"What was that just now?" Max asked, breath heavy but voice steady.
He wasn't shaken.
Not on the surface.
But deep inside, even he couldn't pretend the terror hadn't reached him.
Blob hesitated.
For once, it didn't have a clear answer.
Then, slowly, it spoke.
"It should be… a Sinful Bone Fra."
"Sinful Bone Fra?" Max asked, eyebrows furrowing.
The na itself felt heavy, cursed.
"What is that?"
Before Blob could answer—
Figures stumbled out.
From the fog.
Eight total.
From the original ten.
Their bodies were intact, but their faces—ashen, drained, like they had walked through a graveyard and shaken hands with death.
So fell to their knees.
So just stared into the sky, as if confirming they were still alive.
Max didn't bla them.
Even he… felt the weight.
They had survived.
But what they saw—
What they felt—
Would never leave them.
That song still echoed faintly in their mories.
That rotting genius, tearing his own body apart.
That feeling of sothing unseen watching from inside the mist…
Waiting.
Smiling.
Yes.
Too horrifying.
Far too horrifying.
These geniuses weren't children.
They weren't new to danger.
They'd walked the path of blood and battle.
Killed to rise.
Clawed their way up past thousands of corpses just to stand where they were now.
The Mourning Depths didn't scare them.
But that?
That thing inside the fog—
That siren-song death, that puppet-like madness, that curse that peeled flesh and stole souls—
That left a chill in their marrow.
No battle aura.
No clash of swords.
Just the fog, the singing, and a slow, beautiful death.
Old Man Grey turned toward Max, his wrinkled, calloused hands gripping his crescent sickle, his brows drawn tight with both tension… and awe.
He had been prepared to die in there.
Everyone had.
But Max—
Max had rushed in when everyone else froze.
And lived.
That wasn't sothing you ignored.
His voice was steady now, but underneath it was that quiet respect a man earned only in life-or-death monts.
"That black fog… I've never seen it. No idea how to break it. Honestly, if you hadn't moved, we'd probably all be corpses by now."
Max simply nodded.
"Yes."
There was no smugness in his tone.
No arrogance in his posture.
Just tired calm.
"Little Brother Max…"
Grey narrowed his eyes.
"…Did you see the way out? Did you understand sothing the rest of us couldn't?"
He had watched Max carefully—
The way he'd changed direction mid-charge.
That wasn't random.
That wasn't blind panic.
It had looked deliberate.
Amara's gaze sharpened.
She didn't speak, but the subtle lean forward, the way her hand paused at her side—
She was waiting for his answer.
The other geniuses watched too,
Their expressions a mix of hope, awe… and quiet suspicion.
Could he really have seen through that?
Max shook his head, firm and unshaken.
"No."
"I just thought... if I'm going to die, I'd rather die moving than sit still and wait for death."
"So I ran."
A small shrug.
"Didn't expect it to work."
As Max finished speaking, Old Man Grey nodded slowly—
His expression calm, his eyes unreadable.
He didn't doubt Max's words.
Truth be told, he hadn't believed Max could see through that black fog to begin with.
It wasn't cynicism.
It was just cold logic.
This was Max's first ti in the Mourning Depths.
He was young.
Strong, sure. Famous, yes.
But still just a genius at the Apprentice Rank.
And in this place?
Genius ant nothing.
The Mourning Depths didn't care about titles or fa.
It didn't care if you were a dragon in the skies—
Here, everything bled the sa.
So to him, Max's charge had just been bold luck.
A gamble that paid off.
But that didn't an it wasn't worthy of respect.
Max didn't miss the others' reactions.
The way their shoulders shifted.
The way they avoided his gaze.
The small twitches of frustration they tried to hide.
A few looked at him with awe.
But more looked at him with bitterness.
Like he had stolen sothing from them.
So of them were clearly thinking it:
'If I'd just run too…'
'If I'd just acted before him…'
'That could've been my mont…'
One of them in particular, a wiry youth with a faint red streak in his hair, muttered under his breath with forced calm:
"In the Mourning Depths, randomly charging ahead or using moves without thinking can just as easily kill you. The only reason we got caught in that death trap to begin with was because soone else attacked randomly…"
He heard every word.
The bite in the voice.
The false logic dripping with jealousy.
Max didn't even blink.
Didn't turn.
Didn't respond.
This wasn't new.
Envy ca with the spotlight.
Especially among geniuses—where everyone believed they deserved to stand tallest.
Let them talk.
Words wouldn't get them out of the Mourning Depths alive.
Old Man Grey coughed lightly, the sound cutting through the murky air like a command.
The murmuring youth shut up imdiately, clearly aware he'd gone a bit too far.
Grey's voice, though calm, carried a weight that forced everyone's attention:
"No matter what, this ti… our survival is thanks to Little Brother Max."
There was no debate in his tone.
No space for envy or argunt.
"But rember this—next ti, don't act on impulse."
His eyes swept across the group—stern, serious.
"Suppress your strength. Don't release aura. Don't flare your soul energy. No unnecessary movent."
He paused, his voice dropping into sothing colder.
"Because down here… even your heartbeat might wake sothing ancient."
A heavy silence followed.
No one dared speak.
Old Man Grey looked up toward the faint stars—
His compass.
His only ally against the madness of the Mourning Depths.
They'd drifted off course—
But not badly.
Still salvageable.
"We'll rest here for now. Then we move."
The others nodded silently, most sitting down, weapons still drawn, shoulders tense.
Max didn't join them.
Not really.
His body remained still—
But his mind had already gone elsewhere.
He sank inward, his awareness slipping into the deep, luminous stillness of the Dinsion of Spirit.
The fog of the outside world vanished—replaced by shimring rivers of a dreamlike world.
And in the center—
Blob.
Waiting.
Watching.
"Blob… what is a Sinful Bone Fra?"
His voice in this space echoed like thought across a still pond.
He needed answers now.
Not after the next encounter.
Not after another genius tore their own organs out.
User Comments
0 comments from readers