I. The Weight of Silence
The world was purple and smelled of rotten sulfur. Every breath burned the throat and left a metallic aftertaste, as if the atmosphere had passed through an open wound that never healed. The ground—a viscous, dark mud—sought to swallow every boot with a hungry slowness. Kael, crawling out of the impact crater, felt his ankles being embraced, the mud almost pleading for him to yield to the abyss.
His armor, dented and stained, weighed twice as much under the humidity. Every breath was a sting in his ribs—living memories of the fight and the flight. But none of that mattered. His entire being hung upon the frozen slab on his back.
—"Violeta!" he growled, his voice barely a muffled echo. His eyes scanned the twisted thicket, fearing they would lose themselves in this sea of poisonous mist.
Eris was already hovering over her sister's form. Violeta was not simply unconscious; the "coffin" of Spiritual Ice enveloped her in a bluish stasis, her body suspended between life and nothingness, like a pearl trapped in a frozen tear.
Eris placed her hand on the surface, wrapping herself in white flames. The fire slid off, harmless. —"Her core has closed. If we force the thaw..." she looked at Kael, her eyes wet with frustration. —"She won't survive."
Kael knelt beside the slab of ice, stroking the surface, feeling the cold seep into his palm. A thought pierced him: "I failed." He didn't say it. But the silence screamed it.
Elara, meanwhile, was already on another mental plane. She leaned over a black root, her fingers feeling the mist, her senses open to danger. —"The Qi here is poison," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the sound of bubbling mud. —"Don't breathe deeply. There are parasitic spores in the air."
Eris ignited a spark, ready to burn the mist. Elara stopped her with a sharp movement. —"If you provide light, the heat-hunters will devour you," she said, pointing to the shadows above.
High above, Phosphorus Bats fluttered, blind but attentive to the slightest glimmer of energy. Everything here seemed to wait—and hate—outsiders. A shiver ran through the group, and not just from the ice or the stench of rot. It was the sensation of having crossed an invisible threshold: everything in this swamp wanted them dead, but the world didn't bother to roar—it only watched and waited.
II. The Uncertain March
Kael carried Violeta, securing the block of ice with leather straps. The slab wrenched groans from his back, and the frost seeped into his flesh. But he didn't utter a single complaint.
Elara took the lead, stepping slowly and surely. —"Step where I step," she ordered. —"The mud has mouths."
Her words were no metaphor. With one false step, the mud opened, revealing a row of bony teeth. Kael and Eris looked at each other, swallowing hard, and followed in absolute silence. Every meter was a recurring nightmare: trees with bone-bark, canopies filled with glands dripping poison, stagnant waters with oily glimmers on the surface.
Elara marked the way with small strips of red cloth—indicators of safe zones. Her eyes never stopped searching; sometimes she saw shadows moving through the mist, other times it was just the reflection of fear in her own mind.
Eris, furious at not being able to unleash her destructive power, bit her lips until they bled. Kael, crushed by the weight of Violeta and his own guilt, forced himself forward, each step slower than the last. At times, the mist thickened, and the world seemed to contract. They all felt a pressure in their chests, a buzzing in their ears—the paranoia of being watched by a thousand invisible eyes.
III. Emotional Cost: Voices and Memories
Kael felt, with every step, the weight of broken promises. "I will take care of you, I will save you, I will never let you fall." Now, Violeta was a corpse dependent on a miracle. The fear of failing Samael and his lineage, of losing the faith of Eris and Elara, of not being able to protect even himself, devoured his soul more than any external monster.
Eris, walking behind, looked at Kael's back and felt rage, helplessness, and pain—but also guilt. "If I were stronger, if I could burn it all, we could clear the way... But if I do, I kill them all."
Elara, guiding them in silence, remembered Samael's embrace before they left—the promise not to leave anyone behind. But the swamp, hostile and senseless, threatened to swallow every oath. The weight of leadership felt like an extra slab. "If I fail, it's not just Violeta who dies. We all fall."
Inside Violeta's mind, trapped in her ice prison, memories were broken echoes: a voice whispering names, images of her brothers, of the Star Tree, a promise to return, the warmth of family. At times she felt the pressure in her blood, as if the world wanted to drag her into a deep sleep.
"…don't sleep… below… below everything dreams of cold and blood…"
The voice was her own… or something else's.
