Chapter 3099: Dark River

The eight hundred plus Magus-realm dwarves had been folded away inside the inner domains of several elders, safe for the moment and completely unaware of the danger passing above their heads.

Forty-six figures fled through the dark, tunnel-like passages of the Zero Black Crevice: forty-two Grand Magus dwarves, two High Elves, and two humans, divided among three small metal vessels built specifically for desperate escapes like this.

The vessels slipped through the black seam in near silence, their altitude kept low as they followed the twisting passages beneath the surface of the Crimson Steppes.

No one lit a light.

The darkness down here was different from ordinary night. It seemed to swallow even Divine Sense, suppressing their perception until the surrounding world became little more than a vague outline of stone. Every person understood the danger. A single flash of light, a careless spell, or even a surge of energy could reveal their position to whatever was hunting them above.

The dwarves, masters of Earth Law could still sense the massive stone walls pressing close on either side. The rock was ancient and strangely dense, carrying faint traces of natural energy that made it difficult to distinguish individual movements from the countless vibrations running through the crevice.

Below them, however, there was nothing.

Only darkness.

The abyss seemed to descend endlessly beneath the vessels, so deep that even the strongest senses among them could not determine where the bottom lay. Occasionally, a faint sound would rise from somewhere below—a distant rumble, a strange scraping noise, or something that sounded almost like a low growl—only to disappear into the darkness before anyone could identify its source.

"What’s actually down there?" someone finally asked, unable to suppress his curiosity. "Anyone know?"

Soltz had heard a dozen conflicting stories about the Zero Black Crevice during his years as a mercenary. Some claimed ancient beasts lived at the bottom. Others spoke of buried ruins, strange treasures, or natural formations. None of the stories had ever agreed with one another, and this was the first time Soltz had actually entered the infamous crevice himself.

Before he could answer, Durnok’s low voice came from the vessel ahead.

"I’ve been here before."

The old dwarf’s words immediately drew everyone’s attention.

"About two hundred years ago, I joined a combined expedition with one of the grassland tribes. We were searching for a rare material exist deep within the crevice walls."

He paused, his expression difficult to see in the darkness.

"Half of the miners never came back up."

The atmosphere immediately grew heavier.

No one asked what had happened to them.

No one suggested flying lower to investigate.

Instead, the three small vessels continued deeper into the Zero Black Crevice, their metal hulls barely making a sound as they followed the narrow passage. Everyone kept a careful watch on both directions—the abyss below and the thin strip of darkness above—while pushing forward at maximum speed.

For now, the crevice was their only protection.

Emery used the quiet to recover. Ten Supreme-level attacks, absorbed one after another through the Star Plaque, had left his mind stretched thin, with a deep ache spreading through his soul that his physical body barely reflected.

He sat cross-legged near the prow of the lead vessel, his eyes closed as he consume a soul restoration pill and cycled his soul in slow, careful loops to gradually smooth the frayed edges of his spiritual sea and restore the mental strength he had burned through during the escape.

Hours passed before the first sign of trouble arrived.

At first, it was only movement.

Something was crawling along the rock faces on either side of the crevice. Dozens of small shapes slowly detached themselves from the stone, their faint outlines barely visible in the darkness as they began following the vessels. Then more appeared, climbing over one another and gathering along the walls until the surrounding rocks seemed to be covered in countless shifting shadows.

"What is it?" a young dwarf hissed, already reaching for his crossbow.

Panic rippled through the vessels as more creatures emerged from the darkness, crawling across the walls and ceiling and gradually closing in around them.

"Abyss Spiders," Durnok said grimly. "That’s what the locals call them."

The creatures didn’t wait for introductions.

Thin strands of webbing suddenly lashed out from the darkness, shooting toward the vessels, the dwarves, and anything else that moved. The first strands struck the metal hull with a sharp snap, while others wrapped around the edges of the vessels and stretched across the narrow passage like invisible traps.

Individually, none of them posed much of a threat to a group of Grand Magus cultivators. In the complete darkness of the crevice, however, even a simple attack became something they had to take seriously. They couldn’t rely on sight, and their Divine Sense was severely restricted, forcing them to sense the incoming attacks only moments before they arrived and dodge them at the last possible instant.

