Chapter 9: Chapter 9 — The Crawlers’ Greeting

The moment they crossed the ridgeline, the fog changed.

It wasn’t the thin, gray smear common to the outer Shrouds. This was thicker, darker. It clung to their faces and armor like wet cloth. Light from their torches didn’t cut through it; it drowned in it. The first sign something was wrong came from a device no one had bothered checking earlier.

Beep… beep… beep-beep-beep.

Adam froze and yanked the detector from his belt. The small glass screen flickered, then glowed with a sickly violet tint.

“…No,” he muttered. “No, no—this isn’t Tier One.”

Duncan turned. “What?”

Adam’s voice was tight. “It’s Tier Two. We’re in a Tier Two Shroud.”

Link didn’t curse often, but he did then.

Around them, other squads hesitated, turning to each other in disbelief. Some looked back the way they came—but the ridgeline was gone, swallowed by the fog. Sound felt muted, their breaths too loud. Thirty-five soldiers had entered. None could see farther than fifteen steps.

A voice erupted through the dark—Roegan’s, rough and furious.

“Form up! Don’t scatter!”

He stormed through the fog, his spear hefted across his back. The veins in his neck rose as he stared at Adam’s detector. For a heartbeat, even the captain looked rattled.

“Tiers don’t shift on their own,” Roegan growled. “Shit!! HQ sent us into this blind.”

“They didn’t care to check,” Adam added under his breath.

A whispering groan rolled somewhere through the dark. It was not wind.

Link scanned the terrain—what little he could see. The trees here weren’t dead. They were stripped, as if chewed. The earth was soft, not with rain, but with rot. Bones surfaced at odd angles. Not animal bones.

Roegan raised his voice again, quieter this time but edged with steel. “Tier Two Shrouds only open one way. They’re Maws. They don’t spit you back out. You leave when the dungeon boss goes down… or you don’t leave at all.”

Someone in another squad swore they saw something moving behind them. Another claimed they heard breathing underground. No one argued, no one screamed—they were too shocked for that.

Roegan pointed the shaft of his spear forward.

“We split in fives and fours. Stay tight. Do not assume the ground is safe. If you fall behind, don’t expect rescue.”

He didn’t wait for questions. He marched into the fog, and squads broke off. The thirty-five were swallowed in minutes.

Bright’s group formed quickly—almost by necessity.

Link moved ahead as scout. Duncan took center, gripping the reforged spear Bright had fused for him days ago. Adam was rear, the sack for cores slung over his shoulder. Bright flanked left, his sword loose in his right hand.

They didn’t talk.

They walked with slow steps, breaths shallow. Every sound felt wrong. Their boots didn’t crunch or snap or scuff the way they should. The fog silenced everything.

Then—Link stopped.

He raised two fingers without turning.

No one moved.

The sound came a breath later: a wet clicking, like teeth tapping from inside a throat. Something slithered just beyond their sight, low to the ground.

A shape broke from beneath a mound of soaked leaves—gray-limbed, joints too many, eyes black but reflecting light they didn’t have.

A Night Crawler.

Not a big one—but its movements were too smooth, too fast for comfort.

Duncan stepped forward on instinct, spear angled down.

It lunged.

He swung, the blade of the fused spear raking its skull. The hit landed, but the thing didn’t die—it twisted, flesh folding unnaturally as it snapped at his leg.

Link came from the side, jabbing a short blade into its ribs. The crawler shrieked—a wet, choking noise. Its body writhed, spine bending like rope.

Bright moved without thinking, gripping a jagged stone from the ground. He tried to swing with both hands, but his wrist protested, a tremor shooting up his forearm. He brought it down hard anyway, smashing the crawler’s upper limb to slow it.

The impact cost him. Pain ripped through his wrist—sharp and unforgiving. His fingers went numb for a second, and he nearly dropped the rock.

The crawler smelled him.

It pivoted in a jagged roll and lunged at Bright’s arm, jaws opening sideways like something unhinged.

A crack split the air.

Adam stood behind them, pistol raised, face pale but steady. The shot tore into the crawler’s back, not killing it but knocking it mid-lunge.

Duncan finished it.

He drove the spear down with both hands, puncturing through the thing’s throat and pinning it to the ground until it stopped twitching.

The fog swallowed the silence again.

Bright cradled his right wrist at his side, pretending to adjust his grip on the sword. Link wiped his knife clean on his coat and knelt to the corpse. With a hooked blade and an expression like he was gutting a rat, he dug into its flesh and pulled out the core.

It wasn’t pretty—marbled and dull, veins of congealed black running through it.

Adam opened the sack and dropped it in. The faintest rush of energy tingled in their limbs a moment later.

Just a weak improvement in physique . No abilities. A tiny push of stamina. Barely noticeable.

But Duncan breathed easier. Link flexed his shoulders. Even Bright felt his legs hum with temporary life—though the pain in his wrist drowned most of it.

They resumed walking.

Behind them, something unseen dragged the crawler’s corpse into the dark by one leg.

No one turned around.

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