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[Hellmouth, Descent]
They fell.
Wind tore the words out of their mouths and flung them upward. The ribs of Hellmouth curved past in black arcs, each one reflecting a green light. As they descended, the maw breathed up at them—cold, wet, old.
Pahanin's eye flicked. He saw the floor and angled his body sharply, cutting through the air like an arrow, and knifed toward the landing.
Around him, the Nightstalkers dropped in controlled chaos. Cory threw both hands out; the shadows answered. Lines of dark hooked the team out of the air and reeled them down like fish pulled into a boat, boots skidding onto the slab.
The Sunbreakers didn't bother with finesse. Liu Feng and the two Titans hit hard—three impacts in a row that cracked dust off the ceiling and made the chamber ring. Heat rolled out from them, a clean shock that pushed the cold back to the corners.
The Hidden bled in beside the shadows—quiet flashes, hoods up, scanners dark. By the time the echo of their fall faded, everyone was on their feet, weapons up, breath steady from habit if not from calm.
Tevis swept the perimeter with a glance, then cut his chin at Pahanin. "Route, let's go."
Pahanin flipped the cover on his forearm. The chip blinked bright. He turned until the arrow settled and the dot sat dead centre. He looked up, into the dark ahead. "Forward."
All the guardians shared a glance. Pahanin moved to take the first step.
A surge of darkness rushed through them. Their muscles tensed, and vision tightened. For a second, the chamber felt smaller, the air felt coarse.
Levi exhaled like a laugh. "Feels like whatever's in there is eager to eat us alive."
"That so?" Liu rolled her shoulders and frowned. She dusted her palms on her plates and raised her hand. An instant later, sunlight began condensing at her fingers, and then a Hammer of Sol appeared in her grip.
Her Titans matched her, and three small suns lit up. She looked back once. "Relax. We take the lead. Leave the heavy lifting to us."
She stepped into the dark, and it recoiled from the heat. The two Titans slid into place on her shoulders. The rest fell in behind—Nightstalkers tight and low, Hidden tucked into the gaps between them. With everyone in formation, the Guardians embarked into Hellmouth's tunnels.
"Left," Pahanin echoed, already cutting the corner. The Sunbreakers pivoted and shouldered through. The tunnel opened, then sloped downwards. They continued.
One tunnel after the other, Pahanin whispered the way, the Sunbreakers cleared the route, and everyone crept across.
But as they continued their descent, the air only got heavier. Heat seemed to thin, and an eerie yet steady hum slowly echoed through the ground.
And then, they hit a strange tunnel.
"Hold!" Liu snapped; her heart dropped. She carefully inched forward; the floor vibrated underneath her boots. A long, low shake like a creature clearing its throat.
Everyone froze. The quake built a notch. Dust fell in a slow sheet.
Cory's shadows rose into the air and slithered down the tunnel. "Nothing there," he said quietly.
Pahanin gulped dryly; his eyes flicked down towards the chip, the arrow still pointed forward. He took another step, but just then, the tunnel shook again.
"Careful!" Levi barked and yanked him back.
The tunnel ahead quivered. The ground shook, and a rumble reverberated past them. The guardians felt the hair on their arms rise. Their eyes widened, glued towards the second tunnel entrance in the distance as they waited with bated breaths.
A tide of acolytes flooded through hundreds, if not thousands, eyes lit, claws raised.
"Wall! NOW!" Liu barked, her foot dug into the ground, and heat pulsed off her figure. She growled and shot forward with her hammer.
Liu swung, and the hammer struck the tide. Flame blossomed, ripping through the tide as it singed the front ranks into skin and bone. The Titans lunged in beside her, hammers rising and falling in a rhythm, as a wave of fire crushed forward.
The air in the tunnel burned, the dirt rattled and turned brittle as the ground turned into a kiln, and everything seemed to boil alive. The Sunbreakers continued their assault. Fighting whatever poured out of the darkness.
Tevis didn't watch further. He rushed forward. "Let's go!" he snapped.
Pahanin moved. He darted through the heat, Levi on his right, Bandit a shadowy blur on his left, Cory flickering one step at a time through the gaps like the tunnel had gaps only he could see.