It took only a few exchanges for them to understand the deeper problem.

These creatures weren’t flesh and blood.

They were spirit constructs. Their bodies could reform after being damaged, making them far harder to kill cleanly, while their movements were strange and difficult to predict.

Worse, they had to be dealt with quietly.

A powerful spell or a large-scale attack could easily create enough noise and energy fluctuations to reach the surface, potentially alerting any infected creatures passing across the Crimson Steppes above them.

So the battle became a tense, ugly struggle in the dark.

The dwarves relied on precise strikes rather than powerful attacks, while the two High Elves used controlled bursts of energy to eliminate the spiders without disturbing the surrounding stone. Emery occasionally opened his eyes, sending focused pulses of soul energy into the darkness whenever a spider managed to approach too closely.

Compared to the previous days of open warfare across the Crimson Steppes, cutting down spider constructs in the darkness almost felt like a brief rest.

There was one small mercy, at least.

Spirit creatures couldn’t carry the Scourge.

They wouldn’t have to worry about finding corruption among these creatures.

Still, Emery couldn’t shake his unease.

Maybe it was his Divine Sense. Maybe it was the growing comprehension of darkness woven into his own bloodline. Whatever the reason, something about this place felt wrong in a way the spiders couldn’t explain. It was a feeling he couldn’t quite put into words, as though something was watching them from deeper within the darkness, hidden somewhere beyond the limits of even their restricted senses.

Fortunately, they didn’t need to remain in the crevice much longer. Their route toward the Southern Isles required them to leave the massive ravine well before its true end, and by the time the spiders finally began to thin out, the group was already preparing to climb back toward the open sky. If everything went according to plan, they would soon leave the darkness behind and face one more full day of flight across the remaining distance of the Crimson Steppes.

That was when Emery felt it.

A sudden and absolute sense of danger rose from somewhere far below.

He didn’t even have time to shout a warning.

The world went dark.

Not the ordinary darkness of the crevice—this was something entirely different, a blackness so complete that it swallowed every trace of perception they had left. Divine Sense disappeared, spiritual energy became impossible to sense, and even the faint awareness of the stone walls surrounding them vanished as though the entire world had been erased.

"Light!" Bragnir immediately barked. "Light up the entire passage!"

A dozen dwarves and both High Elves responded at once, releasing their techniques without holding anything back. Brilliant flashes of energy erupted throughout the darkness, but every attempt failed. Even the High Elves’ most refined light magic produced nothing more than a single dying spark before it was extinguished, smothered by the overwhelming darkness before it could properly illuminate their surroundings.

Emery understood immediately.

This wasn’t simply darkness.

It was a domain.

An absolute one.

A domain powerful enough to suppress every cultivator caught within it, stripping away their senses and cutting them off from the outside world. The sheer pressure surrounding them left no doubt about the level of power behind it.

Supreme-level power.

Emery forced himself to remain still, waited in the suffocating darkness, knowing that an attack could come from anywhere.

Then it came for him directly.

A mental assault slammed into his consciousness without warning, ice-cold and probing, carrying a terrifying force that attempted to tear straight into his sea of consciousness. His seventh-layer Rainbow Pagoda flared instantly, its enormous structure rising within his spiritual world and blocking the invading force before it could penetrate any deeper.

The impact still shook his soul.

"What are you?!" Emery shouted into the darkness, his voice raw with defiance.

Silence answered him.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the presence withdrew.

The shadow domain unraveled around them, and their senses returned all at once. The darkness of the crevice suddenly felt almost comforting compared to what they had just experienced, leaving everyone blinking and gasping as though they had just surfaced from deep water.

"Everyone all right?" Bragnir’s voice cracked through the confusion.

All forty-six were accounted for.

Relief lasted only a moment.

Emery’s gaze suddenly fell toward the deck of the lead vessel, where Soltz lay sprawled and utterly motionless.

"Soltz!"

There was no response.

No flicker of consciousness behind his closed eyes.

Only an unsettling stillness.

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