Chapter 113: [EYES UNDER THE WATER]

“Eli?”

The cavern shook with the weight of Kairo’s voice.

“Eli!” His shout ripped through the dark, booming against the dripping stone like a war horn. The sound carried, swallowed, then thrown back at him by the endless walls.

His flashlight beam carved viciously across the black flood, scattering ripples of pale light that danced and broke apart over the surface.

He moved fast, each stride urgent, boots hammering into the water with heavy splashes that echoed like drumbeats.

“ELI!” The second call came sharper, louder—cracked open by something he rarely let slip. Panic.

His blood pounded in his ears, hot and furious. His jaw locked as his eyes cut across the water—left, right, scanning low for any trace.

A flash of black hair. The corner of a sleeve. The shape of a body. Anything.

But there was nothing.

Just water. Just stone.

Just endless dark.

Kairo’s breathing came shallow, sharp. His voice snapped again, tearing out like a whip. “Answer me! Eli!”

The drones buzzed above, their faint red glow flickering weakly against the suffocating void. It was like the darkness swallowed the light whole.

“Captain!” Mio’s voice snapped from behind, ragged, strained.

“Eli!” Kairo ignored him. His gaze burned holes into the black water, searching, hunting. His blood thrummed at his fingertips, ready to strike.

“CAPTAIN!”

The shout cracked louder, forcing him to turn.

Kairo spun, water splashing around his boots, his black eyes glinting dangerously in the beam of his light. His voice thundered, sharp as a blade. “What?!”

Mio’s arm was raised, trembling violently. His flashlight beam quivered across the cavern, angled toward where Zaira and Mel had been laid moments before.

Empty.

The water rippled faintly, betraying only that something had been there. But their bodies were gone. No limp figures. No unconscious forms. Just void.

“…They’re gone.” Mio’s voice cracked raw, disbelief splintering into fear. His throat bobbed, words spilling hoarse. “Captain—they were right there. I swear they were right there!”

Kairo’s breath hitched, his muscles tightening, his body thrumming with cold rage.

His chest constricted, the weight in his ribs pressing down like a vice. For a heartbeat, the world narrowed too tight, the sound of dripping water crashing in his ears like thunder.

His grip locked around the flashlight, metal biting into his palm until it hurt.

Eli.

Zaira.

Mel.

All gone.

For the first time since stepping into this cursed dungeon, Kairo’s calm mask cracked. His composure—unshakable, impenetrable—fractured.

’Where…are they?’

He was panicking.

“Captain—what do we do? How do we find them, what are we—” Mio’s voice quivered, rushed, but Kairo’s eyes snapped to him mid-sentence.

And that’s when he saw it.

Not all of it. Just enough.

A gleam in the dark.

A pair of glowing eyes, low and wide-set, staring out from beneath the black water.

Kairo’s jaw clenched, muscles coiling to strike—

SPLASH!

Mio’s scream was cut off before it could even escape his throat.

Something surged from below, the water exploding upward in a violent spray. In an instant, Mio was yanked under, dragged down into the black without leaving a single chance for Kairo to react. His body vanished, swallowed whole by the flood.

“Mio!”

Kairo’s voice thundered, ripping through the cavern as he lunged forward, boots pounding heavy across the water. He dropped into a crouch where Mio had just been standing, his flashlight beam slashing frantically over the rippling surface.

Nothing.

No bubbles. No limbs. No trace.

Just water, rippling wider, as though mocking him.

“As if he just disappeared…” Kairo growled, his voice raw, low, dangerous. His fists curled so tight his knuckles cracked, blood thrumming at his fingertips.

His black eyes narrowed, a murderous glint flashing under the drone’s red light.

“What is this?”

Kairo’s jaw clenched hard enough his teeth ground together. His black eyes burned, sharp and merciless as blades, when his hand swept to his side.

A flash.

The air warped, bending faintly as mana snapped taut like a rope pulled to its limit—then recoiled into existence.

His weapon answered.

The blade bound to his will. Forged not from steel alone, but blood and intent.

It shimmered into reality with a low hum, its obsidian edge glinting faintly under the drone’s red light. Sleek, vicious, it looked less like a sword and more like a shard of night itself—like it had always been there, waiting for his call.

Without hesitation, Kairo angled the edge inward.

SHHK.

The steel bit into his skin, slicing a deep line across his forearm. Hot, thick blood spilled free, scarlet against the black. He didn’t flinch. Not once.

Not a drop touched the ground.

The liquid curled in midair, caught by his command, twisting into tendrils that writhed and coiled like serpents around him. The dungeon’s stale air thickened with iron.

The streams of red collapsed, condensed, until they pooled at his boots. The liquid hissed, hardening into a layered sheath that gripped his legs like plated armor.

Kairo’s stance shifted, weight dropping low, every muscle taut as a bowstring. His gaze sharpened, lowering toward the black flood at his feet.

And then—just as he expected—

The water rippled.

Something stirred.

A sudden yank pulled at him, cold and clammy. Fingers—no, hands—snapped around his wrist. The grip was strange: solid and heavy, yet slick and incorporeal, like it belonged to something both real and unreal at once.

’There you are.’

Kairo’s breath slipped out, slow and controlled, steam curling faintly in the cold. His eyes narrowed, black pools of focus, while the blood around his legs surged, swirling tighter into a barrier.

The water bulged, rippling outward in heavy waves.

And then the glow surfaced.

Two eyes.

“Where are they?” Kairo’s voice rumbled low, steady as he braced his weapon. Blood swirled like coiled serpents at his boots, his sword angled down, every muscle in his body primed to strike.

His grip tightened. In another breath, he’d unleash both blade and blood together, tear through the water, carve apart whatever dared hold onto him—

Until a voice cut through the cavern.

Smooth. Mocking.

“You let them all disappear.” The words rolled lazily across the black water, curling into every crack of the stone. “How useless of you.”

Kairo’s blood froze colder than the water at his feet.

His head turned sharply, black eyes narrowing, locking onto the direction the voice came from.

“Caelen?”

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