Chapter 621: Third Floor - The Drowning Sky

Thoren descended from the Abyss tunnel and landed on dark ground.

His boots struck the surface with a soft thud, and immediately he felt the wrongness of this place.

The ground beneath him was not soil.

It was not stone.

It was something else entirely, a brittle, gray-black crust that crunched under his weight like frozen ash.

When he looked down, he saw fine particles drifting upward with every step he took, as though the earth itself was slowly dissolving into the air.

He raised his head and he saw it.

"This..." His jaw dropped.

The sky was gone.

In its place was an endless expanse of black and dark-gray ash clouds. They churned overhead in enormous circular patterns, layer upon layer.

They were so thick that no trace of sun or moon or star could penetrate.

There was no light.

There was no glow.

There was only the oppressive weight of darkness pressing down from above.

The clouds moved constantly, swirling in slow, grinding circles like the surface of some vast, primeval ocean.

Sometimes they became so dense that the sky appeared almost solid, a ceiling of ash that seemed close enough to touch.

Then they would thin, just slightly, revealing deeper layers of black and gray that stretched upward into infinity.

Watching this, Thoren stood frozen.

He had seen many things in the Abyss. He had walked through the Bleeding Desert, where the desert was no different from living beasts that devour its prey.

He had crossed the Bone Plains, where the ground was made of the skeletons. Yet, none of it prepared him for this.

This was something else. Something worse.

He did not know how long he stood there, staring upward. It could have been seconds or it could have been minutes.

The absence of sun and stars made time meaningless. The only constant was the slow, grinding motion of the ash clouds overhead.

Finally, he forced himself to move.

He released his perception, sending it outward in a wide sweep to scan his surroundings. The gesture was instinctive, a habit born from countless battles.

Information was survival and knowledge was power as he needed to know what was out there.

Just then, his perception seemed to have hit an invisible wall.

Thoren blinked, his eyes widened in shock but then, his face contorted into confusion.

’What the hell?!’ He screamed in his mind.

He shook his head, refusing to believe what was happening.

Without hesitation, he pushed his perception harder, trying to force it through the resistance, but it was useless.

His senses, which normally extended for miles in every direction, had been compressed into a tiny bubble. He could see the ground around him. He could sense the air immediately surrounding his body.

Beyond that, nothing.

One hundred meters.

That was all.

His perception had been suppressed to a mere one hundred meters.

A cold knot formed in his stomach. He did not want to believe what was happening but the reality was right before his eyes.

"This was not natural." He muttered, shaking his head.

He wanted to refute the situation around him. He wanted to believe the situation was man made but then, raising his head to look at the chaotic sky.

He opened his mouth to speak, to curse, to do something, but before any sound could leave his throat, the atmosphere changed.

The ash clouds descended.

Not slowly.

Not gradually.

They dropped from the sky at a visible speed, the swirling patterns accelerating, the dark gray mass plunging downward like a falling ceiling.

The movement was not random.

It was deliberate. Focused and hungry.

Thoren stared in shock.

"What in the world is happening?" He muttered subconsciously.

He could not believe what he was seeing.

The sky was falling.

Not metaphorically.

The clouds were literally descending upon the ground, and they were moving fast.

For a moment, his mind refused to accept it.

This was not how the weather worked. Clouds did not fall from the sky like stones.

But this was not a cloud.

It was an ash tide.

The ash clouds were not weather. They were a living thing, or something close to it. They moved with purpose.

They descended with intent and they were coming for him.

His instincts screamed.

’I cannot stay here.’

’I need to leave.’

The thoughts were not coherent. They were primal. The voice of every living creature that had ever faced annihilation and chosen to run.

Thoren did not dare ignore his instinct. And without hesitation, he reached into his undead space and summoned.

The air before him shimmered and space trembled. From the undead space, the undead Greater Dune Scorpion appeared before him.

Thoren did not hesitate.

He leaped onto its back, landing confidently as though he had done it countless times. And indeed, he had done it countless times.

"Run," he commanded.

Instantly, the undead Greater Dune Scorpion heeds to his command and ran.

Its many legs propel it forward in a rolling, skittering gait. Ash sprayed up behind them in gray clouds. The ground crunched and shattered under its weight.

Behind him, the ash tide hit the earth.

The sound was not a roar.

It was not a crash.

It was a low, grinding moan, like the death cry of a mountain. The cloud struck the ground and spread, a wall of black and gray that swallowed everything in its path.

Rocks and crater vanished in a blink. The terrain itself seemed to dissolve into the advancing mass.

Thoren looked back and his mouth widened.

"My...My..." His voice shook and he was unable to complete his statement.

He saw the ash tide consuming the ground behind him while also, he saw the world ending in slow motion.

He saw the horizon disappear into a wall of gray.

He had never been this scared in his life. Even when he descended into the abyss for the first time, he was not truly scared as he was now.

He sensed death was fast approaching.

"Run faster!"

He urged the undead Scorpon to run faster.

The creature obeyed, its legs moving in a blur, its body low to the ground. But the ash tide was not slowing. It was gaining..

The world behind him was dying or so he thought.

And ahead, the darkness stretched on.