An opportunity to sneak out of the camp arose a little past midnight. It came in the form of a watch rotation. Erica volunteered to be one of the three taking the shift. Yuna was selected as the second, and another person that Yuki didn’t know was the third. 

When Yuki was certain that the camp had fallen asleep, save for the three on watch, she gave Erica a signal. Erica began to strike up a conversation with the third watch member, Yuna joining her. With the third person distracted, Yuki slipped away with Akira right on her heels. 

[Southeast, two miles,] Akira reminded.

‘I remember,’ Yuki replied. ‘The surrounding area seems clear. Unless there’s another bug or something.’

[Go straight, but carefully then?]

‘Exactly.’

With that, they took off at a steady pace, not quite a run, but also not what one would consider a jog. Like wraiths, they slipped through the forest, making not a whisper of sound. Yuki could hear the soft breaths of deer and other prey in their restless sleep, undisturbed by the two as they sneaked about.

The entire time, neither of them spoke. They had no need to. Yuki’s mind was busy, her every sense tingling as she focused on the forest around her, straining to observe every single foot of land. Though she felt nothing, she knew now that it didn’t mean there was nothing. The centipede and Yuna had taught her that.

But the forest was quiet. Or rather, normal. Bugs buzzed and night time predators roamed while their prey rushed to escape. A normal forest night. 

They continued traveling southeast. Yuki kept track of the distance every now and then, noting the space between her and the camp. The two miles were closing fast. But Yuki couldn’t feel a thing. That was to be expected though. 

‘Slow. We’re going to need to be extra observant. Use our physical eyes,’ Yuki said.

[Alright,] Akira replied, her pace matching Yuki’s as she slowed. [I can’t find anything though.]

‘Same here. But it might be hidden somehow from our detection, or Yuna might have misjudged the distance,’ Yuki said with a small shrug. ‘It happens.’

[Then let’s keep our eyes peeled.]

They crept about the forest, inspecting every single foot of land they crossed. Every now and then, they would pause to listen for any signs of anything. But whatever it was that Yuna had sensed eluded them still.

‘When the sun starts to rise, we’re going to need to go back,’ Yuki said. 

[Alright. I hope we find something before then.]

‘I hope so too.’

Their hopes were fulfilled by the sound of a soft hum that Yuki felt more than she heard. It was faint, causing light vibrations that she could feel if she focused. They traveled underneath the ground. There were periodic pauses between each vibration, almost like the ground was breathing.

She went onto one knee and pressed a hand flat against the soft dirt of the forest. Her eyes shut as she sent out pulses of mana through the ground, feeling what laid below. What she found was a void. A large empty space that she could feel nothing in. 

‘A facility or something below us,’ Yuki said, rising to her feet. ‘We can track it to see where it meets the surface to find the entrance.’

[What do you think it is?] Akira asked.

‘I’m not sure. I just know something’s there. Let’s take a look.’

Together, they traced the nothingness that Yuki felt below them. Whatever it was that she found, it wasn’t terribly large. The outline of it felt like a hallway rather than a facility. Its lines were too straight for Yuki to think that it was made naturally or by a monster. Every now and then, the nothingness would branch out into smaller hallways. Yuki ignored those for now. The main branch would lead her to what she wanted to find.

Eventually, the void underneath the ground began to rise up towards the surface. Extending her sense above ground, she found a wide clearing where the void seemed to touch the surface. In the clearing, there were objects scattered about haphazardly, giving Yuki pause. The objects felt man made, but she was unable to tell what they were without being able to see them.

‘Akira, you feel that?’ she asked.

[I do.] Akira stared off into the direction of the clearing, her eyes narrowed. [I can’t tell what it is.]

‘Same here. Let’s take a closer look.’

Their pace quickened as they headed towards the clearing a few meters ahead of them. When they broke past the trees that surrounded the area, they were met with destruction. A building must have stood in the clearing before. At least, that’s what Yuki thought from the remains of what looked to have been walls and tile. Wires snaked up from the broken walls along with metal bars that bent all about. Underneath the crack tiles was concrete that was destroyed in various spots to reveal piping below it.

The centerpiece of the room was a large pool filled with clear water that shimmered underneath the light of the moon that could be seen plainly from inside the roofless building. But as Yuki got closer, she saw that the edges of the pool looked jagged and uneven, the walls rough, and the floor bumpy. Around the pool, there were multiple gouges, each in sets of three that resembled claw marks.

‘This wasn’t made by a machine.’

The next thing to catch her attention were the odd rounded objects that stood in what would have been the back of the room. There were three of them and they looked like metal storage tanks, two of which had large gashes in them much like the gouges in the ground around the pool. Those gashes revealed the insides of those two tanks, but Yuki saw nothing in them. The third tank was still intact.

‘Akira, can you look around?’ she asked. ‘I’ll be looking around the pool area for anything.’

[Alright. I’ll scout out the hallway underground for a bit. I’ll be back soon.]

‘See you soon then.’

