They had walked for a long stretch without encountering anything ominous.
The tunnel did not run in a straight line. It twisted and bent at unnatural angles, as though the passage itself refused to follow any logical path, stretching onward without any visible end.
Darius walked ahead, the fire in his hand crackling and spitting light into the tunnel.
"You must be quite a warlock enough to cast a spell with Oryx chains on," he said without turning.
Henry didn't answer immediately.
"I used some old trick of mine to open the locks," he said at last. "Just a thief's trick."
Darius gave a short laugh. "I didn't see you use it when you unlocked me."
It was true Henry didn't free himself with his own magic; the Storyteller demon had done it—the Kala Mogul, more demon than anything godlike. But that only deepened the mystery. Darius's chains had been forged from Oryx metal too, a substance no spell should have been able to touch. So how had he broken them?
They turned the corner, and at once, the air changed.
A bitter wind rushed from the darkness ahead, pouring through a vast opening in the passage. Henry had only enough time to glimpse the circular abyss yawning beneath them before Darius stepped forward and vanished over the edge.
"Aaaah—!"
His cry echoed through the pit as he plunged headfirst into the darkness below.
Henry threw himself to the ground and caught Darius by the ankle just before he disappeared entirely. The force nearly dragged him over with him. Darius's body slammed against the rough stone wall of the shaft, and the sickening crack of his head striking a rock rang through the abyss before he went limp.
"Darius! Wake up!" Henry bellowed.
He lay flat against the cold stone, one arm wrapped around a jagged outcrop while the other strained to hold Darius above the endless drop. The unconscious man's body dangled beneath him, swaying over the darkness.
Henry gritted his teeth and pulled with everything he had. The muscles in his arm burned, his shoulders screamed, and his fingers slipped inch by inch against Darius's boot. He tried to lift him with his other arm, bracing himself against the edge, but Darius was far too heavy.
Still, Henry refused to let go.
Then he heard it.
The same shriek echoed from the tunnels behind them—the same sound the creature Darius had burned alive had made.
Still holding onto Darius with one hand and pressing desperately against the stone with the other, Henry turned his head just enough to glance over his shoulder.
The sight nearly stopped his heart.
This creature was nothing like the first. Had this been the one they encountered before, Henry knew he would have died where he stood.
Its skin was white and cracked like old chalk, stretched tight over a frame too thin and too tall to be human. Two blazing red eyes burned in the darkness, fixed upon him with a hunger that made his blood run cold. Beneath them spread a monstrous grin, impossibly wide, tearing across its face and exposing rows of long, devilish teeth.
Its arms hung at its sides, but they were grotesquely long, reaching almost to the ground. The fingers twitched slowly through the dust, hovering only inches above the stone as the thing crept toward him.
The creature screeched, locking its gaze onto them. Its jaw unhinged wider than should have been possible, the sound tearing through the corridor like a blade.
For a moment, everything froze.
Then the creature bore down onto them, charging on all fours with terrifying speed.
Henry's grip loosened.
It took him only a split second to realize what had happened, but by then it was already too late. Darius's body was slipping free from his grasp, falling helplessly into the abyss below.
"No — "
Caught between shock and confusion, Henry turned—and found the white monster already upon him.
He forced himself to stand his ground and raised a trembling hand toward the thing rushing at him. Whitish essence gathered in his palm, twisting faster and faster as it thickened into something dark, unstable, and barely under his control.
_Nightcurse_ he whispered through the sorcerer's tongue.
The pale essence collapsed in on itself for a heartbeat, then burst apart. Henry seized it with both hands, fighting to keep the writhing power under his control as it transformed into deep blue.
With a cry, he thrust his arms forward and unleashed it at the creature.
But nothing happened.
The spell barely affected it. The surge of dark power struck its form, only to fracture into scattered wisps of shadow that dissolved instantly, vanishing like smoke torn apart and carried away by the wind.
For a moment, Henry didn't understand.
Then realization struck too late.
"…A Vomek," he breathed.
The word alone froze his thoughts.
A presence that devoured magic itself.
Before Henry could even understand what had happened, the creature lashed out.
One of its elongated arms swept through the air and struck him across the forehead with crushing force.
Agony exploded through his skull.
His feet left the ground, and for a single, weightless heartbeat he hung suspended over the abyss.
Then he was falling.
The darkness swallowed him whole as he plunged after Darius into the endless void below.