Kenzo stared at the altar like it personally insulted him.
"To an unknown god?" he repeated, brows pulling together. "What is that supposed to an?"
Atman didn’t answer. He stood rigid in front of the stone, eyes fixed on the inscriptions along the walls. The terror from a mont ago didn’t leave - it just shifted shape. It beca sothing tighter, more desperate, like his mind tried to grab every detail.
Kenzo turned in place, scanning the circular chamber. The letters looked carved with care, big enough to be read from across the room. But to Kenzo, they were just shapes. Curves, angles, repeating patterns that maybe had aning without offering it.
"And more than that..." Kenzo said, voice lowering despite himself. "What’s the Cataclysm?"
Atman’s jaw was clenched, and he didn’t say anything.
Kenzo frowned harder. "Atman?"
Atman blinked, once. Twice. Then his hand moved inside his cloak, and for a heartbeat Kenzo thought he was reaching for so hidden weapon.
Instead, Atman pulled out a notebook.
Kenzo’s eyes widened. "Why do you even have that on you?"
Atman didn’t even look at him.
He flipped it open so fast the pages fanned, then pulled out a pen and started writing like his life depended on it. Not neat notes. Not calm observations. Fast lines. Symbols. Fragnts. His hand shook slightly, the pen scratching harder than it needed to, as if he tried to carve the ink into the paper.
Kenzo watched, half annoyed, half impressed. "Damn. You’re seriously taking notes right now."
Atman kept writing.
Kenzo stepped closer and looked at the wall again, squinting at the carvings. "What language is this?"
Atman’s pen paused for a fraction of a second.
"It’s not language." Atman said, voice tight. "It’s a code."
Kenzo blinked. "Code? Like, computer code!?"
"No, you idiot. It’s an encoded writing" Atman shook his head, then started writing again, faster.
Kenzo stared at the wall with new suspicion. "Why would anyone script the walls?"
Atman didn’t answer directly. He moved around the altar, eyes darting between different sections of the inscriptions. His shoulders stayed tense. His breathing stayed shallow. Every few seconds, his gaze flicked toward the arches and the corridor they ca through, like he expected sothing to step out of it.
Kenzo’s grip tightened on his hamr. "Atman. You’re freaking out!"
Atman kept writing. His hand trembled more now, subtle but real, the kind you got when your brain ran too fast for your body. He scribbled a whole page, flipped it, scribbled another, then another. He wrote down shapes, sequences, repeating or completely unique patterns. He drew little arrows and boxes and lines between them, as if he tried to decode a whole system, not a sentence.
Kenzo looked at the altar again. It seed harmless. A stone slab. A date. A dedication. Even the words sounded ridiculous.
Unknown god.
But Atman didn’t look like he thought it was ridiculous.
He looked like he wanted to leave his skin.
Kenzo tried to force a laugh. "You do realize we fell in here because we were fighting, right? This could just be so ancient Ukai... Thing, dunno."
Atman’s pen scratched hard enough to almost tear the page slightly.
After a few minutes, finally, he stopped writing.
He stared at what he wrote, like he checked if his own notes were real. Then he snapped the notebook shut.
"We’re leaving" Atman said.
Kenzo blinked. "What?"
Atman turned sharply, eyes wild for a second before he forced them back into focus. "We’re leaving. Right now."
Kenzo’s confusion turned into irritation. "Atman, we just found a whole underground temple under Ukai and you want to leave?"
Atman took two steps toward him. His face was pale under the dust. His hand still held the notebook too tightly.
Kenzo noticed the trembling again. Not exaggerated or dramatic, like Atman would be. Just... visible.
Atman grabbed Kenzo’s sleeve and pulled him closer, until Kenzo couldn’t pretend this was a joke anymore.
"Listen" Atman said, low. "Whoever lived here - they were worshipping sothing not even they understood."
Kenzo frowned, trying to process that sentence. "That’s what you already said. "Unknown god." What does that even an?"
Atman’s throat moved as he swallowed.
He glanced at the altar one more ti, then at the inscriptions, then back to Kenzo.
"I’ve read rumors" Atman said. "Stories. The kind nobody puts in textbooks because they sound insane. About an entire civilization, extinct now, that worshipped Anathemas."
Kenzo stared at him.
Atman didn’t blink.
"This place might just be that" Atman finished.
Kenzo’s mouth opened, then shut. He tried to make sense of it anyway, because Kenzo didn’t like leaving things unsolved.
