Chapter 18: The Light and the Dark Moons

All was quiet again, only the strange echoes from the cave and the burning of the flames making a single sound. Jack was tired, but his body was, after each consecutive battle, getting more used to the constant strain and stamina was slowly building up.

Thus, he still had plenty of energy left to keep going as he dragged the bodies of the defeated stronger beasts towards the exit where they had planned to meet up in case of the fire plan being used.

He took the opportunity to try and put out as much fire as possible, utilizing the humidity of the cave and his water powers.

On the way, he could hear loud banging sounds that put him on edge until one happened right beside him. A yellow egg that had overheated blew up like a boiled one reheated in the microwave.

''I really preferred not to do this, but we had no choice since we need to conserve as much energy as possible. I feel bad for the unborn birds that had nothing to do with its father's role in the unbalancing of the natural order.''

After some time, Jack finally got to the meeting point, where Laura waited for him patiently while sitting down on a charred corpse with an arrow in its eye.

''Hey!'' He said. ''I see you are fine, good, when I didn't see you covering me I had quite the scare. Let's stay here for a while and absorb the blood from these guys, at least until the flames are out, since we might just suffocate if we go up now.''

She nodded, and they got to absorbing in turns while the other tried to put out the flames. It wasn't that hard, as the eggs themselves are not flammable, just the weird web that made up the nests in between them.

Laura quickly absorbed her fill of blood, while Jack put out most of the fires, she felt herself inching closer and closer to another star. She was in the 4-star level, which allowed her to be quite effective in combat thus far.

''I hope I can reach five-stars soon...'' She thought.

In the end that wasn't possible yet, she had too much of a limit in the amount of blood she can absorb in one sitting and didn't get that plentiful of harvest this time thanks to the fire.

Therefore, she inched ever closer to her upgrade until it was her turn to stand watch.

Noticing that most of the fires were put out and the entire room was nothing but embers and exploded eggs, she began snuffing out said embers while Jack sat down where he had dug his own little pit of blood and left the two superior corpses draining.

He eventually finished as well, and both bodies had lost all of their life force. They proceeded on to the next set of stairs in the hopes that their brief respite would have been sufficient to rid the cave of most of the deadly smoke.

When they began their ascent, all slowly became dark again. Laura was behind Jack holing his hand while the other had the lit lighter casting some light in the dim pathway, like a single candle of hope fluttering in a sea of darkness.

Both noticed that at this point, the stairs were way too polished and cared for them to have been a usual passage for monsters. For some reason, it was the area most preserved thus far, like even the beasts were afraid to go higher and deeper into the maddening pillar.

Hours went by, and they were much higher than the base of the cave system now, which they noticed from realizing their breaths were getting shallower from the altitude.

But what bothered Jack the most were the off-putting sounds coming from behind and ahead of them. From the rear, faint sounds akin to that of drums could be heard.

''Is it back?'' He thought. ''But It's still going to take quite some time before it can reach us. Still, it's better to pick up the pace.''

''Right now, what worries me the most are the faint whispers I am hearing from ahead, like if some sort of ghost will show up at any second.''

At last, they reached the next open room.

Approaching it slowly with the light off, they only took the liberty to light it back up when Jack's instincts told him it was somewhat safe.

What they witnessed was beyond any expectations they had.

It was a single room exactly like the one before, but instead of a multitude of yellowish eggs, it was just one enormous red egg that was broken above from whatever had come out of it.

Strands of dried up and decomposing goo were everywhere, and a distinct rotten smell permeated the area.

''This... is weird, was it from this egg that the fallen bird hatched? But then why is it of a different color than the rest of them?'' He wondered out loud.

Laura was stunned for the words she had long-lost. Yet, she shook her head in discordance.

''Yeah, you are right, this color pattern, this size... it all matches up to the other fallen, the fungi lord. However, if that is the case, how come he was born here yet, what occupies the cave is the bird fallen? And where is the bird fallen's egg? Were they both born in here?''

On further exploration of the area, they noticed some more things: Firstly, underneath the dried up goo from so many years ago, unknown symbols could be seen and connected to the egg's nest, whoever was here before all bests was trying to do something to the egg, change it somehow. And secondly, they found old dried up mushroom growths close to the walls, their color was mostly faded out, but Laura could see that they once had the same red tone as the fungi in the scorpion's territory.

Jack was not pleased at all with how complicated everything was beginning to become. But after some more investigating that yielded no results besides the information already found, they decided to move on as to create some more distance between themselves and their tail.

A further point to the eeriness of the whole place was how the stairs now were so pristine that even dust couldn't be seen on them. Laura felt a draft forming from behind her and wondered if it was due to the fire they had started, but realized the current was far too powerful for that to be the case.

''Whoever built this place, what was their objective? What were they trying to accomplish here?'' She wondered.

Later, the progress at which they were moving was speeding up. Laura wondered why, but guessed that Jack had begun feeling the danger behind them, with the fallen bird lord most likely getting ever closer to their position. However, their strength was gradually being eroded by the thin air.

Thanks to this, the pair had to make some breaks in the ascension of this particularly long stairway.

Despite the somewhat frequent rests, their mind never got to slow down even when they reached something they hadn't experienced in the cave thus far, a bifurcation on the path.

One in the left, going straight and another one in which the climb went on.

Laura looked at Jack inquisitively as if asking: ''What now?''

