But Var Khani did not stop. There was a strange fire burning in his eyes. He struck again.
The third strike was completely different from the first.
Var Khani raised his hammer high, like a warrior pointing his sword at the enemy. His shoulder muscles tensed like steel wires, filled with unimaginable strength.
As the hammer rose through the air, it created an eerie vibration, as if an invisible vortex of power had formed around him. His breathing grew so deep and forceful that with every breath, the dust of the cave swirled like a storm.
And then—the fourth strike!
This time, the stone shattered. But what followed was the most terrifying sound of all.
At the very moment the stone broke, an incredible force seemed to erupt from the heart of the earth itself. Compared to the first blow, this sound of destruction was a thousand times more dreadful—like the eruption of countless volcanoes, like every wave of the ocean crashing together upon a mountain. Every wall of the cave trembled so violently it felt as if the world itself might collapse.
Massive chunks of stone began to fall from the ceiling, each one like a meteorite crashing down.
A deep, inhuman roar echoed—rising as if from the core of the world. It was not the sound of any known creature.
It was the voice of something that had been imprisoned for thousands of years—and now, for the first time, had tasted freedom.
The nature of that roar was so unnatural that human ears could barely contain it.
It was a sound of many layers—like the cries of millions of souls, like the wailing of countless ghosts, like the unified roar of all demons from the underworld.
Within that sound was a strange rhythm—as if someone, or something, was speaking in an ancient tongue—but it was not a language of men; it belonged to another realm entirely.
In every tone was buried the anger of millennia, the pain of endless ages, and a hunger beyond measure—as though whatever had been released had starved for so long that now it wished to devour everything.
In the midst of this catastrophe, Rafa Dir closed his beloved diary. His hands shook, his voice trembled with terror, his heart raced as he tried to steady his breath. Wiping the sweat from his face, eyes wide with fear, he stammered:
"Var, stop! This… this isn't natural. I think we're awakening something beyond our control."
As he spoke, his whole body quivered in unstoppable fear, his voice carrying the warning of fifty years of experience.
Even after Rafa Dir's warning faded into the air, Var Khani's eyes blazed with an unnatural, almost divine fire—not the fire of ambition, but as if his very soul had been altered by an ancient curse. His gaze burned with a supernatural intensity, no longer that of a man who had entered this cave, but something else entirely. His face had transformed—the jawline harder, the brows thicker, and in his pupils glowed a dreadful resolve. His breathing grew heavy, each exhale carrying the scent of fire. The muscles in his arms swelled with unnatural strength, and he gripped the hammer so tightly that blood began to seep from beneath his fingernails.
The air in the cave grew denser, more oppressive, as though an invisible force was now controlling the atmosphere.
Each breath felt heavy, burdened—as if the air itself carried the weight of ancient evil gathered over ages.
The drops of sweat falling from his brow hissed upon touching the ground, as if they were not salt and water, but some corrosive substance.
His skin had turned a faint shade of red, as though molten blood flowed through his veins.
Var Khani turned his face toward Rafa Dir, but the look in his eyes was no longer human—it was filled with inhuman madness, a demonic determination. His voice, once deep but human, now rang like that of an ancient warrior—terrifyingly powerful.
When he spoke, every stone in the cave seemed to tremble with his words.
"I can't stop, Rafa. I've waited too many years for this."
Var Khani stepped forward again, but his movement had changed completely.
He was no longer walking—he was gliding, his feet touching the ground, yet it seemed as though some unseen power was carrying him.
A faint glow surrounded his body, as if he was turning into a being of pure light. With each step, tiny cracks spread across the floor beneath him, as though his weight had multiplied a thousandfold.
He moved toward the second stone.
From the ground beneath his feet rose a strange heat, as if a river of fire flowed under the rock.
Sweat streamed down his forehead—but it was not cool; it burned like boiling oil.
Rafa Deer was trembling in terror after seeing this situation. In his fifty years of research experience, he had never witnessed anything like this.
