Chapter 83: Searching

The light swallowed him whole and when his vision returned, the world around Albedo had changed entirely.

He stood on jagged stone beneath an endless ceiling of black, dripping with strands of shadow like inverted stalactites.

The air was thick, and smelled faintly of iron and rot. Every sound carried strangely far, his own breathing came back to him in hushed, warped echoes, as if whispered by something unseen.

Ember stood beside him and the shadows seemed to cling to her legs like grasping hands, reluctant to let her move. She pawed the ground angrily, her flames kicking up as her ears flicked toward the faint growls that rolled from somewhere deep within the dark.

Ahead stretched a massive stone corridor, its floor cracked and uneven, walls slick with some kind of black moss that writhed when he passed his eyes over it.

Faint silver etchings, runes older than anything he recognized, ran sporadically across the stone, pulsing weakly, as if struggling to stay lit.

It seemed this place had existed for eons. Albedo walked forward a couple steps, and then came the first sense of danger.

It emerged from the far end of the corridor, dragging itself forward with elongated limbs, its body little more than a stretched silhouette.

The creature had no eyes or face, it was just a hollow impression of a head, and a mouth that split open too wide, leaking faint tendrils of shadow.

More similar monsters followed behind it.

Ember stepped forward without hesitation, lowering her head slightly, as if to signal her readiness.

The first creature lunged towards them, but Albedo sidestepped, letting its clawed arm pass inches from his coat before he shot off Havoc, the Infernal shot igniting the creature and burning through its torso, ravaging it.

The creature’s body split into a mist of darkness, hissing like boiling water, before vanishing entirely. But the others didn’t slow down whatsoever. They moved faster, their limbs whipping unnaturally, joints bending in ways that made no sense.

He wielded Ruin as well, shooting a Graviton Slug that pulled many of the monsters into the same zone for him to fire off multiple infernal shots that ignited them all, burning them away.

Ember also used her corrosive flames to take down many of the monsters, while striking them with her horns. She cut them down one by one, flashing in arcs that gleamed silver in the gloom.

Every strike Ember made caused the air to ripple faintly, these things weren’t purely physical, and her corrosive flames were the only reason they fell apart instead of reforming.

When a larger one burst from the wall itself, Albedo shifted tactics. His palm opened toward it, mana spiraling into a tight sphere before erupting in a silent blast.

The shadows peeled away like smoke under high wind, revealing a pale skeletal frame beneath, which Ember promptly crushed with a swift, skull-snapping kick.

“Stay aware,” Albedo said to Ember using his Voice of Beasts, and the duo moved onwards.

The dungeon like dimension twisted as they moved.

Sometimes the corridor narrowed until the walls nearly brushed his shoulders; other times, it opened into vast chambers filled with crumbling statues of faceless figures, all staring down toward an unseen center.

Pools of black water dotted the floors, some still, others rippling as if something beneath them stirred.

In one chamber, the walls were alive, dozens of shadowy tendrils writhed out, lashing toward them.

Ember leapt between them, her golden mane trailing streaks of light as she kicked and struck, hooves shattering shadow into dust. Albedo moved in tandem, weaving through gaps as he unleashed shot after shot to take them down.

Every fight was followed by silence. That same oppressive silence that seemed to seep into his bones. The only sound was the steady pulse of the keys in his coat pocket, guiding him deeper.

Eventually, they reached a wide bridge of broken stone, suspended over what looked like an abyss with no bottom.

The shadows below churned like a living ocean, faint whispers rising from it in languages Albedo didn’t know.

Halfway across, the bridge shook violently, and from below rose something massive, its form coalescing into a beast made entirely of writhing darkness, with six glowing red eyes that locked onto him immediately.

The bridge’s quake caused an immense chain reaction, the roof above them dropping debris that Albedo had to burn to ash with his flames.

Chunks of ancient stone sheared away at the edges of the bridge and plummeting into the abyss beneath them. He didn’t know where the ending of that drop was, everything vanished before they hit anything solid.

The air grew heavier, dense with shadow-mist that curled up around his ankles. The thing rising from below was a calamity made flesh.

