Ch 415: “Whispers”

The air was damp—thick with something more than moisture. Kalem trudged forward, the fire from his sword casting distorted shadows that danced along the grotesque cavern walls. The flame flickered more violently here, like it, too, feared this place.

He limped on his left leg, now tightly bound in torn strips of cloth and stabilizing band. Pain pulsed with every step, but his mind was elsewhere.

"Keep going... deeper…"

The voice again. Not a sound in the air—but a thought, inserted like a splinter behind the eyes. Familiar. Not his.

He froze.

"Who's there?" he asked the darkness. Only the sound of his own voice echoed back, as if hesitant to disturb whatever dwelled in the Abyss.

He moved again. The walls weren't right. They weren't just stone—some of them pulsed. Veins of reddish light coursed beneath the surface in jagged patterns. At times, he could swear the walls inhaled. The ground beneath his boots was spongy in places and cracked in others, giving way to pits he dared not examine too closely.

Kalem glanced over his shoulder. Nothing. Just shadows. Still, he drew the resonance blade and activated it briefly—its low hum soothing compared to the whisper.

"It won't save you," the voice hissed. "None of them will."

He shook his head. "You're not real."

But the voice didn't argue. It laughed.

Moving cautiously, Kalem summoned the crate from his storage glyph and checked the contents. All intact. His weapons gleamed under the flickering firelight. The crimson spear, the upgraded whip, the icy rapier, and his newly-forged axe—all safe.

It was strange. Everything he had crafted was perfect, ready. But down here, it all felt… inadequate.

He pressed onward.

Eventually, he came upon a wall. It wasn't natural. Not like the others. It was made of stone bricks, fitted with eerie precision—but bent and warped as if heat had twisted them while soft. The stone bore markings—symbols he recognized faintly. Military insignias. Legion script. But all wrong, smudged or mirrored.

Something from the surface had fallen down here.

Or been taken.

Kalem ran his fingers over a shattered emblem embedded in the wall. A Legion badge, crushed and scorched. He turned it in his hand. "7th Legion?"

He remembered the ridge. The explosion. The fall.

"Onyx…" he whispered, the name catching in his throat.

Nothing answered.

Not even the voice.

He moved deeper, the terrain shifting again. Long stretches of tunnel, narrowing, then opening up into caverns that felt more like ribcages than caves. He passed through a hollow chamber where the ground crunched beneath his boots—not rocks, but bones. Some human. Some… not.

The whisper returned.

"You shouldn't be here."

Kalem spun, spear in hand.

A distant scraping sound echoed through the tunnel. Something dragged across the stone. Footsteps? No. Too uneven. One foot... then a scrape. Then another.

He stepped back, crouching low, body tensed.

A shape emerged at the far edge of his vision. A figure, vaguely human, limping. It dragged one leg behind it like dead weight. Its body was wrapped in dark, matted cloth. Or was it skin?

Kalem held his breath. The figure stopped.

Then it turned its head toward him—or what passed for a head. No features, just a pale, hollow mask. Cracked. Wrong.

And then it was gone.

The moment Kalem blinked, the silhouette vanished into the mist that rose from the floor.

He waited.

Nothing.

Slowly, he sheathed his weapon, though his grip lingered.

He moved again, this time slower. The deeper he went, the more surreal everything became. There was no natural pattern. No consistent temperature. At times, his breath misted in the air. At others, sweat poured from his skin like he was walking through a fever.

He passed what looked like a corridor of roots, only to find that each tendril ended in a claw. Once, he stumbled upon a broken helm—a Desperado's. But inside was no skull, only tightly packed worms.

He dropped it and kept moving.

The voice spoke again.

"You fall like the rest. And yet… you burn."

Kalem tightened his grip on the fire sword, which flared in response.

"Keep talking," he muttered to the dark. "You're just air and echoes."

But doubt crept in. Was it? Was it just his mind fraying? Or was something else in this abyss, watching?

The ground leveled out eventually, opening into a basin—wide, with stone pillars like snapped tree trunks. In the center stood a monument. Or what might've once been one. A statue eroded beyond recognition, its arms broken off, face melted.

Kalem approached. At the base was something etched crudely in the stone: a series of lines. Then a single word.

"Hope."

Kalem stepped back.

The whisper returned, but now quieter—softer. Not mocking.

"Burn… and you will find it."

He looked up at the statue again. He didn't understand.

He didn't need to. Not now.

One step at a time.

Kalem turned away from the monument and kept walking, deeper into the unseen. The fire in his hand didn't falter.

But the darkness grew thicker around him. Watching. Waiting. Whispering.