Elara Fors
"Ma, do you need help?"
Erik's voice rose from somewhere below the rocky slope.
"I am fine."
…If only that were true. The darkness pressed in from every direction. My floating fireballs flickered weakly, barely illuminating more than a few steps ahead. It is too dark… far too dark. And we had been separated from the others. A sharp tug of worry tightened in my chest. My Sieg… please be safe.
A puff of light drifted up before me. "Fuuuaaa."
Faux hovered close, his expression tight with worry, urging me to hurry. Even he could not sense Sieg.
"Yes, yes." I stepped off the ledge. "O flames…"
Heat gathered beneath my feet, forming a gentle cradle of fire that carried me downward until I touched the ground.
The air was damp. Water whispered somewhere beside us, flowing steadily. The cavern stretched wide into the dark, gray stone glistening with moisture and patches of moss, and cold air, this place felt untouched by the sun for centuries.
"Let us continue," I said, though my voice came out softer than intended.
Faux darted ahead.
"Fuuuuaaaa." He called toward one stretch of darkness, a high, hopeful sound.
Then again, "Fuuaaaa!" toward another direction.
His head drooped as only silence answered him.
"He is really worried. They must be close," Erik murmured.
"They always bicker," I said softly, "but they care for each other more than they ever admit. Sieg reached Gamma because Faux was hurt." The memory tugged at my heart; pride and fear tangled together.
My sweet boy… please be nearby.
We caught up to Faux as he hovered with trembling frustration. I reached out and gently ran my hand over his warm head.
"We will find him."
He lifted his gaze, determination blazing in his eyes, and gave a firm "Fua!"—the same resolve my Sieg always carried.
Then he shot forward into the darkness, a tiny streak of anxious light.
"He sure has some mood swings," Erik commented, a small chuckle escaping him.
"In that part also, he is just like Sieg."
We continued walking, following the fading glow of Faux's light.
"FUUUAAAA!" A high-pitched shriek tore through the air. Faux came rushing back, trembling so badly he crashed into Erik and hid behind him.
"W-what? What happened?" I stammered, looking down at his terrified, quivering form.
"Ma, stay back!" Erik's tone changed instantly, his attention fixed on the gloom ahead. "Faux, barrier around Ma." He grabbed Faux and pushed him toward me.
A shield of familiar, protective mana immediately wrapped around me. I peered through the faint light and saw it—a figure... standing just at the edge of the darkness.
"A human?" I whispered, narrowing my eyes. The figure's head hung low. His hair was in knots and his clothes were torn to shreds.
"No," Erik stated, his voice heavy with warning. He summoned his two massive battle-axes into his hands.
A chilling, wet slithering sound reached my ears. I turned and saw multiple tentacle-like shapes launching themselves, slamming against the barrier surrounding me.
"O flames." I spoke the incantation hurriedly, coiling the mana barrier in searing flames. Through a thin gap in the blaze, I saw the figure ahead lift his face. His eyes were utterly hollow, vacant voids.
What is this?
A sickening tremor ran through me as I noticed a thick, fleshy cord attached to his skull.
Erik hurled his axe. It spun end over end, severing the tentacle that was attached to the man. A monstrous scream of pain immediately echoed from the darkness beyond the human figure. The remaining tentacles, including those battering the barrier, instantly redirected, lashing out toward Erik. He slammed his foot into the ground and everything lunging at him was crushed into the stone. With a ferocious roar, Erik launched himself into the blackness. The cavern immediately filled with terrible, inhuman screams. I stayed still inside the burning barrier as something heavy rolled into the dim light.
It was another human body, completely hollowed out and limp.
A cold tremor went through me.
How many people did this place claim?
"Erik…" My voice slipped out before I realized.
A final, agonizing scream tore through the darkness. I swallowed hard. "Erik, is it done?"
"Ah, Ma…" His voice, blessedly whole and familiar, answered. Relief flooded my chest. He stepped out of the shadows and...
