They didn't speak as they entered the tunnel.
The silence wasn't from caution.
It was because speaking felt wrong here. The air was thick with something that didn't like being noticed. A cold pressure that hugged their skin and sank into their clothes.
And beneath it, a deeper sound.
A heartbeat.
Not their own.
They reached the final descent.
No glyphs marked the walls now—only cracks, and symbols that looked more like wounds than carvings.
Pao stopped halfway down the slope.
His Lanternmark burned so hard it ached.
Karis noticed. "That it?"
Pao nodded once. "It's here. Whatever 'it' is."
Elian moved closer to the stone wall and wiped dust away with his sleeve. "The glyph traces here are recent. Fresh lines over older ones. Someone's reworking an old seal, not making a new one."
"Can it be undone?" Karis asked.
"Maybe," Elian said, "but I'd need time. More than we have."
They reached the bottom.
And the world changed.
The chamber ahead looked like the inside of a throat—walls curved inward, wet stone glistening under red light. In the center was a wide pit of black fluid that barely moved. Above it hovered a chained altar—and on it, a massive, beating heart.
Runes pulsed beneath it like veins. They stretched across the floor in tight, blood-red spirals.
And at the edge of it all stood Lawrence.
His arms were outstretched.
Two other cultists flanked him. One floated. The other dragged chains. Their presence made Pao's skin crawl.
Karis pulled them back behind a crumbling pillar just before the cultists might've seen them.
She exhaled quietly. "That's it. Sixth breath."
They crouched in cover.
No one spoke for a few seconds.
Then Elian broke the silence. "What… are they doing?"
Karis scanned the chamber. "That heart. That's not a symbol. It's real. That's the focus."
Pao clenched his fist. "We can't fight them. Not like this."
"No," she said. "We can't."
Tarn pointed toward the walls—two active glyphs pulsed on either side of a narrow channel, forming what looked like a stabilizing pattern.
"If we disable those," Elian said, "we might be able to collapse the ritual's outer structure."
"Will that kill it?" Karis asked.
Elian shook his head. "No. But it might stall the rest."
"Long enough for the Guild to catch up," Karis said. "Pao, you still carrying that relay tag?"
He pulled it from his satchel. "Already tuned."
"Good. Use it."
Pao pressed the stone against the wall and whispered the Guild signal phrase.
"Echo. Hollow. Strike."
The stone pulsed once, then cracked.
The signal had been sent.
Karis leaned back, watching the pulsing glyph lines carefully.
"Alright. Tarn, with me. We'll sneak toward the right side and plant disruption tags."
She looked at Pao. "You and Elian get the left. You're smaller and quieter."
"Gee, thanks," Elian muttered.
Karis gave a dry smirk. "You've got the brain for this glyphwork. Don't waste it."
They moved.
Careful. Step by step.
The ritual sounds grew louder. The chanting wasn't just from Lawrence anymore. The walls hummed. The stone itself whispered in a voice they couldn't understand.
Elian whispered, "They've tied the chamber to the ritual. If we misstep, the entire cave could collapse."
Pao placed his tag.
Elian placed his glyph.
The moment it touched the rune, the ground twitched beneath them.
Then, they heard a sound.
Something wet.
Dripping.
Footsteps—bare feet.
A figure limped into view from the far side of the pit. Grey-skinned. Blank-eyed. Mouth twitching.
Elian tensed. "That's… that's not human anymore."
Karis' voice came through the communicator rune. "Pull back. Now."
The team retreated quickly, moving behind the stone arch.
"What the hell was that?" Karis whispered once they regrouped.
"A host," Elian said. "Too far gone. Hollowed by the breath. It's still walking, but there's nothing left inside."
Pao looked down at his mark.
Still burning.
"It didn't sense us. That's good," Karis said. "We hold here. Watch. Wait."
Tarn nodded and leaned his blade against the wall.
Elian sat against the stone, wiping sweat from his brow.
"They've rebuilt something ancient here," he said. "But not completely. If we time it right, and the Guild hits hard when they arrive, we can still shut it down."
Minutes passed.
The heart kept beating.
The chanting never stopped.
They stayed in place, waiting in silence, with the smell of blood and smoke in the air.
Finally, Pao opened his journal and began to write:
"We reached the sixth breath site. Ritual confirmed. Lawrence present. Two high-ranking cultists. Chamber is tied to breath. Living heart suspended over corrupted pool. Magic woven through stone and wall."
"Devised plan: stall outer glyph rings. Signal sent for Guild reinforcement. No confrontation engaged."
"Waiting. Breathing slow. But the mark burns hot."
He stopped.
Then added:
"We're inside something alive. We're inside something waiting."