Jiiku tilted his head back, gazing up at the Underworld Realm’s sky—an unyielding, silent shroud of muted grey that pressed down like a suffocating veil. No breeze stirred its stillness, no hint of life broke its monotony; it was a void frozen in time, exuding an eerie permanence that clawed at his mind. The air hung thick and stagnant, laced with the faint, sour stench of decaying leaves and the dry, powdery grit of ancient dust. Each breath seared his throat, leaving a metallic tang on his tongue, sharp and bitter, like the taste of rust and ruin. His body felt wrong—muscles leaden with a deep, gnawing ache, joints stiff as if rusted over, every motion sluggish and labored. It was as though he’d been running across endless, desolate plains for centuries, the weight of uncounted years grinding him down. Something is profoundly wrong here, he thought, the realization tightening like a noose around his chest.


    “My body…” Riku rasped, his voice a faint, hollow echo, weak even to his own ears. “I feel… strange. Like I’ve been running for centuries. My muscles are heavy… even breathing takes effort.” The words stumbled out, each one a struggle against the invisible force that seemed to crush his vitality, draining him with every heartbeat.


    He lifted his hands, turning them slowly before his eyes. They trembled—a subtle, relentless quiver he couldn’t still. The skin, once firm and smooth, had faded to a ghostly pallor, almost translucent, revealing the faint blue of veins beneath. Fine wrinkles spiderwebbed across his palms, a lattice of age carved into flesh that had been youthful mere hours ago. Hesitantly, he reached up, running a hand through his hair, and his stomach lurched as coarse grey strands snagged between his fingers, stark against the dark. He jerked his hand back, as if the touch had scalded him, dread pooling cold and heavy in his gut.


    Aethrya stood beside him, her face carved in grim lines, her eyes shadowed with a foreboding that chilled the air between them. “This place is a snare for mortals like you,” she warned, her voice low and urgent, cutting through the oppressive silence like a blade. “The Underworld Realm devours those bound by time. Every moment you linger here, it ages you, saps your strength, leeches your very essence away.” Her words carried a stark, unyielding truth, painting a picture of a realm that didn’t just kill—it consumed.


    Riku dragged a hand across his face, fingertips brushing skin that felt rough and slack where it had once been taut. The sensation sent a jolt of horror through him, sharp and icy, piercing to his core. “This damned place… it’s stealing our lives,” he whispered, his voice trembling with a volatile mix of rage and despair. “Isn’t there some way to stop it?”


    For a fleeting second, Aethrya hesitated, her gaze flickering away as if the weight of his question was too much to bear. Then, with a slow, pained shake of her head, she murmured, “No.” The word was soft, barely audible, yet it landed like a hammer blow. “We need to escape—fast. The longer we stay, the more your bodies, your souls, will bind to this realm. You’ll become part of it… forever.” The unspoken threat—to join the ranks of the damned, lost to eternity—hung heavy, a dark specter lurking in her pause.


    Suddenly, from the swirling, grey mist ahead, a figure emerged. Its silhouette was vaguely human, but its movements were grotesque—lurching and uneven, limbs twisted as if strung together by a careless hand, bones jutting at unnatural angles. Then another appeared. And another. A parade of horrors shuffled forth, each more nightmarish than the last. Some were skeletal husks, their bones draped in scraps of sinew and malice, hollow sockets staring blankly into nothingness. Others bore the ravages of decay—flesh sloughing off in putrid, glistening clumps, exposing the gleam of bone beneath. A few had eyes, glowing with a sickly, unnatural light, like dying embers in a forsaken hearth, devoid of any trace of humanity. They were death made manifest, a grotesque gallery of the lost.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    Riku’s hand instinctively found the hilt of his sword, the cold steel grounding him against the rising tide of revulsion. “What… are they?” he asked, his voice tight, the words snagging in his throat as bile rose with them.


    Aethrya’s face blanched, her eyes widening with a dread that mirrored his own. “They were mortals once,” she breathed, her voice quaking on the edge of a whisper. “Not anymore. These are Sylvara’s army—the living dead.”


    J??ku locked onto the eyes of the approaching horde. Some were empty voids, black and fathomless, while others flickered with a faint, ghostly sheen—a cruel mockery of life, devoid of soul or will. Their advance was slow but relentless, a tide of decay driven by an unseen force, intent on dragging the living into their ranks. Are there familiar faces among them? The thought struck him like a blow, nausea churning as he imagined loved ones twisted into these abominations.


    The first of the living dead drew near, its stench hitting like a physical force—sweet and cloying, the reek of rot so thick it coated his tongue. Its body was a ruin, flesh peeling away in sodden strips to reveal bone beneath, yet it moved with purpose, animated by some dark, unholy power. Its vacant stare fixed on them, and its gnarled hands reached out, eager to rend and tear.


    Aethrya bared her teeth, lunging forward with her scimitar flashing in the dim light. “We can’t run,” she snapped, her voice hard and unyielding. “They’re too many—everywhere. They’ve boxed us in.” The horde tightened around them, a silent, suffocating ring of death.


    J??ku drew a ragged breath, steeling himself. “Then we’ll cut through,” he said, his tone resolute despite the tremor in his chest.


    He unsheathed his sword, the blade’s weight a faint comfort in his grasp. Aethrya clutched her scimitar, her knuckles whitening. As if on cue, the living dead surged forward in a unified, jerky rush.


    With a guttural shout, J??ku swung his spear in a broad, desperate arc. The blade sliced through the air with a high-pitched whistle, cleaving the neck of the nearest corpse. The head toppled free, hitting the ground with a wet, meaty thud, spraying bits of decayed flesh and splintered bone. But his fleeting triumph choked off as the body convulsed, muscles twitching violently beneath torn skin. Thick, black blood oozed from the stump, and with a grotesque lurch, the headless form straightened, a faint blue glow pulsing where its head had been—Sylvara’s cursed power defying death itself. Horror sank its claws into J??ku’s gut. Death isn’t an end here, he realized. It’s just a puppet string.


    “There has to be a way to end them for good!” he roared, desperation and fury boiling over. He swung again, hacking off an arm. The severed limb flopped to the ground, fingers still clawing at the dirt, scrabbling blindly in a grotesque dance of persistence.


    Aethrya’s eyes darted across the horde, her mind racing. “Sylvara hasn’t restored their lives,” she murmured, her voice taut and reflective, almost lost in the chaos. “She’s puppeted their corpses with her dark magic—empty husks, no souls, just her will holding them together. If we can sever her power, break that connection, they might collapse… finally rest.”