Its body was a swarm of tendrils coiling and uncoiling around a vaguely lupine frame, each movement breaking and reforming like a living storm.

The six eyes burned brighter with every second, set deep into a skull-shaped head that seemed to form only when it needed to look at him.

Its roar shook the bridge again as the monster lunged towards them, swiping aggressively, eager to cleave Albedo and Ember in two and meal on their dead bodies.

Albedo rolled sideways, Havoc already materializing in his grip.

“Infernal Mode”

The first shot cracked the air like thunder, a sphere of crimson flame punching into the beast’s shoulder. The impact made it rear back, tendrils on that side igniting and thrashing before burning away.

It retaliated instantly, the shadows surged forward like a tidal wave.

Ember darted through the surge, her hooves striking sparks off the stone as she slammed headlong into the mass. Her flames flared in a concussive burst, tearing an opening for Albedo to fire again.

He switched seamlessly, Ruin’s form snapping into his left hand in Graviton mode and firing off a graviton slug.

The slug struck the bridge just beneath the monster’s chest. Reality seemed to buckle as the stone groaned, and the beast was dragged down violently into the concentrated gravity well.

Its legs splayed as its form compressed unnaturally, making it the perfect target for Albedo as he fired off three Infernal rounds into the vortex.

The flames bloomed unnaturally large here, clinging to the shadow beast like oil. The creature screamed, an ear-splitting sound that cracked the bridge in multiple places as it tried to attack Albedo once again.

The tendrils shot upward, spearing into the ceiling, then snapping down like whips. Albedo’s coat tore at the shoulder as one barely missed and Ember burned the tendril to ash with her corrosive flames.

Albedo moved before the monster could follow through. His mana surged, compressing heat into the air until it shimmered, he snapped his fingers.

“Scorch Line.”

A razor-thin beam of superheated flame cut along the length of the bridge, severing half a dozen tendrils in a single sweep. The stumps hissed, their regenerative shadows slowing under the corrosive burn.

The beast pulled back slightly, then its eyes began to multiply.

Dozens of smaller red lights winked into existence all across its body, each one a miniature maw of teeth gnashing silently. From them came volleys of condensed darkness, each bolt punching through stone with ease.

He ducked under one, fired off an Arcane Burst to intercept another, and then, as the largest orb came hurtling, his palm opened.

“Dragon’s Breath!”

A spiraling torrent of flame erupted from his hand, not crimson but gold-edged, roaring against the darkness bolt until both detonated midair in a blast that rocked the bridge.

Ember was already moving again, vaulting over him in a fluid motion. She landed on the beast’s spine, her horns igniting as she drove them deep into the shadow mass.

Blue-white fire exploded outward like a nova, and the monster convulsed violently, struggling to throw her off.

Albedo took the opening, snapping Havoc and Ruin into Execution Mode as his mana spiked sharply.

Four tracking orbs spun into existence, locking instantly onto the beast’s six original eyes.

First Shot – The head jerked back, two eyes bursting into motes of red ash.

Second shot – The creature screamed, its form destabilizing, tendrils flailing wildly.

Third shot – Half its chest caved inward, molten fire boiling out of the wound.

The fourth hung in the air for a second, humming with lethal intent.

“Die.”

It hit between the last pair of eyes. The creature froze, its whole body locking in place before erupting into a pillar of white-hot flame.

The shadows screamed as they burned away, disintegrating completely, as though erased from existence.

When the fire died, there was nothing left. Not even ash. Only the sound of the bridge’s fractured stone groaning in the silence.

Albedo exhaled slowly, lowering the weapon back into twin pistol form. His ears still rang from the fight. Ember trotted back to him, her coat untouched by the shadows, though her eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of a predator that had been fed.

The keys pulsed again in his pocket.

The bridge, the abyss, the whispers, all of it began to dissolve like ink in water, peeling away until the jagged corridor returned.

The pulse was stronger now, dragging him forward toward whatever lay ahead.

And something told him the fight just now was only the door to what waited.

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