"I understand, Zoran. Then, since you are about to leave, then we'll accompany you. After all, we are friends aren't we?" Helio said.
Zoran shrugged.
The other four were still reeling from Zoran's haughty attitude. Most of all, they saw Helio with his crescent smile and deadpan eyes. Someone was crippled to the point of paralyzation the last time they saw this emotion from the rising star of the Primordial Sun Dynasty.
The six of them walked back, with Zoran leading the way.
Drew took this chance to lighten the mood by retelling stories of the good old days. He hoped to remind Zoran about his place in the gang and maybe save his face from being burned into an unrecognizable mess by Helio's fury.
"What happened to you Zoran? You were so funny then. Remember when you swam into the sewers?" Drew asked.
"Hahahaha yeah, I remember that!"
Zoran didn't swim into the sewers—he was pushed.
"Oh, and how about that time when we stole vintage wine bottles in the royal district?"
"That wine was amazing, wasn't it Zoran? We should do that again."
Zoran didn't drink the wine. He couldn't have. Helio and his gang left Zoran locked into the cellars until the cops came and arrested him. He had to pay for the stolen goods.
"And look at you now, Zoran. You don't even respect us anymore. Should we start your training again?"
"Why are you even asking? It's not like he can do anything about it," Drew commented.
The training session was nothing more than stress-relief for the gang. They made Zoran into their training bag, practicing their deadly moves on him without care.
Anytime Zoran tried to escape or try to talk back to them, the training session would get harsher and more frequent.
Zoran remembered these incidents well.
But instead of re-living this dreadful memory, Zoran's focus was on his future: his main goal.
Inside his shirt, a silvery blob was floating around his body. It changed shape with every step Zoran took. It was a flat rectangle in a moment, then it quickly changed to a rough shape of a five-sided star.
He did not waste time on the past and focused on enhancing his strength.
While the five of them relished Zoran's misfortune, he was gaining more control on the Law of Attraction.
"Why are you silent?"
"Come on, Drew. It's because he's embarrassed."
"Have you finally come to your senses. That's good. I thought we had to beat the sense into you."
Zoran stopped in his tracks, not because of their words, but because of the fork in the road.
On the left was the correct way. It was the path that lead outside and the path that Zoran and the others took to get to the mining grounds.
On the right was a tunnel barricaded with wooden planks. The wall was about three layers of wood deep. Whoever installed this wanted to make sure no one went inside.
If the blockade wasn't enough, the black skulls painted around the planks warned visitors of their fate once they forcefully entered this tunnel.
A sign was staked in the middle.
[BEWARE! DEATH COMES TO THOSE WHO SEEK IT]
Zoran knew what lay beyond those ominous words. It looked like Helio and the others knew too.
Helio gave a look at his lackeys. They understood immediately.
Drew immediately moved towards Zoran. He opened up his arms as if he wanted to grasp Zoran's shoulder in a friendly manner.
His plan was simple. He wanted to get close to Zoran and slightly add pressure on his frail body. The only thing on his mind was to limit his strength so as not to break a lot of Zoran's bones. He only wanted to break a few.
But before he made contact, Drew felt a strong repelling force in his right leg, causing an imbalance. He saw the world turn sideways.
By the time he recovered, Drew saw Helio and his friends laughing at him.
"HAHAHAHA! How stupid of you Drew!"
"You tripped! You tripped!"
'I tripped?' Drew thought. Despite being the weakest out of his friends, he was still a cultivator. His body mutated to defy the universe. How could he have tripped?
There was no stone in his way, no pothole, nothing. It was strangely flat. Even if there was anything, his innate strength would have destroyed the rock before it tripped him.
Drew then looked at Zoran and a chill went up his spine.
"Do not touch me," Zoran said, looking down at him.
Zoran's words were drowned out by Helio's boisterous laughter but Drew knew what he heard. Zoran's threat made his back sweat with fear.
Drew felt a tightening pressure in his neck. How could Zoran's words feel like a belt tightening around his carotids, restricting the blood flow in his head?
Drew massaged his neck, making sure nothing was there. He must have been imagining things.
"Z-Zoran... Helio wants to explore more of this cave. You'll join us, right?"
Helio frowned at Drew's uncharacteristic timidity but nonetheless followed it up.
With just one swing of his hand, Helio broke through the barricade blocking the tunnel. The partly decaying wood splintered into thousand bits from the magnitude of force from Helio's fist.
DRAKKKKK
Bits and pieces of the warning sings flew by Helio's head, missing him.
"Join us. Or are you too scared?" Helio provoked Zoran.
Helio and his lackeys moved forward and a large space opened up to them. At the end of the room was a cliff descending down into the darkness.
They looked down and saw tendrils of black smoke snaking through unbroken darkness below. It was darker than nothingness and rotting more than death.
This was the Miasma: the literal gateway to the underworld.
The Miasma rots anything it come into contact with down to their very atoms. The disintegration comes instanteneously and spreads through your body before the signals in your brain could even warn your body of the pain.
Miasma was the worst nightmare for living beings.
Even at the apex of cultivation, experts knew to respect the dangers that the Miasma presented. They stayed the hell away from them.
They knew that if their fingernail touched the Miasma, their only saving grace was to cut off their whole arm. For masters of their arts, it was akin to losing half their strength.
Helio and his gang were lucky. If this Miasma pit had been more intense, the fumes from the Miasma would melt the bodies inside the tunnel.
Supreme Beings, the pinnacle of cultivation, had to be careful when dealing with the Miasma.
If not, then the tendrils of Miasma would demonstrate to them that being immortal does not mean that they cannot be killed.
Helio and his gang were joking around, pretending to push each other down the cliff.
They do not know that they were mere inches away from suffering a fate worse than death.
"Zoran. You should come here," ordered Helio.
Zoran shook his head. He knew better than to challenge the mighty Miasma, especially since he was only a mortal. He had to decline
But suddenly, his mind once again raced with the mystifying words, repeating upon itself like a broken record player. The echoes of its cries haunted Zoran's mind.
In voluntate mea ad verum aquilonem intellectus procedet.
These words—this mantra—was the one that granted him the Law of Attraction and Law of Power.
If the mantra was reacting this intensely, then it could only mean one thing.
Somewhere beyond the deathly dangers of the Miasma was an opportunity for Zoran to obtain another reality-defying power.