Chapter 169

The lingering heat from Elia’s fires made the gallery feel like an oven, but adrenaline had already begun to ebb, leaving them drained.Nick didn’t lower his guard, scouring the tunnel for more enemies, but could find no hostile signatures. More importantly, there was no movement from the ooze-guardian. After how unsettling she had been, Nick had almost expected her to have more tricks; however, he supposed he’d unintentionally negated most of them with his rigorous filtering of the air.

He exhaled, and vapor steamed from his lips. “How are we feeling?”

Rhea grunted as she opened her pouch. “I have two vials of Medusa’s Gaze left and three of antitoxin.” She rotated her shoulders, trying to relax. “I feel like I didn’t do nearly as much as I could have, but it all happened very fast. I guess that’s what happens in a high-level fight.”

Elia, still kneeling, wiped the soot track from her cheek. Her irises glowed only faintly now, foxfire banked to coals. “I’m ok.” She wouldn’t admit more, given her pride.

Nick’s own reserves hovered lower than he liked—feeding Elia’s conflagration had drained them, but it wasn’t like he could have left it completely in her hands. He rolled his neck, releasing the last bit of tension. A dull ache behind his eyes warned of incipient mana strain.

Rhea put on her cloak and then met his eyes. “We should retreat to the surface,” she said. “It would mean walking through the night, but we can get some fresh air, sleep, and sunlight. We can return after that if we really want to.”

Elia looked up sharply. “The temple is close. If the situation is as dire as Teame said, I need to get there now. I can’t allow it to fester.”

Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Elia, we might have won against her quickly, but that doesn’t mean whatever is waiting for us will be at the same level. Your flames countered its toxin well, but we don’t know if that will continue to work.” Latest content publıshed on novel_fіre.net

She opened her mouth, but he lifted a hand. “Let me finish. The ‘guardian’ claimed Inari-ōkami is dead, or at least too weak to do anything. Yet in the Messenger’s ruin we found a remnant of her presence. I’m not an expert, but I doubt domains can last centuries without a god.” He turned to her. “If even a shard of Inari is left in the material place, it’s at the main shrine. We’d be walking into a trap if we kept going here.”

Elia’s expression was complex. She appeared very relieved that he believed the goddess was alive, yet defiant about leaving now. She glanced at Rhea. “It would be just a look. I need to know if there are more spirits trapped in agony.”

Rhea shifted, pursing her lips. “I don’t deny that leaving more spirits in that state doesn’t sit well with me. I’m just worried about whether we can handle what we’ll find.”

“Nick, you can pull us away if we get in trouble, right?” Elia turned back to him, pleading.

He groaned, trying to look at the situation objectively. So far, they hadn’t found anything beyond his ability to handle, and even his suspicion about something lurking beyond was just that, a suspicion. “I guess we could take a look, but if I say we need to leave, we’ll leave!”

Seeing Elia dance in victory, Nick felt as though he had somehow lost. He sighed and exchanged a look with Rhea, who still seemed somewhat reluctant. When she said nothing, he simply nodded.

“I mean it. If something feels wrong, I’ll get us out, even if I have to bring the damn temple down,” he murmured, and she smiled back, reassured.

Given that it was still night above them and that not even Elia felt up to launching into the last part of the tunnel, they dragged their bedrolls away from the slagged stone into a side alcove barely wide enough for three.

Nick set new chalk circles, as they had worked so well the last time, and laid the owl totem in the innermost ring. Its carved head swiveled as if searching for enemies, and its watchfulness made him feel a bit better.

The air, although cleared of smoke, remained heavy with a chemical sweetness, despite his continuous efforts to filter it. Nick maintained his wind barrier at a membrane-thin level and briefly pulsed pure air to push the miasma outward occasionally. Even so, acidic tickles rasped at his sinuses.

Sleep eluded him despite his best efforts. Whenever Nick drifted off, faint claws seemed to scratch at his shields—echoes of toxic currents or perhaps the spirit’s final scream. Twice, he sat bolt upright, anticipating another sludge burst. The owl totem glowed with a steady amber light but turned its head toward the main tunnel, its feathers ruffling. Some distant pressure stirred, but since Blasphemy did not react, he settled back down.

Eventually, he dozed in uneven segments, dreaming of melting skin and echoing hymns.

Nick woke to a dry taste on his tongue. He summoned a swirl of water, funneling it into the kettle, which was all they had left to cook with. Rhea dosed it with powdered leaves that tasted like bitter mint, not using any sweetener this time, as she said she might need it for emergency brewing; Elia ate in distracted silence, constantly glancing toward the dark.

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Nothing blocked their path when they broke camp, though the farther they traveled, the thicker the banks of smoky toxins became, rolling like ground fog.

Nick pushed to its full extent, and the world transformed into lines of density and pressure. He navigated through updraft pockets where the tunnel slanted, clearing the air just enough for the girls to follow without stumbling.

They climbed for half a mile, their steps echoing like hammer blows in an empty warehouse. Then, abruptly, the incline reversed, and the floor sloped downward, smooth as an obsidian glass slide.

Some powerful magic had melted the limestone here. Rhea knelt to chip a shard. “This was fused all at once, given the cracks. The heat must have been insanely high.”

Surprisingly, with the change in scenery, moss returned—emerald patches pulsing with faint bioluminescence—and Rhea harvested clumps, extolling its virtues as a modulator for more powerful antidotes. Nick merely nodded, ignoring the throbbing in his mind, which complained from the constant adjustments to the barrier.

This was by far the longest he’d kept up his active magic, and he could feel the strain.

Roughly three hours after breaking camp, he noticed movement ahead. “Another fox, alone, about four hundred feet.”

