Raising the shotgun, I took a slow step forward; every crunch of my boots against the dead leaves sounded like a gunshot in my own ears.
I kept my breathing incredibly shallow, sweeping the barrel left and right as I inched closer to the eldritch tear in the hillside.
My spatial domain pushed out to its ten-ter limit, acting as an invisible tripwire, while my two seconds of precognition humd quietly in the background. But none of that stopped the cold sweat from trickling down my spine.
With Eyes of Relevance active, the world remained locked in that high-contrast spectrum of charcoal and ash, peeling back the harsh shadows and rendering the steep, pitch-black tunnel ahead in crisp shades of grey.
As I closed the final few feet, stopping right at the lip of the drop, a foul draft hit my face, while that rapid, wet ta-ta-ta clicking just kept going, echoing up the steep tunnel alongside low, guttural snarls and the sickening slaps of heavy limbs dragging against stone.
It sounded like an entire ocean of bodies, writhing and endlessly shifting over one another in the pitch black.
Keeping the gun leveled down the slope, I glanced at the rocky ground right beneath my boots. The dirt here was completely saturated, coated in a thick, glossy substance that pooled in the stone’s jagged grooves.
[That isn’t mud...] I noted internally, feeling my stomach twisting.
Swallowing hard, I shifted my focus back to the tunnel itself, leaning just a fraction over the edge to peer down into this abyss.
My vision cut through the darkness, rendering the rocky walls and the uneven floor for exactly thirty ters.
The tunnel sloped downward at a sharp angle, and the stretch of cavern I could actually see was completely empty.
The writhing horde of noises was coming from deeper inside, echoing up from just beyond my visual range.
I let out a long, shaky breath, feeling the suffocating tension in my chest finally loosen its grip.
Lowering the shotgun just an inch, I took a step back from the ledge, more than ready to turn around and hike straight back to the safety of the mining camp.
But right as I pivoted on my heel, a faint pulse of light caught my eye.
My heart instantly jumped straight into my throat.
I froze, whipping the shotgun back up and zeroing my focus straight down the dark tunnel.
There, at the extre edge of my thirty-ter visual range, nestled in the deep shadows where the grey terrain finally blurred into nothingness, sothing was shimring in a soft, concentrated pulse of gold.
My intent was still strictly set to highlight human activity and danger, so it couldn’t have been just another trench left by an Outsider.
I narrowed my stinging eyes, leaning forward to try and decipher the shape of the glowing object, but it was just too far down. The golden haze distorted against the jagged rocks, giving zero context as to what I was actually looking at.
I stood there listening to the endless, wet clicking echoing up the tunnel, my knuckles turning white around the grip of the Boomstick.
I had a choice to make. I could turn around right now, walk away, and pretend I never saw it.
Or I could take a few steps down into a pitch-black cave filled with an endless sea of eldritch horrors just to get a better look.
I let out a slow, shaky sigh.
[Who am I kidding?] I thought, keeping my eyes locked on that faint golden pulse. [I ca all the way out here looking for clues, and there’s one sitting right in front of .]
-Ding!
{Host, this is highly ill-advised.}
[Yeah, no shit,] I shot back before taking a quick, deep breath to pump myself up.
My eyes went wide in the dark as my heart hamred so fast it physically hurt, but I made up my mind to go inside and confirm it.
[I needed to know!] I gritted my teeth and began inching closer, moving slowly and silently, fully aware that if I got detected by the horde, I was done for.
But just as my boot hovered over the threshold to cross into the cave, the System’s chi resounded in my head again.
-Ding!
{Host, you are about to enter the cursed domain of an Eldritch God. If you must proceed, you must deactivate all magic related to Ti Affinity imdiately.
Should the entity detect your presence, it will recognize the Ti Magic and, by extension, identify you as the Destined Hero.
You absolutely cannot afford to be noticed by an Eldritch God.}
[But that ans deactivating precognition!] I panicked, my grip tightening on the shotgun. [If I get jumped in the dark...]
-Ding!
{The alternative is much worse.}
I gritted my teeth harder as a cold bead of sweat slid down my neck, before eventually letting out a tense sigh and cutting the mana supply to my Ti Affinity.
The comforting two-second safety net instantly vanished from my mind, stripping away my only warning system and leaving completely vulnerable to the dark.
[That little shimr better be worth it...] I grumbled internally, lowering my foot to cross the threshold into the pitch-black tunnel.
-Ding!
{For your sake, Host, I hope it is not.}
I stepped over the threshold and crossed into the dark, imdiately gagging as the stench hit like a physical wall.
It slled of spoiled at and a sickly sweet chemical burn that coated the back of my throat with every shallow breath, forcing to physically swallow down the bile rising in my stomach.
The tunnel angled sharply downward, its rocky floor completely coated in that thick, glossy goo, making the steep decline as treacherous as a ramp covered in dish soap.
I kept the shotgun raised, pressing the stock tight against my shoulder before slowly lowering my foot to test the slick surface.
Step one. The wet, rapid clicking from the deep dark echoed louder, vibrating right through my soul.
Step two. The golden shimr at the edge of my vision pulsed a little brighter.
Step three. My heel slid an inch on the sli before catching a shallow groove in the stone, making my heart leap into my throat.
Step four. My foot hit a smooth patch of rock entirely hidden under the viscous liquid.
Zero friction.
[Oh shi-!] My leg shot out from under , slamming into the goo, and the slick decline instantly grabbed my montum, sending violently sliding and tumbling deeper.
The thick goo splashed over my jacket and across my face, sparking with a fierce, burning sting the second it touched my skin like an open wound doused in rubbing alcohol.
But I clamped my jaw shut, biting down on my tongue with every ounce of willpower I possessed just to trap the scream desperately trying to rip its way out of my throat as I slid blindly through the dark with the shotgun painfully jarring against my chest before-
-Crack.
The side of my head slamd directly into a rock jutting out of the slope, exploding a blinding flash of white behind my eyes, damn near knocking out right then and there, while I fought the scream tearing at my throat.
Even the high-contrast grey of my Eyes of Relevance flickered, aggressively threatening to black out entirely under a wave of pure agony rippling through my head.
I finally stopped sliding, lying flat on my stomach at the bottom of the slope while my lungs violently heaved as I panted through gritted teeth, while warm blood trickled down my temple, mixing with the stinging, corrosive sli coating my cheek.
[Fuck my life!]
My skull throbbed with a sickening, concussive rhythm, leaving my thoughts dangerously fragnted and my vision swimming in the dark, while the rapid clicking of the horde sounded like it was right on top of .
Through the blinding pain and the dizzying nausea, I forced my neck to turn, dragging my heavy eyelids open to look at the golden pulse I had chased down here.
Only to find the isolated shimr had multiplied.
The cavern floor ahead of had lit up with hundreds of individual, glowing shimrs painting the darkness in a chaotic, overlapping ss.
And every single one of them was in the distinct, undeniable shape of a human footprint.
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