"Yuck." I involuntarily clamped a hand over my nose. Erik was covered head-to-toe in a glistening, viscous green goo.
"Fuuaa." Even Faux covered his tiny nose.
"What's wrong?" Erik took a step toward us.
"No, stay there, and while you're at it, do a 360," I instructed sharply, taking a small step back until my barrier pressed against my spine.
"Huh? Why?" He looked perplexed.
"Just do it," I insisted, my tone leaving no room for argument.
He shrugged, obliging instantly. I watched him closely as he turned slowly. I needed to be sure. Absolutely sure. Luckily, there were no clinging strands, no dark tentacles connected to him. Thank the Aethelhum.
"Good." I pulled three small potion bottles from my pouch. Maintaining the distance, I extended my hand through a small opening in the protective barrier.
"Pour these on yourself. Blue slime concoction. It clears anything… dirty."
He didn't argue, took the bottles, and walked a little away. Faux lowered the barrier cautiously as Erik uncorked each vial and dumped the liquid over his head, allowing it to wash away the green muck little by little.
"Wow, what's this smell? It's so good." He lifted his arm and sniffed himself with genuine appreciation.
I let out a tired sigh. "Stop acting like your sister and…" My gaze shifted past him to the darkness he had emerged from. "Was it a Lure monster?"
Lure monsters. Creatures that puppeteer the bodies of the dead to draw the living closer. The most vile, the most detested, the kind no sane person wants to encounter twice.
He nodded once. "There were many bodies attached to it…"
A heavy weight settled in my chest.
Most Lure monsters were wiped out long ago. Is this cavern connected to the past? A time dungeon can bridge pieces of history together. That would explain this horror.
I snapped my attention back to Erik. He was holding up a slick, handful of the black, severed tentacles.
"W-what's with them?" I stepped back immediately.
"I thought you might need them for alchemy." He sounded genuinely hopeful.
"No. Throw them away," I commanded, my voice sharp with disgust. "I do not need those disgusting things. I never work with parts of Lure monsters."
Erik's shoulders sagged with disappointment as he tossed them aside, the pile landing with a wet slap against the stone.
As if I would ever brew anything with that filth.
"Fua."
Faux drifted past Erik and pointed his tiny paw deeper into the dark path. His impatience was practically vibrating off him.
"Looks like he cannot wait anymore," Erik said, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"Right. Let's hurry."
We pressed on through the cave. I forced myself not to look directly at the aftermath Erik had left behind. Those poor people… twisted into bait. Those disgusting creatures…
Who created these? Why do things like this exist?
As we moved deeper, we began finding the corpses of other monsters. One was the enormous body of a 'Sarp', a magic beast shaped like a snake, large enough to easily consume a person whole. These creatures hadn't been seen on our continent for centuries. Its head was utterly, violently crushed. Is this Valka's doing? I couldn't be sure, but the sheer force implied was immense.
I wasted no time. I pulled its long fangs—a source of potent poison—and examined the head. A Sarp's eyes are legendary, said to inflict paralysis on weaker opponents. Fortunately, one eye had survived the crushing blow. I carefully extracted it and slipped it into a container with preservation solution.
This was a nice haul. A small, professional satisfaction settled over the worry. At least some good will come of this danger.
But every corpse we passed told the same story. All of them were crushed beyond recognition.
"Fua."
Faux pointed toward what seemed to be a narrow tunnel swallowed in shadow.
Erik and I approached. I guided a fireball forward, letting its glow sweep the entrance… only for the flame to be consumed instantly by the black.
"Erik." I shifted my gaze to him.
He nodded grimly. "Same as before. There's probably another separate time-space beyond that veil."
"And what are the chances we won't end up falling into that black nothingness again?" Just remembering that awful cold made my skin crawl.
"…As sis would say, one way to find out. Shall we?" He extended his hand to me.
I breathed in slowly, took his hand, and watched Faux perch on Erik's head, gripping his hair with both paws like his life depended on it.
