The sheer scale of the earthen rift made it appear far closer than it actually was. It was still only a distance of a few kilometres away from the town, but each step felt endlessly longer than it needed to be. A ways ahead, the unmoving corpse of Gor’eth Kung loomed, his previously molten body having cooled and settled to an ashy grey substance.

Idly, Brock wondered if they could mine him too.

With the rate of their jogging, the group was due to arrive in only another five minutes. Already, as the monument to power edged its way further into their vision, Brock was once again amazed at how wide the split was. It was a… humbling sight, to say the least, even if he was the one who had created it.

Somehow.

He had caught Erin on the wall before they left, so it hadn’t appeared like they had just vanished into thin air, and the girl seemed far too excited about their plans to go there. According to her, she’d already meddled around with the place, and there was a small station they could go to and descend from. Brock had already spotted it before, but it was good to have confirmation on what it was.

She’d also made mention of how the stone was unnaturally resistant to her abilities, but as none of them planned to shift the terrain magically, he thought it was something of little importance currently. He was thankful, however, that she didn’t again bring up his abrupt paleness, though he did catch her staring at various parts of his skin as they talked.

Brock sighed. Maybe that lizard sun-bleached me? Got the tan of all tans.

He didn’t exactly recall getting hit by any flames, but maybe the ambient heat alone was enough to take effect. If the sun could do it, so could a magic reptile. Apparently.

“Hey, Brock,” the man in question looked over at Harry, whose brows were furrowed with concern. He raised his own in askance and the boy responded, “…your nose is bleeding.”

It is?

He reached his arm up as they finally zoned in on the small outpost Erin had created, and he wiped at the base of his nose with the back of his hand. He resisted the urge to lick his dried lips as he glanced down at the splotch of crimson that now marred his skin. There were no chunky bits, so he at least knew it hadn’t been going on for a while, but he was surprised he hadn’t noticed.

Clicking his tongue, Brock leaned down and wiped the blood on the cracked earth, before proceeding to pinch his nose and tilt his head back. Harry didn’t comment after that, and a quick look showed that Fon was too occupied with something else to notice anything was amiss.

When they finally arrived thirty seconds later, Brock let his pinch go, and was relieved to see that nothing else leaked out. That was weird… I haven’t had a blood nose since high school…

As a silence began to settle over them, Fon came back to planet Earth and she regarded both men slowly, “I… hadn’t really had much time to go and look at this place myself, but there’s an immense diversity of energies here.”

She passed a breath through her lips, as if in awe.

“Augments, aura, a few others too; there’s a ton, and some even seem to clash with each other,” she continued. Brock nodded her way, and while he couldn’t pick apart or really even sense all the different types of powers at play, he could feel a distinctly familiar energy permeating every aspect of the terrain.

His own aura signature.

Brock closed his eyes and let his senses roam. It was rather hard to investigate the residue aura he felt over the place, as it was spread so thinly, but one fact was undeniable. It wasn’t truly his own. As far as he was aware, all Techniques burned aura as fuel, and therefore were bound to leave some sort of ‘emission’ or trace behind. He was certain Salvation was no different.

And sure, it didn’t seem to be any different in that regard, but his aura was. It was unmistakably his own aura, there was no doubt about it there, but it was upscaled, like it had been given a significant boost to its power without the actual resources to support the growth. It was certainly far more powerful than his current aura, perhaps even almost rivalling that of Gor’eth’s, but it was patchy and haphazard at best.

‘Unstable’, was the best word he could think for it. Reminds me of lower rarity auras… wait…

That must’ve been why my pathways got fucked up. They probably couldn’t handle the instability of the aura. Or maybe it was just because it was E Grade aura? He was regretting not paying more attention at the time he activated his third Technique, but things were starting to piece themselves together.

He had no clue why or how his aura was altered like that, but he was certain it made the activation and therefore subsequent effect extremely unstable. Perhaps it wasn’t the Technique itself that was so destructive, but the fuel that had been used to power it. Kind of like the difference between using a nuclear power plant or a coal burner to charge your phone.

One was so much more powerful yet had the potential to go an infinite amount more wrong.

I feel smarter already. Brock snorted and crested the crude doorway of the structure. Science, ladies and gentlemen.

