Chapter 703: Over 100 Kilometer Deep

The party stared at Thoren.

They did not know whether to laugh or cry. A moment ago, they had been bowing their heads to the man who had pulled them out of the jaws of death.

Now he stood before them with an easy shrug and a faint smile, calmly telling them they were going to guide him home.

Lysa’s lips twitched.

The Hunter let out a breath that was half a laugh and half a groan. The Lancer pressed her fingers against her forehead.

Then the truth settled over them.

They realized why he had stepped in.

He had not saved them out of pure kindness, and he had not rushed across a dark plain for the sake of eight strangers.

He was lost, and they were Pathfinders. The moment he heard the sound of battle, he had seen a way home and had moved to protect it.

It stung a little, but no one felt resentment.

They had been dying, and he had stopped it.

Whatever his reason, the debt was real, and the gratitude in their chests did not fade.

The Healer glanced at the shattered Fallen and then at the undead Storm Tyrant, and she lowered her eyes with a small, tired smile.

"Of course we know the way back to the camp," Brandt answered confidently, straightening his shoulders.

He tapped the axe against his palm.

"We wouldn’t have dared venture deeper into the plain if we didn’t."

It was the truth.

A Pathfinder who marched into the dark without a way back was a fool, and the party had learned that lesson long ago.

Besides, they had their own methods of finding the camp that did not depend on any map.

"That’s good," Thoren nodded. "Staying in this darkness for long is already driving me crazy." He muttered the last words under his breath.

He lifted his head and looked straight at Brandt.

"How deep are we from the camp?"

A silence fell over the party.

It was brief, but it was heavy.

The easy relief on their faces thinned, and Brandt’s smile faltered.

Lysa looked away.

The Hunter stared at the gravel between his boots, and the Lancer’s grip tightened on her spear.

Bitterness crept into each of their expressions, a quiet, tired sorrow that none of them tried to hide.

Thoren watched them without speaking.

The dim glow of the undead Storm Tyrant’s soul fire moved across their faces, and he noted every twitch of every muscle.

He did not push for an answer.

But he could tell that something was wrong. Before Thoren could speak, Lysa continued.

"We heard a rumor about something out here and came to check it," she said quietly. "But who would have guessed we would run into them..."

Her eyes drifted to the shattered corpses of the Fallen, and she hugged her staff against her chest. Her voice was soft and tired, and no one in the party tried to correct her.

"But I can tell we’re more than a hundred kilometers deeper into the plain," Brandt added.

He lowered himself onto a rock and let his axe rest across his knees.

A deep sigh escaped his lips, heavy and slow, like a man setting down a burden he had carried for too long.

"This is the farthest we’ve ever gone."

The others wore the same exhausted and dejected look.

The Hunter stared at his empty quiver. The Lancer rubbed her bruised shoulder without seeming to notice. The Healer sat on the ground, staring at the still Warrior.

They had come out here hoping to uncover some truth and instead, they had found death waiting for them.

A hundred kilometers.

Thoren’s mind went still.

’My plan was to check between thirty and fifty kilometers. How the hell did it turn out to be beyond a hundred...’

The thought rang through his head like a shout.

Draven and his party had merely explored 30 kilometers but he, on the other hand, displayed his craziness on the first day.

’It must be the damned Weeping Ossuary.’ He cursed inwardly.

Because he could not wrap his head while mere exploration around the vicinity would throw him deep into the unknown.

Even though various thoughts were running in his mind, none of it showed on his face.

His expression stayed calm, as though he had heard nothing more than the time of day.

He kept his shoulders loose and his eyes steady, and the dim glow of the undead Storm Tyrant’s soul fire flickered across a face that gave nothing away.

He turned his gaze to Brandt, then lifted his hand and pointed at the nearest crushed body.

"Do you know what they are?"

For a moment, Brandt did not know how to respond.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

His eyes drifted across the broken bodies of the three Fallen, and he shook his head slowly, a bitter smile pulling at his lips.

"We don’t know..." he answered. "This is the first time we’ve encountered something like them."

A heavy silence settled over the party..

Thoren said nothing.

He had expected as much.

If the Pathfinders of Scarwind Camp did not know what the Fallen were, then the answer was not something he would find in this conversation.

He let his gaze drift away and began to turn his thoughts toward the long road back.

"But we know the direction they came from," Brandt added.

"Hmm?"

Thoren’s eyes snapped back to him.

For the first time since the fight ended, surprise flickered across his face.

He had stopped expecting anything more, and the words caught him off guard. His gaze sharpened, and he studied Brandt’s expression closely.

"That’s right..." Lysa continued, her voice low.

She hugged her staff tighter against her chest, and her eyes moved toward the darkness at the far edge of the plain.

"The rumor itself was nothing but a dead end. But we did manage to find something out here..." She swallowed.

"The area is very dangerous."

She did not say more.

She did not need to.

The memory of what they had seen earlier was still fresh, and it rose behind their eyes whether they wanted it to or not.

The Hunter’s hands trembled around his empty bow.

The Lancer’s face went pale. The Healer’s lips pressed into a thin line, and Brandt’s jaw clenched until a muscle jumped in his cheek.

A cold shiver ran through their spine when they thought about the scene they saw earlier.