Omniscient Necromancer POV

"Let's go," I said to Rosella, who without protest began to follow me into the central building of the fort.

The sound of our boots against the stone floor echoed through the empty halls. The deeper we descended into the basement of that place, the less the architecture resembled a human fort. The bricks were swallowed by thick, black roots that pierced the stone as if they were alive.

The smell was different too. At first, it was just dust, but now the air was heavy, damp, almost rotten.

"Do you feel that?" Rosella murmured, keeping her hand on the hilt of her sword.

"Yes. The curse spreads from the true body. It's like... a root that never stops growing. Every inch we descend is its territory."

Rosella didn't answer, but her silence was enough. Her courage always impressed me, but even the strongest tremble when they realize that the enemy is not just physical, but something that corrupts the air, the stones, and even their thoughts. Those who were possessed would not survive, and if they did, they would no longer be themselves.

Soon, we passed through a narrow archway, where half the wall had been swallowed by roots. I had to force my body sideways to get through, and the feeling of rough wood scratching my arm was uncomfortable. I swore one of the vines moved, as if it had sensed me passing.

"Careful," I warned Rosella and raised the arm carrying the fireball.

The flame illuminated part of a large but deformed hall. The original bricks were barely visible; in their place was a tangle of thick roots. Some seemed to pulsate, and I could hear a low, rhythmic sound—like a heart beating somewhere in the distance.

"It's as if we're walking inside the body of this thing," Rosella said.

I nodded, because that was exactly how I felt too.

We moved forward. The vines became more numerous, forming arches and pillars that replaced the original structure of the fort. With every step, the place ceased to be a basement and became something organic, as if the fortress were being devoured from within.

Suddenly, a crack echoed. One of the vines contracted and broke through the wall to our left, releasing a dark liquid that smelled of iron and mold. Rosella instinctively raised her sword, but nothing else happened.

"It's reacting. It knows we're close. It's going to try to make us run away."

Rosella took a deep breath, regaining control. "Then let's get this over with."

We descended further, and the staircase led us to an abyss of intertwined roots, as if we were entering the hollow trunk of a giant tree. It was deep, very deep, and there were no more stairs. In the center, at the deepest point where even the light from the fireball could not reach, something glowed with a greenish hue.

"The core... There lies the true body of the Curse of Varzen."

Rosella narrowed her eyes and saw what I was seeing. It was at least a hundred meters of free fall, a wide abyss surrounded by roots. If we jumped like that, not even the most skilled warrior would survive.

"The question now is: how are we going to get down?" I asked.

"That won't be a problem." Rosella replied with a simple tone that surprised me. "If I concentrate my aura on my feet, I can cushion the impact of the fall. But... I'm not sure I could do it for both of us."

I shook my head. "If you miss, we'll end up becoming part of those roots."

Before attempting something so risky, I decided it was worth looking around a bit and trying to remember.

Hunter Ruse, the protagonist of "The Journey to the Beyond," had a few tricks that allowed him to make this descent easy, such as the <Shadow Shift> skill that allowed him to literally walk inside the shadows. However, I didn't have an ability like that yet, so I needed to try to be a little smarter.

"Okay... I can do this. Rosella, you jump when I get to the bottom. I'll go down first. That way, if something goes wrong, you still have a chance to help me."

"Okay." She agreed without even looking surprised. She trusted me. "But how do you intend to go down alone? The descent doesn't look exactly inviting."

It was the inevitable question. So I raised my empty hand, and the air sparkled for an instant, and amid the flash, the Sword of Laufus appeared. The metal had a slightly bluish silver tone, heavy and elegant, but what made this weapon unique was the mechanism of its essence. I squeezed the hilt, and the steel split into two twin blades, each balanced for one-handed use.

"With this, I'll do the work of a climber."

Rosella frowned, tilting her head. "Mounta... what?"

I was slightly surprised, but it made sense that she didn't know. Being a climber was a hobby that only a modern world allowed people to have. Aland had not yet reached that level.

"Ah, forget it. Just watch."

She didn't argue. She just took a few steps back, giving me space, as if she already knew that arguing would only waste precious seconds.

I reached the edge of the abyss, closed my eyes for a moment, adjusted my grip on the swords, and took a deep breath.

"Now."

I plunged the first blade into one of the thick vines that intertwined on the inner wall of the abyss. The sword went in as if cutting through soft stone. With the other, I repeated the movement a few inches below.

I descended like this, step by step, pulling the swords, stabbing, planting my feet on the protrusions. Every movement had to be thought out. One mistake and I would fall straight into that greenish glow, with a high chance of not even surviving the fall.

Behind me, I heard Rosella murmur something inaudible, perhaps a prayer.

I continued my descent. Sweat was already dripping down my forehead, not only from the effort, but also from the tension. The vines were not uniform—some pulsed like veins, others exuded a viscous liquid that stuck to my fingers and made my footing slippery. Still, I pressed on.

"Just a little further..." I whispered to myself, as if the sound of my own voice were the only anchor against the oppressive silence.

Then, when I was almost at the end of the long descent, it happened. As I plunged one of the swords into a darker, drier vine, the vine split with a sharp crack. The blade met no resistance, cutting through as if it were rotten paper. My body lost its balance, and the world turned upside down.

"Damn!" I shouted in my mind when I realized I was falling.

The wind whipped my face, and the feeling that the ground was coming at me at absurd speed made my heart race.

The impact came, but not as I had imagined. Instead of broken bones, I found a floor of woven vines that gave way under my weight, like a living mattress. They creaked, snapped, and were hard, but they absorbed part of the fall. Pain shot through my back, and for a moment my vision darkened. Still, I was alive and without major injuries.

Of course, jumping from up there would still have killed me, but since I fell about ten meters, I didn't have too many problems.

Desperate, I looked up—the abyss stretched too high, and Rosella couldn't even be seen anymore.

"I did it..." I muttered, trying to get up.

The vines beneath my feet moved, as if they had a mind of their own, and at that moment I remembered where I was. Before getting up, I looked back and saw the true body of the curse.

I got up slowly, trying not to provoke any reaction from the living roots that formed the ground. The greenish glow that I had seen from above was now in front of me, a few meters away. The body of the curse was an eyeball more than two meters in diameter, standing out like a small pillar in the tangle of roots that formed the bottom of the abyss.

Fortunately, it didn't seem to have noticed my presence because it was closed. However, any noise slightly louder than my fall would probably wake that thing up.

At that moment, I closed my fist and let the mana flow through my arm before opening my right hand. A fireball was born in my palm.

I raised the sphere of flames, pointing it upward. This served to convey to Rosella that I was alive and that she could come down.

I looked up. The glow of my flame did not reach that height, but I noticed something moving. Rosella had indeed thrown herself into the abyss without ropes, without supports, without weapons to hold on to.

When I could finally see her clearly, Rosella had a special color around her feet. It was as if her boots were covered in glitter. She simply landed and crouched slightly, absorbed the impact with her legs, and then stood up as if she had descended a simple staircase.

"Are you... Are you okay?"

Rosella smoothed a strand of hair that had escaped from her bun and looked at me with natural calm, as if falling from such an absurd height was not that impressive.

"I felt a slight discomfort in my knee. But it's nothing. You can ignore it."