Elia’s ears perked up, and she almost bolted ahead. Nick hooked a hand in her collar, pulling her back. “Remember your promise.” He muttered, earning a whine.

They moved forward slowly. A hum floated back, gentle like a lullaby yet layered with three odd frequencies. Each pulse resonated with Nick’s barriers, attempting to weaken them; he reinforced them effortlessly, but the fact that such a mindless creature was trying to destroy their only protection unnerved him.

The corridor widened, revealing a ragged fox sitting before a lichen-eaten pillar. Its maroon coat hung in tatters, and its hind leg twisted beneath it. Yet it sang, its tail slapping the stone exactly on each downbeat with mechanical precision despite its half-dead form. Its clouded eyes stared at nothing.

Elia whispered a greeting, but nothing changed. At her sigh, Rhea lobbed a mist-ampoule, and antitoxin vapors cloaked the beast. The reaction was grotesque, as expected: purple veins bloated, fur liquefied, and the hymn rose to a shriek, then collapsed.

Elia sniffed but did not turn away, staring at the spot where the tortured spirit had been.

Nick knelt by the small puddle, scanning the mana residues. Once again, he sensed nothing specific, not even the slightest hint of necromancy. That was more unsettling than having an answer.

“I still have no idea,” he answered her unspoken question, stomach tight.

Two more singers—one crawling on forelegs, one fused into wall mortar—met with identical mercy, and Elia intoned a burial verse each time. The final corridor stretch seemed endless, with gas thickening into nearly opaque purple strata. Without his sensory magic, they would have stumbled blindly.

Nick kept an eye on his mana reserves. If things headed in the direction he feared, he wanted to be ready for anything. Luckily, the short rest he’d gotten had restored him to full, aided by the warm meal he’d eaten. He still didn’t feel confident, especially with the girls around, but he couldn’t be more prepared than this without knowing what awaited them.

The path climbed again, and Nick slowed as his senses hit a six-foot-tall flat vertical slab.

It felt wrong, and his senses could find no purchase beyond it. Just like the tunnel’s entrance, something seemed to impede his every attempt to see further.

Soon, their lights illuminated it, revealing a large door made of bluish metal. Slender reliefs of foxes leaped across its surface, interlaced with stylized birthing cradles and stalks of grain. Claw marks marred the stone all around it, as if a rabid animal had tried to dig its way around, but nothing touched the door.

Rhea’s eyes widened. “This is Cold-Iron. It’s known for having no conductivity at all. Most spirits or fae can’t even see it, much less touch it.” She touched the seam where the leaf hinge met the jamb. “A tribe wouldn’t be able to afford this. This much Cold Iron would beggar a lord.”

Nick pressed a palm against the cool metal, but his mana-sense slid off like water on oilskin. He considered forcing the issue by attacking the sides where the obsidian melded into the door, but using any explosive magic beneath so much packed earth was very risky.

Elia stepped forward, brushing her fingertips against a relief of a mother fox cradling her kit. The entire gate groaned as soon as her fingers touched the iron. Its hinges, after a century, finally creaked to life.

A pulse of power exploded through the tunnel, silent yet seismic. surged, hissing static behind Nick’s eyes.

has negated the effect of a divine Domain.

It did not say minor, Nick noticed. His skin prickled; the domain’s texture filled the air like thick honey.

Elia sniffed. “Cherry blossoms.” Her nose wrinkled. “And something metallic, like old medicine gone bad.”

Nick couldn’t smell through the wind bubble, but he noticed the way her ears tilted and knew she wasn’t using her mortal senses.

Rhea massaged her temples. “I can smell nothing but feel the heaviness in the air.”

“What I said earlier still goes. At the first hint of real danger, I’ll pull us all back.” Nick said, earning two nods, one slow and one excited.

Beyond the gate, black stairs spiraled gracefully in a helix. Obsidian walls absorbed the sound of their footfalls, and only the gentle whirr of the wind barrier echoed.

Nick’s Third Eye traced glyphs etched into the risers—tiny cervine silhouettes, stalks of grain, and multi-tailed foxes. Some glowed faintly when Elia passed, but darkened when Rhea or Nick did.

Nothing seemed to happen, and no mana activated. He continued to keep a tally of everything occurring. The presence of a domain indicated to him that the false guardian’s story had been misleading at best, but that didn’t mean there was no danger.

Fifty steps, eighty, two hundred. Oxygen thinned, and he cycled a clean flow. Nothing reacted to it, yet he didn’t relax.

Eventually, the stairs opened up to a grand mezzanine: a vaulted ceiling supported by basalt ribs and a floor covered with white-veined marble. Gentle sunlight poured in from above, just strong enough to illuminate their path but not enough to chase away the long shadows.

Nick exhaled in surprise: How had this chamber survived the human invasion? There were no scorch marks, no attempt to tear it all down.

Elia strode ahead as if she knew the layout; Nick let her go, keeping his eyes peeled for traps or monsters lying in wait. Another stairway beckoned upward in the middle of the chamber—this one flanked by silver torch brackets.

At the summit stood an altar dais encircled by fox statues, each adorned with silver blindfolds. In the center rested a crystalline reliquary, approximately the size of a coffin. Upon its cushion lay a hand—blackened as charcoal, with nails lacquered ruby red, and fingers curled as if frozen mid-motion.

Rhea’s breath hitched. “Is this a divine relic?”

Nick stepped closer. The domain tugged harshly now; the bubble resisted, but sweat dimpled his temples.

A concussive slam made all three whirl as the cold iron gate below sealed shut. Wind twisted into a whirlpool behind Nick as he prepared to defend. finally revealed the enemy he had been waiting for, but it wasn’t coming from the direction he expected.

A pressure descended as something vast tore at the barrier separating worlds, its mere presence twisting and corrupting reality.