The inside of the building was fairly subdued, as one would expect from a stone hovel, possessing only a single stone table and a pair of immovable earthen stools. A small cast of window holes dotted each wall, enough to let natural light in, and Brock immediately turned his attention to the door directly opposite the one they had entered from.

Above it, a series of words had been haphazardly chiselled out in bold. ‘Big fall ahead’, it read.

Brock chuckled but furrowed his brows. He didn’t know if he’d ever get over the strangeness of the System’s translation features. Clearly, the words were carved out in Russian characters. He could see that. Yet when he read it, he always seemed to read it as English, despite having no idea what the words actually said.

To say it was a trippy and hard to explain experience would be an understatement. I dunno why Erin didn’t just use her powers to carve out an English version…

Either way, he praised the satirical warning sign of sorts, and led his group through the other door. It led out to what was best described as a stone balcony, a large slab overlooking the chasm around double the size of their jeep, at least in area.

Cautiously, Harry crept over to the stone rails that prevented any idiots from plummeting to their doom and peered over. Brock saw the boy’s feet tap the ground nervously, and he resisted the urge to chuckle, “Uhhh. This thing goes really far down.”

If not for his track record of falling off high places, Brock would have moved over and had a look himself, maybe even spat down it to test how deep it was. Instead, Fon joined Harry and patted him on the shoulder softly. She chose to say nothing, but from the way her shoulders tensed up, he could tell it was definitely quite a sight.

Oh, fuck me.

Brock gave a pronounced sigh and tiptoed forward, taking his place beside his two friends. Carefully, and making sure to grip the rail tightly, he peeked his head over and gazed downward. He deadpanned and threw a side long glance at the two people beside him, their faces marred with indecision.

It’s just black. I can see fuck all.

Sure, there might have been the common pin pricks of different coloured glows scattered across the shadowy void, but all they did was let him know something interesting was down there. It was strange, but the light they emitted didn’t seem to illuminate their surroundings at all. It reminded Brock of a place he’d rather forget about.

He glanced at his companions once more, though they were still focused on the nothingness that stretched out beneath them. Ok. When you put it like that, this shit is kinda scary.

Briefly, he imagined what it’d be like to fall down the massive cavity and he found himself unimpressed. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Splat.

You wouldn’t even see the rock your guts were scattered across. Brock hissed out a sharp breath. It was times like this that he wished Genesis had gifted him a drone. He wondered if there was a way he could contact Adam and get one, though he knew it’d be difficult. You know, because he broke the phone he was gifted for free.

“You guys… uh…” Brock stepped back and garnered their attention, “ready to go down?”

Harry’s eyes practically bulged in his skull, “There’s a down?!”

Fon just half cried, half sighed. In all honesty, he felt like doing the same. He wasn’t exactly on good terms with heights these days. And he knew firsthand why people should fear them. Feeling your skull shatter on concrete was certainly quite a deterrent to the act of falling.

Well, it obviously didn’t fucking work, cause I fell from the same building the next day.

Grimacing, he gestured toward the only area on the entire balcony where there was no railing. Instead, it led out directly onto another railed balcony less than half a meter down, akin to some sort of enlarged set of stairs. It was attached directly to the wall of the chasm, or more accurately, it seemed to be created from the wall of the chasm.

As Brock peered over the edge of the first balcony and gazed at the underneath of the second, he could see how rugged stone supports stretched on beneath for dozens of meters. Thank God Erin had the foresight to install supports. He felt the tenseness at the ensuing descent ease from his shoulders slightly.

She’s like Harry, but with common sense.

In the end, both Harry and Fon worked up enough nerve to follow him down, and they descended one oversized step at a time. They could only see about ten steps ahead at any given time due to the obviously unnatural darkness, but as they walked for a few minutes and went further and further into the chasm, they realised the true extent to which Erin had worked on this place.

Brock could sense the remnant aura traces of the woman in each created step, and while the aura wasn’t really anything special, he was quite impressed with how thoroughly she had granted travel access with her powers. Harry seemed yet more impressed, positively brimming with giddiness as he experienced Erin’s handywork firsthand.