We stepped into the darkness... once again.
My head shook violently. A heavy buzzing swept through my skull, the world tilting in every direction at once. Dizziness crept up like rising tide. I shut my eyes tightly, pressing a hand to my forehead to steady myself.
"Fua! Fua!" Faux's voice rang with sudden excitement.
"Ma, look at this!" Erik called.
I forced my eyes open and looked at them. I can clearly see them. They weren't shadowy figures; they were sharp and distinct in the light.
I looked around. The tunnel around us glowed with soft light. The walls were alive with a radiance that banished every corner of shadow.
I walked closer, placing my palm against the rough stone. This mana... it was pure, and familiar. I know this magic signature.
In an instant, I spun back toward Erik. "It's Sieg."
He also nodded, a relieved, easy smile spreading across his face. Seeing how happily Faux was now swirling and looping in the air, the confirmation was absolute.
He's close and he is safe.
A breath loosened in my chest, but the worry did not leave me. Not until I had him in my arms.
"Erik, can you pinpoint him? My mana sense is not at its best right now."
"Let me focus, I shou—" "Fuua!!!" Faux darted between us, his small body a blur of excitement, then he zipped forward, vigorously waving a paw in the direction he wanted us to go.
"You can lead us?" I asked, a spark of understanding dawning.
Faux gave a quick, emphatic nod.
"Take us."
Then, in a flash, Faux shot off down one of the glowing tunnels.
"One way to keep up," Erik commented, his voice laced with amusement. Before I could utter a word, I felt a sudden lift. My feet left the ground, and both Erik and I were soaring through the tunnel, moving rapidly yet smoothly just behind the guiding spirit.
"Just how much mana does he have?" Erik asked beside me, his voice a low whistle of amazement as we sped through the tunnel.
"This is nothing," I replied, a rush of pride warming me. "You should have seen when he awakened the first time." The memory flickered before my eyes, the day emerald light pierced the sky.
Ahead of us, Faux reached the end of the tunnel and darted into a wide cavern. Then, without warning, he twisted sharply aside as something shot past him.
"What?"
By the time we entered, the projectile had already dissipated into motes of black gold. Faux hovered near the cavern wall, growling with a trembling anger.
I followed his gaze. There, standing at the mouth of one of the many tunnels, was a grotesque humanoid creature. Its body had a terrible sheen of black and gold, and instead of a head, there was a gold ring etched with some kind of ancient markings. I have seen all types of runes, but this was my first time seeing those kind of symbols. It also held what looked like a massive, primitive bow.
"A Darkkin?" Erik said, his voice laced with surprise and recognition.
A Darkkin? I had read about them and heard the fearful legends, but I had never encountered one of these creatures of pure darkness and destruction.
Erik immediately summoned his axes, his stance shifting to attack. But before he could launch himself forward, Faux let out an incredibly angry, high-pitched "Fua!"
Emerald light erupted above the creature and a perfect rectangular barrier materialized in the air. It dropped instantly, utterly crushing the creature into the stone floor, its form splintering into dissolving shards.
The cavern trembled from the impact.
"Hmph." Faux let out a small, proud sound as if this were nothing more than swatting an insect.
I stared at the remnants on the stone floor. My lips parted, yet no words formed for a long moment. He… can do that? That destructive power had come from the tiny creature who liked to nap on Sieg's head.
Erik dismissed his axes and turned toward us, eyes still wide.
"He can do things like that?"
"I-I didn't know..." I admitted, my voice breathy. Does Sieg know?
"Maybe Sieg reaching the Gamma stage affected him too." I offered the explanation, though I wasn't sure myself.
Before I could dwell on the mystery, a sickening, wet slithering sound drew my attention back to the tunnel, a stream of black liquid oozed out, gathering and pulling itself upward, forming limbs and a torso that dripped with gold-tinted sludge.
"Ah... Erik?" I took an involuntary step back.
"Ma. Faux, move back."
