Tenebrous Wolf
Chapter 111: Road to Nowhere

Chapter 111: Road to Nowhere

For a fleeting moment, Klaus was seized by the irrational fear that he’d unknowingly raised a death flag. To shake the ominous thought, he began muttering a short prayer under his breath — a half-remembered tune twisted into a chant — all while furiously stripping meat from the monster carcasses.

The rhythm of his blade and the cadence of the words blended together, keeping his mind occupied.

When he finally finished, Klaus placed the last slab of meat onto the seaweed saddlebag strapped to the Crimson Slayer. The creature turned and locked its eyes onto him. It stared for a few long seconds, scanning him in silence before shifting its focus to the feast.

Klaus blinked.

’What was that about? Was it sizing me up? It’s not thinking of eating me, right?’

A prickle of unease crept over him.

Logically, he knew the creature couldn’t harm him, not while it was bound to Morgan, who happened to be bound to him through the Soul Contract. But still... there was something about that beast that didn’t sit right.

He wondered if he was developing some kind of bestial instinct.

Come to think of it, weren’t all his abilities beast-like in nature?

Ever since the infection, his physical prowess had drastically improved and his senses hadn’t lagged behind. Even his gauntlets, Bloodwulf, bore a distinctly animalistic design.

What did it all mean?

Was it just coincidence? Or something deeper?

Shaking his head, Klaus pushed the distracting thoughts aside and swept his gaze across the area. Among the group, he spotted Seraphim harvesting oil sacs from the centipede monsters’ corpses. Each creature had two of them, connected to a strange gland.

Driven by curiosity, he approached her, stopping at a respectful distance then asked:

"Why are you collecting those?"

Sera glanced over her shoulder. "I don’t know."

Klaus raised an eyebrow.

"Wait, so you’re harvesting them without knowing why?"

She clarified calmly,

"What I meant is, I don’t know exactly what they’re for. But I do know they’re highly flammable, and that alone makes them worth keeping. Who knows when we’ll need something like that?"

He narrowed his eyes.

’Couldn’t she have just said that from the start? What’s the point of inviting confusion like that?’

A flammable substance could be invaluable. No... it would be invaluable in a future scenario, especially if they ever had to flee from, or tactically eliminate, a monstrous abomination far beyond their current level.

But the real issue was Seraphim’s communication skills.

If she had noticed this trait in the centipede creatures, she should’ve said something sooner. It wasn’t their first encounter with the mud-crawlers. Then again, maybe she’d only just figured it out.

Looking back, Sera had always been... odd. Sometimes she was silent and withdrawn then other times, a completely different person. This was the same girl who once passionately kicked a vending machine, after all.

’What a weird girl. I wonder if she’s just naturally shy... No, that’s not it. Maybe she has trouble opening up to people?’

Or maybe... she simply doesn’t know how to communicate with others.

Which one was it exactly? Perhaps it was both.

Klaus sighed.

With nothing else pressing to do, he decided to lend Seraphim a hand with extracting the oily substance. The process turned out to be more disgusting than dangerous, thankfully. The corrosive effect only occurred when the fluids from the two separate sacs were combined.

The stench was foul, thick enough to make his nose twitch and his stomach churn, but Klaus gritted his teeth and kept working. He tried not to think too hard about the squelching sounds or the jelly-like texture of the sacs. Better to focus on the task than on how badly his gloves were going to smell afterward.

When finished, he placed it inside a separate saddlebag attached to the Crimson Slayer before turning to the group.

"Is everyone done?"

They nodded in quiet agreement.

Klaus glanced up at the sky, trying to gauge the time. But with nothing above them but a stretch of lonely, gray cloud cover, it was impossible to tell how much daylight remained before nightfall.

He frowned slightly, then turned back to address the group.

"So what should we do from here? Should we return back to the cliffs or continue heading east?"

The ground level of the labyrinth wasn’t uniform. Certain areas rose higher than others, creating uneven terrain. Because of this, the distance between their current position and the flat cliffs wasn’t too great, so they could always turn back if needed.

At the same time, the path ahead remained open.

There was also the crimson sea to consider. But it hadn’t rained blood, nor had the dark clouds shown any sign of an impending storm for the past two weeks. That was reassuring, at least.

Lost in thought, Adrian stood silently for a moment. Then, with a firm voice, he said:

"I say we keep moving forward. What do you guys think?"

The area ahead hadn’t been scouted yet, but as long as there were no unexpected variables, they should be fine. The Freshwither was dead, eliminating the immediate threat, and putting more distance between themselves and the previous battleground felt necessary. There was still the fear of some unknown terror lurking behind them.

The others seemed to reach the same conclusion.

One by one, they nodded.

"Alright, let’s get moving."

