Chapter 31 – Abyss 9th Floor – 1600m Underground

As we reached the center of the lake, the solid ground dissolved beneath our feet, replaced by another shimmering surface, a mirror-like expanse that reflected the starlit sky above, yet held a strange, otherworldly quality.

“Almost there,” I murmured, my gaze fixed on the shimmering surface, a sense of unease settling over me.

“Is this… it?” Yuri asked, her voice hushed, her brow furrowed. “No stairs? No elevator?”

“Maybe… we go down… here…?” Luna said hesitantly, stepping onto the shimmering surface.

“Luna! Wait! You’ll…”

But she didn’t sink. She stood there, her small form reflected in the mirror-like surface, as if… suspended above the water.

I reached out cautiously, my fingers touching the surface. It rippled, the reflections distorting, my own face shifting, changing, my eyes darker, my skin paler, the image both familiar and… unsettlingly alien.

“What…?”

I pulled my hand back, a shiver running down my spine.

Yuri peered at her own reflection, her brow furrowed. “It’s like… a mirror… but…” Her voice trailed off, her gaze fixed on the shimmering surface, a flicker of fear in her eyes. “What if… we change… if we go in…?”

I looked around. There was no other path, no other way forward. The air was still, the water calm, the silence… oppressive. Maybe this… this lake… is the doorway.

“I think… this is it,” I said, my voice low, uncertain.

“Then… Luna jump?” Luna asked, her eyes wide with a childlike curiosity, spreading her arms as if preparing to leap.

“Luna, wait!” Yuri cried, but it was too late.

Luna stepped forward, and her body… vanished. Not with a splash, not with a ripple, but as if… absorbed, swallowed by the shimmering surface.

“Luna!”

I reached out instinctively, but then I saw her, beneath the surface, her form shimmering, distorted, but… smiling, waving, her movements slow, graceful, as if she were… floating.

“Okay! Not scary! Not hurt!” Her voice, muffled, distorted, reached us, echoing faintly from… somewhere else.

“It’s… the way down,” Yuri whispered, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and… wonder. “Let’s go, Noah.”

“Always something… unexpected,” I muttered, taking a deep breath, steeling myself. “Let’s go. Together.”

We stepped onto the shimmering surface, and the world dissolved around us. A cold sensation enveloped us, not the chill of water, but something… else. The air grew thin, the light distorted, gravity itself seeming to shift, to change, our bodies sinking, yet… floating, the sky above receding, the lake below disappearing, our senses overwhelmed, disoriented.

Are we sinking? Or rising?

The world twisted and turned, the boundaries between up and down, front and back, blurring, dissolving, the sky cracking, the water rising, or perhaps… falling, our bodies weightless one moment, heavy the next, time stretching, then compressing, space narrowing, then expanding, our senses overwhelmed, our minds reeling.

And then, a voice, quiet, distant, echoing in the silence.

“Where… is this…?”

My own voice? Or someone else’s? Someone who’d been here before?

I closed my eyes, then opened them, and the world… had changed.

[Abyss – 8th Floor Terminus – 1200m Underground]

Pattern: Shimmering Fragments of Light.

Description: Small fragments of light, like shards of broken glass, float in the darkness, swirling around a central void, their light flickering, fading, then flaring brightly, as if breathing. When activated, the fragments connect, forming a larger shape, the air vibrating, the darkness pulsing.

I pushed myself to my feet, my head swimming, the sensation of sinking, of falling, still lingering. The world around us was… different.

[Abyss – 9th Floor Entrance – 1600m Underground]

A desolate wasteland stretched before us, a landscape of broken ruins, crumbling pillars, cracked walls, the remnants of a once-great city, its grandeur now reduced to rubble. But above us…

I looked up, my heart catching in my throat. Buildings, massive stone structures, floated in the air, some slowly rotating, others broken, fragmented, suspended in mid-air, as if frozen in time, a snapshot of a city’s final moments.

What… is this place?

I stood up, taking in the scene, the scale of the destruction both awe-inspiring and… terrifying. A city, once bustling with life, now a silent, empty husk, its story etched in the broken stones, the crumbling walls, the faded patterns on the ground.

But the silence… it was unnatural. No wind, no sound of crumbling stone, no… life. Just a heavy, oppressive stillness, a silence that seemed to… absorb everything.

What happened here?

“Noah…” Yuri’s voice, hushed with awe, reached me. She, too, was staring at the floating ruins, her face pale, her eyes wide.

Luna sat on the ground, her head in her hands, her small body trembling.

“Head… hurts…” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

“Luna? Are you alright?”

She slowly lifted her head, her golden eyes clouded, unfocused.

“Whispers…” she murmured, her voice trembling. “…can’t hear… but… in my head…”

A chill ran down my spine. This place… it wasn’t just a ruin. Something… something was here. Something… that was watching us.

I looked down at the ground. A pattern, etched into the stone, broken, incomplete, yet still pulsing with a faint light, as if… calling to us.

I took a deep breath. “This floor… it’s not going to be easy.”

A faint rustling sound echoed through the ruins, and I instinctively reached for my knife, my senses on high alert. This place… it wasn’t just a graveyard of memories. Something… something was still here. And it was… waiting.

Luna took a deep breath, her body still trembling slightly. “…better now…”

She slowly opened her eyes, her gaze focusing. “Strange… feeling… like… someone… putting things… in Luna’s head…”

I watched her, my brow furrowed. She seemed alright now, but… her reaction… it had been… unsettling. Why had she been affected so strongly? What had she… heard?

“Luna, are you sure you’re okay?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. We go now, Noah?”

I scanned the ruins again, the floating structures, the cracked earth, the pulsing pattern on the ground, a sense of foreboding settling over me.

“Yes,” I said, my voice low. “We can’t stay here. Let’s check our gear and move on.”

We checked our supplies, our weapons, our artifacts. A slight dizziness lingered, a side effect of the transition, but otherwise, we were unharmed. We still had water, our gear was intact. But this place… it felt… unstable. The ground was cracked and uneven, the floating structures looked precarious, as if they could collapse at any moment.

And then, I saw it. A massive gate, standing at the edge of the ruins, two towering stone pillars framing a large, intricate pattern of dots and lines.

“I think… that’s our way out,” Yuri said, her voice hushed.

I started walking towards the gate, the pattern on the ground becoming clearer as we approached, a network of interconnected lines, like a map, a guide. And then, as I took another step, the pattern began to glow.

A faint tremor ran through the ground, a low hum, like an ancient mechanism awakening.

“Did it… move?” Yuri whispered, her voice filled with apprehension.

I nodded slowly. “…it was waiting for us.” This wasn’t just a ruin. This was… something more. Something… alive.

I took another step.

And the gate began to open.