'It's empty again,' Max thought. 'All that infernal energy I consumedā¦ gone?'
Not used.
Not sealed.
Just gone.
And the tattooāonce filled to the brimāwas now acting like it had never been fed.
A heavy, uneasy silence gripped Max's heart.
This wasn't just unusualāit was impossible.
Unlessā¦
'Is this because we're already deep inside the 1,500-mile forbidden zoneā¦?' Max's face darkened at the thought.
He turned to Harry.
"How deep are we right now?" he asked casually, but his tone held weight.
Harry glanced at the terrain, then looked back at him. "Not far," he replied. "We just crossed the threshold. Maybe a few miles at best. Why?"
Max went silent, thinking. The tattoo was reacting far too violently. The depth of infernal energy in the air hereāit was thick, almost choking, as though they were breathing fumes from hell itself.
After a moment, Max muttered, almost to himself, "Then that's strangeā¦ because it feels like we're already five to six hundred miles deep."
That single sentence dropped like a stone in still water.
Gasps echoed across the group. Even the squad leaders stiffened.
The 1,500-mile forbidden zone had long been a place of dreadābut even within it, there were levels.
The outer 100 to 300 miles were considered "exploration safe zones," the farthest limits the Divine Palace ever allowed geniuses to enter.
Five to six hundred miles?
That was the stuff of suicidal legends.
"What nonsense are you spouting!?" a sharp voice snapped.
Everyone turned as Mark Vendor stepped forward, his eyes narrowed and finger pointed directly at Max.
His tone was accusatory, almost angry.
"We just entered the forbidden zone, and it hasn't even been half an hour since then. And you expect us to believe we somehow traveled five hundred miles on foot? Without even the ability to fly?"
He scoffed. "That's ridiculous. Even an Expert Rank leader couldn't move that fast in the Mourning Depths."
Max turned calmly to face the man. He'd never seen him before, but face were easy enough to placeāanother high-ranking genius, probably one who wasn't used to being contradicted.
Max didn't rise to the challenge. He simply gave a small shrug.
"Well," he said lightly, "it's just a feeling. Maybe I'm wrong."
Mark scoffed, lips curling as if ready to unleash another smug remarkā
But then he froze.
His eyes widened, body going still as he stared past Max, into the distance.
"Whatā¦ the hellā¦ is that?" he muttered.
His voice was barely above a whisper.
Others followed his gazeāand then the world itself seemed to pause.
Far on the horizon, like a distant mirage, a towering black flame rose into the sky.
It wasn't ordinary fire.
It lookedā¦ impossible.
The flame was vast, reaching endlessly upward, as though it connected the heavens to the underworld itself. Even from miles away, its presence felt terrifyingly realālike it could sear the stars and scorch the very fabric of the world.
"Th-thatā¦" one of the younger geniuses stammered, eyes wide in disbelief. "That flameā¦ it's touching the skyā¦"
And with his words, the others noticed it too.
The sky above themāonce dim and grayāhad changed.
Black fog rolled across the heavens like a curtain being drawn shut. Shadows thickened. The very light in the air seemed to dim, as though the world was being swallowed whole.
A tremor ran through the group.
Squad leaders and geniuses alike stepped forward instinctively. The closer they moved, the more the surrounding fog seemed to pull backāas if even it feared what lay ahead.
And thenā
They saw it clearly.
A monstrous flame, burning highāa hundred thousand feet tall, if not more.
But it wasn't made of fire in the traditional sense. It flickered, blurred, as if it existed halfway between reality and illusion. It looked transparent, yet powerful. Unreal, yet undeniably present.
Around it, the very air shimmered and twisted, warping like a heatwave from the deepest pits of hell.
It burned, but gave no warmth.
It raged, but made no sound.
And beneath that impossible flameā¦
At the base of the black fire, in the earth belowā
There was a void.
A crack in the world.
A gaping hole as dark as oblivion itselfādarker than ink, deeper than shadow, vast and endless. It was as if something divine had ripped open the very foundations of space and time, exposing a gateway to a realm that should never be seen.
And from that tear in realityā¦ came power.
Not power as they knew itāno aura, no fluctuation.
Just a raw, ancient pressure.
A potent force so thick, so suffocating, it pressed against every chest like an invisible weight. Dozens of geniuses stumbled back, gasping for breath.
Their souls felt heavy.
Their hearts, grieved.
It was more than fear. More than pressure.
It was mourning.
And then they heard itā
Soft, barely audible, as if carried by the windā
A dirge.
A sorrowful melody, hollow and desolate, drifting through the air like a lament for the dead. It echoed in their ears and burrowed into their hearts.
No one spoke.
No one dared to.
Because every instinct told themā¦
That flame, that void, that sorrowful soundā
Should not exist.
"Oh God...! That isā¦ that isā¦!"
Harry's voice cracked, his hand trembling violently as he lifted it and pointed toward the distant horizon. His eyes were wide with disbelief, his lips barely able to form the words. The horror in his expression infected everyone around him.
That endless, churning black flameā¦
That gaping, void-like maw at the end of the worldā¦
"That's the Mourning Depths," he breathed. "The true Mourning Depthsā¦"
A stunned silence fell over the group.
The weight of his words hit them like a landslide.
"Impossible. This is impossible!"
Harry shook his head, as if denial alone could change what he saw. His face had gone ghostly pale, lips trembling as he stared at the ominous scene in the distance.
"We should beā¦ still at least 1300, maybe 1400 miles away from the core! How could we possibly be seeing it from here!?"
That declarationābrief as it wasāhit the crowd like a thunderclap.
"M-Mourning Depths!?"
"What!? Are you f*cking kidding me!?"
A surge of panic ran through the crowd of gathered geniuses. Even those with the calmest temperaments found themselves gripped by a chilling sense of dread.
Even Crown Prince Aelricānormally composed and regalātook a step back, his eyes locked on the distant flame with unmistakable alarm.
"That'sā¦ the Mourning Depths?" he whispered.
No one responded.
No one needed to.
Because they all felt it.
A change in the air. A suffocating pressure in their lungs.
A silence that screamed louder than any battlefield.
The region surrounding the true Mourning Depthsāa 500-mile radius of pure deathāwas a place no sane man dared to enter. Not even the strongest experts of the Lower Domain ever considered stepping foot near it.
It was a land untouched by mercy. A graveyard of legends.
And nowā¦ they were seeing it.
But how?
They'd barely walked two or three miles into the 1,500-mile forbidden zone. Then they had met Max.
By all reasonable logic, they should be at least 1400 miles from the true Mourning Depths.
Yet there it wasālooming ahead of them like the final edge of existence.
The closer they looked, the more they saw the signs:
The black flames churning into the heavensā¦
The void swallowing light and space beneath itā¦
The oppressive sorrow clinging to their soulsā¦
None of this should be visible from where they stood. Not unless...
Not unless they were already within a few hundred miles of it.
A bone-deep chill crawled up their spines. Minds reeled. Breaths shortened.
Nothing made sense.
Some of the more sharp-witted among them began to grasp the horrifying implicationā
Space itself had twisted.
The terrain had shifted beneath their feet without their knowing.
And without warningā¦ they had crossed miles upon miles of land they never walked.