Chapter 286: Mountain Guardians!

The heavy tires of the all-terrain trucks crunched over wet slate and rotting timber until the mountain trail finally disappeared.

Cold mist hung between the towering peaks, blocking out most of the midday sun and making the valley feel like evening. The air was wet and bitter, carrying a faint metallic smell. Decades had passed since the plague catalyst first spread across the continent, but nature in this forgotten valley had never recovered. It had simply changed into something almost unrecognizable.

The vehicles stopped beside an overgrown logging area.

Selena stepped down from the passenger door, her boots sinking into thick, violet-tinted moss covering the rocks. She pulled her jacket tighter and checked her locator.

"The road ends here," Selena said, her breath fogging in the cold air. "The old maps show an access road through the gorge, but it was destroyed during the first seismic shifts. From here to Sector 4, we’re walking."

Zero climbed out of the lead truck, landing lightly on the moss-covered stone. His dark traveling cloak was damp with dew, but he barely seemed to notice. His eyes remained fixed on the mountain ridge ahead.

Nicholas stepped down next, carrying a light canvas pack over one shoulder. His dark blue eyes moved across the valley, taking in the strange plants growing around them.

The trees were enormous, their trunks twisted into strange spirals. Pale gray bark covered their bodies, split by deep cracks where glowing purple sap slowly leaked out. Above them, clusters of sharp, crystal-like leaves hung from the branches, making soft sounds whenever the cold wind passed through them.

The purple moss beneath their feet gave off a faint glow, drawing energy from the Qi rising through the ground.

A sudden groan came from the second vehicle.

Julie stumbled out, clutching her rose-gold camera rig with both hands. She looked around the mist-covered gorge, and her expression fell.

"My lens is fogging up already," Julie whined, hurriedly wiping the glass with a microfiber cloth before running a hand through her frizzy pink hair. "Look at all this moisture! It’s ninety-eight percent humidity! My hair has doubled in volume, my stabilizer is making weird noises, and this moss feels like cold jellyfish! How am I supposed to film an aesthetic wilderness vlog in a swamp made of alien snot?!"

"Walk faster and your hair will dry," Selena said without turning as she attached a canteen to her belt.

"I can’t walk faster! My boots weigh ten pounds each!" Julie protested, hurrying after Nicholas as he started up the rocky trail. She raised her camera and pointed it at his stoic face. "Phantom, please tell the viewers that being a hero isn’t all glitz and glory. Tell them about the horrible dampness we’re enduring for the safety of humanity."

Nicholas didn’t slow down. He stepped over a fallen, moss-covered log without looking down.

"Thirty percent," Nicholas said calmly.

Julie froze.

"Wait, what?! You said forty in the briefing room!"

"Forty was for Grayland," Nicholas replied. "I gave you a ten percent discount because you brought extra water."

Julie blinked before letting out a dramatic gasp.

"A discount?! You’re still taking thirty percent of my ad revenue for a documentary I’m filming in the middle of nowhere! I carried six extra batteries up this mountain! Six!"

"Thirty percent of everything you make from the wilderness footage," Nicholas repeated, glancing back at her. "Unless you’d rather walk back to the trucks and wait there alone."

Julie looked behind her at the dark forest. Glowing purple sap dripped from the twisted trees, while a strange chirping sound came from somewhere above.

She swallowed, closed her mouth, and hurried three steps closer to Nicholas.

"Thirty percent is totally fair," Julie muttered through gritted teeth, pointing her camera at a patch of glowing moss. "An absolute bargain for premium talent."

Behind them, Vixen laughed softly. She adjusted the hood of her white travel cape, her green eyes amused by the exchange.

"You really have a way with business negotiations, Nicholas."

"Efficiency," Nicholas replied.

The group continued deeper into the gorge, following a narrow, rocky creek bed between the mountain roots.

The deeper they went, the stranger the valley became. The natural gray granite gave way to dark, jagged rock that looked as though it had melted and hardened again. Large rock overhangs stretched above them, with purple crystal formations hanging from their ceilings and giving off a faint hum.

There were no ordinary animals anywhere. No birds, squirrels, or insects disturbed the silence. The only sounds were their footsteps, water dripping from the rocks, and a low vibration that seemed to travel through the ground.

"The resonance is changing," Zero suddenly said, stopping on a wide stretch of broken rock.

The others stopped as well.

Nicholas, Selena, and Vixen instinctively moved closer to Julie, their attention turning toward their surroundings.

Zero reached over his shoulder and slowly drew his longsword.

The blade came free with a soft ringing sound.

The purple plague gemstone set into the guard was vibrating violently. Violet light pulsed from it in regular bursts, sending waves of Qi along the blade. The vibration was strong enough to crack the rock beneath Zero’s boots.

"It feels it," Zero said, his voice tense. "The master core. It’s no more than two miles ahead, deep beneath the ground."

"Is it dormant?" Selena asked, checking her monitor. The readings were jumping wildly. "The energy down here is all over the place."

"It’s not dormant," Zero replied, looking toward the cliff at the end of the gorge. "It’s been feeding the earth for fifty years. The entire mountain is filled with its energy."

"Look at the base of the cliff," Vixen said, pointing ahead.

Through the mist, where two enormous rock faces met, the entrance to Sector 4 came into view.

A huge crack had opened at the base of the mountain, forming a dark entrance nearly forty feet tall. The remains of the old mining operation were scattered around it: broken wooden supports, rusted tracks sticking out of the mud, and the crushed yellow remains of an old transport cart.

Thick purple roots had grown over the rusted metal, covering the abandoned equipment and anchoring it to the rock.

Nicholas stepped toward the edge of the opening.

He didn’t draw a weapon. Instead, he quietly let his Void ability spread through his body and felt the air moving up from the darkness below.

The air coming from the mine wasn’t stale. It was warm, humid, and carried the sweet smell of concentrated plague energy and wet stone.

Beneath the sound of underground water, Nicholas heard something else.

A heartbeat.

Slow. Massive. Steady.

Each time the deep pulse moved through the earth, the glowing moss around the entrance became brighter, and the ground beneath their feet shook with it.

"The clone said it wasn’t waiting for us," Nicholas murmured, staring into the black tunnels of Sector 4. "He was right. Something has been living on that stone for half a century."

"And it knows we’re here," Zero said, tightening his grip on the vibrating sword.

Julie slowly lowered her camera. The joking was gone from her face as her microphone picked up a faint scraping sound from deep inside the mine.

Something was dragging its claws across the stone.

"Guys..." Julie whispered, staring into the darkness. "Did the cave just breathe?"

Before anyone could answer, the purple moss around the entrance suddenly flared emerald green.

The ground buckled beneath them.

From the dark tunnels of the abandoned mine came a chorus of deep, guttural shrieks that echoed through the gorge and rolled into the mist.

Something was coming up.

The mountain’s guardians had awakened.