With that, the group resumed their tedious journey.

† †

A couple hundred steps later, the group were heading towards the east of the Sunless Void. The grey sky above showed subtle signs of darkness, indicating the inevitable arrival of nightfall, but there was still enough time to get to safely.

Klaus, however, suddenly felt deeply uncomfortable.

This feeling began to pursue him not long after they left the cliffs and started heading east. It wasn’t just a lingering thought gnawing at the back of his mind. No, it was a senseless, creeping dread. The kind of anxiety that made his skin itch and his instincts twitch.

Like something bad was about to happen, or at least, that’s how he would describe it. And the farther east they traveled, the worse it got.

No matter how hard Klaus tried to figure out the source of this wrongness, he came up empty.

At first, he considered sharing it with the group. Just a heads-up, a warning. But in the end, he chose not to. The feeling was vague, shapeless, and he wasn’t even sure it meant anything. It could have just been nerves, paranoia or maybe ultimately useless worry.

Instead, he focused his thoughts and sent a mental message to Morgan through their unique link, quietly explaining the situation to the succubus.

Upon hearing his concerns, Morgan seemed genuinely surprised. Even she, a demoness attuned to dark forces, hadn’t sensed anything unusual. The same went for the Crimson Slayer, an evolved form of the nightmare carapace and an awakened beast in its own right. Neither of them had felt what Klaus was feeling.

Still, the demoness offered a theory. She suspected the sensation might be connected to his Echo. Since Klaus was the only one affected, it made sense to assume there was something unique about him that allowed for it.

That, she thought, might be the key.

Perhaps Klaus possessed a different kind of perception that set him apart from the others. But without any way to verify it, her theory remained just that: a guess, baseless until proven otherwise.

However, as it turned out, Morgan was right.

Some time later, the group came to an unexpected halt. They hadn’t taken a wrong path, nor had they encountered some towering wall or impassable obstacle.

They truly wished that was the case, but sadly, the sight before them wasn’t an illusion.

Before them yawned a massive horizontal chasm, wide and seemingly bottomless, cutting straight through the landscape like a scar. It stretched endlessly to the left and right, separating them from the path ahead. From the looks of it, the depth was unfathomable.

The abyss swallowed sound and light alike. When they kicked a loose stone over the edge, it fell without a trace. There was no echo or even an impact from the bottom. It was as though the chasm was really bottomless.

Everyone stood still, absorbing the sight. Even the Crimson Slayer, usually indifferent to such things, shifted uneasily.

Klaus gulped.

He had thought his uneasiness was related to a sleeping terror somewhere but it turned out to be something worse.

How were they supposed to reach the so-called Fortress if there was no path forward?

Seraphim peered into the void, frowned then muttered:

"There’s no way across. Hey... are you sure this is the right way?"

Adrian blinked, visibly rattled. He quickly pulled out his map and scanned it with furrowed brows, tracing the route with his finger.

"What? I—I’m sure this was the right way. According to the map, we should be on the correct path. But this chasm isn’t supposed to be here. There’s no record of it. Maybe we can find a way around?"

Even though he said that, his voice lacked conviction. They all could see how far it stretched in either direction.

Scanning the bottomless depths below, Morgan narrowed her eyes. It was clear she was analyzing something, though she didn’t speak right away. After a tense pause, she finally said in a low voice:

"This doesn’t look natural. There’s no erosion, no signs of collapse. The edges are too precise. It looks... intentional."

Adrian blinked, clearly startled.

"What do you mean? Are you saying something actually made this?"

Morgan gave a slow, grim nod.

"That’s exactly what I’m saying. And if that’s true, then it explains why the map doesn’t show it. This chasm must have appeared after the map was made. Something did this recently."

The silence that followed was thick and uneasy, as the weight of her words settled over the group.

They all understood the implications. Without a path forward, reaching the Fortress — their only hope and salvation — was impossible. The idea of building a makeshift bridge didn’t even cross their minds in any serious way. Unfortunately, It would be meaningless. Any attempt to cross the chasm would only lead to their untimely end.

Worse still, there was the grim possibility that whatever had created this abyss still lingered somewhere within its depths.

In other words, even standing here for too long was a risk.

Snapping out of his reverie, Klaus quickly tore his eyes away from the endless abyss. A part of him was seized by the irrational fear that if he kept looking, something might look back.

After a moment of hesitation, Klaus pushed down his anxiety and turned to face the group. His voice was quiet, almost tentative.

"So... what do we do now?"

No one answered. Their eyes remained fixed on the chasm, as if hoping it might suddenly offer a solution.

Adrian lowered his head, shoulders trembling slightly. Then, after a long pause, a look of quiet resignation settled over his face.

In a hushed voice, he said:

"I don’t know."

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.