The smoke began to thin as Nakate struggled to breathe. His ears rang so loudly that it drowned out everything else. Through the haze, he caught a faint silhouette—someone standing over another figure.
"Cole—!" he rasped, coughing blood.
He forced himself upright and rubbed at his eyes. The smoke finally cleared, revealing Cole standing over the fallen Squibbo.
"Cole, we did it!" Nakate shouted in relief, before another fit of coughing bent him forward.
Cole hurried to his side, slipping an arm under his shoulder to steady him.
The Squibbo's body began to glow, breaking apart into drifting white dust—just like the Alpha Sharko Nakate had slain before.
"We really did it—we beat a Squibbo!" Lix called out, rushing toward them to check their injuries.
Nakate struggled to speak. "What now…? We need to find the bell in the church, right?"
"Well, we're already next to it," Lix said, pointing toward the small cathedral nearby.
"Perfect," Cole replied, heading for the doors as if the fight had never happened. Nakate blinked—Cole's burns were fading, the angry red marks softening and vanishing as though nothing had ever harmed him.
Meanwhile, Lix knelt beside Nakate, carefully wrapping his chest with layer after layer of bandages. She tightened the last strip with practiced hands, bracing his ribs to hold them steady despite the fractures.
***
Nakate and Lix caught up to Cole, curious about what held his attention. He stood frozen before the wooden gates, staring at them as if he'd seen a ghost.
The gates were veined with strange moss that glowed faintly when touched, casting a cold, sea-green shimmer across the worn wood. Nakate pushed them open, and the hinges groaned like something long forgotten.
Inside stretched a small cathedral, swallowed in the stillness of the Depths. Two long benches flanked a narrow aisle of cracked stone, their wood warped and dark with age. Dust drifted in lazy motes, glowing whenever the moss-light reached them. The walls were carved from the same pale teal stone as the city outside, streaked with salt and damp, and lined with arched windows filled by black water-stained glass. Above the simple raised platform where prayers might once have been spoken, strands of moss dangled like faded banners.
High overhead hung a massive bell of dull blue metal. Rust streaked its sides like dried blood, and the same luminous moss clung to it in faint patches, pulsing softly as if it breathed.
'Why is Cole just standing there?' Nakate wondered. Before he could speak, Lix stepped up beside Cole, and—suddenly—he seemed normal again.
"We finally made it," Cole said, a hint of pride in his voice after the brutal fight. "First of the four bells. Once it's rung, we only need three more to escape this place."
"Yeah. Now we just have to figure out how to ring it," Lix replied, glancing toward Nakate.
'Is she seriously expecting me to climb up there? …Guess I don't have a choice.'
Nakate gripped the cracked stones of the wall and began his climb, fingers slipping over patches of damp moss. About four meters up, he gathered himself and leapt toward the bell, striking it with his fist.
He hit the ground hard, pain shooting through his ribs and arm as he let out a sharp cry. "Why isn't it ringing? It's moving, but no soun—"
A deafening peal cut him off. The bell's chime burst through the cathedral, so loud it felt like it pierced his skull. The sound rolled through the empty nave, rattling the benches and scattering dust in trembling waves. It was strangely beautiful—almost sacred—but far too powerful for Nakate to savor as it echoed deep into the endless blue of the Depths.
The ever-present teal haze around them deepened, shifting from a mix of blue and green to a strange, sea-green glow. The moss along the walls brightened in response, its faint light pulsing like a heartbeat.
Suddenly, tendrils of the moss slithered toward the bell, wrapping it in a luminous shroud. For a breathless moment it held fast, the metal groaning as if strangled. Then, as quickly as it had come alive, the moss withered—shriveling into brittle threads that crumbled to dust.
The bell hung motionless, freed yet unnervingly silent, as if the cathedral itself were holding its breath.
Nakate and his group turned around and walked toward the entrance, their eyes drifting across the walls. 'Who would've expected the Depths to look so… beautiful?' he thought.
Teal particles from the moss floated through the air, glowing softly, as if the group were surrounded by wandering spirits. They felt warm to the touch, but Nakate kept his distance. In the Depths, he knew better than to trust anything—even something that looked so harmless.
The group left through the entrance, still amazed by what they had witnessed, and instinctively followed Cole without a word. 'How come they didn't say anything after that… not even where we should go first? But it seems like Cole already knows somehow.'
Nakate gathered the courage to speak. "Hey, so… how do you know where to go next?"
Cole turned his head, speaking as if it was nothing important. "Oh yeah, Lix told me while you were climbing for the bell."
"Why leave me in the dark then?" Nakate asked, confused. But Cole didn't answer.
How did they figure it out so fast in the first place? Do they even trust me? Nakate wondered, doubt slipping into his thoughts.
***
They traveled through the city, the silence pressing heavier with every step, until the streets ahead became swallowed in a thick, rolling mist. The haze clung to the stones and drifted between broken arches, twisting like pale dark teal smoke.
Nakate narrowed his eyes, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see more than a few steps ahead. The air felt damp and cold against his skin, carrying a faint smell of rust and salt.
Lix raised her hand, her voice low as she drew in a galebreathe mantra. A soft glow formed around her, pale green particles swirling in the air like drifting embers. With a sudden release, she unleashed a burst of wind that roared outward, scattering the mist in every direction.
As the haze thinned and pulled away, the path ahead revealed itself. On the stone ground shimmered faint, circular reflections of light, sliding slowly across the surface as if cast by something unseen above.
Nakate tilted his head back, tracing the shifting lights upward. They seemed to spill down from the top corners of the gate. But the mist above was still too thick to see clearly. All he could make out was a tall, stick-like figure half-hidden in the drifting haze—its head round like a sphere, glowing with a harsh white light that cut through the smoke.
Nakate took a step toward the drifting smoke, curiosity pulling him closer.
"NO, DON'T!" Cole's voice cut through the silence, sharp and panicked.
The light above flickered and died. From the mist, a figure began to descend, pushing the haze aside as if it were nothing. The shadow that lingered on the gate vanished with its arrival.
It looked angelic, yet its presence was hollow and cold.
The being was clad in dark, highly decorated armor, a fusion of black iron and polished gold that seemed to drink in the glow around it. A pair of vast wings unfurled from its back, bone-white and rigid, like marble carved into the shape of feathers.
Its head bore a pale, distorted by drifting gold mist, half hidden beneath a V-shaped iron mask. The mask was studded with dull, dead markings that resembled forgotten symbols.
Its eyes were twin cores of pure white light burned, unblinking, fixed directly on Cole.
In its hand, it carried a long, blackened spear. The tip pulsed faintly, threads of white and black energy swirling together in restrained violence.
It drifted lower, slow and inevitable, like an armored sentinel come down from the heavens. And though its movements carried no haste, the intent was clear.
It had come to kill.