An eerie silence. The hollow echoes of dripping water, faint sounds that might have come from living things, and the crackling of distant flames were swallowed one by one by something approaching.
Only then did they realize how lively this underground world had been. A multitude of tiny noises had formed their perception of the sounds around them.
The background noise from one direction had vanished, replaced by the sound of metal parts being dragged along in a mass of slime. It gradually drowned out their companions' breathing, drawing closer and closer.
It was hard to think of it as any single creature. As it approached, it showed none of the normal signs of activity. It was like a wall or a sluggish tide bearing down on them, sweeping everything it touched into itself.
It seemed to have a physical form, yet hearing it gave them no concrete idea of what it looked like. It existed in a state of incomprehensible chaos.
An undeniable force emanated from that chaos. The metal churning within it scraped and ground against the stone walls as it moved, producing a shrill, muffled scream that stirred humanity's primal instinct to recoil from such piercing sounds.
Beyond two doorways, the light dimmed. A torch abandoned on the ground went out, and the darkness advancing in step with the silence appeared to churn, studded with sharp, flat fragments. It resembled the foam of a freezing tide, tangled with arthropod limbs and broken shells.
The little iron bottle detector had stopped making any sound. The contents had set into something with the consistency of wet sand, making the bottle feel unusually heavy.
Green froze for a few seconds, trying to understand the situation. If he remembered correctly, according to the instructions, this meant supernatural power had appeared nearby—and