After landing, Elena waited quietly until everyone had arrived.
While waiting, she looked around.
The massive tunnel stretched on endlessly in both directions. The walls curved slightly inwards, not because they were misshapen, no, the slight incline was due to its sheer size. They were covered in faint geometric patterns that pulsed in rhythm with some unknown system. It was both mechanical and unnervingly natural, like a pipe carved through a tree trunk. The light dimmed and brightened in steady intervals, like some kind of warning light that was idle.
Elena turned to the side.
One of the Runecoin Medics stepped forward, a genius little boy, with big black eyes and a green stripe through his messy black hair. He reached out to touch the wall. The moment his hand met the surface, his eyes widened.
"This is…" he exclaimed.
Another medic hurried over. When he saw it, he froze too. "T-these rune clusters are self-repairing. So-so many, how is that possible!?"
Elena looked at them but didn't respond.
The High Elves were far too advanced for most of today's humans to understand. What surprised them was not that the structure could heal itself, no, it was the way the same rune cluster appeared again and again, repeating every few meters across the entire wall without error. This recursive technology was unique to those at the peak. They could not understand how such precision and complexity had been engraved on such a massive scale. For humans, even creating one section of this small cluster would take years of carving. To make thousands of them, all perfectly aligned and connecting in a ring, then repeating that down a massive underground tunnel was beyond imagination.
Elena turned to another group.
Across the tunnel, on the opposite side, a group of Sea Forge Engineers, led by an old woman with pale blue hair and mysterious white eyes, began examining the wall's material. When they realized what they were seeing, several of them gasped together.
They recognized the material that was used in the 'walls'…
This tunnel was created from something called 'High Silversteel Hevengrade Slate', a special material that was once used by the High Elves in all of their greatest creations. Creating this material required knowledge of many fields, as well as an understanding of time, space, and energy refinement.
The interior of each plate was layered dozens, sometimes hundreds of times, and every layer carried its own complex set of runes and rune channels.
This was one of the reasons High Elven designs were considered so maddening.
If Petra were here, she would probably compare it to how High Elves always wrote five or six lines of text on a single standard line on a lined piece of paper. They then glued a hundred more pieces of paper underneath that single standard line, then tried to convince you that it was just one line. She would definitely lose her shit trying to just look at it, cursing the High Elves the whole time like a little brat.
But Petra wasn't here, fortunately…
After the surrounding examination had ended, everyone came to the same conclusion, and that was that they had fallen through some kind of hidden maintenance hatch, something meant for emergencies.
As for where they were…
Looking around—
This tunnel was far from simple.
Small tributaries branched off in every direction, some as big as a city street, and disappeared into the darkness. The sheer height and width of the main channel made it difficult to explore, restricting them to the lowest level, but the structure's layout was clear enough. It connected something vast, something that once stretched beneath the entire continent.
This was definitely the legendary lay line network that the High Elves had artificially built.
Those who understood ancient history knew what this meant.
They were standing inside part of a system that once connected the World Tree to the core of the Elfefalein Empire.
Elena looked down both ends of the tunnel.
After the final figure landed, she gave a quiet order to move forward.
The army adjusted their formation, and their footsteps began to echo in the darkness. Each sound was amplified, and the unnatural silence was unsettling.
They advanced slowly.
The world above faded behind them as they approached the Corrupted World Tree.
* * *
Time passed.
Elena advanced down the tunnel.
Her boots echoed against the strange metallic floor.
The United Army followed closely behind, their formation silent and steady. They had been together for many months, and among the elites, many of them had built personal relationships, so they tended to gather in these groups.
They walked for an unknown amount of time. After what felt like hours, the artificially repetitive environment finally ended.
Up ahead, the tunnel's smooth curve was interrupted by something unnatural, er, or natural? Elena slowed down, her gaze narrowing as the shape became clearer through the darkness.
After another five minutes of walking, the shadow finally took form.
It was a 'root'.
The enormous root had pierced through the tunnel wall, breaking through the cylindrical passage like a blade. The massive appendage stretched across the chamber horizontally, splitting the tunnel in half almost as if it had been caught mid-motion, and frozen there. Because of the corrupted nature of the World Tree, the tunnel's self-repair system was incapable of functioning properly where the intersection occurred. The walls around the intersection flickered violently, runic light scattering in blinding spark-like bursts as the mechanisms that maintained the tunnel tried to heal itself.
Elena could feel 'it'.
The tunnel was not only trying to repair itself, but it was also fighting back against the corruptive spiritual energy that radiated off the world tree. The two ancient systems were clashing, one High Elven, and the other, the World Tree's twisted mutation.
The result was chaos!
A strange fog spread around the 'wound' in the tunnel. It wasn't natural fog, it was the result of the High Elven artificial ecosystem within the tunnel reacting to the ominous spiritual energy leaking from the invading root and malfunctioning.
The two forces collided and produced a dense fog that filled the air.
Elena pressed on…
The United Army followed her beneath the massive root, over unstable debris, and deeper into the tunnel. The further they traveled, the more the structure began to 'decay'. The intruding roots multiplied, spreading from the occasional cracks to large breaks in the ceiling, walls, and floor. It stuck to the structure like mycelium, and the deeper they went, the closer they came to the corrupted World Tree, and the weaker the tunnel's automated systems became.
