Wonderful Insane World-Chapter 70: Near The Abyss

"Many stories say that this battle once shook the whole continent," said Élisa, exhaling as she instinctively stepped back, as if the ground might collapse beneath her feet.

She stood tall, but her gaze kept drifting, deliberately avoiding the yawning center of the abyss.

"But that was over a thousand years ago... Stories always end up embellished. Or twisted. Or forgotten."

A silence followed. One of those thick, heavy silences where even the wind seems to hesitate before slipping through.

Dylan stepped forward, stopping at the edge where stone turned from earth into vertigo.

He glanced down — just once.

But it was enough to feel a chill crawl up his spine.

"All I know..." Élisa continued, softer now, almost in a whisper,

"...is that you shouldn’t stare at the chasm for too long.

Our eyes might be too weak to see what lives down there...

...but theirs never miss us."

Behind them, Maggie said nothing. She had frozen a few meters away, peering through the foliage without approaching. Her stance was rigid, almost feline — like a sentinel who’d caught the scent of something too ancient to make noise.

Dylan gave a slow nod, saying nothing. He didn’t like this. This kind of silence.

It was too still.

Like the universe had scratched this place off its map, refusing to let it rejoin the world.

And him, despite the fire in his veins, despite the new strength pulsing inside him,

he felt small.

Insignificant.

A pawn on the edge of a cosmic chessboard.

---

They caught their breath... then kept walking.

The day moved on without them — so they had to follow, simple as that.

They would have to climb, scrambling up the steep slope to skirt around the chasm — a detour that might take hours, maybe until nightfall.

The path ran along the edge, exposed, far from the protective cover of the forest.

A barren strip, wind-beaten, where trees grew scarce — but perhaps, just maybe, safer.

At least, that’s what they hoped.

Because if they ventured too deep into the woods, they risked getting trapped. Swallowed by the living belly of the forest, where sunlight barely reached... and predators hunted at eye level.

In that narrow clearing, they had to move — unseen, untouched.

Unless they chose to be the threat.

Because at some point, they would need to eat.

And more importantly, they would need to fuel their spirit cores.

With every anima gem absorbed, their bodies and souls grew stronger — boosting their striking power... and their odds of survival.

They couldn’t ignore what was ahead.

A red zone.

A territory crawling with at least third-rank creatures.

Beasts they couldn’t yet take down on their own. Not the three of them.

Not without flawless coordination.

And for that, they needed to prepare.

The sun had started to dip, painting the sky in a burning orange that clashed against the creeping darkness of the abyss behind them. Shadows stretched long, twisting rocks into looming figures.

Maggie was the first to slip under the treeline, her fingers tightening around her weapon’s hilt.

Dylan followed, muscles tense, each step deliberate, careful to avoid snapping twigs that could betray their presence.

Élisa, at the rear, scanned the forest’s depths, her pupils wide — as if already sensing something the others could not see.

"Don’t go far," murmured Maggie. "Just enough to find water and weak prey. A rabbit, a deer... anything that won’t scream too loud when it dies."

Her tone was neutral, almost clinical. As if a creature’s death — even a trivial one — was just another mission variable. Not a consequence.

The ground was soft, riddled with roots snaking like veins under the moss. Every crackle beneath their boots rang with a trace of paranoia.

Dylan crouched at one point, brushing a half-faded track in the dirt: a split hoofprint, long... but too light to belong to a predator.

"Maybe a deer," he murmured.

Élisa said nothing. Her gaze had locked onto a patch of grass — blackened, charred.

But not by fire. No, something else. Something older.

"Something’s been prowling here for a while," she finally said, voice tight. "And it’s not a deer."

A cold shiver wormed its way down their spines.

The silence that followed wasn’t empty.

It was... saturated.

Somewhere, deep in the shadows, something had just held its breath.

The trio froze. Even the wind seemed to stop.

Dylan felt a bead of sweat trail down his temple.

"Since when was the forest this quiet?" he thought, his grey eyes sweeping the undergrowth, the trunks, the shadows.

No branches snapping. No birdcalls. Nothing.

Just that silence — thick, sticky. Like the forest itself was holding back a scream.

Maggie clenched her jaw. Her fingers trembled slightly on her weapon — not from fear.

From anticipation.

She’d sensed it too.

"Spark your cores," she murmured. Barely a whisper. "Now."

They obeyed.

With a barely visible twitch, Dylan and Élisa detonated their essence cores. A controlled jolt. Like flipping the ignition in a dead engine.

A boot — a jarring surge in the hollow of their bodies.

It wasn’t natural. And definitely not free of cost.

Their breath caught for half a second. Then came the rush — brutal.

A wildfire coursing through their veins.

Pupils dilated. Muscles clenched. The air thickened around them, like the entire world had suddenly started to hum.

It was that same technique Maggie had used to take down a third-rank demon beast alone.

But it wasn’t a gift.

Once it wore off, the backlash was savage: exhaustion, fever, internal pain.

And still... they used it.

Three spiritual pulses rippled outward like waves across a still lake... opening a fragile, taut, near-overloaded sensory field.

The forest suddenly inhaled — but not with their breath.

The shadows shifted into shapes.

The heartbeat of the soil climbed up their heels.

Rustles became words.

And in that world... they saw it.

Ten steps away.

Lurking behind a moss-covered trunk.

The thing watched them.

Not a beast. Not exactly.

A humanoid silhouette, barely 4 feet tall — emaciated, almost mummified.

Skin sickly white, nearly translucent, glowing faintly in the gloom.

Four horns — two large, curling back from its temples, two smaller ones jutting from its brow, still dark like freshly grown bone.

Its wiry arms ended in long black claws, thin as bone.

And a tail — long, twitchy, almost serpentine — trailed behind it, its tip so fine it seemed to dissolve into air.

But it was the eyes that anchored the silence.

Two rows of glossy, dark orbs, arranged in a pentagon across its forehead.

They didn’t blink.

They stared.

And that smile... that jagged grin, mocking, full of tiny teeth sharp as razors.

Then came the sound.

High-pitched. Twisted.

Like a hyena laughing inside a steel drum.

The trio flinched — not from fear, not yet — but from sheer instinct.

And it got worse.

The laughter didn’t stop.

It swelled.

Like an echo — no. Like a copied echo.

More laughs rose around them. Faint at first, then sharper, closer. A dozen, maybe more. All twisted the same way. All laced with that same sick joy, that mocking, hollow delight.

They were syncing.

Not perfectly. Not mechanically.

But enough to say one thing loud and clear:

This little freak... wasn’t alone.

And he wasn’t just a scout.

"Shit," Dylan hissed through clenched teeth, fists tightening until his knuckles popped.