Rei walked to the large iron doors, eyes narrowing at the darkened steel plank lying across them.
'If I were trying to hide some "very important" book with a name like "Book of the Dead," I'd toss it into the ocean. But no, here I am, standing in a graveyard with a steel plank on a crypt door, a skeleton I had to burn, a werewolf I nearly died fighting, dead foxes everywhere, and enough mud to drown a cow. Ridiculous.'
He shook his head slowly and sighed.
"Might as well," he muttered.
Azure blue aura flared around his arms as he stepped forward and gripped the plank. The metal was cold, wet, and a lot heavier than it looked. His fingers tightened. Muscles in his forearms tensed.
"Hhh-grrrgh..." A guttural grunt escaped as he strained, the weight fighting back against him.
His back arched slightly, veins rising along his neck. The plank scraped against the door with a grinding shriek. Rei groaned again, this time louder, shoulders trembling as he slowly lifted it.
"Nggh... damn it... could've at least used wood... but they just had to use fucking steel!" he hissed through clenched teeth.
His breath came ragged, harsh exhales between each effort. The aura around him flared more, licking across his shoulders and spine like flame fighting the cold.
With one final push, he let out a broken growl and yanked the steel plank free, stumbling back a step before dropping it to the ground with a heavy clang.
He staggered, chest heaving, and rolled his shoulder with a wince.
"Yeah... I'm definitely going to feel that tomorrow," he muttered between heavy breaths before collapsing onto his back in the mud. His short dark blue hair darkened further as it soaked in the muck, but Rei was too exhausted to care anymore.
Rei laid in the mud for several minutes, his chest rising and falling as he struggled to catch his breath. The air was thick with the scent of rotting earth, wet iron, and something faintly metallic, like old blood. The stench burned faintly in his nose, and he winced, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.
Grimacing, he forced himself to sit up, then pushed to his feet with a quiet groan. He glanced behind him, but the fog had swallowed everything. The graveyard beyond was a wall of white, silent and still.
'I'll just go inside the crypt and shut the doors. Not the smartest option I have, but staying out here feels worse.'
He turned and approached the large iron doors. They looked far heavier than the steel plank. He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and began to push, they groaned open, the sound echoing like these doors haven't been opened in several years. A cold draft brushed past him from the dark beyond. He peered inside and saw a staircase descending into blackness. A single torch flickered on the wall just a few steps down.
Rei stepped inside. He took the torch, feeling its surprising warmth against his damp fingers, then shut the doors behind him. The heavy clang of metal echoed once, sealing him in as he placed the torch back.
The interior was far warmer than the outside. The stone stairs, though worn with age, were cleaner than expected, as if someone had passed through recently.
He sat down slowly, letting his body sink into the steps. The heat from the walls seeped into his back as he leaned against the stone. He let his head rest, eyes drifting toward the flickering flame. His muscles ached, his breath had steadied, and for the first time since arriving at the entrance of this valley, three hours prior, the silence felt almost safe.
...
Several hours passed by in quietness as Rei had just been silent, restoring his energy as he was also meditating, calming his mind. The only noise that could be heard was the flickering of the torch on the wall. After another few seconds of deep breathing, he stood up and cracked his neck, still feeling the lingering pain in his body but deciding to push past it.
He gazed at the torch before grabbing it and began descending down. His footsteps were loud against the hollowed stone stairs beneath him, and he made it to the bottom within only a few minutes of walking.
'Where the hell am I?' he wondered on that question for only a moment before realizing there was only one way to go. Straight ahead.
He walked forward, looking at the cut-outs in the walls as if made for items. His left brow lifted, confusion on his face as he stopped near one, placing the torch close to it and noticing the cut-out was larger than the torch by three inches.
'The torch is around a foot tall, and if I did the calculations right, the height of this cut-out is one foot, three inches. It's also much wider than a torch. Could it... be a place to hold a crown of sorts?'
Without thinking much more on it, he shrugged the thought away, noting that all the cut-outs had been empty so far. After a few more minutes of walking, he caught a glimpse of gold reflecting in the flickering light of the torch.
As he moved closer, he saw that there was indeed a crown resting inside the final cut-out. He stepped in front of it slowly and carefully, his eyes lingering for a moment before examining the finer details.
The crown had four sharp points made of gold, each rising about two inches. Two of them curved outward like horns, while the other two mirrored the same shape in reverse. Depending on how it was worn, either side could be seen as the front. Emeralds and sapphires were embedded along the base, and two delicate golden chains flowed from each side, laid deliberately on top of one another within the cut-out.
"How strange... there's actually a crown here. It looks beautiful too. I wonder where it came from," Rei muttered beneath his breath, before turning away and continuing down the hallway. As he walked, the space began to narrow, and another set of stairs appeared. Without hesitation, he descended.
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, his eyes widened at the sight of a large wooden box. It sat alone in the dark, wrapped tightly in thick, rusted chains.
'Who the hell chained this?'
Three layers of metal were wound around the box, and three more forged from darkened steel, the same grim alloy as the plank from the iron door. But that was not all. A twisted iron gate encircled the box entirely, and it too had been bound in heavy chains, the links straining around the frame as if whatever lay within had once struggled to break free.
Resting atop the wooden surface was a small cloth, yellowed and worn from time. Two words had been scribbled into it, the handwriting jagged and uneven, as if written by a trembling hand. "Deny it."
Rei stared at it in silence, his expression remained unreadable. He slowly raised his torch, sweeping the flame around the room. The stone walls were uneven, slick with moss and decay, the air thick with the scent of mold and old rot. Then, beyond the corner of his vision, he noticed a narrow passage just to the side of the gate. He looked down it, seeing that it led into another hallway.
He swallowed, reached down for his katana, and slowly unsheathed it. The cold bite of steel steadied him, but his fingers tensed around the hilt. A chill crawled up his back as he stepped forward, his body alert and cautious.
The hallway stretched on longer than expected. Damp air clung to his skin, and the silence grew heavier with each step. Eventually, the corridor opened into a wide, crypt-like chamber.
Rei froze while the room was still. The walls were made of damp, cracked stone that seemed to faintly pulse beneath the flicker of his torchlight. At the center stood a shrine.
Massive, uneven, and even reverent in a way that made the skin crawl. It rose from the ground like a jagged altar. Black-stone slabs had been molded together, mismatched and slanted. Veins of faint green ore ran through the seams, glowing softly like coiled serpents caught in stone.
Dozens of holes were bored into the surface, scattered without pattern. Some were no wider than a coin, others large enough to fit an entire hand. A thin mist clung to the shrine's base, circling the foundation but never rising. It drifted in slow spirals, pulled toward the stone yet always avoiding direct contact, as if even the fog feared to touch it.
Rei stepped closer, katana still in hand.
Near the center of the shrine, carved into the stone just above a shallow recess in the base, was an inscription. Rei looked at the letters, nearly all of them were faded, worn away by time and moisture. "Let without venom."
That was all he could make out from the letters still visible. His breath slowed as he read it, feeling his heartrate increase slightly.