Hyun Soon could see nothing. This had been clear to him for a while but it was less of a metaphor right now. He just did what he was told. It served him both badly and well in different measures. Right now, he was glad to be given direction. Everything was chaos. Making decisions were as far from what Hyun Soon wanted as he could imagine.

Instead he followed Yurie. She made decisions without thinking, something Hyun Soon had never been able to do. So when she jumped headfirst into the shadows, trailing after her was simple. Fa Lian didn’t need help, in fact not having to defend them would probably make her even more fierce. Yurie couldn’t protect herself very well, so Hyun would do it for her.

The unknown didn’t cause him much fear usually but the second the darkness fell over him, a terror leapt at his back. It made him want to scream in fear, bolt like a startled horse and lash out all at once. He thought that he did scream but he heard nothing. He saw nothing, could hear nothing. All sensation seemed to disappear at once. He couldn’t feel the air filling his lungs.

Then she grabbed his hand. Yurie’s small fingers found Hyun Soon and the world turned into light. Hyun could tell that he was still in that overpowering darkness but Yurie’s touch had given him sight. “Is this how you see?” He asked, his voice leaving his mouth silently.

She may have answered him. He couldn’t hear her, nor could he see her mouth. The light she had given to him was not the same as seeing, not really. To his sight, Yurie was outlined in white light. The darkness was everywhere else but her shape was visible. He could make out the walls, the cracks in them were filled with white light. Behind him, he could see Fa Lian and the monster that had attacked them in the form of Po Khan.

Yurie dragged him into what seemed to be a tunnel and as he followed his thoughts stayed with the man behind. Po Kahn had given Xiaomei nightmares. He had carried her body to Ah Dan. Not her, her body. Hyun still remembered the feeling of her weight in her arms, his own certainty that she was dead. He hadn’t had enough thoughts at the time to be angry but in the time since? Every time he pictured throwing a punch, it was at that man’s face.

He had not expected to see him here. Hyun had actually blacked out at the sight of him and by the time he came back to himself, he was looking Yurie in the eye and she was saying they needed to run. There was no amount of thinking that would explain why he was here and not rotting in a cell. Hyun felt bitter about not putting him down when he had the chance.

Hyun wasn’t sure if Yurie was seeing as he was but she led him forward confidently. The cracks in the walls got more and more fragmented. The world was a cracked vase. Light spilled in through the cracks and Hyun suddenly felt heavy pressure from the direction they were heading. As though the labyrinth itself was trying to push them back, a wind tunnel of pure force beat their advance back.

Going back was not an option.

So he ran.

The wall he pushed against was a wall of intent. There was no physicality to it and once he started running, there was nothing that Hyun Soon could not barrel through. The long tunnel which leaked light from every crack continued on and Hyun Soon ploughed down it, Yurie now trailing him instead.

This was how he helped. Brute force for those who knew where to point him. It was a peaceful thought amongst the craziness. He held onto that thought and shoved every muscle he had, pushing furiously against the intent forcing him away. He punched and clawed and dragged against it, bringing Yurie behind him. His ears felt like they would burst, his skull creaked and his bones felt as though they were bending from the weight.

POP.

As though it had never been there at all, the pressure disappeared. Hyun and Yurie exploded from the shadows and sight, sound and taste returned. Hyun had bitten his cheek fiercely and the metallic taste of blood was overwhelming. He spat out a mouthful as he looked around and took in the space.

Blood in his mouth was the first thing he noticed. Blood on the walls was the second.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

A battle had taken place here. Many battles, maybe. The space itself was massive, a bubble made deep underground by the labyrinth. Hyun Soon and Yurie had fallen from a small height and tumbled when they landed. Upon looking around, they could see the rock as it rose up high but could not see it beneath their feet.

All that lay beneath their feet were bones.

If the labyrinth elsewhere was pristine, and the room they had just left had been slightly damaged, this room had rotten. The rock was half formed and seemed to melt away from the walls in areas. It was more like being in a ball of mud than the labyrinth they had been used to.

Like being in a grave.

“Are you okay?” Hyun asked Yurie, not quite sure what he would do if she said no. She didn’t, though. Yurie said she was okay but her voice broke a little as she said it. She then asked him if he knew where they were. “Absolutely, I do,” Hyun replied with a sudden forced energy, “we’re lost.”

