Chapter 4: The blood that heals
The reconnaissance squad gathered at the Southern Edge, where the artificial glow of gas lamps blended with the darkness of the Abyss.
"Level Three today," announced Kaleth, the captain, adjusting his filter mask. "Reports of unusual activity near Sector Ghul."
Lina, the youngest in the group, checked her backpack full of sample vials.
"Nyx-Terath again?"
"Worse," grunted old Goran, wiping his obsidian axe. "Something's scaring it."
They laughed, but the sound died quickly. In the Abyss, jokes about predators climbing levels never ended well.
They descended through the main conduit, marked generations ago with warning runes. Twenty minutes in, they found the first sign:
"Here!" Lina pointed at the walls.
Deep cracks, as if something massive had twisted against the stone. And something else...
"Is that... golden blood?" Kaleth touched the viscous liquid with the tip of his knife.
Goran sniffed the air.
"Not Terath. Something small fought here. And lost."
They followed the trail of destruction, each step more tense than the last.
The sound stopped them cold.
A guttural roar, followed by a wet crunch. Kaleth signaled for silence as they crept forward.
What they found chilled their blood:
The Nyx-Terath—a mass of tentacles and mouths that usually terrorized three levels below—was writhing in agony. Its central eye had burst, oozing vitreous humor mixed with that same golden fluid.
"Damn it..." murmured Goran.
But what unsettled them most was the creature's movement. It wasn't the usual frenzy of a wounded beast.
It was searching.
For something that had hurt it.
Lina saw the movement first.
"There!"
A small, dark figure slipped between the rocks, too fast to make out details. Just a flash of something golden—and then nothing.
The Nyx-Terath lashed a tentacle at the spot, pulverizing stone, but it was too late.
"A Kharis larva?" Kaleth asked, confused.
"No Kharis does that," Goran said, pointing at the creature's burst eye. "That's tactics."
A hiss warned them. The wounded beast had detected them.
What followed was a nightmare of acid and tentacles.
Goran took a hit to the shoulder, the corrosion burning down to the bone. Kaleth tossed smoke grenades—purchased from the High City's alchemists.
"Retreat! Now!"
They sprinted for the ascent tunnel, the Nyx-Terath roaring behind them. But strangely...
It didn't follow.
It merely watched the passage, as if afraid to stray from that place.
As if that small thing was still nearby.
Back on the surface, the military surgeon extracted the last of the acid from Goran's shoulder while Kaleth gave his report:
"Nyx-Terath on Level Three. Wounded, but alive."
The officer jotted notes without looking up.
"A purge squad will be sent tomorrow."
Lina cut in.
"There was something else. Something that hurt it."
The officer raised an eyebrow.
"Description?"
She hesitated. She had none. Only...
"It was fast. And clever."
The officer's laugh sliced the air like a blade.
"Beasts aren't clever, recruit. They're hunger on legs."
But that night, while the others slept, Lina drew in her journal:
A dark blot with pale eyes.
And a golden glow that didn't belong to the Abyss.
Every step was a battle.
Its shimmering blood dripped behind it, marking the way like breadcrumbs in a story it didn't know. The walls seemed to lean in, mocking its weakness.
Until the scent stopped it.
Sweet. Familiar.
In the shadows, a flickering glint: the same luminous creature that once gave it golden skin. But this time...
It was wounded.
A Nyx-Terath's tentacle had nearly split it in two, and its vital essence spilled out in radiant shreds.
The creature crawled toward it, not to hunt, but because...
I don't want to be alone.
The Kharis larva trembled at its presence, but didn't flee.
Maybe it was too weak.
Maybe it recognized the golden glow on the other's skin—part of itself, now in another.
The creature reached out a claw, not to harm, but to touch.
At the contact, the Kharis shuddered, and more of that luminous liquid seeped from its pores, mixing with the golden blood of the open wound.
The pain lessened.
Just a little.
Just for a moment.
But it was enough.
Is it... healing me?
It had no words for that miracle, but when the Kharis tried to crawl away, the creature followed—this time placing its body between the small one's wound and the dangers of the tunnel.
Lina ran her fingers over the stains on the stone.
"It's not just blood," she murmured. "Look at the pattern."
Goran stepped closer, clutching his bandaged shoulder.
"What the hell is that?"
Golden trails interwoven, as if two creatures had crawled together—one leaving a radiant trace, the other... something darker, but with a similar glint.
"Something helped something else," Lina said, mostly to herself.
The old hunter spat on the ground.
"Beasts don't help. They devour."
But when they looked down, the proof was there: tracks of something small dragging itself forward, and beside them, the slick marks of a Kharis larva... but without the usual signs of struggle.
As if they had traveled together.
That night, the creature dreamed of voices.
Not human ones, but something deeper, older.
The Kharis larva, now curled up against its chest (when had it started protecting her?), pulsed with light in rhythm with her breathing.
In the dream, the lights formed words:
"Shared pain is pain divided."
It didn't understand.
But when it woke, the wound had closed a little more.
And the Kharis was still there.
Alive.
She had chosen to stay.
That meant something.
Something important.
At dawn (if dawn could exist in the Abyss), they found the corpse.
A smaller Nyx-Terath, dead, its tentacles dry as parchment.
The creature sniffed the air.
The scent of acid was laced with... flowers? No, something else.
The Kharis stirred in its arms, emitting a warning sound.
Then it saw it:
On the monster's side, carved with surgical precision, was a symbol etched by claw:
The same spiral it bore on the human mask.
Who does this?
For the first time, it knew the true mystery wasn't the Abyss...
It was what someone was doing within it.