Yuki felt Akira go below the ground behind her. While she did that, Yuki went to the untouched tank and lightly pressed her hand against its cool metal husk. Her eyes closed as she pushed mana out to sense the insides of the tank. Empty. 

‘But I feel traces of something,’ she thought.

Flicking her wrist, her fingers curled around the handle of the dagger that shot out from the sheath hidden on her arm. Then in one fluid motion, she stabbed the tank with the dagger, the blade cutting through the metal tank with ease. 

When she pulled back her blade, a wide gash had been formed in the tank. She created a ball of light in one hand and shined it on the gash. She couldn’t see a thing inside. But she felt something brush by. Mana.

‘Who would store mana in tanks in the middle of a forest?’

Taking a closer look at the material the tanks were made of, she found that they were lined with taltum. That explained why she couldn’t feel anything from the outside. The taltum along with the low amount of mana remaining would make it impossible for Yuki to detect it. 

‘I don’t think this is what Yuna was feeling as well,’ she thought. ‘There has to be something else.’

She turned her attention to the area around the tanks. Fragments of equipment were strewn about, most of them destroyed to the point that they were unrecognizable. There were a few crushed tubes, shattered needles, deformed metal plates, and tangled wires. A couple of device casings gave Yuki a clue as to what used to be in the room.

‘Computers. Tanks of mana. I think syringes and transport pipes for the mana. This might be what we were looking for.’

Carefully, Yuki took a few of the casings and bits of debris from the ground and put them away in her ring for later inspection. She scanned the room some more, checking for anything that she might have missed, but came up empty.

[Yuki, I’m coming back,] Akira said. Her voice was a tad faint.

‘Did you find anything?’ 

[Not much. I think the hallways were part of a transportation system. I found a few pods and a track. But that was it.]

‘I see. Well, come back then. I found a few things, but I’ll share it with you on the way back.’

[I’ll be there in a few minutes.]

‘Alright,’ Yuki replied. She turned her attention to the centerpiece of the room, the pool filled with clear water. ‘I’ll be looking around some more then.’

[Be there soon.]

With that, Yuki went to the pool’s edge and knelt down, watching the water as the cool, soft breeze of the night made ripples on the pool’s surface. The pool was much deeper than Yuki had thought. She reached out, the water cold to her touch. With a bit of mana, she connected with the water, trying to find the true dimensions of the pool. 

‘This isn’t a pool.’

There was an opening at the bottom of the pool that looked to open up into a cavern filled with water. What she had thought was a pool was only an entrance to something much larger. 

Then came the mana. 

A presence unlike any she had felt before filled her senses. It suffocated her, an indomitable will that pressed against her mind. Something lived down there. Something that shouldn’t be disturbed.

Yet, at the same time, something bubbled up within her. A primal urge that whispered at her to poke the beast. To challenge it. To test herself. The urge was fleeting. But it didn’t matter.

A flash of thought passed between Yuki and whatever that beast was. She felt anger erupt as it felt Yuki’s presence. The beast had labeled her as an intruder. And now murderous intent followed.

Yuki cut contact from the pool and shot to her feet. She located where Akira was in a flash, a few meters away from the entrance of the underground hallway. 

‘Akira, we need to go,’ she said, half jogging to the hallway. 

[What happened?] Akira asked. Yuki felt her speed up her pace. 

‘I found the S rank. It’s here. We need to run before it sees us.’

[That’s a very good reason. I’ll be there in a few seconds.]

True to her word, she bursted out of the hallway as the ground beneath Yuki began to rumble and shake. The beast was coming up to the surface. Fast. Without a word, Yuki grabbed Akira’s hand and began sprinting away from the ruins. Akira followed without a question.

They dove behind a thicket of trees, lying flat on the ground side by side. Yuki peered past a bush, her eyes locked onto the ruined facility. The rumbling had stopped, but Yuki assumed that it was because the beast was swimming. Any moment now and it would burst into the open.

[Are you sure we want to be here right now?] Akira asked. Yuki’s eyes remained glued to the ruins. 

‘I need to see what this thing is. Just a moment would be enough,’ she replied. ‘Once we see it, we’ll run as fast as we can.’

[Alright.] Akira squeezed Yuki’s hand before letting go. [Cloak ourselves?]

‘I forgot. We should.’

Muttering a few words, Yuki erased their presence from the outside world. When the spell finished, the ruins erupted in a shower of debris and water. The water fell down in a fine diamond curtain, droplets catching the moonlight as they descended back down to the earth. And behind the curtain, a giant shadow loomed. 

The shadow looked serpentine in nature, almost like the silhouette of a king cobra with its hood flared. But then that hood split into seven sections, each section a snake in itself. And when the curtain had swept to the side, Yuki saw the beast in all of its dreadful glory.

It was a seven headed serpent; its heads reached near the tops of the trees, two legs with white claws supported it, and its main body still in the pool behind it. Each head was shaped like the head of a snake. Fins lined the spine of the monster, the spines razor sharp. Water dripped down from its gaping mouths that revealed the white fangs of the beast.

‘A hydra.’