But he didn't even notice as he was too focused on what he was feeling, his instincts could be heard almost as if commenting something about each path.

On the left, he felt a slight pull of curiosity, like if in there were some of the answers they were wondering about. While on the right, he felt a small sense of relief, as if that way their journey to humanity was nearing its end. Finally, on their back, he felt the hoarse breathing of death in his nape, they were running out of time.

Eventually, noticing Laura's stare, he decided.

''We won't have much time, so let's make the most of it by taking a short glance at the left path.''

Thus, for a change, they went left and forward. More murals could be seen carved in the walls, showing scenes they didn't understand. But one thing was clear, whoever had built this place was desperate to solve a specific problem of this world, as one of the walls had the image of a mountain of corpses rising above the water together with the great pillars they were in.

A few minutes later, they were face to face with a massive door and an altar, much like they'd seen in one of the first rooms.

On said altar, two depressions could be seen, each for one of the great moons that circled the planet.

Laura drew Jack's attention again by writing in the floor with charcoal she had gathered after the fire: ''How do we even open this door? It mustn't be easy, as no beast was able to randomly open it.''

He mulled over it for a couple of minutes, then gave up and let his instincts take his body and mind wherever it wished.

This resulted in him finding himself right in front of the altar with blade in hand.

''Maybe...'' he muttered. ''Laura, come here.''

She followed suit and noticed what he was observing, the carvings of the moons were both slightly different, one was a white moon bypassed with darkness, while the other was a dark moon bypassed with light.

''Both of the moons outside are white... then why is one of them black?''

Before he could even finish his train of thought, his body moved on its own and slightly cut the back of his hand, some drops of blood falling over the dark moon.

Both jack and Laura were astonished at this, however, at that moment something clicked, and the blood created much more detail in glowing red over the dark moon. Finally, understanding what he was trying, Laura repeated the process and the same happened to the white moon.

Red sigils began to light up on the altar and all around it until the red glow reached the great door while it emitted a loud mechanical noise. Seconds later, the great door was open.

When it did open, its absence revealed the place inside that lit up in various places. It was a massive lab with technology well beyond human scope, rows of glass tubes with samples of beasts floating ominously inside could be seen, each with its own equivalent of a computer beside it, showing symbols neither of them could understand.

Yet, despite all that, the gross experiments around them were not what called most of their attention. What did so was at the end of the lab.

*

There, surrounded by glass and metal on all sides, fluttering and pulling in the wind from behind them, was a portal, a rift in space, much like the one that had engulfed them when they were brought into this dungeon.

''A dungeon... inside another dungeon?!'' Laura thought in shock. ''How is that even possible? It shouldn't be!''

Never before had humanity heard of a dungeon inside another, since this could, according to government calculations, break the very reality around it.

Even Jack's instincts were telling him that this was not just bad news, but catastrophic news.

''Where does it even lead?'' he asked.

Suddenly all the hairs in his body stood up, as if a great premonition had just surfaced in his mind, what the ancient beings were doing here, would destroy this world and possibly even earth. Just peering into it, Jack felt two things:

First, a cold like any other he had ever felt froze his very heart and drowned it in undescribable fear since he could somewhat feel what kind of things were on the other side of the blood red ripple in space and time.

The reason is associated with the second emotion he felt, it was desire, a dark desire for power and bloodshed, one he had never felt before, Jack wanted, most of all, to bathe in the blood of his enemies. And the reason he felt that way was quite simple: ''This place, this blood filled dimension... is calling to me!''

Jack's mind was rattling with this side of him that he was never really conscious of.

"No, I must not give in to this; I was taught to be human. With my strength, this sort of thinking will just get me killed!''

He was starting to shake in panic, and he had to close this place back up to close this feeling back up and stop his own monstrous side from taking over.

Laura, noticing that Jack was not in his normal state of mind due to the portal that was drawing her closer, however her state was different in that she knew what was making her feel that way.

Grabbing Jack and pulling him out of the lab with all her strength was no easy task as he was physically stronger than her.

But she did it, which added to the fact that he was also attempting to resist the strong pull of a steel chain on his vulnerable mind.

Laura noticed his resistance to the urge and untightened the grip of her hands to rest for a second without noticing what her partner meant to do as they grew near the altar.

When they were the closest to it, Jack let go of her and drew some more blood from his injury, while leaning on the altar; this time, though, it was on the white moon.

''Hurry and draw some blood! "We must close this fucking door at any cost!"He unknowingly spoke in quite a harsh and violent tone.

This scared Laura, but she decided not to think about it while getting out of this pinch, therefore, she complied. The moment that the pair's hot blood touched their respective cold surfaces, the door slowly closed, cutting them off from the portal's allure.

''Shit!'' Jack shouted. ''What the hell was that?!''

Laura shook her head, either not wanting to share or not being entirely sure herself. All she remembered were the words of her grandpa, telling her of his old battles and some unusual things he had encountered.

They stood there in silence for a few minutes, recomposing themselves, until Laura, who had been mentally trained to resist the urge and thus was recovering faster, felt vibrations coming from underneath their feet. Hundreds of meters down.

''Will this cave not even give us time to recover?!'' She cursed internally, before getting up and helping Jack do the same. He was still breathing heavily, his mind exhausted, but he accepted, and once again the pair went to the previous crossroad and climbed the stairs.