Chapter 71: Beneath the Shadows

The ancient stone steps gleamed faintly in the darkness, each one carrying the weight of forgotten ages. Lin Han stood at the first step, gazing downward at the stairway that stretched into the unknown. His expression remained unreadable. Without hesitation, he took the first step.

Noya and Ah Rong exchanged a glance before following him. The air grew unnervingly heavy. With each step downward, the temperature dropped, and an eerie chill seeped through the cracks in the stone walls, as if something unseen lurked within.

"Are we really going through with this?" Ah Rong whispered, unease creeping into his voice.

"Turning back now might be more dangerous than moving forward," Lin Han replied calmly. His hand brushed against the stone wall, feeling the faint pulse of energy within the ancient carvings.

"What's this?" Noya reached out to touch the etchings, but the moment her fingertips made contact, a searing cold shot through her hand. She withdrew with a sharp breath, her brows knitting together.

Lin Han fell silent for a moment before responding, "A restriction seal."

"A restriction?" Ah Rong frowned. "Is it meant to keep something from getting out? Or to prevent people from going in?"

Lin Han didn't answer immediately. His gaze swept across the strange markings, and fragments of memory surfaced in his mind. These inscriptions weren't written by humans—they bore the traces of something far older.

As they ventured further, the surrounding darkness became something more than just an absence of light. It was an abyss that devoured illumination, twisting the glow of their torches into unnatural shapes. Even their own shadows had begun to distort, their edges warping and shifting as though they had minds of their own.

"Be careful… your shadows," Noya murmured.

Lin Han glanced downward and saw the truth in her words. His shadow was moving. Not merely swaying with the flickering light, but shifting unnaturally, stretching and contracting as if it sought to break free.

"They're… alive." Ah Rong's breath hitched.

Shadows—no longer mere silhouettes cast by light—seemed to be separate entities with their own will. They writhed, as if attempting to detach themselves from their owners. Lin Han steadied himself, channeling his energy. The unseen force gripping at his shadow weakened, but the sensation of something watching them did not fade.

"Don't let them separate from you," he instructed.

Noya and Ah Rong immediately tensed, focusing their energy to keep their shadows bound to them.

Step by step, the descent became more grueling. A weight pressed against them, unseen hands dragging at their limbs, trying to pull them deeper into the abyss.

At last, they reached the bottom.

A massive stone door loomed before them, its surface covered in intricate symbols that pulsed with a faint, eerie glow—like a thousand sleeping eyes waiting to awaken.

Lin Han stood before the door, feeling the unmistakable presence of something familiar beyond it.

"It's here," he murmured.

Noya and Ah Rong remained silent, watching him closely, awaiting his next move.

Lin Han exhaled slowly, raising his hand.

With a firm press against the center of the door, a deep, resonant tremor echoed from the other side—a sound of something ancient, something long-forgotten, stirring from its slumber.

Beyond this door… what awaited them?

The night sky loomed overhead, an ink-black abyss speckled with faint stars. The air was thick with an eerie stillness, as though the very fabric of reality had begun to fray at the edges. Beneath the dim glow of the moon, a shadow moved—silent, deliberate, like a specter slipping between realms.

Noya pressed her palm against the damp stone wall, feeling the cold seep into her skin. Her breath came in shallow bursts, each one laced with tension. They had been walking for what felt like an eternity through the ancient subterranean tunnels, each passage twisting like a serpent's coil, leading them further into the unknown.

"Something's wrong," Lin Han muttered, his voice barely audible over the distant sound of dripping water. He stopped, his eyes scanning the darkness ahead, muscles coiled like a predator ready to pounce. The air here carried a different scent—one of decay and something older, something that did not belong in the world of the living.

A Rong tightened his grip on the flashlight, its feeble beam cutting through the shadows but offering little reassurance. "We've come too far to turn back now," he said, though the doubt in his voice was evident.

Just then, a whisper—no, a slithering sound—echoed from beyond the next bend. Noya felt a shiver crawl up her spine. She had heard that sound before, in her grandfather's stories of the forgotten gods, the ones that slumbered beneath the earth, waiting for their names to be spoken again.

Lin Han exchanged a glance with her, reading the unease in her eyes. Without a word, they pressed forward.

The corridor widened into a vast chamber, its ceiling lost in the darkness above. Strange symbols adorned the walls, carved in a script that none of them recognized. At the center of the chamber lay a pit, its depth unknowable. A Rong directed his flashlight downward, but the beam was swallowed by the void, as if light itself had no power here.

Then came the whisper again, this time unmistakable. It did not come from the pit. It came from the walls.

Noya turned sharply, her breath catching as she saw them—figures emerging from the stone, their bodies fused with the ancient carvings, their eyes hollow voids that pulsed with something beyond comprehension.

"The guardians," she murmured, barely able to find her voice.

Lin Han moved first, his instincts kicking in before fear could take hold. "Move!" he barked, grabbing Noya's wrist as the figures began to shift, their bodies peeling away from the stone with a sickening crack.

A Rong stumbled back, his flashlight flickering wildly. "They're waking up!" he choked out.

The air grew heavier, pressing down on them as if the weight of centuries was collapsing inwards. The whispers turned into a chorus, voices overlapping in an ancient tongue, neither welcoming nor hostile—just inevitable.

Then the pit responded.

A gust of air erupted from below, carrying with it the scent of something long buried. And in that moment, Noya realized—this was not just a chamber. This was an altar.

And they were the offering.