The awkward silence was replaced by comfort, at least to Caelum and Erta. The others who were with them were either throwing up sugar or just pretending not to have heard anything.
But a moment later, they all quickly became on guard. The time they had been waiting for had arrived. The first to notice the change was surprisingly Mary.
[Hm? What's that sweet fragrance? I think it's coming from the river.]
[Wait, I feel it too! Ugh… this mana… it's trying to pull us in!]
The wave of mana washed over the group. It was much thicker than what Caelum and Erta had felt the night before. And as Eleanor said, it was trying to pull them in by tempting them in various ways.
Even when they were conscious of it and tried to resist, their bodies did not seem fully capable of following their commands. Even as it just appeared, the wave of mana already felt like a receding tide to them, dragging them back with a hook on their minds.
However, it had no effect on either Erta or Caelum whose souls were reinforced by the Life Covenant. This was the reason why they could not find the source on their own.
"Everyone, resist it! Erta, can you reinforce their minds with magic?"
[I can, but we need to gather them together! If we'd known the dungeon's mana had such an effect, we wouldn't have spread out like this!]
"Don't worry! I'll gather them for you! Just prepare the spell!"
"Go get the others first! I'll be fine for a while!"
Kyle knelt on the ground, stabbing into the concrete to keep himself from walking toward the river. With no other option, Caelum decided to trust that he would endure and flew toward the others.
Starting with Mary, he picked them up with the tendrils of his colourless wing. And when they were no longer enough, he split his black wing into several black tentacles to grab the others. But now he had no way to fly, so he ran as fast as he could.
On his way back, he found that Kyle had disappeared. He searched for him quickly and saw that he was already nearing the river where a pinkish fog had appeared.
"Kyle! Stop moving, damn it!"
He could not risk the others being entranced by the dungeon as well so Caelum decided to rush to Erta. The moment he dropped them within the barrier that she had created, he flew off toward Kyle immediately.
But he was already too late. Kyle walked through the fog that suddenly appeared over the river and disappeared right in front of him.
For a split second, Caelum saw the tear in space that served as the invisible dungeon's entrance. Not letting this chance slip by, he shot out his wings to prevent it from closing.
"Erta, come! The dungeon's entrance is closing again! I can only hold it open for a few more seconds!"
[I'm coming!]
[My lord, I'm coming too!]
"No, Reynor! There's no time! You take charge here! Tell the guilds to prepare! If we're not back after 24 hours, then you can do what you want!"
Erta reached Caelum's side just as he finished instructing Reynor. Taking his hand in hers, she entered the dungeon and Caelum was pulled in together with her.
Immediately after being pulled into the dungeon, the entrance closed behind them, but they did not have the mind to care for it. Their focus was on something else entirely.
The winds buffeted them, crashing on their bodies in a furious defiance of something. It was as though the very world itself rejected their presence. But what could it do other than cause minor annoyances to beings powerful enough not to play by its rules.
As Caelum and Erta tumbled down from the sky, they scanned the ground below. It was a large expanse of a dark forest directly below them, and beyond it was hidden behind a veil of fog. They could not determine the size of this dungeon, but it was enough to know that it was too big.
They unfurled their wings, finally breaking their plummeting descent as they glided over to a landmark they have identified for themselves. A giant tree rose high into the sky beyond the canopy of the rest of the forest.
Its black bark emanated a disturbing aura that seemed to be the source of the bleak atmosphere of the forest. Its trunk and branches twisted in unnatural ways for a tree as it deformed itself into a thick stalk of brambles that looked to grasp the skies with its thorns.
It was evening outside the dungeon, but it was daytime within it. And yet, in this forest, the sun may as well still be sleeping.
"See what I mean when I say Earth is abnormal?"
"This isn't even a dungeon anymore, is it? It's a whole other world!"
They looked around and found nothing but the thorny paths of the forest. A dark mixture of power pervaded it, trying to muddle their senses. All it could do was prick at their minds, but it was enough of a discomfort for most.
Erta and Caelum, however, did not mind it. They have experienced too much pain for this little poking and prodding to affect them. They turned their gazes upward, staring at the sky from which they fell. There was nothing there.
"The dungeon's entrance is gone as well. Our only option is to find the missing people and clear the dungeon."
"Do you know which direction to go? I didn't see anything from the sky."
"I don't. But there's a clear trail of dark mana here. I think we can follow it. Whether it leads us to its source or its destination, however, I can't tell. What do you think, Cal?"
"I think it's the only option we have unless we want to wander around aimlessly. This place is too big for that."
The two followed the trail, being careful and alert for any enemies. They were encountered a few animals that seemed to have lost their minds, going berserk at the slightest bit of sound or smell. Fortunately, it did not seem to raise their threat levels and were easily put down.
Erta killed the mutated berserk boar with a single kick to its snout, but it was not the only one to come at them. For the next few hours, they encountered more mindless beasts before finally encountering a change.
They had finally exited the forest only to find themselves in what could be described as a barrow. The soil had been dug up as though something clawed its way out, but it was undeniably a burial mound.
Around it were stone pillars carved with depictions of ferocious and bloodthirsty beasts and one ominous silhouette of a man riding a horse. Erta approached one of the stone pillars to inspect it more closely.
"What could these depictions mean? Do you know anything, Cal?"
Generally, a dungeon's environment mimics that of the world it appeared in. It could be an entirely different environment than where it appeared, but it would nonetheless carry the same traits as the world.
In this case, however, it was quite obvious that this dungeon was very much different. Starting with the fact that it seemed to be a world of its own, the bramble forest alone was definitely not something that could be found on Earth.
And now, there were stone carvings of something even less likely. A form of life besides monsters reside in this dungeon. Worse yet, they were sentient and intelligent enough to create such carvings. Erta was hoping that Caelum recognised the cravings from history, but he shook his head.
"I'm not sure I've seen such things before. I might have either forgotten or there never was anything like this on Earth. But I do know one thing."
Caelum knelt down, his black wing that had been moving on its own for a while now flinched as though it knew it had been caught. Caelum stared at it for a while before allowing it to do what it wanted.
The black wing shivered like a giddy child and swam excitedly through the air. It split into strands of murky black energy, slithering through the dirt and burrowing deeper into the barrow. And that was when Caelum understood what it had been searching for.
"This is definitely bad. I can sense that other energy seeping through the ground. It's coming from further away."
What Caelum found was like a river of an ominous energy so chilling that it nearly turned him numb from within for an instant. This was the same energy mixed into the dark mana in the forest. This was the same energy they felt in the mana wave outside the dungeon that attracted others.
But there was a much greater concentration of it here to the point that it formed a river. Or more accurately, he was touching upon a mere tributary that was already drying up. Caelum now had a guess as to what this energy was, but he still could not say for certain.
This strange energy was far more ethereal and mystical than mana. It would be difficult to even compare the two. But the shortest and simplest difference was that while mana was something that originates from outside the body, this other one naturally originates from within.
Except there was nothing natural about this tributary. From an instinctive feeling alone, Caelum knew that it should not even exist in such a form. It was a freak of nature that did not bode well for them and the other chosen trapped in this dungeon.
"So what do we do?"
"We follow it just like how we followed the trail of dark mana you found. But we need to be even more careful now. I don't like the feeling I'm getting from this energy."
And with that, the two continued onward. Caelum's black wing led the way for them, following the river of this strange energy upstream. And whether he was aware of it or not, Caelum's colourless wing also moved on its own, sinking deep into the river.
As they left the exhumed barrow, a trail of dried land followed. It was not water that was drained, however. It was something far more mystical.