Yurie laughed at that. The laugh had no joy in it, more of a sharp exhale than anything, but it was a start. The surroundings bothered Hyun but he could push past that feeling. Something told him that Yurie was seeing the room a little differently than he did, though, and for her sake he was trying to inject some levity. “It’s not… too surprising that there’s a grave under a church?” Hyun wasn’t sure that was true but he said it anyway.

“Mm. I bet most churches have a mass grave hidden somewhere.” Her voice was hoarse, thick with an emotion that Hyun could not read. Ah Dan might have been able to, or Xiaomei, but Hyun was stuck simply feeling awkward. “How did we end up here?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and me, Hyun. We’re not like them. Not like Ah Dan or Shade or Fa Lian.” They trudged forward as they spoke. It just seemed the sensible thing to do. In front of them, the bodies piled up high. When he had guessed hundreds of skeletons earlier, he had thought that this was some strange hill within the labyrinth. He knew now that the true number must be tens of thousands as the mile high hill of bodies rose up above them.

“What about Xiaomei?” He asked, keeping his eyes forward on the bones. It had taken a while but Hyun no longer blushed when he thought or spoke about Xiaomei. He had pressed forward but every step had been harder knowing that she wasn’t next to him. He thought he knew the word for that feeling but he hadn’t said it yet. It was making him sick to leave her behind but there was nothing to be done now.

“Honestly, I don’t know. She should be okay…” Yurie chewed her lip as they continued on, circling the hill. Hyun could say no more than Yurie. Xiaomei should have no problem dealing with Oblax. Fa Lian would likely help her before following them but as their walk began to stretch the minutes longer and longer, worry set in.

“Why did we come this way, Yurie?” There wasn’t any anger in Hyun Soon. He was frustrated, though not at Yurie. He was just tired of not understanding why things were happening.

“We were being followed by death.” Her words were a whisper and Hyun was almost sure that he wasn’t even meant to hear them, though once he had he couldn’t ignore them.

“And what does that mean?” His volume raised, his footsteps stopped. “Aren’t we doing something? Did we just run away from danger? Is that all?”

“Something was going to kill us…” Both of them looked around a little at that. It seemed ominous in ways that forced a shiver down your spine.

“So, is Fa Lian dead? What about Xiaomei?” Stamping as he spoke, Hyun slipped a little into the bones beneath his feet. Knowing there were problems at his back didn’t mean that there weren’t problems in front too. “Did we escape or did we just wander into the lair of something even worse?”

Yurie shrugged but an answer came all the same. There was a shaking throughout the cavernous space. Hyun grabbed onto the back of Yurie’s jacket and kept them both standing for a moment. There was nothing he could do to keep them upright when the bones beneath their feet began to slide away in different directions. Stumbling, rolling and scrambling as best they could, Hyun and Yurie got their footing just as the first attacks began to rain down.

His armour leapt into existence with a thought and almost no effort. He knew he was desperately close to advancing to the star stage. His control over the manaflame within was getting stronger with each passing day, with every moment of duress. Life seemed to have been nothing but duress recently, so his ability had progressed in leaps and bounds. As the plates of metallic mana fell into place, they felt firmer and more encompassing than ever.

His defence met the sudden offence without taking a scratch. Putting his body in front of Yurie, Hyun let the first wave of projectiles hit his back. When he realised that the assault was little more than dropped bones, he turned to see what was going on.

The mountain of bone was swaying slightly. Small caches of bone fell away from the larger mass in piles. As though the mountain itself were calling them, the bones under Hyun and Yurie’s feet moved towards it even as other pieces fell away. From within the mountain, shapes began to protrude.

Skeletal archers, wielding bows of sinew and ligament, fired sharp bones towards Hyun and Yurie. There was a small thrill through Hyun Soon’s body as he realised what was happening. He had seen this style of combat before and he knew how to fight it. If he needed to. “Yurie, stay close to me.”

Instead of pressing forward into the mountain and further danger, Hyun kept Yurie at his back and his eyes towards the archers. As useful as understanding their enemy was, it didn’t mean that Hyun could do the impossible. Punching through the growing undead lines of archers and whatever else the mountain had in store would take more than just Hyun himself. He would also have no chance of protecting Yurie on his own.

Focused, as he was, on deciding his strategy, it took a few moments for Hyun to register that Yurie was ignoring him completely. While he stepped back, she stepped forward. She moved almost like Xiaomei, a grace and intent to her steps as though she were following a routine. Hyun had seen Yurie do this on occasion but he wondered if now was truly the right time.

Instead of having time to think, Hyun did what he did best. He threw himself in front of his friend and followed her lead.