The subway station they once knew had long vanished was replaced with something grotesque like stepping into a horror movie.
No rats or echoes like they usually saw. Only the sound of their boots squelching against the fleshy floor.
Minutes stretched on as they walked, but nothing changed.
The tunnel remained the same. It was still looked like long, straight walls lined with glowing crystal veins and grotesque pulsing muscle fibers.
It was unnervingly endless, like the world itself had been rewritten completely in this station.
Victor frowned, his grip tightening on the hilt of his knife.
"This tunnel’s too perfect and too straight. I don’t see any other branching tunnel anywhere else besides the straight line. This doesn’t feel like a station anymore."
Myles’s eyes narrowed. His instincts screamed the same warning.
It was clear now that this was no longer the ruins of a subway. It was something else entirely brought by the Etherfall.
Then, twenty meters ahead, they all saw it.
The walls changed again. The flesh became thicker, denser, and pulsing even more frequently.
Glowing veins of sickly green light ran through the walls like cables, twisting and branching in unnatural patterns.
The glow of this tunnel brightened and dimmed with the rhythm of the heart that was beating fast.
Victor lifted his arm and pointed. "That looks like a different zone."
The others followed his gaze. Their stomachs clenched at the sight.
New zones could mean new rules and new enemies.
A ripple of unease passed through the group. They all had fought bravely earlier but now they shifted uncomfortably again.
"Yes," Myles said. His black blade glimmered faintly as he rested it against his shoulder. "Be careful. If we notice something wrong, we run back immediately. Don’t hesitate."
The survivors nodded, forming a tighter formation as they approached.
When they stepped closer—just a few meters from the boundary—an oppressive energy washed over them.
It wasn’t just the air. It was something different, as if the space in front of them resisted their presence.
The temperature dropped. The pulsing veins along the walls throbbed faster.
A faint vibration trembled under their feet, echoing up through their bones.
Everyone froze at the edge of the zone. They swallowed their saliva.
Ryan, Kade, Ethan, George, Daniel, Sam, and Clara all exchanged nervous glances.
Fear clung to their eyes, their bodies stiff with hesitation.
None of them wanted to take another step into that place.
But then they looked forward to Myles.
His back was straight and his shoulders looked steady, black blade hanging casually against his shoulder as if the oppressive air meant nothing to him.
He didn’t waver, didn’t hesitate. That sight alone pulled them back from the brink of panic and anchored their minds.
If he could stand firm like that, maybe they could too if they with him.
"Alright," Myles said with a calm and firm tone. "Victor, Nadine, and I will take the front. The rest of you this time, don’t fight until we see what we’re dealing with. If I tell you to run, you run straight to the entrance. Don’t look back."
The survivors nodded in unison. They didn’t argue or complain.
Each of them understood perfectly that if Myles told them to run that meant even he wasn’t confident in winning.
If Myles wasn’t confident then nothing they did would make a difference except dragging him down.
Victor rolled his shoulders, testing the weight of his knife while Nadine tightened her grip on the makeshift spear.
Both of them gave a slight nod toward Myles, ready to follow his lead.
Myles inhaled slowly, feeling the red veins along his black short sword pulse faintly in his grip.
Then he stepped forward.
One after another, they crossed the threshold into the new zone.
The moment they did, the air shifted completely.
It grew heavier than when they were on the threshold, pressing down on their lungs like invisible hands.
The fleshy walls quivered as if aware of their presence.
The green veins glowed brighter and cast warped shadows that seemed to move on their own.
A wet sound echoed deeper in the tunnel. Something was breathing.
The group froze again. Their hearts were hammering.
But Myles didn’t stop walking.
The wet breathing deepened, echoing like a chorus of low growls.
From the fleshy walls ahead, three shapes emerged out of the mist.
They were once men and women in ragged office clothes but their bodies had turned grotesque.
Their skin had stretched thin over sharp bones and their arms hung unnaturally long.
From the center of their foreheads jutted a single jagged horn that pulsed with a sickly green glow in rhythm with the walls around them.
Their eyes were hollow and clouded but their movements were still sharp.
Myles’s gaze locked on the horns. His instincts sharpened immediately that those things might be important and can be harvested.
He lifted his black blade with its faintly glowing red veins and spoke in a low, steady tone. "I’ll move first."
The monsters hissed as if provoked, their bodies tensing.
The air vibrated with their hunger before all three charged forward at once.
Myles dashed in to meet them with his sword raised.
The first monster swung its elongated arm like a club.
Myles ducked then swung his blade cutting upward with a crimson flash of light that showed the energy behind the blade..
The black short sword carved across the chest but the creature didn’t die immediately. It screeched and retaliated faster than he expected. It attacked and nearly clipped him with his claw that moved fast.
"Huh, these mutated monsters are stronger than before. This place mutated them with different energy, it seems," Myles thought as he twisted his body aside and pushed forward again.
His sword slashed at the same spot before and this time his slashes were deep enough. Blood gushed out from the wound.
He pressed forward intending to kill the already wounded one first while dodging the other two for now.