Chapter 81: What Lurks in the Darkness
Chapter 81: What Lurks in the Darkness
The darkness here was not the darkness of a Tower.
In a Tower, darkness pressed in, watching, filled with hidden enemies and ancient mana. This darkness was simpler. It was the darkness of stone and silence, a place that had never known sunlight.
The chamber stretched upward into shadow, its ceiling lost beyond the torchlight. Stone pillars rose like petrified trees, their surfaces worn smooth by centuries of water. The air was cold and still. Somewhere in the dark, water fell with the slow rhythm of a heartbeat.
The Operative knelt on the stone floor.
His grey robes were tattered from the Sunken Depths, burnt where Nathan’s arrows had passed too close, torn at the shoulder where Kuro’s daggers had found him. His Void Eel was still recovering within his summon mark. He was not injured. The wounds were superficial, and the extraction stone had pulled him out before anything truly damaging could land.
But he was afraid.
Before him, on a raised dais of black stone, a figure sat. The throne beneath him was carved from the bones of some ancient creature, vertebrae fused into armrests, a skull leering from the seatback, ribs spreading outward. Torchlight caught the edges of a black suit lined with red seams, the gleam of pale eyes, but the face remained obscured. The darkness around the throne seemed to swallow the light.
"You have returned."
The figure spoke at last.
Its voice was quiet, almost gentle, carrying effortlessly through the chamber. There was no anger in it, no need to raise its volume. It was the voice of someone who had never once had to demand obedience to receive it.
"You were assigned to the Sunken Depths to oversee the collapse."
A brief silence followed.
"Instead, you encountered a party of Climbers... and returned."
The pale eyes rested on the kneeling Operative.
"Explain."
The Operative kept his head bowed.
"It was Nathan Cross’s party," he said carefully. "The Bunny King. The same Climber the Court has been observing since the Veiled Colosseum."
"I know who he is."
The interruption came as calmly as everything else, but the temperature in the chamber seemed to drop.
"What I asked..." the figure continued, "...is why you are standing before me while the collapse failed... and Nathan Cross is still alive."
The Operative swallowed hard, forcing moisture into a throat that had gone painfully dry.
"They were... stronger than we expected."
His words came carefully, each one weighed before he spoke.
"Nathan Cross wasn’t alone. His summons..." He hesitated. "Two humanoids. A Knight and an Assassin. His party fought as a single unit."
He lowered his head even further.
"I engaged them, but my Void Eel was destroyed. Once it became clear I couldn’t complete the mission, I activated my extraction stone before they could capture me."
The figure listened without interruption.
"So," it said at last, leaning back in its chair, "you chose to retreat."
There was no accusation in the words and that somehow made them worse.
"You had the element of surprise. You possessed an escape route should the operation fail." A brief pause. "Yet you still spoke to them."
The pale eyes settled on the Operative.
"You confirmed the Court’s existence."
Another pause.
"And you mentioned the Shepherd."
The Operative’s shoulders tensed.
"They already knew about the collapses," he said quickly. "They’d been investigating us. I thought..." His voice faltered. "I thought it wouldn’t make a difference."
"You thought."
The figure leaned forward. Torchlight caught the edge of a jaw—sharp, clean-shaven, the suggestion of a smile with no warmth.
"You thought you would recruit them. The promising young Climbers." The smile widened slightly. "You thought they might join us."
The silence stretched. The operative’s forehead was nearly touching the stone.
"The new world we are building will need promising people like them," he said quietly. "Climbers who understand the natural order. Who embrace the crucible. Cross and his party, they’re strong. They’ve proven themselves. They could be valuable assets to the Court."
"Smithy."
The name was spoken without malice, but Smithy flinched as if struck. His shoulders curled inward.
"You’ve served the Court well."
The figure rose from the throne with unhurried grace.
"You’ve been loyal. You’ve carried out every order without question." There was the faintest nod. "That loyalty is not overlooked."
He descended the steps one at a time.
"But understand this." The warmth disappeared from his voice.
"If Nathan Cross and his party become a threat to my plans..." He stopped halfway down the staircase. "If they continue interfering with the collapses... if they jeopardize the Court’s work... if they become more dangerous than they are useful..."
Silence settled over the chamber.
"I will kill them myself."
The words weren’t spoken with anger.
They were spoken as certainty.
Torchlight spilled across him as he stepped fully into view. He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a tailored black suit threaded with blood-red seams that fit him more like ceremonial armor than clothing. Much of his face remained veiled in shadow, but his eyes were impossible to miss.
Pale.
Cold.
Completely devoid of mercy.
"I will extinguish the life from their summons and everyone who stands beside them. The Knight. The Assassin. The ice mage. The samurai. The sheep farmer. All of them."
He slowly raised a hand, and from it darkness behind him stirred.
Shadows gathered and twisted together, taking shape as something immense. A long, serpentine body emerged from the gloom, unfolding with an eerie, deliberate grace. The Oblivion Drake drifted into view, its presence swallowing the chamber.
Its scales looked less like flesh and more like fragments of the night sky itself, endless black, scattered with faint points of starlight. Looking at them felt like staring into a bottomless abyss.
Then its eyes opened.
They weren’t eyes at all, but perfect voids where even light ceased to exist.
The drake released a slow, silent breath.
Every torch in the chamber dimmed.
A biting cold swept through the room, spreading frost across the stone floor as though winter itself had answered its master’s call.
The drake lowered its head beside the figure. The creature’s jaws could have swallowed Smithy whole. But it didn’t attack. It simply waited. Watching. A promise of what would happen if the figure’s patience ran out.
"I will not allow sentiment to jeopardize what we are building. The Shepherd’s work is too important. The new era will not be delayed because one operative saw potential in a pack of fairly gifted children."
He turned away. The shadows swallowed him inch by inch—first the black suit, then the pale eyes, then the suggestion of that cold, empty smile.
"Do not disappoint me again, Smithy."
Smithy pressed his forehead to the stone. "Yes, my lord."
The Oblivion Drake lingered for a moment longer. Its void-eyes fixed on the kneeling operative with an intelligence far older and crueler than any beast. Then it dissolved into darkness, its form unraveling like smoke.
The torches guttered. The chamber was empty.
Smithy remained kneeling for a long time. When he finally rose, his legs were trembling.