CHAPTER 643: THE DEAD COMPANY (3)

Mikhailis steadied his breathing, letting the slow inhale push the tang of sap and dust deeper into his lungs while the muted exhale misted against the wood. Up close the arch felt less like timber and more like skin-warm stone, its grain shifting under his fingertips in soft throbs that answered the thumping behind his ribs. It’s listening to us, he realized, thumb grazing a shallow knot that pulsed twice in acknowledgment, as though the tree wished him luck—or warned him to turn back.

Beside him, Thalatha held her posture with warrior poise, yet small tells betrayed tension: the faint flutter of pulse at her neck, the way her shoulders stayed too square, too still, like a statue waiting for a sculptor’s next strike. Her braid, normally neat as parade regalia, had loosened; stray gold strands framed her cheekbones where sweat had melted them free. The spellthread lacing each braid-sleeve shimmered like frost under moonlight, catching flashes from the drifting spores that bobbed in the air between them.

The spores themselves moved oddly, not meandering on random currents but swaying in tiny schools that circled a center neither of them could see. The swarm rotated once, then scattered, as if some invisible breath had exhaled through the corridor’s throat. Cold air brushed his face a heartbeat later.

"This is... unsettling," Thalatha muttered, voice barely above the hush, yet it still felt too loud in the oppressive dark.

"Unsettling is our new hobby." Mikhailis forced a grin that felt paper-thin. "We keep collecting dark hallways like rare trading cards. Maybe if we leave a tip they’ll upgrade the ambiance—candles, maybe a small band?"

She exhaled through her nose, a silent concession to his joke, though the humor did nothing to soften the hard focus in her gaze. Those green-gold eyes flicked down the corridor—one, two, three pulses of surveillance—before returning to him.

Analyzing spatial data... Hostile life-form detected. Estimated category: Colossus-tier. Location: 92 meters directly below. Movement: minimal. Possibly dormant. Rodion’s cool narration hummed through his skull interface like distant machinery.

Love how you drop that in the casual tone of a weather report, Mikhailis thought, flexing his fingers. Next you’ll tell me there’s a sixty-percent chance of limb loss with light showers of screaming.

He stepped over the threshold first, boots pressing into mossstones whose once-springy surface had dried and cracked. The crunch beneath heel sounded embarrassingly loud. Shards of something brittle—calcified sap or old bone—slid aside in gritty murmurs. He crouched automatically, the scientist winning over the survivor for a moment.

"Bones." His fingertip traced a fragment half-embedded in the moss-stone, its edges charred yet fused into greenish mineral like sugar burned to glass. "They didn’t just die here. Something smelted them into the floor."

Thalatha knelt opposite, her silhouette tense beneath the muted luminance. She ran a gauntleted hand over a ragged gouge that bit through two mossstones. "Claw marks," she confirmed, voice tight. "A creature big enough to drag its knuckles across living rock." She angled her wrist so spellthread caught the dim glow, revealing sap-streaks pooled inside the grooves—an oily emerald that shimmered between liquid and tar. "And the sap’s still wet."

Rodion’s sensors pinged again, a muted chime. Organic residue detected. Sap composition: 42 percent Blight particulate. Corruption index: severe. Estimated regenerative capabilities: high.

Mikhailis felt the root-pact under his collar prick his skin, a heat like a brand fresh from the forge. The lines of the tattoo seemed to crawl beneath fabric, pulsing once, twice—timed to an immense heartbeat he could feel vibrating through the stones.

Not sharing that little detail, he decided, rubbing the spot as though wiping sweat. One omen at a time, thank you.

They moved deeper, feet ghosting across the floor in silent agreement. Each step chased the light farther away: glowcaps snuffed themselves in a fading gradient, as if embarrassed to witness what lay ahead. Spores became the only illumination, pale dots swirling like drowned stars. Their glow highlighted new horrors in passing—tiny teeth set into the bark, bits of broken antler, a child-sized shoe half swallowed by creeping moss.

A rumble swelled from the depths—deep as thunder but slower, each vibration rippling up from the soles to the knees, rattling bone. Mikhailis paused. His breath misted though the air was not cold. The distant bass seemed intent on shaking sense out of his skull.

Thalatha pressed her free hand against the wall, eyes closing, listening through skin. When her eyelids snapped open they gleamed with alarm. "Root resonance," she whispered, fighting to keep her voice steady. "But wrong. Twisted."

Faint green lines flickered into life along the very grain she touched, then extinguished. Mikhailis swallowed. "Our friend is awake."

