The air within the Void Lands always tasted of rot and decay.

Every practitioner venturing outside of the safety of the city walls knew to have their barrier-type ability perpetually active, and one of the main reasons for this was air filtration.

The Dark twisted everything it touched, and so, if a person were to breathe this corrupted life-giving gas without purifying it first, they’d soon find themselves warped into beings bound to the command of this wickedest of forces.

Xerion thought the mine to be a source of respite, away from the stench carried by the clinging mists. Instead, he was greeted by the lovely whiff of decomposition. Oh, how he cursed fate for treating him so. How could the Empyrean abandon her most ardent of followers in his greatest hour of need?!

After shaking off his stupor, the boy found himself quite miffed at the current state of affairs. What waited for his team, the Expendables – and Void take all who thought to label their fellow cultivators as such! – beneath this mountain, surely wasn’t going to be pleasant. He just wanted to relax for a bit, and yet, he was denied any reprieve.

“No rest for the just,” he murmured while following his party deeper into the mine.

“Did you say something, hmmm?”

“I was praising the scenery.”

“It is quite lovely, isn’t it?”

Motes of golden brilliance lazily floated through the air, drifting in any direction that pleased their non-existent hearts. Some brushed against his skin, tickling it lightly and sending bursts of warmth that seemed to reach even his soul.

Walls made of onyx and gray stone surrounded him, with enough space between them to make this place feel roomy. Together with those radiant specks, it formed quite an enchanting atmosphere.

He wasn’t fooled. The corpse they left behind still stunk, if not as much as when he crouched next to it. And the spacious nature of this mine only meant that he couldn’t assume the size of the monsters, those beasts lying in wait somewhere in here, licking their chops at the thought of devouring them whole.

Ether found itself equally uncomforted by the scene. Its misty fur was bristled, while its nose kept sniffing for something. The young Practitioner sent a question to the pup through the link that connected them, and it replied along the lines of, “Smells of death and fiery maws.”

“There,” his team leader said and pointed. “The administrative room. And another body.” She stopped for a second. “No; it’s the same one. It’s one of that person’s legs. The left one, I think.”

“Good to know.”

“Xer,” Duene said. “Do shut up.”

Xerion saw none of the things his mentor spoke of, his sight limited compared to her even without the Void’s obstructions. But not for long. He’d attain Coalescence soon enough, gaining the enhanced senses and all else that came with that Rank.

A few minutes went by as they approached, the boy covered in sweat by the time they arrived. He fanned at his face and wondered if the stress of the situation was getting to him. A quick glance at his team members gave him the answer. The temperature was rising.

Nadia whistled, and everyone stopped in response. “Vaikus. Check it, then open that door.”

The giant did a two-fingered salute and carried out his task. He moved silently despite the ton of plate burdening his form, and as he neared the lonely body part, he crouched while still holding strong onto his shield.

A minute passed before he stood back up, sending a series of hand signals their way.

He tapped his chest. It belonged to the same person, a man. The fingers of his palm curled, then squeezed into a fist. He shook it. The limb was full of bite marks, some small, some very large. Possible attack by multiple creatures. Not hungry. Playing with food.

“I see,” their leader said. “Get the door. Duene, back him up.”

“On it, love.”

The swordswoman moved with her weapon in hand. It buzzed, the sound reaching Xerion’s ears and making him think of flesh cut to shreds.

Vaikus raised his shield, and its size rivaled that of the door. That took away a bit of pressure from the boy’s chest. What could even happen to them with this moving wall around?

Armored fingers rose, and instead of grabbing at the handle, they lightly knocked. The air seemed to congeal as the team waited for a response, unsure whether it’d come at all.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

“Team Hylkiö. Open up.”

“They sent the Expendables? Goodness. What an overreacting bunch.”

The multitude of enchantments blazing on the metal door winked out, the contraption swinging inwards with a groan louder than that of the Grand Elder when told he had to lift his bum.

Inside was a man in his early thirties, his beard neatly trimmed and his hair meticulously arranged. On his face rested a pair of spectacles, a useless object for Practitioners yet one some loved to wear for the look it gave them. He cleared his throat, and the first words he uttered made Xerion instantly dislike him.

“Well?” he said impatiently, gesturing at them. “Shouldn’t we get going? I don’t wish to spend a moment longer in this Empyrean-forsaken place.”

“No,” Nadia answered, while Vaikus straightened and glowered at the man. “No, we should not. This is an investigation mission, not a recovery one.”

“What?! Well, that’s just pure idiocy. You’ll die, and I’ll have to send out yet another signal. Let’s save ourselves the hassle and leave already, yes?”

Duene entered the room, pointing her blade at the Practitioner’s throat. “Shut your mouth, you worm.”

The man raised his hands in surrender. “Easy now. No need to act in such a barbaric manner.”

The swordswoman smacked him in the face with the flat side of her sword, destroying his spectacles and making him fall to the ground. She took a step in his direction, then put one foot on his chest.

“Last warning.”