The Sunbreakers widened their stance and continued clashing with the endless wave of acolytes. Nothing got around them without being reduced to ash. As the fight got tense, the squad of Hidden leaned in and sniped through the gaps in their formation, taking down any that managed to slip across.
Pahanin darted across the walls and unsheathed his sword, "DUCK!"
The titans flinched, Liu's eyes widened, and she cursed under her breath. With one final swing, she lunged backwards.
[Clink]
The world went white.
Pahanin cut through the tunnel's mouth, cleaving the entire tunnel in two halves, from top to bottom.
He dropped down from the air, "Hard right," he threw a look over his shoulder.
"Crazy bastard." Tevis chuckled and echoed, "Hard right, let's go."
The guardians rushed through the space Pahanin made, running across the maze-like network of tunnels.
"Left!" Pahanin switched.
Everyone took a hard turn and raced, but the ground behind them rumbled, a fissure in the rocks split open, and dust erupted everywhere.
A legion of Knights marched out and raised their blades.
"Go!" Liu turned back and barked over her shoulder. "We've got this." She cracked her neck and twirled the hammer in her grip. The two sunbreakers beside her stood by her side.
Tevis looked back as he sprinted across. He grit his teeth
As the guardians rushed towards Pahanin, they all felt a faint heat fall behind them, akin to a curtain.
Pahanin's chip blinked faster, and he kept running. Every shift, every turn, he didn't stop for even a second, just kept running. He heaved a breath, his heart raced, and his eyes shifted uneasily.
Finally, Pahanin's gait slowed, and he skidded to a stop. He panted and looked down at the chip. The arrow blinked.
Ahead, the walls narrowed to shoulders. The floor dropped one step—just one—and then set.
Pahanin squeezed through the rocks till he faced a seam in a wall, and the blinking stopped.
He looked up. The seam in the walls didn't look like anything. It didn't seem to be carved; it was neither cut in nor broken out.
It was simply there.
"We're here," he said.
Tevis was already on his shoulder. He took one look and didn't blink. Tevis spoke, voice low and tight. "Eris, tell me how to open this thing."
One of the cloaked figures slid forward. Eris set a flat palm to the stone and closed her eyes. The other tilted a device at the seam and watched the way the runes shifted.
"An illusion," Eris murmured. "No, something here is real."
Back down the tunnel, the Sunbreakers were still blocking the legion of Knights. Liu's arm rose and fell, rose and fell, each throw bursting into a fiery, bright eruption of light.
"Hurry up." Pahanin pursed his lips as he looked back into the distance, "I don't think they'll hold much longer."
"Keep your calm, hunter." Eris retorted, her hands still tracing the wall. She raised a finger and pressed slightly at the top right of the wall, revealing a small rune. "Here."
Tevis drew his onyx dagger.
He stabbed through the rune, and the Onyx dagger shattered the magic. The seam flashed once, then split open like a mouth.
An eerie chill rushed out, and a faint gust of wind blew towards them.
"Move," Tevis said.
The group crept in, carefully walking through the dark room.
A strange lull gripped their voices; no one spoke a word, but their eyes searched the dark.
Pahanin and Levi went in first. Bandit, Cory and Tevis followed. The hunters cleared every nook and cranny of the chamber, till they reached a point where the dark itself seemed to still.
A chamber with nothing. But it wasn't empty, it didn't feel that way.
Pahanin's heart skipped a beat. His instincts roared. He pressed his palm towards the strange emptiness. Space seemed to fold.
His hand pushed against an invisible veil, one that masked whatever was inside. Pahanin grit his teeth and pushed harder.
Levi walked up beside him, and light flared in his hands as he pushed as well.
One by one, all the guardians walked up, braced their shoulders against the veil and began to push.
A flickering light wrapped around their figures as they pushed with all their might, squeezing out every ounce of strength.
And then, the veil burst open.
Levi stumbled forward and barely gathered himself before he hit a stone pillar. Levi pushed himself up, and then his eyes widened.
"Void," he said, not a shout, not a question. Just a name put into the room.
Mere Inches away from the pillar, Void's body hung in the air, wrapped and tethered by dark tendrils.