Team 2 had been traveling for several hours since the split, and by the time they finally chose a place to establish their second base, the very shape of the land looked fundamentally different from the region where they had first entered the Shadow Realm.
The plains behind them now seemed almost deceptively simple in hindsight.
At first, none of them had realized it, but once they moved far enough from the original split point, the terrain itself had made the truth obvious. The shadow plains were not level ground at all. Rather, they had been walking across a vast elevated shelf, a plateau of sorts, suspended above the rest of this region.
The moment they left its edge, the ground began to slope downward.
At first it was gradual enough to be ignored, little more than a subtle inclination beneath their feet, but over time it became quite unmistakable. The earth descended in long sweeping gradients, and the farther they went, the more the horizon seemed to open before them.
Cinder was the first to pause.
Her crimson eyes narrowed slightly as she looked out into the distance.
"There," she said quietly.
The others followed her gaze.
Far ahead, where the dim haze of the Shadow Realm blurred distance and form, something impossible hovered in the air.
Floating rocks.
Mercury let out a low whistle. "Well. That's not ominous at all."
Emerald frowned, staring more closely. The shapes were jagged and uneven, large masses of shadow stone suspended motionless in midair. Some drifted lazily in slow arcs while others remained perfectly still, as if pinned in place by invisible forces.
The researcher operatives behind them immediately began murmuring, several already taking out instruments.
"What kind of gravitational anomaly is this?"
"Is it an Umbral resonance type anomaly?"
"There isn't any visible support structure…"
Naturally, that was where Team 2 headed.
The closer they drew, the more unreal the landscape became.
The downward slope eventually leveled out into broken ridges and dark stone shelves that overlooked something vast enough to make even the Rank 2s stop.
A chasm.
No.
Calling it a chasm almost felt insufficient.
It was a wound in the world.
The ground had been torn apart into a colossal cavernous maw that stretched beyond the limits of sight in both directions. Its walls plunged downward into an abyss so deep that perspective itself began to feel uncertain.
Floating shadow rocks drifted within its breadth, scattered throughout the open void like debris suspended in frozen time.
And threading between them, slow arcs of black lightning moved.
The black lightning wasn't violent crackling arcs of a storm, but tendrils of darkness that slithered through the air in heavy, syrup-like motion, as if lightning itself had been submerged in molasses.
The sight was mesmerizing.
Thin pulses of black energy coiled and curved around the floating stone masses, occasionally leaping from one to another in eerie, sluggish flashes.
Mercury stared for a long moment.
"Yeah," he muttered, "Probably not a good idea to touch that. I for sure definitely don't want to."
But it was what lay below that truly stole the breath from everyone present. At the very bottom of the immense chasm stood something enormous.
A pillar.
Or what had once been a pillar.
It rose from the abyss like the trunk of an inverted world-tree, its massive body a deep, rich black purple unlike the black-gray shadows of the rest of the realm.
It was split cleanly down the middle.
The fracture ran vertically through its entire structure, as though some impossibly large blade had once descended from above and cleaved it apart.
The sight of it made the whole place feel ancient.
And dead.
And yet... not entirely lifeless.
The pillar had upside down roots which extended upward, branching into the void above rather than downward into the earth. Stranger still, those roots did not terminate naturally.
They vanished.
At the points where they disappeared, the air itself rippled outward in circular distortions, like stones dropped into invisible water.
Even from their distant vantage point, the scale of the thing was staggering.
One of the Menagerie researchers whispered under his breath, "What in the world…"
No one answered. Because the moment they reached the overlook, something else became immediately apparent.
Pressure.
The Shadow Realm here felt different and oppressive.
A faint weight pushed against their minds, like invisible fingers pressing against the inside of their skulls. It was not enough to incapacitate them, but it was undeniably present.
Discomfort and dread.
Even Mercury's usually casual expression had sharpened slightly.
"Feels like something's watching us."
Cinder said nothing, but inwardly, she was already assessing the scene.
The group eventually chose to establish their new base just outside the cavern's edge, far enough from the maw to avoid accidental exposure to the floating debris and the strange lightning currents.
It was the most logical point as it provided both a stable overlook and an easily defensible location. It was also close enough for continued observation.
Interestingly, none of them had seen a Stalker in the region for nearly an hour.
That alone made this place stand out.
Compared to the steadily increasing density in the direction that Team 1 had had went before the split, this place felt almost sterile.
If there were Stalkers here, they were scarce.
As the others busied themselves with construction and beacon placement, a separate conversation unfolded in silence.
A mind link.
Emerald's rune threaded their thoughts together, creating a private channel between herself, Mercury, and Cinder.
Emerald's voice came first, soft and uncertain within the shared space.
'Cinder, is that pillar is a catalyzer?'
Cinder's mental response came almost immediately.
'Likely.'
She continued, with a measured measured thought.
'Though if it is, it appears to have already been destroyed.'
Her gaze lingered on the split pillar below.
'The lack of Stalkers in the surrounding region also supports that theory. If this was once an active catalyzer, something has already severed its function. Possibly for a long-long time now.'
Mercury's thought cut in.
'Um... are you sure? Because that pressure in the air feels...'