He remembered when he was his age and would get like that. It usually didn’t last long. When he was happy were the times Jordan liked to strike. Hmmm. Maybe I should have broken an arm or a leg or something when we fought.

A glowing blue sheen ahead cut off his follow up thoughts on revenge, and he instead focused on what they were approaching. Idly, he took notice of the steep increase the area was having as to the intensity of his altered remnant aura, and he finally realised that a thin layer of sweat had adorned both Harry’s and Fon’s foreheads.

He had seen it on Fon a few minutes ago, but he had assumed it was due to her apparent claustrophobia. He acknowledged that the steps were quite wide, but he didn’t really understand what the minimum ‘width’ was to trigger her claustrophobia. He had never really asked, though maybe he should.

Good idea, Brock.

Back to the aura, however. It wasn’t strong enough to oppress them by any significant metric, and he himself was barely affected by it, but that would only last so long for both cases. He felt the only reason he wasn’t sweating from the pressure right now was due to the aura having originally been his own. Lucky.

Eventually, they arrived upon the origin of the blue glow, and Brock was slightly disappointed to see that it was a mere vein of magical ore. It wasn’t even a new one, but one he had seen prior at Ivan’s Smithery. He could see the area where some ore had been dug out, and from the broken shards of steel scattered around the step, he could verify Ivan’s words that it was a difficult affair to mine.

“Guess he wasn’t lying.”

Fon and Harry only offered a grunt of affirmation, instead focused on resisting the idle presence that was bearing down on them. Aside from the intensity that increased with depth, it also seemed to bear down on them harder and harder the longer they remained here. Like a vengeful spirit against trespassers in its home.

Humming to himself, Brock peered over the edge of the current set of rails and down to the darkness. Deep within him, he felt the depths calling out to him, beckoning him. No, not him. Something deep inside of him. Something hidden within his very soul.

Fortunately, he had begun to notice signs of erosion on the steps and reality came crashing down on him. Apparently, his altered aura seemed to be passively destroying Erin’s creations, making the steps unstable. The further they went, the more dangerous it’d become.

Well… The beckoning didn’t stop, and instead became more desperate. Going a little further couldn’t hurt. Probably.

And so, they continued to venture down for another five minutes. A few different types of ores popped up here and there, some filling him with the strange sensation of boundless vitality, and others heavily reminding him of the fiery heat of his own Augment or the warping power of South.

All that he saw seemed to possess unique abilities and properties, and he felt himself profoundly excited at the thought of the types of gear they would produce once mined.

Time passed and he was getting extremely nervous every single time he took a step. The corners of some platforms were crumbling, and many of the rails he had seen had either fallen away or snapped and landed backwards onto the steps. Some even had holes in them, and the instability of the steps this far down were readily clear to him.

Still though, if he could just go a little further. If he could just find what was calling to h-

The world seemed to slow as his foot tapped down on the next step and a gut-wrenching crack resounded, the noise echoing throughout the darkness. A spray of magically hardened dirt and stone scattered across his face as the step ripped itself from the chasm wall, and his heart constricted in his chest when he continued down with it, his foot firmly planted upon its surface.

A powerful hand whipped out and snatched him by his remaining arm, halting his fall even as the step plummeted downward. Breathing heavily, he watched the stone constructure descend into blackness, his legs dangling mockingly above it. A slew of expletives left his mouth as Harry pulled him back up, and Brock fell back down on his ass, heaving out a sigh.

“Holy. Fuck,” he met Harry’s eyes, and smiled shakily, “thanks, mate. You saved me there.”

The boy inflated a little at his show of gratitude and Fon rolled her eyes, before moving to help Brock back up to his feet. He could see how much of a struggle doing so was for her, “I assume you… don’t want to jump… to the next step?”

Brock shook his head humorously, and the duo of Fon and Harry began their return to the surface. His two companions’ clothes had become drenched with their sweat, and idly, he noticed that their knees occasionally buckled as they walked.

He only spared one last glance into the tempting depths of the darkness. It was so familiar, so kind. It wished to embrace him, and he in turn wished to embrace it. He stopped walking away. If only he could just see what was beckoning h-

Growling, Brock ripped his eyes away and planted them firmly ahead. Sighing softly, he resumed walking and re-joined his companions.

Whatever lay down there, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.