My eyes scanned the cavern. The black liquid was now flowing from every connected tunnel, a tide of creeping darkness. Each pool rose, twisted, and shaped itself into black-and-gold humanoids with golden rings for heads. Some carried warped weapons, others had blades growing from their arms.
Dozens of Darkkin. All of them rushing at once.
Faux immediately conjured the protective barrier around me. Erik summoned his massive axes once more.
Erik roared, raising his axes. Most of the creatures in the front line were slammed to the ground, crushed by an unseen force of the gravity. A few evaded the pressure and lunged toward him.
An arrow sliced through the air toward him. Erik twisted aside, letting it pass by his cheek, then ducked under a blade aimed at his neck. His body spun, an arc of silver following his movement as he cleaved one Darkkin cleanly in half.
Another attacked with a hammer, swinging down with brutal force. Erik sidestepped with impossible speed, and countered, severing both of its arms with a single sweep before driving his fist into its chest. The impact sent the creature crashing into the cluster of its fellows.
More Darkkin leapt at him from every direction.
And then, in a blinding rush of speed my old eyes struggled to follow, every single creature was neatly bisected, slashed down in an instant.
Throvald… he looks so much like you right now.
That fierce rhythm, that fluid strength, that unstoppable tide of axework.
I still remember seeing it for the first time decades ago, and how enchanted I was.
My attention snapped back to the present. A new wave of Darkkin was emerging from a tunnel much closer to our position.
Erik noticed them even while fighting at the center of the cavern.
"I have got it," I said as I raised my staff.
"O Flames, coil and gather as a burning sphere above my will..." Flames rushed upward, forming a rotating, spiraling sphere of fierce fire above the protective barrier. The sphere grew impossibly hot and dense, the flames compressing into a focused, searing core. "Unleash your searing beam and scorch all that stands before me."
At the final syllable. A focused beam of fire burst forth, a single line of molten devastation tearing through the Darkkin in front of us. Their bodies split apart cleanly before collapsing into hissing puddles.
A few slipped past the beam, but Faux closed in behind them, emerald barriers dropping down crushing them.
I pulled a bottle from my pouch, the glass faintly glowing with the thick green slime sealed inside. "Faux."
He lowered the barrier just enough. I hurled the bottle toward the tunnel mouth. The moment it shattered, the slime expanded with a loud, wet crack, sealing the entrance in a bulging mass.
"Nice, Ma. Got more of them?" Erik called while another pulse of gravity crushed a cluster of Darkkin into the ground.
"Sadly, no." I exhaled, gripping my staff tighter. "...But they are quite easy to kill. I heard they are quite troublesome to kill."
"It's thanks to these glowing walls," Erik said, looking at the illuminated stone. "I believe it's Aethel magic; it's weakening them."
Aethel magic? Ah, right. Kaelen gave Sieg that spellbook... I hate the fact that something from Kaelen proved useful.
As Erik was distracted, looking at me, I caught a flicker of movement. One of the Darkkin with blade-arms had managed to drag itself out of the gravitational field.
"Erik! Behind you!"
"Huh?"
The creature's blade curved downward toward him.
"Fors Fist."
Before the strike could land, a small figure dropped from above with shocking speed. Sieg's fist crashed into the Darkkin, smashing it into the floor like brittle clay.
"Fuuaaaa!"
"Sieg!" I rushed toward him. Faux was instantly next to Sieg, rubbing his cheek against Sieg's.
"Granny, are you alright?" He asked, his eyes wide with concern, asking the question I should have been asking him.
Before I could speak, a voice echoed from overhead.
"Young lord, do not run ahead like that." That girl, Aifa, stood at the mouth of one of the upper tunnels.
So she was with him. Good. A massive, silent weight lifted from my chest. He wasn't alone.
"Sieg, nothing bad happened, right?" My hand reached out, finding his shoulder and gripping it tightly, just needing the physical reassurance.
"I am fine. She was with me." He glanced back just as Aifa dropped lightly to the cavern floor.
