Crow cracked his eyes open and wished he hadn’t. Lily was on the ground next to him, and she looked worse than he did. He remembered Mara joining them, but not Lily.

Mara was passed out near him, half undressed. It looked like she tried to take her shirt off but got stuck and gave up. The wrap she used as an undergarment still covered her breasts, but it was quite the sight.

“Otto mountain fall,” Otto whined pitifully, and Crow laughed but had to stop because it hurt his head.

*Hah, we all had fun watching the show.* Song Lin claimed.

“Can you help?” Crow asked hoarsely.

*Take it, fool. Next time, you better invite me.*

“Deal!” Crow said and received a couple of vials of medicine. One he downed immediately and felt the alcohol leaving his body through his pores. It was disgusting and nearly made him vomit, but he felt much better. Walking over to Otto, he urged him to open his mouth and poured the concoction in. He went through the same thing Crow did, only much worse. Mara and Lily both received a dose. It woke them up, but they were still looking a little rough. Crow and Otto walked into the river to clean themselves off, but the water was freezing. The cold would be unbearable if they weren’t cultivators, but neither of them paid much notice to the temperature.

“Send us in,” Mara croaked, and Lily nodded.

“You don’t want to get cleaned up?” Crow asked.

“Idiot. You have hot springs in your SoulScape. Why would I want to jump in an icy river?” Mara rolled her eyes. “By the way, name your world because we don’t know what to call it, and SoulScape doesn’t sound appropriate anymore.”

“I’ll think of something and have fun with your soak.” Crow sent them in and finished his bath before summoning out the boat once more. The two continued downriver, but this time Crow put himself into a semi-conscious state and sort of slept while operating the Vanguard on auto-pilot. Based on the snoring, Otto was out of it, too.

The river journey wasn’t bad, but sunlight would have made it way better. Occasionally, Crow found plants filled with mana and figured they were some type of alchemical ingredient, so he transplanted them into a cave inside his Soulscape. Song Lin was excited about it and even told him to keep an eye out for other rare herbs that were usually only found in caves.

Even in his meditative state, the girls would take turns talking to him throughout the day. They provided a distraction on monotonous days, and two weeks slipped by pretty quickly. Other than one Rockdust Bear, something they awoke when floating by its home, nothing exciting happened. The bear chased them down the river for almost two days before it gave up.

Mara was floating with them today, and she was the one to point out the landmark.

“That’s it.”

“What is?” Crow asked, startled out of his semi-conscious state. A habit he got into during the long days even if others were present.

“That stone pylon. We need to disembark there.”

“Not sure I follow, but okay?”

“It’s the path to the Ascent Wall. Once we see the wall, we can follow it south to find the Ascension Stairs.”

“Oh, that was short.”

“Not really. Normal boats wouldn’t have traveled that fast. It’d have taken them at least twice the time.”

Otto, Mara, and Crow trudged along and exited the cave tunnel into a massive cavern. There was still no sun, and it was impossible to see the ceiling, so he assumed it was a cavern. Turning south, they kept walking until they found the stairs.

“Lily, tell Acco to send people out if they haven’t ascended these stairs. The witches should have already passed this point.”

About an hour later, everyone was outside except the coven and Nin. Crow sent Otto inside because it was safer. After Otto’s experience on the first set of stairs, Crow didn’t want to take any chances.

“Anyone need to cultivate, or can we directly ascend?”

“Please, let’s ascend. That sound is awful,” Mara said, and the others agreed. “Besides, I’m curious about the Nightstone Caverns.”

“What’s that?” Crow asked. He felt like he was woefully lacking in knowledge. He’d rushed to these floors and hadn’t had time to do much research.

“The next floor is filled with Nightstone. Everyone we’ve talked to claims it’s the opposite of this place and never gets dark.”

The ascent itself was uneventful. No one appeared to struggle with the pressure, so Crow didn’t feel anyone was lacking in their cultivation. Arriving at the top, they all paused and looked around warily while Crow summoned Otto.

Nothing was as they expected. There was a wall made of Nightstone about three hundred meters from the top stair. It wrapped in a semi-ellipsoid around the stairs with a city built next to it. A wide, paved avenue led right to the keystone, which was close to the wall, but there was no obstruction hindering their path. Unsure what to do, the first thing they did was register their Shield with the keystone. Otto took out his treasure and did the same.

When they were close to it, Crow noticed the anomaly. Beyond the wall was darkness, and he pointed it out to the others. Something had clearly changed, and it had happened recently. Even if the dark wasn’t a tipoff, the haunted faces of the people were. Crow then stopped a patrolling guard.

“Hey man, I’m sorry to bother you, but could you tell me what is happening here? We’ve newly ascended to this floor, which isn’t what we were told to expect.”

“That’s some bad timing,” the guard sighed. “We aren’t sure what happened, but rumor is it started in the depths, which are rarely visited by humans. A previously blocked passage was opened, and then everything went wrong. Every hermit, village, town, and city scattered from here to the ascent were attacked.”

“We aren’t sure. People call them the Unwanted Shadows, Nightmares, or Wraith—take your pick.”

“Humanoids shaped like men? Vicious? Afraid of the light?” Crow asked.

“That’s them.”

“Fuck,” Crow muttered. “Those are Scath.”