No more words were spoken, silent nods conveying his acceptance of the demand.

Xerion watched it all, completely baffled by the situation. What was happening here? Why was his friend acting this way? Yes, that Practitioner crossed a line, but to assault him and threaten his life? It was too much.

He walked over to Philip, the water magician uncharacteristically solemn. He poked him with his finger, then whispered to him after getting his attention.

“This… doesn’t seem okay? Yeah. Why is she doing this?”

The blue-clad man looked at him, his expression changing to one of anger for an instant before reverting to the previous, glum one.

“Each shift of people sent to the mines has the same composition: a bunch of mortals to do the hard work with enchanted equipment, and a single Practitioner, to power the magics needed for the items to function. And he’s in here, alone, with a corpse laying just outside. Get it yet?”

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“He… no. He didn’t.”

“Oh yes he did. Left them to die, while he hid inside.”

“That’s…” Xerion said and stopped, at the loss for words.

Since as early as he could remember, it was drilled into him that the wielders of essence held such a high position in Virsha and the rest of the cities, for they were the shield for those unable to protect themselves. To fail this most basic and sacred of duties… now he understood.

“Also,” Philip added, his voice so hushed he barely heard it despite the man speaking straight into his ear. “Duene’s mother used to be a miner. She was a mortal.”

Their conversation ended at that, with the boy frozen at the news.

“You kept the Puhdistus Sphere nice and topped up, hmmm?” Nadia said, standing next to a desk in the room’s corner and touching a fist-sized golden globe lying in its middle. “I expected no less. The Darkhearted do tend to be meticulous.”

The man wanted to say something, but the feeling and taste of Varsteel on his lip shut him up. He waited for questions with an expression shifting between dismay, anger, and fear.

“What happened here?” No answer came. “Void got your tongue now? Do I need to tell my dearest to retrieve it?”

The Practitioner shivered. “They broke through a wall. The mortals. They found… I don’t know. A place filled with heat and death. Some creatures crawled out of there. Then I—”

“Describe them,” Nadia barked out. “Describe those monsters.”

“I… I can’t.”

“Duene.”

“No no no wait, please! I really can’t! I didn’t see any of them. I… I ran, as soon as I heard the screams. Locked myself in here.”

“You’re a disgrace,” the swordswoman spat. “A waste of clan’s resources, and a waste of air.”

“Well, what did you expect me to do? Charge blindly into their open maws and die? You think me stupid? No, I don’t see myself as that Expendab—”

“Don’t,” Nadia said, stopping Duene from piercing the man’s throat. “He’s not worth it.”

“I disagree.”

“Please. Do it for me.”

The pink-clad woman gritted her teeth before sighing. Her blade remained aimed at the Practitioner, but it no longer drew blood.

“Thank you. Now back to you. Again, tell me about those creatures. Yes, you didn’t see them, but you know something, don’t you?”

He reluctantly nodded. “They sounded… wrong. Worse than the usual Void filth. Like a mix between a person and a serpent. I’m also quite certain they have some essence capabilities related to fire.”

“Felt the heat through the door, did you?”

“I…” the man said, then looked at Duene and gulped. “Their screams. They spoke of burns.”

Xerion was having a hard time focusing on the conversation. As if his mind rebelled at the words that reached it, and tried to shift his attention to anything other than this.

The boy didn’t fancy himself a hero, his number one goal of leaving this Dark-accursed place unchanged since forever. Yet it beggared his belief to see a heart so narrow and uncaring. To speak of the brutal deaths of his clansman with emotion only for his own life was now on the line.

He hoped to never become like this, so indifferent to the plight of the people around him. After all, what’d be the point of existence in a world with worth found purely in the self?

Nadia continued to question the Practitioner, digging ever deeper for more details. Their survival was at stake, and only the Empyrean knew whether a seemingly insignificant piece of information wouldn’t save their skin in the end.

The man rose after a few minutes and introduced himself as Ruppert Hieno Širdis. Xerion remembered that surname. It belonged to quite an illustrious family, one with a long line of capable cultivators. Or so he heard. If this was the kind of personage they had to offer, he could only shake his head at the unreliability of the rumors that reached his ears.

“That’s enough,” Nadia said. “No need to repeat the same things on end, yes? Well, let us go. You shall lead us to the place from which those fiends crawled out.”

“What— No! I’m not going there, not in a million years.”

“So you choose death?” Duene threatened.

“Kill me if you dare! It’ll be quicker than if those monsters got me. And if you try to force me to guide you, I’ll do my damnedest for you to never find that hole.”

The swordswoman raised her blade to the silence of her party members, yet just before her strike fell, she hesitated. A battle of mythical proportions seemed to be going on inside her mind, and after the passing of a few seconds, one side achieved a narrow victory.

The Varsteel sword returned to its sheath. It wouldn’t taste blood today. No more of the human type, at least.

“Then explain where it is,” their leader demanded. “And if you so much as try to say ‘follow the heat,’ you won’t have to worry about my dearest here. I’ll put an arrow through that void-rotten heart myself.”