The clean lines of High Elven architecture were now hidden beneath the growing roots and the creeping vegetation. The tunnel had become something like a living forest, filled with humidity. What had once been sleek and mechanical had turned into something ancient and wild, almost like a primordial jungle that failed to adhere to the laws of gravity.
-
Progress became slower.
The tunnel had fully given way to a jungle of roots. Massive limbs coiled through the passage like living snakes, forcing the group to climb, crawl, and weave their way forward through the vitality-filled vinery. Some roots pulsed faintly, carrying the ancient awareness of incomplete plant spirits that stirred whenever spiritual energy brushed against them.
The United Army continued to move with caution.
They had already learned the cost of a mistake.
After many days of interacting with the roots, they understood that anything tied to the World Tree reacted violently to 'aura'. This basically meant any form of energy that contained spiritual energy, or more specifically, the 'self' left behind by a caster when using spiritual energy, even if it was mixed with other energies.
With slow breaths, they each suppressed their presence and retracted as much of their energy as possible. They stopped using artifacts and switched to natural lighting.
They advanced through the suffocating, living maze like cautious little squirrels.
-
Eventually, they reached a 'new' segment of the tunnel.
This section was filled with metallic bridges and platforms that extended across the width of the chamber. The bridges crisscrossed over one another, forming a broad framework that extended deeper into the heart of the tunnel system.
Unlike the area where they had initially descended, this place was clearly more 'maintained'.
Unfortunately, thick roots had woven themselves through the bridges, threading between the metal supports and making them unstable, but at least... they provided another form of footing, right?
Mm!
They crossed one bridge after another, up and down, some ending abruptly where the metal had been torn away, forcing them to jump from bridge to root, then to another bridge even further beyond, while others transitioned directly to roots, connecting two surfaces that shouldn't be attached. There were times when they had to press against walls and squeeze past, and there were times when they needed to remove their equipment just to slip through small holes.
It was difficult terrain, but it also told them something important.
'They were getting closer'…
The more agile members of the army moved ahead with relative ease, leaping across gaps and sliding down the exposed roots, but the heavier mercenaries struggled to keep up. They grunted as they dragged their heavy armor across the twisted path, their boots scraping against metal and wood, their plates catching on roots, slipping without warning, and falling victim to unseen footholds that crumbled beneath their massive mass, forcing sudden halts and hurried hands just to avoid falling.
Particularly, a large man with massive eyebrows and an unnerving restraint when blinking, seemed to receive the worst of the luck.
He had fallen over a dozen times…
Fortunately for old Kol—
They, er… Elena, refused to leave any man behind.
-
Time blurred as they pressed on through the mechanical jungle.
After several more hours, they reached the next section of the tunnel. It had begun to flood. A river of black water streamed down the curved walls, pooling in the lowest point of the cylinder. The stream stretched endlessly ahead, vanishing into the darkness and towards there destination. Upon closer inspection, this 'black substance' was far more condensed than anything they had encountered before. Perhaps the Corrupted World Tree was using this method to 'feed' itself…?
No one dared to touch it...
The black liquid was thick and viscous, its surface reflecting faint, distorted shapes, forming unnatural illusions that shouldn't be there. Perhaps it had finally surpassed some sort of 'threshold' and the substance had begun to change…
It carried the same poisonous properties that the Black Pools had aboveground, only this small river had been affected by the mutating environment produced by the tunnel.
As for its effects, no one dared to even approach, much less check.
The group stayed close to the wall and prioritized the bridges as they continued forward, keeping as far away from the dark river as possible. It was difficult and slow, but they made it through, and after another hour, they finally arrived at a collapsed section of the tunnel.
-
This portion of the tunnel was completely destroyed.
The smooth High Elven architecture ended abruptly, giving way to a vast, open hollow filled with debris and twisted roots. This massive cave-like section was only a momentary pause, but the rubble and shattered metal shards were twisted and broken, filling the floor, and making it difficult to advance without stepping into the black liquid.
They had descended far too deep for any light to reach, but this cavern was still illuminated by undying magic lights that had fallen to the floor and faced upward. Dust caught on the light, displaying the true filth of the air underground. Flickers of spiritual energy sparked in random bursts, scattering across the cavern. These weren't 'malfunctions', but the violent and unpredictable reactions between the tunnel's pure energy and the corrupted aura of the roots. Each spark released a bright flash that burned strange geometric shapes into the walls before fading.
Elena lifted her head.
The pressure here was heavy, too heavy, like the tension had almost manifested.
Something was wrong…
Then—
It happened!
BOOOOM!
The 'string' snapped, and a violent crack shattered the silence.
The ground trembled, and from the bare stone below, a massive shadow burst upward. It slammed into the nearest soldier, dragging him down before anyone could react.
Elena's eyes snapped open—!
Before she could even shout, more shadows erupted from the floor! Boom-boom-boom-boom! Dozens of them, ripping through the roots and stone, leaped at the soldiers from every side.
Ambush!