IV. The Toxic Ecosystem
Hours passed, or so they thought. Time was unreal in the swamp; the sun, a disk of purple gelatin barely visible through the mist. Kael's body no longer sweated; it only trembled. Eris's nails were broken from clenching her fists. Elara moved guided by an ancestral instinct, her head full of ancient chants to avoid losing her sense of self.
Suddenly, Elara raised a fist. The group stopped instantly. A log, covered in black moss, blocked the way. Elara threw a stone. The "log" opened an eye and unrolled a forked tongue: an Ancestral Swamp Boa.
There was no loud combat. Elara glided, invisible, and drove her daggers into the ganglion just beneath the jaw. Not even a sigh. The serpent convulsed, coiled, and died in silence. Kael and Eris looked at each other, silently thanking Elara's ferocity. "The girl has grown," Kael thought, and for an instant, he felt hope.
Occasionally, the mud bubbled unnaturally, releasing gases that smelled of their childhood, of distorted memories—the scent of home, their mother's voice, the warmth of the hearth mixed with rot. It was the Qi of the swamp playing with their minds.
V. The Bone Sanctuary
By evening (or when the mist turned black and blue), they stumbled upon a singular refuge: the thoracic skeleton of a titanic beast, its polished bones forming a natural arch against the acid rain that was beginning to fall.
They entered beneath the ribs. The ground was covered in fragments of rusted armor and broken weapons—relics of past expeditions. A shield, engraved with runes of a forgotten clan, lay sunken in the mud. Upon a rib, words were carved in dried blood: "The King sleeps. Let no one wake him."
Kael placed Violeta in a dry area. —"She's stable," he said, checking the ice. He knelt beside her and placed a hand on the surface. —"Can you hear me?"
For a moment, the frost vibrated slightly, and Kael felt a frozen heat run across his skin. In Violeta's mind, an image appeared: Kael beneath the Tree, promising her he would protect her.
"…it's not your fault… the swamp wants everything…"
Eris sat down, hugging her knees, her gaze lost in the haze. —"The compass is spinning nonstop. This place is at the center of an anomaly. We're walking in circles. What if we never get out?"
Elara watched the entrance. —"The water flows north. We go down. The center of the swamp… that's where everything points."
Kael picked up the rusted shield and read the runes. —"It looks like a warning. Or a prayer." He let it fall, the metal ringing like a funeral bell. The pressure increased. The heartbeat of the earth became audible: thump-thump, slow, deep, like a geological heart.
VI. The Underground Heartbeat and the King
Elara came running back, pale. —"The mud… look."
The mud was boiling; black bubbles exploded on the surface. The air filled with an ancient gas, dense, almost solid. Kael felt his dragon blood rebel; fear seeped into his bones. From within her ice, Violeta frowned. Her lips moved, and an echo resonated in the minds of Kael and Eris:
"…below… the King… dreams…"
The heartbeat intensified. Eris felt shivers; the frost on Violeta's ice vibrated. For an instant, they all saw—or believed they saw—an immense, golden eye opening in the depths.
Kael knelt, trembling. —"What if we wake it? What are we against something like that?" Eris wiped her tears, her voice breaking. —"Nothing. But even so, we will not turn back."
VII. The Light in the Distance
As they debated whether to move or stay, the acid rain fell heavily. Eris, weary, looked at the horizon and saw a light. Not fire, nor lightning, nor monstrous bioluminescence. A golden lantern, warm, flickering with a rhythmic pattern through the mist.
—"Civilization?" she asked, her voice cracking with hope. Kael shook his head. —"No one lives here." Elara sharpened her hearing. —"It's not a coincidence. It's a signal. Perhaps a trap… or a promise."
Kael picked up Violeta, his body aching, his soul even more so. —"It's either death or the exit. But here… here only oblivion waits."
As they moved forward, the mist closed behind them, devouring their tracks. In the distance, the underground heartbeat marked their pace. The rusted shield resonated under the rain, word after word:
"The King dreams beneath the mud. The light calls to the lost. But everything has a price in this sea of death."
No one knew if they were marching toward salvation or into the mouth of the abyss. But together, under the poisoned moon and the gaze of the swamp gods, the Morningstars followed the only unwritten rule of oblivion:
As long as one walks, none shall be devoured.
[End of Chapter 95]