"In truth, as shameful as it is to admit, we reached this place only because of the young lord," she said with a small, knowing smile directed at Sieg.
"Please, you exaggerate." He dismissed the compliment quickly.
I narrowed my eyes slightly. Hmm... Did something happen between them? They seem... comfortable.
"You two look close?" The words slipped out before I could stop them. "Did anything happened?"
"Nothing." Both of them answered at the exact same time, looking genuinely confused at my question.
"Uh-huh." I was many things, but convinced was not one of them.
"If you are done mingling..." Erik's voice echoed across the cavern. I turned to see him casually ripping the ring-shaped head off a Darkkin. "Can I get some help?"
"Why are you not wiping them out instantly? You are at the Epsilon stage. It should be easy for you, right, Uncle?" Sieg asked, sounding a little frustrated.
"Excuse me? I am conserving mana for what might be ahead. Not everyone has near infinite mana reserves like you do, Nephew." Erik crushed another Darkkin under his heel and flung its body aside.
"Lord Erik, we may have found the source of the Darkkin. We need to go find Lady Valka," Aifa interjected, cutting through the bickering.
They found the source? I remember reading about this once. 'Darkness' is a thing or a creature that no one truly understands. It exists in a completely different plane of existence than our world. From time to time, a part of it ends up leaking into our world, and various creatures are born from it... like these Darkkin.
"Alright! I am going all for it! Move back."
We stepped back as mana surged violently around him. Erik lifted his arm and a powerful pull swept through the entire cavern. Every Darkkin spilling out of the tunnels began sliding toward him, drawn upward toward a single point above his hand as if the air itself had become a vortex.
I had to pour mana into my feet to keep myself firmly grounded against the suction.
"Fua."
A gentle sound came from Faux. An invisible barrier shimmered into existence in front of us, shielding us from the force.
Erik curled his fist slowly. The mass of Darkkin compressed together, bodies slamming into one another until the pressure became overwhelming. In the next moment, the entire cluster shattered their forms breaking apart with a horrible, sickening finality, fragments dissolving into the cavern floor like ash pulled apart by the wind.
"Is that it?" I stepped closer to Erik, watching the last traces of Darkkin residue fade into the ground.
Erik let out a heavy breath, wiping a hand across his forehead. "Looks like it." He then fixed a look on Sieg. "Happy now?"
"What's there to be happy about? You should have done it from the start. What if Granny had gotten hurt while you were playing around?" Sieg replied, his tone challenging.
"You little... Forget it." Erik shook his head, choosing the mature route, and turned his attention to Aifa. "Where is the source you mentioned, Miss Aifa?"
"The tunnel we came from..." She said, pointing to the passage above. "I have been marking the way, but I believe we should go back with Lady Valka or it could be dangerous."
Erik nodded gravely. "That's obvious. The source must have recently become active, that's why it's only sprouting weaklings. Once the darkness adapts to our strength and magic, it will sprout Darkkin strong enough to repel us. In such a scenario, going in without Sis will be equal to suicide."
Hmm. I didn't know Erik has experience with Darkkin. Where did he fight them before?
"We also need to find Captain Tavian, Ashy, and Blake, too," Aifa added.
"... Can't we ignore the source?" I asked quietly.
"No, we cannot do that," Aifa's voice was firm. "Even if we remove the core of the Time Dungeon, there's a chance Darkness will end up stabilizing this place, and then we will have a full Darkkin invasion in our hands."
That will be bad. Catastrophic, even.
"We need to find Sis before the Darkness source adapts to us."
I nodded in grim acknowledgment. "Let's find Valka and the other three."
We turned our backs on the vast, now-silent cavern, a fresh wave of urgency fueling our steps. The labyrinthine tunnels, glowing faintly with the Aethel magic, now seemed less like a maze and more like a ticking clock, urging us toward the deeper, unknown danger. The battle has only just begun, and the greatest shadow is yet to fall.