Torren knew the truth before anyone said it.
No one but the chosen wielder could lift the Regalia and live. The Jian was more than a blade. It was a binding of soul and steel. With hands that trembled from years of war, he knelt beside Shun's still body and picked it up.
The sword hummed faintly. Silver light flickered in its polished edge. Torren placed it carefully into Shun's limp hands. The touch felt final, like returning a crown to a fallen king.
No one spoke.
Joren stood with his head bowed. The shadow of grief tightened his jaw. Bahari and Habari both kept their eyes fixed on Shun. They stayed silent for once. Every survivor had the same hollow look. The heavy understanding weighed on them. They might have seen the last of the man who had carried them this far.
The atmosphere hung thick with the stench of charred flesh and spilled blood. Shadows clung to the edges of the cavern, twisting in unnatural ways, as if the darkness itself hungered for more victims. Faint whispers echoed from the cracks in the stone walls, murmurs that sounded like distant screams, remnants of the madness that had torn through their ranks. Bodies lay scattered, limbs contorted in agony, faces frozen in eternal terror, eyes wide and unseeing, reflecting the horror that had consumed them from within.
Then the barrier changed.
The silver particles that had been suspended in the air began to drift inward. They glowed brighter as they moved. They swirled together like a slow-turning galaxy. Each spark broke apart into finer dust until they streamed directly into the Jian's blade. The light pulsed once. The sharpness made them squint.
A heartbeat later, Shun's body moved.
First, a twitch in his fingers. Then a slow shift in his shoulders. His head tilted forward. He sat up with the sluggish heaviness of someone waking from a nightmare.
Torren froze. His eyes widened.
Shun rubbed the back of his neck. He blinked at the worried faces surrounding him. "What?" he said hoarsely. He cracked a faint smile. "You all look like you've seen a ghost. Relax. I'm back from the dead. Happens all the time."
A collective exhale rolled through the group.
The cavern seemed to respond to his revival. The whispers grew louder, slithering through the air like invisible serpents, coiling around their ankles. One survivor clutched his ears, shaking his head violently, as if the sounds burrowed into his skull. Blood trickled from a wound that had reopened on its own, dark and viscous, pooling on the ground in shapes that resembled grasping hands.
Toren and lira looked at Shun in disbelief, they wanted to say something but too baffled for anything to come out'
"ahh...I pre-healed my brain before stabbing myself in the head," Shun added casually, as though explaining the weather. "If I hadn't, the madness would've taken me. Then it'd be me killing all of you instead of some monster's tendrils."
Torren stared at him. "You're telling me you put a sword through your own head as a plan?!"
The words spiked his ears, heavy with unspoken dread. Around them, the wreckage pulsed with an eerie life. Tendrils of blackened ichor, remnants of the beast, quivered on the floor, inching toward the living as if drawn by the warmth of blood. A low groan emanated from a nearby corpse, its chest rising slightly before collapsing again, expelling a foul gas that carried the scent of rot and despair.
"It was either that gamble," Shun said, "or we'd all be corpses. I picked the option where at least one of us gets to make bad jokes afterward."
"And why, they're could've been other ways...You could've even coordinated with me " Torren pressed,
Shun's expression turned serious. "No...Because once the madness takes you, you stop being human. You stop being you. What's left is something the world itself wants to destroy."
They didn't argue. The weight in his voice left no space for it.
The horror lingered in the silence. Eyes darted to the shadows, where shapes seemed to form and dissolve, humanoid figures with elongated limbs and gaping mouths, watching from the void. Bahari shivered, his skin crawling as if insects burrowed beneath it, a sensation born from the madness's echo. Habari gripped his weapon tighter, knuckles white, fearing that the revival might summon something worse, a entity born from Shun's brush with death.
For the first time since the fight began, the tension broke. Bahari leaned back against a rock. He let out a laugh that carried disbelief more than humor. "I swear, you're a walking miracle."
"Maybe not a miracle," Habari said with a grin. "Maybe he's the direct child of some ancient god. That would explain a lot."
Shun snorted. "If I was, my life would be a lot easier..."
A message flickered across his interface, his brain was too much of a haze to read what it said but he saw something next to his name.
The group lingered in the dim light, the air growing colder, as if the cavern exhaled the chill of the grave. Whispers intensified, forming words in forgotten tongues, promises of eternal torment. One survivor, a young scout named Lira, collapsed to her knees, her face pale, muttering about visions of her own death, repeated in endless loops. The others pulled her up, but her eyes remained glazed, haunted by horrors unseen.
After a brief rest, they moved through the wreckage. What could be salvaged was gathered. Materials were packed away. The dead were counted. Their bodies wrapped and set aside to be buried when they reached the surface. No one rushed. No one wanted to.
The task unearthed more terrors. As they lifted a fallen comrade, his skin sloughed off in wet sheets, revealing bone etched with glowing runes that pulsed like veins. The runes whispered incantations, drawing blood from the handlers' fingers, feeding on their life force. Screams echoed as another body stirred, its eyes snapping open, milky and blind, mouth forming silent pleas for release. They burned the remains quickly, the flames casting shadows that danced mockingly, mimicking the dead's final throes.
Torren worked methodically, his hands steady despite the bile rising in his throat. The air thickened with the metallic tang of blood, mixed with the acrid smoke from improvised torches. Every step crunched over debris, bones snapping underfoot, releasing puffs of dust that carried the essence of decay. Flies swarmed, unnatural in their size and aggression, biting deep and leaving welts that burned like fire.
Shun observed from where he sat, his strength returning slowly. The wound in his head had sealed, but a faint scar glowed faintly, a reminder of the abyss he had touched. He felt tendrils of madness lingering in his mind, visions of endless voids where souls screamed in isolation, their forms twisted into abominations. He pushed them down, focusing on the group, but the effort drained him, leaving sweat beading on his forehead.
Bahari and Habari scouted the perimeter, their torches revealing alcoves filled with horrors. In one, a cluster of eggs pulsed with inner light, hatching into writhing larvae that screeched hungrily. They crushed them under boots, the squelch echoing like laughter. In another, a mirror-like surface reflected not their faces, but grotesque versions, skin flayed, eyes weeping blood, mouths stretched in eternal agony.
Joren tended to the wounded, binding gashes that refused to clot, oozing black pus that whispered secrets of betrayal. One man convulsed, foaming at the mouth, his body arching unnaturally as if possessed. They restrained him, but his screams pierced the soul, tales of devoured loved ones and worlds consumed by shadow.
The salvaging dragged on, each item retrieved a victory tainted by fear. Weapons slick with gore, armor dented and stained, provisions contaminated by ichor that moved on its own. They discarded much, the losses mounting, a grim tally of survival's cost.
Looking at his Jian seing his reflection besides him there was lira beside him not leaving his side
"Lira when we get back you got to show me how to make dolls"
"You dont even know if your having a boy or a girl"
"You have to be ready for anything right?"
When it was time to leave, Torren stepped in beside Shun. He looped the commander's arm over his own shoulder. "Come on, hopeless cause. You can't collapse in the middle of the runic battlefield and expect me to carry you the whole way."
Shun smirked. "Please. I'm light as a feather."
"Feathers don't weigh the same as small buildings," Torren muttered. He didn't let go.