Max clenched his fists.
Not out of anger.
Not even fear.
But focus.
If sothing like that was possible here… then anything was.
The Mourning Depths had just reminded them all—
They weren't hunters.
They were prey.
Amara's voice echoed gently in Old Man Grey's mind.
Not with panic. Not with fear.
But with the calm sharpness of soone trying to understand death before it claid another.
"Sir Grey… what was that?"
For a mont—he didn't answer.
His eyes were still locked on the ashes.
His grip on the crescent sickle trembled—just a little.
Then, with a vital essence transmission of his own, he finally spoke.
And the weight of his words hit like a stone tossed into still water.
"I'm… ashad to say it," he began, slowly.
"But this is the first ti I've seen sothing like this."
He glanced into the fog. His brows deeply furrowed.
"That gray shadow from before… based on my experience, it was likely just a demonic ash fly. A minor creature. Sothing born from condensed infernal energy. Weak. Just a few hundred years old."
Max, Amara, and the others listened in through the shared essence transmission—
silent.
The air itself had gone still.
"But that death—"
He hesitated.
Then his voice lowered further, a whisper wrapped in fear.
"That was not caused by the fly. I believe the mana storm just now—the one unleashed by that reckless fool—must've stirred sothing far more ancient."
"An infernal being that was in deep slumber."
The mont that phrase reached their minds—
"a sleeping infernal being"—
Everyone felt it.
That cold grip at the back of their necks.
A sense that sothing had looked directly at them, then chosen to look away…
For now.
Could it be a being flung outward during the eruption?
One of the hidden ones that dwelled nearer the core, but now had drifted too far forward…
Sothing that had no form, no sound, no soul?
Sothing that saw disturbance as provocation?
If that was true—
if the mana surge had roused it—
Then the red-haired genius hadn't just died.
He'd opened a gate.
And sothing had stepped to its edge.
They were all geniuses.
Prodigies from the major regions.
Users of Techniques.
Comprehenders of Aura.
Killers, heroes, monsters in their own right.
But none of them—none—were arrogant enough to believe they could fight an invisible, ancient, silent being that could erase soone without even appearing.
Not even Max.
Not Amara.
Max's mind was racing.
The image of the red-haired genius lting into rot and blood replayed in his mind—again and again. He'd seen people die. He'd killed people himself.
But that wasn't death.
That was erasure.
Sothing wrong had awakened. Sothing ancient, sothing not ant to wake.
And so, he called out the only being that might have a sliver of insight.
"Blob… what the hell is going on here?"
Blob was quiet for a mont.
A rare thing.
Then, slowly, its voice echoed in Max's mind, low and distant—
As if dredging up mories buried in ti.
"I can't say for certain…" Blob admitted.
"But I can make a guess."
Max stayed silent, listening.
"I think," Blob continued,
"there's sothing buried deep under this place. Sothing ancient. Possibly… soone who practiced blood demon techniques, or perhaps a monstrous beast of vicious nature—sealed, long ago. Sothing the world itself tried to forget."
Max's breath caught.
He rembered what Klaus had said—
About the Bone Fras.
Dead experts. Condensed by infernal energy.
Their corpses twisted into strange artifacts.
He'd accepted that.
But now Blob was saying sothing worse—
that even Bone Fras had levels.
And the one that might be buried here…
Was far beyond anything the Lower Domain had ever seen.
Blob's voice lowered, becoming grim.
"If we divide Bone Fras into low, middle, and high grade…"
"The one you're using now, Max, is barely a low grade."
That stunned Max.
His current Bone Fra was already incredible by any standard.
Dense infernal energy.
Absorption abilities.
Increased comprehension.
And it was only low grade?
"Even Klaus probably hasn't seen a middle grade one," Blob continued.
"And as for the high grade…"
A pause.
"I doubt even the Young Monarch has touched one."
Then, the real truth ca.
"The highest grade Bone Fras… may have intelligence."
Max blinked.
"You an they're alive?"
"Not alive… but aware. Conscious in a way.
Enough to choose who can touch them. Enough to… retaliate."
That was why the red-haired youth died.
Not because he was targeted.
Not because he was weak.
Because he made too much noise near sothing that wasn't ant to be disturbed.
Sothing that—even in death—was watching.
Blob's voice turned serious.
"I don't know what exactly is under us… but I do know one thing."
"It doesn't want to be found."
"And unless you have an ancient destiny carved into your soul, sothing the heavens themselves can't ignore—you will not leave with whatever lies buried here."
Blob's final warning echoed like a death sentence.
"Forget it, Max. This is not sothing we can handle."
"The deeper we go, the more we're walking into a tomb… not just theirs."
"But ours."
Max didn't need more words from Blob.
The warning was clear—etched into instinct.
You don't poke at things that dream in silence.
You don't try to dig up the bones of a thing that made even death itself step back.
Supre expert?
Vicious beast?
He didn't care.
All that mattered now… was leaving this cursed patch of ground alive.
As for infernal demon tattoo?
Of course he wanted it.
More power.
More control.
More authority.
But not like this.
Not by gambling against sothing he couldn't see, couldn't understand, couldn't fight.
There would be more opportunities.
But there would never be another Max.
---
No one moved.
For sixty long minutes, they stood like statues—each one drenched in cold sweat, muscles aching, bladders screaming, but not one dared to shift their stance.
The fog grew thicker, wrapping around ankles, climbing up calves, coiling like a living thing.
Light dimd until the sky above was nothing more than a sared charcoal haze.
Yet still…
Nothing happened.
No shrieks.
No movent.
No pressure.
Just silence.
And sohow,
that was worse.
A few began to hope.
Not out loud—never out loud.
But it was there, that fragile belief:
'Maybe it's gone.'
'Maybe it just wanted one life.'
'Maybe we're safe.'
Max didn't share it.
Survivor's instinct told him otherwise.
This wasn't over.
Not by a long shot.
Old Man Grey's voice finally ca.
Low. Sharp.
Almost a whisper.
"Let's retreat first…"
"Everyone, do not make any noise."
Max didn't need to be told twice.
Neither did anyone else.
No argunts.
No sarcasm.
No bravado.
They moved.
Each step asured.
Controlled.
Carefully placed on the dark stone.
Weapons remained drawn, but no one dared let their mana flare.
No one breathed too deeply.
Even the sound of cloth rustling as they moved felt dangerous.
"I feel that… it's becoming more and more dark…"
The voice ca through the vital essence transmission—quiet, strained, as if the speaker was afraid even his thoughts might be heard by sothing out there.
The mont the words echoed into their minds—everyone noticed it.
The fog.
It had thickened.
No—
it had changed.
It wasn't just fog anymore.
It had weight. Density.
Like sothing trying to press down on them from every direction.
They could barely see five feet ahead.
And the light—
The only source of it in the Mourning Depths, those distant glowing stars above—
Were gone.
Not faded.
Gone.
Swallowed.
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