't sure who he was asking forgiveness from. This is simply what I have to do to be free.
The party gathered their equipment in silence, the pre-dawn darkness pressing close around them. Neto checked his dagger, his pack, the navigation artifact that hummed against his palm like a living thing. The others performed similar rituals, Suyue murmuring something under her breath, Fulai cracking his knuckles, Xiaoyan taking slow, deliberate breaths.
Then, together, they turned toward the treeline.
The spatial rift waited beyond the trees, invisible to normal sight but present nonetheless, a wound in the fabric of the world, leading to spaces that didn't obey the rules of ordinary existence. Neto could feel it calling to him, that familiar pull that had defined his life since the day he'd arrived in this world. A despicable pull that surely belonged to whatever brought him to this world, whatever reanimated this corpse and tied his soul to it.
Neto stepped forward with determination.
One by one, they crossed the threshold and vanished into the rift.