With one final look at Quin's makeshift map. Ciel memorized it to the best of his abilities, Not sure why, but this map doesn't make sense. It was a nagging feeling, something was amiss but he couldn't put his finger on it.
Toren walked up to Ciel, breaking him out of his thoughts. "Okay kid, do your thing." Said Toren while pointing at the dark, gesturing to Ciel to start leading them.
Why the hell do I have to go back in again? If you want to walk back to your hand, be my guest but don't drag me along with you.
It's not bluffing if you can put it off… but the question is… can I? He was starting to get desperate.
The deeper they ventured, the more the darkness swallowed them, until they were completely shrouded in pitch black.
Walking through the tunnel felt oppressive—suffocating.
With one hand pressed against the rough tunnel wall, he and Toren stumbled forward in silence, swallowed by the darkness.
Drip. Drip.
Ciel's ears perked up. Within the suffocating silence of the tunnel, he heard the soft, rhythmic sound of water droplets hitting the ground.
But there was no water. No moisture. Nothing that could produce the sound.
It was only in his head.
Am I going crazy?
Drip. Drip.
The sound persisted, each drop echoing louder in his mind, an unbearable rhythm pounding against his skull.
Drip. Drip.
Just stop.
Drip. Drip.
With each drop, Ciel's complexion darkened further, the corner of his lips twitched together with his left eye, but the noise didn't cease.
Drip.
Just stop…
Drip.
Stop…
Drip.
Please just make it stop.
He staggered through the absolute darkness, mere moments from collapsing to the ground.
With Toren nearby, he forced himself to maintain a facade, but the relentless dripping sound gnawed at his sanity, making him want to slam his head against the wall just to make it stop.
The more time he spent in this place the closer he got to breaking. His body was already bruised and battered and now his mind was under constant strain.
Each drop was getting louder, and Ciel's vision began to shake as a wave of nausea washed over him.
The irritation almost brought him to his knees but Ciel gritted his teeth silently and stumbled forward in the dark.
Behind the dripping sound, Ciel heard something else, almost inaudible through the constant buzzing of his ears.
"—avel." It was barely discernible from the roaring water droplets that numbed his mind.
The torture was unbearable, the only way Ciel tried to lessen it was by dragging his palm across the jagged rocks on the side of the tunnels.
The pain caused by them was the only thing keeping him sane aside from his fixation on the strange word whispered behind the relentless dripping.
"Unravel."
The moment he finally heard the word, the relentless dripping in his mind began to fade,
He couldn't even formulate thoughts, his mind was empty and tired.
…It's over… it's finally over.
After what felt like an eternity, the droplets finally ceased. He exhaled a deep sigh of relief, momentarily unconcerned with Toren's presence.
But what the hell is Unravel? Why did—
Before he could finish the thought, a sudden awareness washed over him. Even in the suffocating darkness, he instinctively knew where to step, and which path to take.
Wait… now it's working again? Is it the world, 'Unravel'?
Just like that, the guiding presence he previously felt faded to nothing and he was left to stumble in the dark.
Ciel's left eyebrow rose. Is it because I thought of the word… Unravel?
Instantly, the same feeling returned and he felt the guiding presence again. Good to know.
For the first time ever since getting into the depths of this mountain, Ciel had something to lean on. Even the dark posed no threat to him.
I still have to stumble in the dark. I know that Toren is observant, if he sees a change in my pattern of behavior, he is going to sense something off about me… the moment that happens he could kill me on the spot, I can't be seen as a threat, not now.
With that in mind, even with the help of Unravel—the strange power that guided him toward whatever he sought—he had to continue his slow, unsteady stumbling through the darkness.
After an unknown period of time, he sensed they were getting closer. However, his mind was slowing down, and his vision blurred periodically.
Unravel was taking its toll on him the longer he kept it active.
Roar.
A bloodthirsty howl resounded again inside the tunnels. Thankfully, it was far away from them, they weren't the target of the calamity.
Cole's team! The Calamity had begun chasing them instead.
Ciel almost sighed in relief—at least it wasn't after them.
Following the distant sounds, he quickly gestured for Toren, who was only a single step behind for him to hurry up.
Both of them picked up pace, but they still stumbled in the dark, Toren was directly behind Ciel who still appeared to be stumbling but under the branching tunnels he always took the correct option.
The beast was doing the same thing it had done to them.
Wait a minute—this isn't just playing with us, nor is it trying to tire us out.
