How many of them would return to see another sunrise?

The night in Cancún had been a fragile and tense truce, a brief interlude between cosmic revelations and the imminent departure for a subterranean hell. The decision to travel to Hollow Earth, to take the fight to the heart of Cthulhu's domain, had settled like a tombstone upon the survivors. Dawn had not yet broken the horizon, but the makeshift base was already buzzing with somber, determined activity.

Many of the mages and scientists, exhausted to the limit, had tried to steal a few hours of uneasy sleep, their minds still processing Lilith's story, Amitiel's betrayal, and the Lyreans' bold, almost suicidal proposal. But rest was a fleeting luxury.

In the darkest, most fortified areas of the base, the vampires were already on the move. The memory of the recent vulnerability to the sun, though partially mitigated by the intervention of Quetzal's Aluxes on the rings, remained an open wound. Now, facing a journey to an unknown realm where the laws of light and darkness might be entirely different, they prepared with a meticulousness born of centuries of survival.

Dracula, with the new and terrible majesty his chaotic evolution had bestowed upon him, personally supervised his Punishers as they equipped themselves. Not with simple weapons, but with artifacts from a forgotten age: armor of obsidian and black silver, forged in ancient times by wizard smiths who had made pacts with spirits of the earth and the night. Each piece was engraved with runes that absorbed light and promised pain to the unholy. Dracula himself strapped on greaves that seemed woven from solidified shadows, their touch cold as the grave. These relics, he thought, running a gloved hand over a shoulder guard shaped like a stylized bat's head, have proven their worth in a thousand battles against light and madness. Let them do it once more.

Malakor, the Chaos mage-vampire, struggled to fit his now more volatile form into a dark bronze breastplate that crackled with runes of elemental containment. The Fae blood and the dark ritual had calmed him, but the "accursed force" still simmered beneath his skin, a promise of controlled destruction—or unleashed.

Meanwhile, in the makeshift sanctuary Merlin had established at the heart of the laboratory, the Umbrian mages made their own solemn preparations. The air smelled of arcane incense and the subtle tingle of magical ozone. Alatar, the ancient diviner, eyes closed, traced patterns in the air, searching for omens in the currents of the Grid. Professor Minerva, usually surrounded by healing herbs and potions, now oversaw the distribution of elixirs of stamina and mental clarity.

At the center of the activity, a small group of the most experienced wizards, under Merlin's direct supervision, handled with extreme care the most dangerous and potent artifacts in their arsenal. A young initiate, his face pale with responsibility, carried with trembling hands a yew wood chest reinforced with silver bands. From within, Merlin extracted a thin volume, bound in what appeared to be ancient snakeskin, its pages a yellowed and brittle parchment: a crucial section of the Keys of Solomon. The book radiated a dense and oppressive power, a knowledge so profound that its mere proximity seemed to alter perception.

"These are the seals and the callings we might need to confront the entities of the Void, or to banish the minions of Cthulhu if we can weaken their anchor to this plane," Merlin explained quietly to the wizards surrounding him, his tone grave. "But its use is a double-edged sword. Each spell extracts a price."

Aria and Kaelen were also awake, the tension of their nightly conversation still hanging between them like an uninvited shadow. Aria, sitting in the lotus position in a corner, tried to center her Chi, the emerald and golden light pulsing gently around her. She felt the weight of the Clavicles in the room, the cold determination of the vampires, the silent chants of Quetzal and her warlocks in another section of the base. Each preparation was a step closer to the unknown, toward a confrontation that defied imagination.

Kaelen, for her part, reviewed her own wind charms, her gauntlets gleaming with the power of the stemmed storms. She glanced at Aria from time to time, her confession of her orphanhood and the brief moment of connection between them now tinged with the harsh light of impending danger. What's the point of any of this, she thought with a pang of bitterness, if we're not going to survive to see it?

The early morning air in Cancún was a mixture of sea salt, the promise of a new day that might never come for many, and the palpable energy of magic and desperation. The preparations were almost complete. The expedition to Hollow Earth, a suicide mission into the heart of madness, was about to begin. The question gnawing at everyone, though no one spoke it aloud, was how many of them would return to see another sunrise. The need to know what this descent into the abyss would hold for them was a cold knot in the stomach of every sentient being at the base.