The group fanned out slightly as they took their first steps into the vast expanse of this new area, or actually a new world.
Their eyes moved in every direction and the strange silence of this world pressed against their skins.
It wasn’t just the silence of emptiness but it felt like something watching them and waiting to pounce, which made them even more anxious.
With their Perception enhanced by the points they had invested, they no longer needed to guess—there were things here. Beings. They can feel the energy that pulsing beneath the ground, flowing through these strange plants, and lingering in the air.
It was thick, clinging to their skin and slipping under their breath.
Myles narrowed his eyes. That sense of strangeness didn’t just belong to a mutated earth after the apocalypse. It was more than that.
The air itself vibrated with an unfamiliar force that didn’t belong to the world they had grown up in.
"This really is another world," he thought grimly. "I didn’t think this would happen. But I should have, knowing that this is a cosmic disaster."
"Stay sharp," Myles finally said, though he didn’t need to.
The ten of them were already tense, their weapons gripped tight in their grips. Their eyes looking through every twisted vine and mist-breathing flower.
He could see it on their faces that they all knew something was different now and ready for it. That makes them a little bit assured.
Ethan whispered, his voice filled with unease. "If this is truly another world, what kind of things live here?"
Clara’s eyes flicked upward at the eerie lightning that crackled in silence across the black-violet sky.
"Maybe it’s still like some kind of dungeon," she said, trying to sound steady. "Then it will give us something like the Soul Forge Altar. If there’s a strong monster here, maybe there’s also something worth finding."
Ryan gave a short, humorless chuckle. "Or maybe what we’ll find is our corpses being scattered across this ground." His voice was grim, but there was no malice in it, just cold realism.
The air grew heavier, and their footsteps slowed as if their bodies were reluctant to move deeper.
They were people who were marching against their instincts.
Among them, Sam—the youngest of the group—trembled.
Her knuckles were white around the handle of the weapon she carried.
Her wide eyes darted nervously at every moving vine.
"I... I don’t like this place," she said, her voice cracking. "It’s worse than before. I can feel it. I don’t... I don’t want to die here."
Nadine quickly moved closer, placing a firm hand on the girl’s shoulder. "Listen to me, Sam. You’re not alone here. We’re all here, and no one is leaving you behind whatever happens. If anything comes, we will fight it together."
Nadine’s voice was calm but carried a hard tone that made the younger girl’s frantic breaths slow just a little. Once again, looking at Nadine a person can feel grounded.
Clara joined in, giving Sam a reassuring smile despite the fear in her own eyes.
"Nadine’s right. We’ve survived a lot of bad things already. You’ve survived that. Just keep walking with us. That’s all we need to do."
Sam nodded weakly, tears shimmering in her eyes, though she didn’t let them fall.
The comfort of their words steadied her legs even when the fear remained.
Myles watched in silence, his hand tightening on the short sword with red veins running along its blade.
He didn’t say anything, but his mind sharpened, already planning.
He knew the fear that lingered in all of them was necessary—it kept them cautious.
But if it rooted them in place, they would not be able to move in their best conditions.
The group pressed forward again, every step taking them deeper into the alien wasteland.
The farther they walked into the land, the more their imaginations painted horrors in every shadow and mist, and even though none of them voiced it aloud, they all shared the same thought. Something was coming. They just didn’t know when or what.
A few minutes later, they saw something sprawling in the not so far distance.
It makes them feel like they were looking at a grave. A grave that doesn’t belong to humans.
Jagged stones jutted from the earth, arranged in rows that bent and twisted rather than standing straight.
The ground was black, brittle, and cracked, with veins of faintly glowing pale blue light pulsing beneath the surface.
Instead of crosses or headstones, the graves were marked by monoliths of bone like massive femurs and skull fragments fused together into grotesque spires that leaned toward the sky.
The air was colder here. Their breath steamed, even though no wind moved across the wasteland.
Mist coiled low and thick, curling around their ankles.
The silence that had pressed on them before was heavier here, but it was not empty. Something is present here.
The smell was sweet and foul that clawed at their throats.
Nadine lifted her spear instinctively, her eyes darting to the shadows between the bone spires.
Victor grimaced, his knuckles tight on his cleaver.
Myles stopped at the edge of a row. His Perception burned like a warning inside his chest.
These stones and bone spires contained something.
Their expressions tightening as the shapes of the graves became clearer. Some of the bone spires have carvings etched in a strange language and symbols that made their heads ache if they stared too long.
"Shit," George couldn’t help but curse under his breath.
The mist pooled thicker between the rows, and within it they could almost make out shapes, outlines of forms curled up, bound beneath the earth.
When Sam accidentally stepped too close to one of the bone spires it trembled, sending a faint vibration through the ground.
She stumbled back with a strangled gasp, and Nadine quickly pulled her away.
Myles narrowed his eyes at the endless rows stretching into the horizon.
His instincts screamed that they were trespassing already and something in this graveyard was aware of them.
At that moment another notification appeared in their eyes.
[You had found the Grave Of Imprisontment!]
[Reward: 500 EXP]