Tristan, Yue, and Jaeng were walking through the dark tunnel. They spent a few minutes searching but found nothing unusual.

Tristan covered his mouth, hiding a yawn. His face showed as much boredom as he was capable of expressing.

Suddenly, he became alert when he heard a noise coming from behind. The loud sound of a male voice echoed through the silent tunnel.

He looked back and saw Jaeng on the ground.

“What happened? Are you alright?” Yue asked, her voice containing a hint of concern.

Lying on the ground while rubbing his knee, Jaeng replied, “It's nothing serious; I think I tripped on something.”

Yue approached to help him up, while Tristan’s eyes wandered to something just behind Jaeng. Narrowing his eyes, he wondered to himself, “What is that?”

He cautiously moved closer and, now observing up close, saw an oddly-shaped object on the ground.

Bringing his right hand toward the object stuck in the ground, he rubbed his index finger along its surface, noting its rough texture.

'It seems like it's made of wood,' he thought.

The strange shape of the object reminded him vaguely of something, so he decided to pull it up to see what it was.

With little effort, he lifted the peculiar-looking item.

The surface of the piece was whitish with dark dirt stains, featuring two pointed structures and some cavities. Its shape was elongated and somewhat triangular. At the bottom, it had dozens of grooves resembling teeth.

Tristan recognized the shape as the skull of some animal. Another thing that caught his attention was another object, this one made of black wood with carvings resembling snake scales, appearing to come out of one eye socket and enter the other.

'Why is there a skull statuette here? Wait... haven't I seen something like this before?'

As he tried to search his memory, Yue approached him and spoke.

“What are you holding?”

“Jaeng tripped over this. It’s a statuette of some animal,” he said.

He noticed a disgusted expression appear on her young face.

“Is that a snake coming out of a cow's skull? Ew, why is this creepy thing here?” she said.

Tristan shrugged. “Maybe some rebellious group of youths decided to party here, or it could be part of some dark ritual.”

Jaeng, who had already gotten up, asked Tristan in confusion, “What does a cow skull have to do with parties?”

Before Tristan could respond, Yue spoke, “It’s a cow skull, not a bull.”

Jaeng retorted, “How can you tell the difference?”

“Well, I grew up on a farm,” she replied, shrugging, then looked back at Tristan. “Are you going to keep holding that thing? What if it's actually cursed?”

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“This kind of thing is really rare; what are the odds of finding something like this in a place like this?” Even though he said this and knew the difficulty of creating such an item and its rarity, he felt a slight apprehension.

He threw the statuette over his shoulder.

“Let’s go. We don’t have much time to waste,” Yue said.

***

Back to searching for traces of the miners, they passed through several tunnels, searching randomly. Without Tristan's keen vision, they would have been lost long ago.

Yue and Jaeng had depressed expressions on their faces; it seemed they were losing hope.

But then they heard Tristan's voice.

“Hey, look at this.” Tristan pointed to the ground.

Yue and Jaeng looked at him, confused and curious.

“I found footprints, barefoot footprints. They’re recent,” he said.

“The miners must be close! Let’s go!” Yue said excitedly.

Tristan followed the tracks and led his companions, moving quickly.

After a few minutes through several tunnels, Tristan detected movement.

Ahead of him, a humanoid form began to take shape in the darkness. As he got closer, more forms appeared, becoming clearer.

Thin bodies, tattered clothes, barefoot, and wounded. Tristan had no doubt who they were.

“They’re the miners. We found them,” he said to Yue and Jaeng.

“We did it!” Jaeng cheered.

Yue rushed forward, overtaking the other two. She was the first to reach the miners. Thirteen people were trembling, leaning against the cave wall.

“Are you alright? We’re here to rescue you!” she said, trying to calm them.

She noticed they began to tremble more, appearing increasingly frightened. Some turned pale and looked at her with panic in their eyes.

“Calm down; we’re here to help you. You don’t need to be scared.”

They shook their heads frantically, covering their mouths with their hands.

Some pointed upwards, then covered their ears, throwing themselves to the ground in despair.

When Yue looked up, she saw only darkness; her lantern didn’t illuminate that high. But now that she was paying attention, she could hear something—like the flapping of wings—but also another sound she found strangely familiar, though she couldn’t initially recognize it.

She focused, then realized why the sound seemed familiar:

“Is that... rain?”

As Tristan approached Yue, he noticed she was staring fixedly at something above, so he decided to look in the direction her face was pointing. He saw when something strange emerged from a hole in the tunnel ceiling.

The thing he saw seemed to be flying, but it didn’t appear solid—it was as if its body was fluid. Drops of a thick, slimy liquid would fall and then return, merging with the creature's body again.

With two pairs of membranous wings and two pointed ears, Tristan thought the creature slightly resembled bats.

'Is it liquid? Liquid Bats? What kind of monster is this?'

They weren’t very large, about the size of an adult man's forearm, but what scared Tristan was that there were many of them.

“Damn, Yue, back up, get away from there!” Tristan shouted.

Dozens of bat-like monsters headed toward Yue and the miners, swirling like a tornado.

Yue looked at the massive whirlwind that almost covered the entire ceiling; at times, it looked like one single entity rather than dozens of terrifying bat monsters. They were fast, but she was much faster. She could easily get out of there. However, she felt she couldn’t leave, knowing that nothing would stop those creatures from massacring the innocent people behind her.

“I’m the one who attracted them; I have to handle this!”

She quickly dropped her oil lamp and grabbed her sword.

[Celestial Breeze Steps]

[Winged Slash]

Her essence spread throughout her body and around her sword, causing the air around her to transform into a powerful wind swirling around her. She managed to use both techniques at once, but she knew she didn’t have enough time to merge them perfectly.

Perhaps drawn by the noise she was making, she saw the slimy whirlwind focus on her and come her way.

As they were about to collide, she pointed her blade backward, gripped the sword hilt tightly, and then swung her arms upward in a sweeping motion toward the whirlwind coming from above with all her strength.

Tristan watched Yue’s winds, like a yellow cyclone, collide with the strange monsters. For a brief moment, it seemed they were fighting for control of that place. Yue's wind sliced through part of the whirlwind, creating a large opening. Many bats were thrown aside by her winds.

But there were still many more.

The creatures regrouped, and Yue’s winds began to weaken.

From the expression on her face, he knew she was using all the essence she could, but it didn’t seem to be enough.

The monsters' whirlwind broke through Yue’s wind cyclone.

“YUE” he shouted to her.

Tristan watched as Yue’s body was engulfed by the wave of monsters.

“NO!”