Ruppert opened his mouth, then closed it and licked his lips. When he finally started to describe the way to the hole, his every word was punctuated by a long sigh.

It took over a minute for the team to grasp the path they needed to take. This mine was old and big, and what they sought lay deep in its depths.

“Well, Ruppert, I’d say it was nice to meet you, but that’d be a lie, no? We shall return for you after completing our investigation, if a matter of such low import doesn’t skip our minds. It’s hard to keep track of every worm we encounter, you understand.”

“I’ll wait a day, and if you won’t come back by then, I’ll assume you’re all dead. Bye-bye now,” the Practitioner said, making a shooing motion in their direction. Where did the man find the guts to do that, Xerion had not a clue.

The second they left the administrative room, the door shut behind them with a loud thump. Then the enchantments blazed upon its surface, being supplied with essence at such speeds, the person responsible for that powering of magic workings could’ve won a competition in the discipline.

“Coward,” Duene said and spat at the metal contraption.

“Better a coward than a soon-to-be-dead twit!”

The party ignored the reply, though the gritting of the pink-clad woman’s teeth was loud enough for them all to hear. And then they moved inwards, toward the source of the heat that filled this mine.

They descended, walking through tunnel after tunnel, their bodies dripping with sweat as the air’s temperature rose to the point that it’d scald a mortal upon touch. Xerion shouldn’t have faired much better, given just how recent his breakthrough to the middle stages of Ignition was, but he had one thing going for him that the mundanes didn’t – an essence barrier.

That confirmed a conjecture the team held: this heat was of mystical origins. Yes, Ruppert did tell them that the monsters could wield fire, but every piece of information they gathered influenced their chances of survival, and so they planned to double and triple-check everything.

After over an hour of travel, the boy’s mentor raised her fist and stopped them all in place. She looked ahead, then to the sides, her expression perplexed and frustrated at once.

“What is it?” Philip asked, his voice strained. Out of all of them, he was faring the worst here. Or, to be more exact, his watery tentacle found itself in quite a precarious situation. It kept evaporating, and the blue-haired man grieved upon the loss of each drop of the liquid.

“I hear something,” Nadia said and conjured a chain stretching far into the distance. She yanked at it.

Not a minute passed before a wolf of ink-like skin and pearly eyes came into the young Practitioner’s sight. It sprinted in their direction, its form bound by tiny links of golden essence. It snarled at them, yet despite its aggression, it neared its master and lowered its muzzle.

Their team leader bent down toward it, speaking to it softly and tapping at its head.

“News?”

“Nothing of import. The temperature will continue to rise, as will the Dark’s density, and sharply so. Xerion,” she said and gazed at him. “If, at any point, you’ll feel that your ability is about to give out, you’re to run to safety. Even if you think us likely to perish. Understood?”

“What?” he asked in outrage. “I’m just supposed to abandon you?”

“Yes, and you’ll promise me that or I’ll send you up already. Not to hurt your feelings, but if our lives are threatened, your presence won’t make much of a difference, I’m afraid.”

“I…” he said and hesitated, his stomach roiling, acid rising to his throat. “I don’t want to. We’re a team.”

“Yes, and you’ll help us the most by not making us worry about your safety during a fight. I need to hear you say ‘I understand.’”

“…I understand,” he said, squeezing the words out of his mouth. They left a worse taste on his tongue than the vomit he had to swallow down.

“Good. Everyone, stay vigilant. I feel eyes on us.”

They continued their descent, the heat climbing ever higher. Their stress increased with its rise as well, for they knew their destination to be drawing close, and so did their meeting with the abominations lurking there.

Nadia occasionally summoned that golden chain, calling the bound wolf to her side. What for, Xerion had no clue, and was too tense to ask. Maybe she has some special way of communicating with it? Or—

The boy’s musings came to an abrupt end as something dripped onto his shoulder. He touched it, examining the substance. It was black and slightly sticky, with a consistency similar to glue. He thought to lick it for an instant, but soon shook that idiotic idea out of his mind.

Another drop fell from above, hitting his forehead and slowly running down until it got into his eye. He rubbed at it and looked up.

The creature staring at him seemed to be an interesting combination of a person and a snake, he noted. Its body was slender and armored with obsidian scales, not a limb along its length. At the tip of its tail laid a blade not dissimilar to his own, curved and deadly sharp, yet created more for piercing than for cutting.

The most curious was its head. As if three human faces were sewn onto a ball of writhing meat, it held four eyes, two at the front and one to each side. It lacked a nose, but made up for that with three mouths, the central one very large and filled with row after row of hooked fangs. The other ones continuously shot out their slimy tongues into the air, tasting it before retreating.

As the young Practitioner stared at the vilest of things to ever creep out of the Void, it released a noise, sounding like a hiss at first then changing into a moan of pain and pleasure both.

The beast’s maw opened, dark and hot clouds gathering in the depths of its throat.

Xerion roared, alerting his team to the threat and unsheathing his saber.