“The Ghost Clan… Is… calling…” The words scraped out of him, shredded and foreign, as though spoken through broken glass.
“What?” The single word hammered against Jared’s ribs. Luther burst forward, his outline smearing into a black streak that knifed toward the forest’s heart. The speed dwarfed anything he had ever shown.
“Wait!” Jared shot after him, worry and confusion tangling in his chest. For roughly an hour they darted through the thickets, one ahead, one behind. Gradually the gap closed as Luther’s pace faltered. His legs wobbled. At last he slumped against the trunk of a colossal tree, and the abyss in his eyes faded back to normal black and white.
“M-Mr. Jared…” Luther’s voice shook. “I can feel… Our people’s aura… Close… So close…”
“Are you sure?” Jared caught him before he slipped. Luther nodded hard, then pointed past the massive trunk. “There… A passage leading down… Many, many clansmen…”
Jared followed the direction. At the tree’s base yawned a plain, three-foot-wide hole, black as ink, its bottom nowhere in sight. Without Luther’s warning, Jared doubted he would have noticed the opening at all. He steadied Luther against the gnarled root, gray torchlight flickering across the wound-spotted face.
“Can you make the descent in your condition?” Jared asked, his voice low and rough, more strain than sound.
Luther drew a shaky breath. “We have to go,” he said, every syllable rasping. “Only the clan below can save me.”
The words fell between them like stones, final and irrevocable. Teeth bared against the pain, he forced out, “My Ghost Clan source is breaking apart. If I don’t reach nether aura within three days, death is certain.” Sweat beaded along his hairline, each drop proof of the clock grinding down.
Jared quit debating. He slipped an arm beneath Luther’s knees, another behind his back, and rose. Gray light unfurled around them, forming a humming shell. With one breath for courage, he sprang into the black mouth of the hole.
At first the shaft pinched their shoulders, shale scraping armor. After sinking a few dozen feet, the passage suddenly widened, tilting downward in a natural ramp that drank their footsteps. Pale moss clung to the walls, each patch pulsing a soft blue-green glow. The faint light slid over wet stone, enough to keep the path and the drop ahead from vanishing into total night.
Deeper still, the air thickened. A chill undertow of nether aura pooled around their boots, curling against Jared’s skin like cold smoke. Every breath tasted of metal and dusk. On Jared’s back, Luther’s ribs no longer rattled. His breathing stretched into even pulls, each exhale drawing a thread of the surrounding aura. Relief flickered across Jared’s brow, gone as quickly as it came.
After roughly two thousand more feet of descent, the tunnel leveled out. Ahead, the stone split, the darkness parting around a three-way fork. Each branch opened like a waiting throat. Runes had been chiseled into the arch of every entrance, their lines shimmering with dim violet fire that pulsed in a slow, heartlike rhythm.
Luther lifted a trembling finger toward the leftmost opening. “The emblem… It’s on that one,” he whispered, voice fraying at the edges.
Jared followed the gesture. A barely noticeable carving—three heads, six arms, jaws frozen mid-roar—crouched above the keystone, exactly like the idol they had once seen inside the Ghost Clan sanctuary on the Godgrave Mountains. Without pausing, Jared angled his shoulders and stepped into the left passage, the gray shield stretching to keep Luther from brushing the stone.
This corridor bore the stamp of tools. The walls had been ground smooth, seams almost polished. Every hundred paces a lantern of cold blue flame hovered in mid-air, casting narrow cones of light that retreated as they approached. Time slid by, perhaps a quarter of an incense stick. Then a soft glow bled through the end of the corridor, warm compared to the lanterns’ chill.
They crossed the threshold, and the tunnel spat them into open air. Jared sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes dilating at the sight that dropped into view. A cavern stretched beyond measure, its ceiling lost to darkness. Thousands of crystals studded the vault overhead, glowing like a frozen galaxy and flooding the world below with silver starlight.
On the cavern floor, buildings of eccentric design rose in uneven clusters—spires bent into hooks, domes ribbed like skulls, terraces bristling with engraved bone. Nearly every structure wore the same jet-black stone, its surface catching the crystal light in sleeks that reminded Jared of oil over water. Beast heads jutted from corners, and necklaces of bleached vertebrae swung over archways. Figures drifted through the avenues, ghostly at this distance, shapes dissolving and reassembling behind swirls of nether mist. None were close enough for their features to register.
Softly, Jared murmured, “So this is… The Ghost Clan’s underground city?” The question escaped before he realized he had spoken, thin with a wonder he refused to admit.
Luther’s whole frame shook. “Yes… The nether architecture is unmistakable. My people… They’re alive…” Emotion cracked his voice, turning the final word into something halfway between a prayer and a sob.
The moment stretched just long enough for comfort, then the light shifted. Cold pressure rolled out of the shadows, a warning Jared felt in the roots of his teeth. Black chains streaked from every side, sigils glowing along their links. They moved faster than arrows, whistling straight for the two men.
Instinct took the reins. The Dragonslayer Sword flashed into his hand; with a twisting step he met the nearest chain and hacked downward in a silver arc. Steel rang. Sparks leapt, but the chain rebounded, untouched—the clang deeper than iron, more like tombstone against tombstone.
A jolt of recognition cut through the struggle. “Damn it! Nether Soulbinding Chains!” Jared gasped.
Luther’s alarm split the air, fear tightening every syllable. Before another thought formed, the chains coiled around them, layering loop upon loop until metal pressed bone. A glacial force seeped through the links and into his skin. The moment it touched his meridians, his chaotic force lurched, then stalled like a clogged river.
He tried to surge free; the only reward was tighter coils. Runes flared along the metal, their pale light hammering his power flat. Luther fared worse. Already weak, he was bound from neck to ankles, his breath cut to thin whistles no plea could ride.
