Reidar stood alone at the entrance of the cavern, looking into a darkness that seemed to swallow the light of the surface world.

The bedrock around the entrance was shattered into jagged, tooth-like shards that curled upward, as if the ground itself had etched something massive and terrible onto the surface.

Most likely, this place had been made by the planet reshaping during the advent of the apocalypse. It must have been a normal cave back then, because this place was so weird that it would have been impossible for it not to have turned into a touristic attraction.

He cast one last glance back toward the faraway treeline. Somewhere in that tangled undergrowth, miles away by now, were Lena and Jake.

The plan they made was simple. Sneak the Vorathid Sky-Hunters inside through the drainage pipes as they did the first time they reached Ashwick, make them open the gates, and then flood the city with monsters while Lena and Jake took care of the church's higher-ups inside the city.

As for Reidar, his goal was simple. He just had to kill Silas. So, he turned his back on the light and entered the cave.

The descent was steep, a slide of loose scree and scorched stone. With every meter he went down, the air grew colder and started turning static-charged.

It was a weird feeling, but no doubt it was related to the mana density. The mana density here was much higher than above ground.

<This is weird,> Reidar thought, pausing mid-step to examine the feeling better. The mana was pressing against him as if it were a tangible material.

He'd felt high mana concentrations before, but the current one was different. Those places had felt oppressive, like walking through fog. This felt like being in a liquid like water. It was just that it had a viscous quality to it that made the situation even weirder.

He flexed his fingers, watching the shimmer of energy dance across his fingers. At normal concentrations, mana was invisible. At moderate densities, it became not only visible but even somewhat tangible.

But at this concentration? It was like the difference between breathing air and breathing water. The feeling was both invigorating and suffocating.

<Why does it feel like this?> he frowned. <Is there a threshold where mana stops behaving like energy and starts behaving like... matter? Like a physical substance?>

If mana could achieve a state dense enough to exert physical pressure, what else could it do? What would happen to a human body if it were exposed to these levels for too long?

Would it mutate? If so, would the system be enough to resist the change? Ten minutes into the descent, the claustrophobic tunnel widened.

Reidar's boots skidded to a sudden stop. The stone underfoot was just gone. His arm lifted the torch on instinct, and the light shattered—a million piercing reflections hit his eyes at once, blinding him for a second.

He blinked, forcing his vision to clear. The cave wasn't a cave anymore. Crystals, huge and see-through, stabbed out from everywhere—the walls, the ground, even overhead. Some were thick, twisted things, like old tree roots made of glass. Others were thin and wicked sharp, like needles waiting to prick him.

It was beautiful; he guessed. But the feeling that came with it was wrong. This wasn't like watching a sunset or standing in an old forest. This made the hair on his arms stand up. It made his skin feel tight and cold.

Because this was some kind of chemical reaction.

<Mana crystals?>

Reidar wasn't sure, but it was possible. After all, here, mana was so dense that it was possible it could crystallize.

The problem was that Reidar didn't really know whether or not it was volatile, and if it was, then every step forward felt like threading through the wiring of a bomb that had already started its countdown.⁠

<I need to be careful.>

At some point, the ground fell away in front of him. A vast cavern opened beneath him, so large the far wall was lost in shadow.

But at its heart, holding his gaze, was the source of the strange light: a subterranean lake, its still waters radiating a soft glow that made the crystal pillars around it look like bones.

—[…]—

Miles away, on the broken outskirts of Ashwick, Lena crouched in the shadows of a fallen wall.

Jake knelt next to her. He was checking the seals on his Great Helm of the Regenerating Head, making sure they were tight. He flipped the lizard-like faceplate up, showing his sweaty face to the woman.

"Are they ready?" Lena asked.

Jake nodded. "Reidar left them on standby. They just need the order."

The drainage system of Ashwick was a labyrinth of pre-System infrastructure. It was a network of concrete and iron that the Church had never bothered to map, repair, or destroy, relying instead on their walls and wards.

The pipes ran beneath the city, bypassing the magical barriers and the physical gates. For a human, the tunnels were too small, too slick with sludge, and prone to flooding.

But they were not too small for the Vorathid Sky-Hunters. Reidar had left twelve of them with Jake and Lena, instructing them to follow their orders.

"Do it," Lena said.

The creatures shrank and went inside the pipes. Lena wondered why the church hadn't destroyed this building. There was other access to the town through the sewer system, but some were hard to spot. Maybe that was the reason.

So, the summons went in and made its way through the nasty highway of pipes. In the end, the first Vorathid dragged itself out of the opening on the other side.

Then came another, and another.

Some came out of sinks, others erupted from the cracked porcelain of toilets, and more squeezed through the drains of the adjacent buildings.

Reidar had given explicit orders to the Vorathid Sky-Hunters, instructing them to come out only from buildings that were unoccupied and abandoned.

The Church had many people, but not enough to watch every building in the entire city. Because of that, entire blocks stood empty and quiet.

Reidar's order made it less likely they'd be found by a Church patrol or sentry. Staying completely hidden was the only way their plan would work.

They had to get those gates open.

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