The tunnel sloped downward for what felt like an hour. The walls gradually widened. The air was dense. The terrain began to change. It was less jagged now, more uniform. Carved. The ground beneath our feet turned smooth, polished flat in deliberate segments.
Then the path opened.
Not into a chamber, but into a world.
We stepped out onto a high stone platform overlooking a subterranean expanse so vast it almost looked like the surface. Dozens of layered terraces stretched downward in concentric circles, each ring dotted with structures shaped directly from the stone. These weren't built. They were formed. Homes and halls carved like sculptures, lit by glowing blue veins of mana running through the walls like pulsing arteries.
Fungal trees rose from the terraces. Their stalks were thick as towers, and their canopies wide and flat, glowing like bioluminescent umbrellas. Their colors shifted across gradients, blue, violet, the occasional deep crimson, casting slow-moving waves of light across the cavern.
Bridges of woven vine and carved stone connected platforms in all directions. Glowing streams ran between the buildings, feeding moss and plants that gave off a soft light. The air smelled damp and earthy, but fresh. It felt like the jungle had found a way to live down here.
In the distance stood a central temple. Towering, massive. Its exterior walls bore the same spiraling carvings we had seen earlier, now larger, deeper, weathered by time. Two massive statues flanked the entrance. One had a sunburst for a head, the other a crescent face half-hidden in carved shadow.
Jackal gave a low whistle. "You ever seen something like this?"
"No." Although I had seen something even more grandiose, I wasn't going to mention that now.
Before he could respond, movement caught my eye.
Four figures dropped silently from a nearby walkway, landing without a sound.
They surrounded us in an instant.
Two held curved swords made of the same black obsidian-like material as the spear from earlier. The blades hummed faintly with mana, their hilts wrapped in vines that looked fused into their grips.
One held a spear, shorter than the last warrior's, but dense with power that thickened the air around it.
The last wielded two daggers, curved like fangs, moving slightly in his hands like they were eager.
Each wore a carved mask. Tapir-like in shape, but personalized. Spirals, tusks, flared patterns that marked them apart. Their armor shifted as they moved, bark fused with their forms. Silent. Tense.
Jackal tilted his head. "Guess we found the welcoming party."
I didn't respond. My hand was already on my blade.
We didn't move.
Neither did they.
The four warriors held their positions around us, perfectly spaced, not a word spoken. They watched. Waited.
Then, without warning, they shifted, just slightly, and stepped back in unison.
Making a path.
A fifth figure emerged from the shadowed walkway behind them.
Tall. Broad. Masked.
The one-armed warrior.
The same bark-like armor, the same carved mask with its tusked tapir snout. But where his right arm had once been, there was now a wrapped band of hardened vine and resin, sealed tight. No sign of blood. No sign of weakness.
He stood before us for a moment, letting the silence stretch.
Then he turned and began to walk.
The others fell in line, two ahead, two behind.
We were expected to follow.
Jackal shrugged. "Well. Beats fighting four at once."
"Or five," I said, eyeing the one in front.
We fell in step.
The city unfolded as we walked through it, and I found myself staring more than I meant to.
It was a place grown, not built. The homes and towers seemed coaxed out of the stone itself, smoothed and shaped by patient hands or old power. Every surface pulsed faintly with the same glowing veins of blue mana, threading through walls, flowing beneath paths like roots or wires.
There was structure here. Order. The terraces formed rings that stepped downward toward the central temple, like ripples around a sunken monument. Fungal trees lined the outer edges, their massive stalks pulsing gently with color. Bridges hung between platforms like braided vines, flexible yet firm underfoot.
The people were there, too, watching from windows, standing motionless in shadowed alcoves. All of them masked. All silent.
"Okay," Jackal murmured. "This is... kind of beautiful."
"Yeah. Makes you wonder how long this place has been here."
He nodded slowly. "Or how no one found it until now."
We passed over a bridge, the air humming with faint energy. Beneath us, one of the glowing canals flowed slow and steady, like liquid starlight.
"Must be centuries old," I muttered. "Maybe more."
Jackal frowned. "But that doesn't make sense. The Collision was only thirty years ago."
I glanced at him, then back at the structures carved into the stone, the glowing veins, the towering fungal trees.
"Unless it's not from Earth," I said.
He nodded again, slower this time. "Part of the other world. The one that merged with ours."
"Yeah. A fragment that landed here and rooted itself in."
"That would explain a lot," he said. "The mana, the architecture, the way everything's… too perfect."
"It feels preserved," I added. "Like it didn't age. Like it's always been like this."
Jackal let out a low whistle. "Whatever it is, they didn't half-ass it."
One of the warriors ahead turned slightly.
He didn't look at us. Didn't stop walking.
But he spoke.
Just one word, low and even.
"Tzalco."
I glanced at Jackal. He raised an eyebrow.
"City name?"
"Probably."
Neither of us spoke again for a while.
But we kept walking, the city of Tzalco stretching out around us, and whatever lay deeper waiting just beyond it.
As we moved deeper through the terraces, we passed one of the lower platforms where several of the warriors were training.
Their movements were repetitive, precise. Over and over, the same form, the same step, the same strike. Thousands of times, until each motion was burned into muscle and instinct. No wasted energy. No emotion. Just discipline.
Jackal muttered, "Impressive. They're really dedicated."
"I apply a similar training style," I said.
Jackal gave a shrug. "I can see that, I guess."
He didn't ask further. Didn't press. He didn't really know what I meant.
Somewhere in the distance, we heard laughter. Kids, maybe. High and bright, echoing off stone and fungus canopy. But we were too far to see them.
This part of the city felt different. Secluded. More structured. Like it was meant for warriors and soldiers. A militia quarter, maybe. Less decoration. More function.
It made sense. They didn't bring us through the heart of their home.
They were showing us exactly what they wanted us to see.