"But it said "to an unknown god," right?" Kenzo said slowly. "How do you know what they were worshipping if not even they knew?"
Atman’s gaze locked onto him.
"Because no regular human that even faced an Anathema survived"
Kenzo felt the words land like a hamr, not in his hands, but in his chest.
He didn’t have a coback for that. He didn’t have a joke ready.
He looked around the circular chamber again, and it changed shape in his head. It wasn’t a ruin anymore. It wasn’t even a temple.
It was proof.
Proof of sothing far darker
Atman turned away abruptly, as if he couldn’t stand looking at the altar another second. He started walking back toward the corridor quickly, like he was afraid of running.
Kenzo followed imdiately. He didn’t want to be alone down here. Not after that.
"Okay" Kenzo muttered as he walked. "Okay, but - you do realize that’s a terrible argunt, right? "Nobody survived" doesn’t automatically an worship."
"Nobody survived ans that they didn’t even know what they were worshipping"
"Maybe they did survive! Maybe they saw it, or even fought it! Maybe they made this place as a warning. Maybe the unknown god is just... I don’t know. So old taphor." Kenzo tried again, because silence bothered him more than fear.
Atman still didn’t answer.
Kenzo huffed, then added in a softer tone, "You’re not even going to tell what the Cataclysm is?"
Atman’s steps didn’t slow. He didn’t look back. "I... I don’t know. Nobody knows"
Kenzo swallowed and followed anyway, words dying in his throat.
They reached the corridor, then the archway with the heavy stone gates. The clean air and straight lines felt worse now, like the corridor was a throat and they were walking out of its stomach.
When they slipped through the gate and returned to the larger collapsed chamber, Kenzo felt a weird relief. The rubble and dust looked normal compared to the altar room.
Then he saw the hole above them again.
A patch of gray light, rain falling through it.
Kenzo moved beneath it, looked up, and sighed.
"Great" he said. "Now we just have to climb fifty ters straight up through a hole we made by accident."
Atman stood nearby, still buried in thought.
Kenzo placed one hand on the stone wall and started climbing anyway, using his bare hands. He got up a few ters, slipped, landed hard, cursed under his breath, then tried again.
He climbed again.
Slipped again.
This ti he swung his leg and nearly smashed his knee into a broken slab.
Kenzo dropped back down, breathing harder. "Okay, it’s too stupid. The walls are too smooth."
Atman didn’t respond.
Kenzo looked over. "Atman? You still with ?"
Atman blinked like soone shook him awake. His eyes focused on Kenzo, then the hole, then the walls.
"Right" Atman said, voice still distant.
Kenzo opened his mouth to complain again, but Atman raised both hands.
Smoke poured out of his sleeves in thick, powerful waves. Not tendrils this ti. Not blades. A structure.
It spread outward and upward, filling the chamber like a dark-blue sea growing in fast motion. Columns ford, then platforms, then a spiral ramp that wrapped along the walls with smooth precision. The smoke hardened into sothing firm enough to stand on, yet it moved subtly like it breathed.
Kenzo stared. "You’re dead serious. You’re telling that you could’ve done that this whole ti."
Atman didn’t even glance at him.
The smoke ramp rose, lifting both of them slowly. Kenzo stepped onto it, then felt the whole structure elevate, smooth and steady, carrying them toward the opening above like an elevator made of condensed darkness.
Rain hit Kenzo’s face as they rose into the hole.
Cold, fresh air flooded his lungs.
They erged into the thick natural fog again, onto cracked soil, as if the world above didn’t change at all while they were down there learning sothing that shouldn’t exist.
Atman stepped off first.
Then, with a sharp motion, he pulled his smoke back into his cloak in one clean sweep. It vanished completely, leaving no trace of a ramp, a structure or a pillar, no hint of how they escaped.
Just two n standing in fog, next to a reasonably big hole
Kenzo looked back at the hole once, then at Atman.
Atman stared into the distance, jaw tight, notebook still clutched in his hand like it was the only real thing left.
Kenzo swallowed. "Soo... We’re definitely not going back down there."
Atman’s voice ca out flat. "Not yet."
They started walking.
Fog swallowed them again as they headed back toward Ukai, footsteps crunching over cracked soil. Kenzo kept trying to find a joke that didn’t sound stupid. Atman stayed quiet, mind racing behind his eyes.
For once, Kenzo didn’t mind the silence.
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