Chapter 99: We are going to Destroy this Town

Chapter 99: We are going to Destroy this TownThe crypt was silent now—too silent. No shifting mist. No echoing chants. Just the faint sound of breathing, of steel being sheathed, and boots shifting over broken stone. Inigo adjusted the strap of his rifle and stepped deeper into the corridor leading out from the chamber. The torchlight on the walls barely reached beyond the archways, and most of the sconces had long since rotted or fallen. Garen followed a few steps behind, his sword still drawn. "Anything?" Garen asked. "Just shadows," Inigo replied. They cleared one hallway, then another. Nothing moved. No new threats, no lingering presence. But even without danger, the weight of the encounter still hung over them. The Lady of Illusion had pulled back, but they all knew she hadn’t been banished—only delayed. After a few more minutes of checking each path, they made their way back. Arienne hadn’t moved. She was still sitting on the floor, resting her head against the pillar. Lyra lay beside her, covered in a blanket torn from one of their packs. Her breathing remained stable, her color slowly returning. Korrik hadn’t spoken, only kept watch, eyes shifting between Lyra and the broken altar like he expected it to rise again. "We’re clear," Inigo said, setting his rifle down gently and crouching beside Arienne. She didn’t open her eyes. "Good." "You okay?" he asked. "No." "Appreciate the honesty." Arienne finally looked at him. Her face was pale, not from fear but from mana depletion. "I can’t cast for a few hours. Not even a spark." Inigo nodded. "We’ll hold tight." Korrik stood up slowly. "This town... Hollowmere. It wasn’t just a nest. It was a testing ground." "For what?" Garen asked. Korrik stared at the place where the rift had opened. "For breaking reality." No one spoke for a while. Then Garen leaned against the wall again and exhaled slowly. "How long until Lyra wakes up?" "Another hour, maybe two," Arienne said. "Her body’s strong, but healing like that... it’s taxing. She’ll need rest." Inigo sat down next to her. He picked up a small rock and rolled it between his fingers. "I thought we were dealing with cultists. Some rogue magic. Not full-blown demonkind." "That wasn’t just demonkind," Arienne said. "That was a rift to the other side. Someone’s helping them from this world. The Lady didn’t open that alone." Inigo nodded. "The Hollowmere cult. They must be working with the demon army." "It’s more than that," Arienne said. "They’re preparing this place. Every ruined town, every forgotten village—they’re testing which places can hold a rift. How stable it is. How long they can keep it open." Korrik added, "Then when they figure it out... they’ll open ten. Maybe a hundred." Inigo stood up. "Then we stop them before that happens." Arienne looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. She simply nodded. The party rested in silence for a while longer. Inigo kept watch, pacing slowly around the room while the others stayed close to the center. The crypt felt less hostile now—but not safe. Eventually, Lyra stirred. Her hand twitched first. Then her head shifted slightly. Finally, her eyes opened—barely. "Hey," Arienne said softly, leaning closer. "Take it slow." Lyra blinked. "You’re... okay?" "You should be asking yourself that," Inigo said, kneeling next to her with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Lyra tried to sit up, winced, and fell back. "Okay. That hurts." "You took a blade to the chest," Korrik said. "Be glad it hurts. Means you’re alive." Lyra groaned. "Dumb move." "Brave move," Arienne corrected. "You saved me." Garen handed her a canteen, which she sipped from slowly. Her color was returning little by little, and though her movement was slow, her eyes had focus now. "Did we win?" she asked. Inigo answered. "We stopped the ritual. Closed the rift." "But not for good," Arienne added quietly. "They’ll try again." Lyra let out a breath. "Then we kill them next time." Korrik chuckled. "There’s the fighter we know." Inigo glanced at Arienne. "We need to bring this to the Guildmaster. The capital needs to know what happened here. And fast." Garen nodded. "We’ll report. But more than that—we need to start planning countermeasures. If the Hollowmere cult is part of something bigger..." "They are," Arienne said. "I felt it. That masked figure—it wasn’t a servant. It was a general." "A demon general?" Korrik