Chapter 72: Whispers in the Shadows

The air deep within the cavern felt frozen in place, thick and suffocating. The damp moss on the stone walls shimmered faintly under the weak glow of the flashlight, resembling the watchful eyes of unseen creatures lurking in the abyss. Noya held her breath, her own heartbeat pounding against her ribs.

"Did you hear that?" A'Rong whispered, his grip tightening on the flashlight as its beam trembled, flickering over the cracks in the ancient walls. Even the light seemed fearful, hesitating to pierce the overwhelming darkness.

Lin Han didn't answer. His sharp gaze darkened as he tilted his head slightly, trying to distinguish a faint murmur within the air itself. It was intermittent, like grains of sand rubbing against one another—or something unseen slithering slowly through the void.

Noya instinctively took a step back, her boot scraping against loose pebbles on the ground with a soft crunch.

At that exact moment, the whispers ceased.

As if whatever had been speaking was now listening instead.

The air turned glacial.

"Move," Lin Han commanded in a low voice. His hand instinctively reached for his waist, where a blade should have been—but ever since their last encounter, he had lost his weapon. Now, all he had left was instinct, honed by years of experience with the unknown.

The three of them continued forward through the narrow passage, treading lightly, their breaths shallow. The murals on the walls became clearer, revealing figures entangled in an ancient narrative. The once-legible Javanese script had faded, but the imagery remained disturbingly vivid.

A robed figure stood atop a stone altar, arms raised high. Behind him, a colossal serpent loomed—eyeless, its massive body coiled with inscriptions of twisted incantations. Its maw was slightly open, as if whispering words never meant for human ears.

"This…" Noya murmured, her fingers trailing over the worn carvings. "It's the same symbol we saw at the temple entrance."

"What does it mean?" A'Rong swallowed hard.

Lin Han exhaled, his voice dropping lower. "It means we're walking straight into the heart of an ancient ritual. And this place… might be where it sleeps."

The moment he spoke, the ground shuddered—a subtle yet undeniable tremor.

Then came the sound.

A rustling, slithering movement.

From every direction.

Noya's pupils constricted as she looked up.

Within the cracks of the stone walls, countless pairs of hollow, serpentine eyes slowly blinked open.

They had no pupils. No emotion.

Only an eerie, lifeless stillness.

From the darkness, they began to move.

The air was so thick with tension that it felt as if even time had ceased to flow. Lin Han, Noya, and Ah Rong stood frozen in the darkness, their breaths so shallow that they seemed afraid of disturbing something unseen, something lurking in the shadows. The eyeless serpents slithered through the cracks in the stone walls, their bodies blending seamlessly into the surface. Only when they shifted did their eerie forms become visible.

Ah Rong's fingers trembled slightly, the flashlight in his grip casting shaky beams of light across the walls.

Suddenly—

"Don't move." Lin Han's voice was low and sharp, his gaze locked onto a particular spot on the stone surface.

Between the writhing serpents, a shadowy figure began to emerge. It was not a snake—

It was a human silhouette.

The figure did not move, yet there was an unmistakable presence in its stillness, as if it was observing them from the darkness.

"Is it… alive?" Noya whispered, her throat tight with tension.

"...I don't think so," Lin Han murmured, but there was an uncertainty in his tone that he could not mask.

Ah Rong swallowed, his grip tightening around the flashlight. With a swift motion, he raised the beam and directed it straight at the shadow—

In an instant, the figure convulsed violently, twisting and contorting as though it had been scorched by the light. Then, just as suddenly, it retreated, vanishing into the deeper darkness.

At the same time, all the serpents froze.

It was as if an invisible command had stopped them mid-motion.

"It's avoiding the light…" Ah Rong muttered, his fingers trembling slightly.

But then—

The snakes moved again.

Not sluggishly as before, but with a sudden, terrifying surge, as though a dam had broken and a flood of writhing bodies came crashing toward them.

"Run!" Lin Han barked, grabbing Noya's arm and sprinting toward the passage ahead. Ah Rong was right behind them. Their footsteps echoed against the stone floor, the slithering mass behind them growing louder and louder, like the whispered warnings of something ancient and malevolent.

Noya's breath hitched—she could feel the damp, cold presence of the creatures, as if their unnatural existence was pressing into her very skin.

"There's a path on the left!" Ah Rong shouted.

Lin Han veered sharply, pulling them into a narrow corridor. But after only a few strides, they stumbled into a vast chamber.

The space was larger than anything they had seen before. The walls were covered in intricate carvings, more elaborate than the previous murals. Unlike the ancient, worn etchings from before, these carvings looked fresh—almost as if someone had altered them recently.

In the center of the chamber stood a well.

A deep, bottomless ancient well. The rim was lined with dense, overlapping inscriptions, each character meticulously etched as if sealing something within.

Noya hesitated for a fraction of a second, but the horde of snakes was still close behind. Lin Han pulled her along as they maneuvered around the well, stopping only when their backs were pressed against its cold stone edge.

"They… stopped?" Ah Rong gasped, his eyes darting toward the chamber entrance.

The eyeless serpents had halted at the threshold, writhing in place but making no attempt to enter. Their grotesque forms quivered, caught between an unseen force and whatever fear prevented them from crossing.

Lin Han's gaze dropped to the well, his expression dark and unreadable.

"This well… it's a boundary."

"A boundary?" Noya repeated, her voice laced with confusion.

"They fear the light—but they fear this place even more." Lin Han gestured to the inscriptions on the well's rim. "This isn't an ordinary seal… whatever is inside here, it's worse than them."

Ah Rong's breath came short. He swallowed hard. "You don't mean… this is where the Serpent God is sealed?"

Before anyone could answer, a deep, resonant sound rumbled from the depths of the well—

A slow, deliberate stirring of something vast awakening.

And in that moment, silence consumed the chamber.