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Chapter 36 – The Wolves Beneath
The land remained silent as they continued walking. The crimson sky hung still overhead, unmoving. Every step they took echoed on the cracked obsidian ground, each footfall louder than the last, as if the very earth was listening.
Then Tae-hyun stopped.
Jinhwan noticed instantly. "What is it?"
Tae-hyun's head tilted. His gaze locked onto the horizon—empty rock and red haze.
Something prickled in the air. A low, nearly imperceptible hum, buried beneath the silence. A wrongness.
Then his face paled.
He stepped back.
"No," Tae-hyun whispered. "No. That presence…"
He turned and ran.
"Wait—Tae-hyun!" Jinhwan shouted, but the younger cultivator was already sprinting full speed across the jagged ground.
Without hesitation, Jinhwan followed.
"Where are you going?!"
"They're coming!" Tae-hyun shouted, voice cracked with fear.
And then they heard it.
A howl.
Low, guttural, distant—and yet impossibly loud. Not one. Many. Dozens.
Dozens of them.
More howls joined in—surrounding them, converging from all sides. The sound ricocheted across the crimson plains like a symphony of predators.
Jinhwan drew his blade. "What the hell is that?"
"They're not beasts," Tae-hyun growled. "They're something else."
The earth began to rumble beneath their feet.
They ran faster, leaping over chasms and weaving between jagged stones. The howls grew closer. Louder. Their breath came in ragged gasps, lungs burning, hearts hammering.
And then—
Crack.
The earth split beneath them.
There was no time to react.
The ground collapsed with a roar, sucking them into darkness.
Tae-hyun's body slammed into rock as he tumbled, arms flailing. Jinhwan's cry echoed beside him. Dust and ash swallowed them whole as they plummeted into a massive subterranean cavern.
They hit the bottom hard. Pain flared through their limbs.
Then silence.
But only for a moment.
Because above them—
More howls.
And then shapes.
Dark figures fell into the cavern like rain.
Eyes glowed in the dark.
Wolves.
Six of them. No—eight.
Twisted, massive creatures, twice the size of normal wolves, their fur as black as shadow, their teeth long and jagged like broken blades. Saliva dripped from their maws. Their howls echoed off the stone walls.
Tae-hyun scrambled up, blood running down his temple. Jinhwan staggered to his feet, sword raised.
The wolves circled, their growls vibrating through the stone.
No words were exchanged.
Only breath.
Only fear.
Only the slow, tightening noose of death inching closer.
And then—
They pounced.
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The cavern roared with chaos.
Snarling wolves surged forward like a living tide, their glowing eyes and snapping jaws thirsting for blood. But Tae-hyun didn't move like prey—he moved like a man calculating death itself.
"Don't fight to kill!" he shouted, already moving. "We won't survive that way!"
Jinhwan parried a lunging beast, slashing its leg before spinning back-to-back with Tae-hyun. "What then? We stand and die?!"
"No!" Tae-hyun's eyes darted across the cavern. "We move!"
He grabbed a loose stone from the ground and flung it toward a column of jagged stalactites. The impact dislodged them, sending a rain of piercing rock down onto a pack of incoming wolves—buying them precious seconds.
"Follow me! Stay close!"
They surged forward—not toward the pack but through a narrow corridor formed by collapsed debris. The wolves followed, but the terrain was tight, uneven.
Exactly what Tae-hyun needed.
"Trip them," he growled, kicking loose stones behind him. "Make them bottleneck."
Jinhwan slashed at the wall as he ran, causing thin fissures to spider along the rock, ready to collapse. "Collapse the path behind us?"
Tae-hyun grinned, blood trailing from his lip. "You're catching on."
They reached the end of the corridor and ducked under a low overhang. The wolves surged after them—then Tae-hyun channeled a burst of qi into a nearby rock formation.
"Now!"
BOOM.
The wall gave way.
Tons of stone came crashing down, burying dozens of wolves and sealing the narrow passage with a thunderous crack. Dust and silence filled the air.
"Not bad," Jinhwan muttered, panting.
Tae-hyun's face was pale, sweat streaking his bruised skin. "It won't hold forever."
They turned.
Before them stretched another descent—spiraling deeper into the dark veins of the earth.
They had no map. No plan.
But behind them was death.
And ahead…
Possibility.
They stepped into the abyss.
To be continued.
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