asked. Arienne looked grim. "Or worse. A herald. A mouthpiece for something stronger." They let the idea settle in. Inigo finally said, "Let’s get out of here. This place is making my skin crawl." With Lyra able to sit up—barely—the team helped her to her feet, supporting her as they made their way out of the crypt. The hallways were still dark, but the pressure had lifted. No more illusions. No more chants. Just the eerie quiet of a place abandoned by time and sanity. As they stepped into the fading light outside, Hollowmere looked the same. But they didn’t. None of them did. They had survived something that wasn’t supposed to be survivable. Faced a rift to the demon realm and walked out breathing. But that didn’t feel like victory. It felt like the first move in a war. The sun had barely moved. Time didn’t seem to work right in Hollowmere. Either it passed too slow or not at all. The shadows in the street hadn’t shifted since they entered the crypt. The sky above remained a pale gray, neither day nor evening. It made it hard to tell how long they’d been down there. Inigo adjusted the strap on his pack and looked over his shoulder. Lyra was walking on her own now, one hand against the wall for support. Garen stayed close to her side in case she stumbled again. Arienne followed behind, slower than usual. Her mana was still drained, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Korrik took the lead, axe in hand. He didn’t speak much anymore, not since they stepped out of the crypt. He was watching the buildings now. Listening. Every creak of broken wood or gust of wind made his head turn sharply. They reached the center of town, where the blackened statue of the Hollowmere founder still stood. Only now, it was cracked straight down the middle, and something like soot covered the lower half. "Did the wraiths do that?" Garen asked. "No," Inigo said. "That happened before we got here." "It wasn’t like this in the reports," Lyra muttered. "None of this was. The cult, the obelisk... the rift." "That’s because they didn’t survive long enough to report it," Korrik said. Arienne glanced at a building nearby, its upper floor collapsed inward. The windows were all broken. A sign hung loosely by a rusted chain—"Winnow’s Apothecary." Plants had grown through the floorboards, vines reaching into the doorway like fingers. She swallowed. "We need to burn it." "Excuse me?" Garen said. "This town," she clarified. "The cult tainted it. There are runes embedded in the stone, in the wood. It’s already been prepped as a summoning site. Even if the rift is closed, the foundation is still marked." Inigo looked around. She wasn’t wrong. Every few feet, strange markings were etched into the stone. Barely visible unless you knew what to look for. The kind of magic that seeped into the bones of a place. Anchors. Like roots waiting to sprout. "If someone comes back and tries again..." Arienne said. "They’ll pick up right where they left off," Inigo finished. No one argued after that. They made camp just beyond the town’s entrance, far enough from the ruins to sleep without staring into darkness. Garen lit the fire. Korrik sharpened his axe. Lyra rested with her back to a tree, hood pulled over her eyes, though she didn’t sleep. Not really. None of them did. Arienne sat beside Inigo on a flat rock, her legs curled beneath her. "You ever wonder how far this goes?" she asked after a while. "The cult?" "No. The plan." She gestured toward the ruins. "Opening rifts. Summoning beasts. Whatever’s pulling the strings from the other side—it’s not just random chaos." "They’re building something," Inigo said. "A foothold." She nodded slowly. "We just knocked down their first attempt." He looked into the fire. "And they’ll try again. Somewhere else." Arienne pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. "I want to stop it before it spreads. But we’re not enough." "I’m sure the King wouldn’t stand idly with the issue. They’ll send in more troops to the other sites and take care of destroying it themselves while we focus on our main objective, which is hunting the Demon King." "Okay, how are we going to destroy this town? It’s huge." Arienne asked. "I just got an idea," Inigo said as he purchased 50 C-4s explosives at the cost of 15,000 tokens. He materialized one of them and explained. "I will plant this thing across the town and set it off simultaneously. This should destroy the town and whatever is left."