Taf ran quickly towards Var Khani.
To stop him.
Shaking, he tried to touch Var Khani's shoulder, but the moment his hand touched Var Khani's body, he felt as if he had touched a blazing furnace.
A searing pain spread across his palm, and he pulled his hand away, screaming in agony.
Tears filled his eyes, his face twisted in pain, and he realised that his dear friend Var Khani was no longer the man he once knew.
Var Khani slowly turned his face towards Taf.
There was no trace of human warmth in his gaze anymore, only a terrifying indifference.
His pupils had turned crimson, and his voice now sounded like something from the underworld—deep and hollow. When he spoke, the air inside the cave trembled with every word.
"I cannot, Taf. After all these years of searching... I cannot stop. This is our life's work. This is..."
he said in a broken voice.
"I am a sorcerer. A centuries-old sorcerer."
His words were left unfinished.
Before he could finish speaking, an unprecedented, unimaginable scene unfolded.
From the cracks in the broken stones began to rise something no human had ever seen before.
It was not smoke. It was not vapour—it was living darkness, a shadow with its own consciousness. The black mass rose, changing shape again and again—sometimes like a serpent, sometimes like a human hand, sometimes like forms that had no names in any language.
Black, dense, and within it—countless small eyes could be seen.
Yes, eyes—blinking, looking around, watching, observing.
Those eyes came in many forms—some like human eyes, some like animals', and some that belonged to no known creature.
Each eye burned with an unholy fire; each gaze carried the hunger of a thousand years.
The eyes stared at the explorers with a strange, greedy intent—as if they had been waiting for this moment for ages.
Shid, who had been standing silently in the corner of the wall all this time, finally lost all his composure at the sight of this supernatural scene.
His young heart, once full of courage, now trembled with indescribable fear.
His handsome face, once radiant with youth, twisted into a mask of horror.
His eyes widened in terror, his lips went dry and stiff. His strong, muscular body shook like a leaf. He stepped away from the wall and screamed, his voice filled with panic:
"This is wrong! This thing... it will destroy us!"
As Shid spoke, his entire body shook as if struck by an earthquake.
His handsome, youthful face aged within seconds—it was as though he had grown ten years older in mere moments.
He kept waving his hands in the air in a strange, desperate motion, as if brushing away invisible, disgusting insects crawling over him—as if thousands of ants were moving beneath his skin.
But Var Khani seemed completely detached from everything around him.
He could no longer hear Nasar, Him, or the others' cries.
In his ears now echoed only that ominous roar, and in his eyes—only the mysterious stones.
He reached the second stone; his hammer rose again towards the sky. He struck the second stone.
After that second blow, the situation became even more dreadful.
This time the sound was louder—deeper.
The structure of the cave itself began to collapse. The walls seemed alive; they shook, cracked, and from every fissure poured out a strange reddish light.
Chunks of stone fell from the ceiling, crashing onto the floor with deafening noise. But the most horrifying thing was the roar—it had become clearer, more threatening, more hungry.
Var Khani kept striking the stones—third, fourth, fifth, sixth.
With each strike, that dark force grew stronger and freer.
The air inside the cave turned suffocating; every breath felt like swallowing poison.
After the third stone broke, its surface suddenly began to glow. Now, the moonlight was no longer needed—the stone itself was glowing. The light was so bright that everyone had to close their eyes.
This light was not a natural light—it was the manifestation of pure energy, as if the very core of the sun had sent its radiance into this cursed cave. In that blinding light, the explorers' eyes began to burn, and their skin started to sear. Even when they tried to cover their eyes with their hands, the light pierced through their fingers, stabbing through their eyelids.
Then came the fourth, fifth, and sixth stones.
With every strike, the atmosphere of the cave grew more perilous.
The black substance floating in the air thickened, spreading wider and wider. The countless eyes within it became clearer, sharper, more menacing. They were no longer just observing—now they seemed to be hunting.
And then came that moment—when the seventh stone shattered—an unbelievable event occurred.