Suddenly the lantern-fungi lining the corridor did something he had never seen: they flared white in synchronized panic, then blinked off, row by row, like a string of dying stars fleeing sunrise. Darkness flooded in behind the retreating light until only the ghost glow of spores remained. The corridor’s ribs—interlocking roots overhead—seemed to constrict, every arch tightening around them like a throat preparing to swallow.

His tattoo throbbed again, harder, a warning or a plea. Later, he promised the unseen tree spirit, gripping a psycho-gel vial until glass creaked. Ahead, the path dipped, and the dense silence broke into soft slither-scratch whispers echoing just out of view.

Three steps later the vanguard emerged.

The Bramble-Wraiths were larger this time—spines scraping the ceiling. Bark plates jutted like jagged armor, and their limbs flexed with unnatural speed. Skeletal faces half-masked by grime snapped toward movement. Empty eye sockets burned with a faint inner sap-glow, like coals beneath ash.

The first leapt, talons wide. Thalatha’s dagger flashed in a crescent arc, severing rot-slick limbs before the creature landed. Bark shards bounced against the stones. She pivoted, drawing blood—or sap, he couldn’t tell—from an exposed spinal knot. The wraith collapsed in a heap, bones clattering like dropped tools.

Two more spilled from the left alcove. Rodion expanded mid-stride, armor unfolding in staccato clicks. Silk cannons popped from dorsal plates, launching latticed nets that snapped around one monstrosity, anchoring it to a pillar with sticky filaments. The net’s glow flared neon blue, and the pinned wraith convulsed, vines withering as the silk leeched its corrupted mana.

The fourth wraith darted right, going for Thalatha’s blind side. Mikhailis hurled his ready vial. Green vapor exploded around the creature’s skull, clogging hollow eye sockets with psycho-gel fumes infused with ant-queen pheromones. Disoriented, the beast thrashed at nothing, claws raking air. Thalatha finished it with a precise thrust beneath its jaw, the blade sliding home with sickening ease.

A claw skimmed her thigh as the corpse fell. Leather tore; crimson welled. She hissed—a short, furious sound—but stayed upright. He saw her weight shift fractionally, favoring the unhurt leg.

"You okay?" he demanded, hand already sliding for bandage tape.

"Later," she ground out. "Forward. Or we drown in them."

He believed her. Rodion’s HUD lit up a cluster of red silhouettes swirling deeper ahead—far more than they could handle in a prolonged fight. They needed to reach the source, cripple the summoning root, or this tide would never stop.

"Point taken." Mikhailis gripped another vial, pulse racing. He cast one last look at the moss floor, noting a smear of that bright sap trailing deeper—like breadcrumbs left by a monster. Follow the ooze, he decided.

Together they pressed on, each footfall a silent vow not to falter. Behind them, the darkness knitted itself closed, swallowing corpses and shattered spores alike. Ahead, somewhere in the throbbing depths, a colossal heartbeat waited—patient, deliberate, hungry.

"Yeah," Mikhailis whispered, eyes glued to the narrowing path where bone met bark. "Not a wraith."

Ahead the corridor shrank into an uneven throat of bark and shadow. Lantern-fungi dotting the ceiling reacted first: bulbs brightened to a shocking white, then snapped off in perfect rhythm—blink-blink-blink—like fearful eyes squeezing shut. Every time one died, its glassy skin let out a wet pip, and a wisp of cold vapor curled down the wall. Twenty heartbeats later the only light left was the float of pale spores bobbing in mid-air.

Mikhailis slowed, ribs tight against his coat. "Room service around here is terrible," he muttered, forcing his tone light while he slipped a hand into the satchel at his hip. His fingers brushed smooth glass: a psycho-gel grenade, hair-thin runes glowing soft sea-green. He kept his thumb on the wax seal, ready to pop it.

Thalatha’s reply was a quiet snort—equal parts annoyance and nerves. Her braid hung over one shoulder now, the spellthread veins inside each strand flickering like dimming fireflies. She scanned left alcove, then right, weight balanced on the balls of her feet. Warrior discipline kept her voice steady, but he heard the edge. "Try not to joke if we get eaten alive."

"That’s my coping mechanism," he whispered back. "It keeps the screaming inside."

The whispering voices that had haunted them since the last bend finally fell silent. The hush settled too fast, like a blanket dropped over a drum. Mikhailis caught a faint change in air pressure, ears popping. Whatever’s out there just took a breath, he thought, and his tattoo pulsed once in grim agreement.

Then the corridor detonated.