Cinder's response carried a note of dry irritation.
'Descriptions are all we have to work from. I'd put it at roughly seventy percent confidence.'
Emerald processed that quietly before Mercury spoke again.
'Then how exactly are we supposed to find the asset if we can't connect to a catalyzer?'
Cinder remained calm.
'We are in no rush.'
Her thoughts were almost coldly patient.
'There are still two teams. Perhaps the other group will be fortunate enough to encounter a functioning one. Then, we can simply take it from them.The only thing we have to worry about are the Rank 2's who know how to use them.'
A faint pulse of satisfaction followed.
'Besides, the longer the Geist has to settle within that man, the more advantageous the situation becomes for us.'
Emerald hesitated.
'What if he kills and absorbs it instead?
The link fell quiet for a moment before Cinder's displeasure came through. A sharp, tense pulse of emotion rippled through the shared channel.
'Then... we'll have a problem.'
Her thoughts darkened.
'Because if the most publicly acknowledged strongest Rank 3 in the world becomes stronger still…'
She did not need to finish the thought.
Such a possibility would not merely complicate their mission. It might create something capable of threatening even their leader.
Cinder exhaled slowly.
'For now, it doesn't matter. We still need to find him first. It's a bridge that we'll cross when we get there.'
Then her attention shifted.
'Speaking of control. Emerald, how is the conversion process progressing?'
Emerald answered more confidently this time.
'Rajah hasn't noticed anything abnormal yet. But my Psyche layering is delicate. If we're lucky, it'll take another four days.'
A brief pause.
'As for Coppal… he was already done before we entered. There shouldn't be any issues there.'
That pleased Cinder.
A warm pulse of approval moved through the link.
'Good.'
Her thoughts sharpened into something almost triumphant.
'With two meta rune users under our influence, Sleepless' future elites will become a force worthy of the final battle.'
Then irritation surfaced again.
'It is only unfortunate that Jaune Arc and Auberyn are beyond your reach. Their specific runes are able to detect your Psyche intrusion too easily. They would have been valuable assets.'
Mercury's mental voice carried quiet curiosity.
'Do you think Nicholas planned that, so that Sleepless couldn't touch his son?'
Cinder fell silent for a moment.
Then:
'Most likely.'
Her response came slow and deliberate.
'Nicholas Arc is one of Sleepless' greatest assets. The Belmont incident alone proves the scope of his foresight.'
Her thoughts sharpened further.
'I would not put it past him to have accounted for his son reaching Comprehension.'
That made Emerald uneasy.
'Can... we really trust him?'
The reaction was immediate. Cinder's anger surged through the link like fire.
'Do not ask such a stupid question again.'
Emerald recoiled instinctively, a pulse of fear leaking into the connection.
Several long seconds passed before Cinder's emotions cooled. When she spoke again, her thoughts were measured.
'Our leader trusts him and that is all that matters.'
Outside the mind link, the new base continued to take shape beneath the silent shadow of the shattered purple pillar.
And far below, in the abyssal maw of the chasm, the slow black lightning continued to crawl through the air like veins of living darkness.
.
.
Deep within the towering shadow forest, beneath a canopy so vast that it swallowed what little dim light the realm offered, the battle had frozen into a single, terrible moment.
The Asura Stalker stood at the center of it all.
Its body was lean and muscular, carrying a dreadful solidity that made every movement feel crushingly powerful. Six arms spread from its torso in a grotesque symmetry, each one moving with a different purpose, as though six predators inhabited the same body.
One arm which had transformed into a sword was locked against Raven's shadow blade.
Her weapon, forged from condensed shadow and sharpened to a killing edge, had been halted inches from its neck. Raven's eyes were narrowed and her body was twisted into the follow-through of the strike, but the Stalker's own sword-hand had caught the blade as if it were no more troublesome than a branch caught in passing.
Two more arms were occupied with Qrow.
His crow form had lunged for its throat, wings flaring wide in a storm of black feathers, only for the creature to seize him mid-strike. Its long fingers had hooked around the upper and lower halves of his beak, forcing the mouth open and holding it there with brutal ease, preventing the vicious snap that had been meant to tear into its face.
Another pair of arms had transformed entirely.
Where hands should have been, dark tendrils writhed instead, thick cords of Umbra coiling outward like living serpents. They had wrapped around Zeki's roots, pushing against them in a straining knot of shadow and wood, the two forces grinding against each other with enough pressure to split the nearby ground.
And then there was the final hand, which was enclosed around Jaune Arc's throat.
The creature had lifted him just enough that his shoes no longer fully touched the ground, his half-shadow body was held effortlessly in its grip. He could feel the pressure. It wasn't painful, but it was deliberate and controlled.
Its two white eyes stared into him.
Not with mindless hunger or rage but with something far worse.
Curiosity.
Malicious curiosity.
For a moment the forest itself seemed to go still. Even the distant rustle of leaves and the shifting shadows between the monstrous trunks felt as though they were waiting.
Then the Asura's face split open.
The lower half of its face unfolded, peeling back into a smooth white maw lined with no teeth at all, only an empty pale void that somehow still carried the weight of a grin.
"What… Are… You?"