Ciel realized that the other team wasn't in immediate danger. If the Calamity truly wanted them dead, it could have reached them already.
The intensity of the bloodthirsty screams grew, reverberating through the tunnels. The two of them were dangerously close to the beast now—but just as close to the other group.
He also felt Unravel telling him the distance between them and Cole's team was getting shorter, but that also meant that the monster was too close to them for comfort.
Ciel's muscles burned relentlessly, and his bruised and battered body pushed past its limits since the moment he arrived. He didn't even have the chance to revel in the fact that he could move.
His breathing grew labored again.
The farther they got from the burial site, the thinner the air became—but it wasn't just that. His body was nearing its breaking point from sheer overexertion.
Yet, as they pressed deeper, the tunnel widened, and with it, the air gradually became more breathable.
The pitch-black darkness slowly got lighter; Ciel reflexively shut his eyes, his eyes accustomed to the dark after traversing it for so long.
"Put me down, put me down!" A shrill cry made both Toren and Ciel jump back, and a bone-chilling scream resounded next.
Toren immediately started to sprint towards the Calamity, but Ciel did not. Good luck but I am not risking dying again… not by the hand of that thing.
He still remembered its appearance, a back filled with black feathers of a body grafted from corpses.
The words of Quin echoed in his ear while remembering its appearance, ripping his stomach open, and yanking his intestines.
His throat was dry and his palm was sweaty.
But the next noise covered his back with cold sweat as he flinched at the familiar sandpaper-like sound.
The monster giggled from afar.
The eerie noise made his body lock up, his footing faltering as he stumbled to the ground.
He could barely see anything, but a strange sensation spread through his hand—something was there.
What the hell is this? It got increasingly more painful, a crawling sensation that made him want to claw at his skin.
As he looked down at his hand, his vision blurred from the shock.
Something was crawling underneath his skin.
What the fuck is that?
Ciel was spiraling, his mind racing as the pain enveloped him, becoming unbearable. The Calamity's laughter rang in his ears—chilling, bloodthirsty, and mocking.
"Get out!"
Ciel screamed, clawing at his skin, leaving deep red gashes behind. The more he scratched, the more his skin reddened, until the space under his nails was filled with torn, bloody flesh.
His wounds deepened as he collapsed to the ground in agony, still dragging his hands over the injury.
Desperate, he continued to claw at the wound, trying to force the invader out.
His ears constantly buzzed, yet through the noise, he could clearly hear the gloating laughter of the Calamity drawing nearer.
Just as Ciel looked up, he didn't see the Calamity but saw an abnormally long skinny pitch black arm bleeding red miasma coming out of the wall to reach out for his neck.
How?! Ciel pushed himself back, rolling away on the ground from the arm before another two materialized out of nothing.
Swiftly thinking, he leaned onto his only crutch in this situation—Unravel.
He still didn't know to exact nature of Unravel, but in his grave situation this was his only tool, Unravel acted as a guide for every movement he had to make.
Just as he was about to rejoice in the power's help, it pinpointed the exact location of the Calamity and urged him to move closer to it.
The power told him to go closer to the Calamity instead of fleeing from it. Is this thing broken or something?!
Before he even made a single step, a scorching heat enveloped the area that he felt even while standing at least ten meters away from it.
A condensed ball of fire hit the side of the Calamity, its laughter stopping for a single second before it turned to the location of the man who threw the fireball.
Taking the chance he was given, Ciel instantly understood the reason for Unravel's instructions.
He rushed to the monster before jumping away from it, another condensed ball of fire passing by him as a form of cover but also brunt his flesh.
Exhausted and beaten, Ciel rose from the ground and looked around the larger room which was illuminated from the crack in the ceiling, the sun had already settled, and the dim light cast weak shadows on the large open area.
Ciel's sight was drowned in crimson—Blood.
As he looked around, his expression froze and his complexion paled further.
The Calamity wasn't playing around with this group. But why, it was messing with us and that's how he survived, why did it stop now?!
The unbearable stench of blood made his nose scrunch up.
As Ciel looked back at the Calamity, a heavy pit formed in his stomach—it was staring directly at him.
One of its pitch-black hands appeared from the shadows, grabbing a nearby corpse and pulling it in front of the creature without once breaking eye contact with Ciel.
It continued to giggle.
The Calamity then opened the corpse's stomach, tearing out its intestines and ripping them apart, all while its gaze remained fixed on Ciel.