Chapter 694: Lost

Thoren walked on in the dark while he was lost in thought. The scenes replayed behind his eyes without his permission.

’Until next time...’

He frowned.

’What does that even mean?’

He turned the words over and over, and they would not settle.

Who was supposed to meet him?

The Vigil, whoever they had been, had made their ruins and sealed them and left.

His jaw tightened, and he shoved the thought aside.

There was no use dwelling on it. The plate was in his inventory, and he was alive. That would have to be enough for now.

He raised his head and released his perception to the limit.

Ridged rocks ran in every direction, as far as his perception could reach and farther.

They rose from the ground in jagged lines, some no higher than his knee, others towering over his head like broken teeth.

They had no pattern he could follow.

Some stood in clusters, some stretched in long spines, some twisted into strange shapes that made his eyes see shadows where there were none.

The ground between them was cracked and gritty, and it crunched beneath his boots with every step.

There was no end in sight.

The darkness was so complete that it felt like a solid thing, pressing in from all sides. He walked through it, and the ridges kept coming, mile after mile of cold, silent stone.

’Am I even walking in the right direction?’

His heart felt heavy as the thought settled in.

He did not know.

The routes he had taken to reach the Weeping Ossuary were gone.

The collapse had swallowed the tunnels behind him, and even if it had not, he had run through too many turns and too many choices to trace them back.

He had no landmark, no trail of footprints, and no memory of the ground ahead that he could trust.

He was lost.

The word sat in his chest like a stone. Out here, alone in a cursed world, a mistake was not a small thing.

He took out Draven’s map and looked at it. The route it showed belonged to the cave system around Scarwind Camp.

The ridges and open ground in front of him were nowhere on it. The map was useless here.

For a moment he stood still, listening to the quiet darkness surrounding him on all sides. Then he raised his head and looked up at the sky.

Nothing looked back.

There was only a vast, dark ceiling, with no stars to steer by and no light to follow. He stared into it, as if the answer might be written somewhere in the black.

All he saw was the deadly Ash Tide cloud hanging in the sky as if mocking him.

’Dammit!’ He gritted his teeth and continued his journey.

Even though he was lost, he knew he could not stop walking. Who knew how many dangerous beasts might be hiding in the darkness.

’Since I arrived on this floor, my luck has not been good...’ He clicked his tongue as he forced himself to continue moving forward.

To many, this might be hopeless.

An unavoidable fate.

Walking aimlessly in the opening without any destination was as good as dead. But Thoren did not care. As long as he was alive, he would keep moving.

Thoren kept walking, but he no longer walked like a man who was lost.

His shoulders had gone tight, and his hand rested near his side. The ridged rocks stood in their endless lines, cold and still, yet every step made his skin prickle.

He slowed, then stopped, and listened.

Nothing moved. Not a sound came from the dark.

Then the air changed.

It started as a faint pressure on his chest, as if the darkness itself had begun to lean toward him.

The temperature dropped.

The loose grit on the ground stopped humming, and even the sound of his breathing seemed to grow muffled.

Something heavy and oppressive was moving through the black, slow and deliberate, and every instinct in his body screamed that it was coming for him.

His heart skipped a beat.

Thoren did not hesitate.

He raised his hand, and the Soul Lantern appeared and floated above his head, burning with a steady glow.

The darkness pulled back at once.

Light spread across the ground and over the ridges, pushing outward until it covered over a hundred meters around him, every jagged rock and crack clear as day.

For a moment, there was nothing to see.

Then a figure stepped into the edge of the light.

The pressure on his chest doubled.

It came down like a hand pressing him toward the ground, thick and suffocating, and the air grew heavy enough that each breath cost effort.

Thoren gritted his teeth and refused to bend.

He narrowed his eyes and looked at it.

It was a gaunt humanoid, about four meters tall, its limbs too long and its body thin as a corpse left out in the sun.

Rusted chains wrapped around its torso and arms in thick, tangled loops, dragging across the stone with a dull, grinding sound.

Ship anchors had been fused into its back, their iron flukes rising above its shoulders like the broken wings of something that had once tried to fly.

Rust and dried salt crusted its skin where the metal had grown into the flesh.

Its head hung low.

Its eyes were empty sockets, and a faint green glow burned in the hollows, steady and cold, like the light of a dying lantern at the bottom of the sea.

It did not rush him. It stood at the edge of the light and stared, and the chains clinked softly with every slow breath.

Thoren’s expression hardened.

’What is that thing?’

Just then, a panel flickered into existence before his eyes.

[The Throat Trench]

[Race: Fallen.]

[Level: 47]

Thoren’s pupils tightened.

’Shit!’ He cursed.

’How far have I gone...’ His mind raced.

Even Draven and his party dare not confront a Level 47 beast. The srongest beast they’v ever encounter was Level 45 and that had almost taken their lives.

And now, here he was facing Level 47 Fallen.

For a something like this to appear, it only mean one thing.