Harem Sync: Divine Edition-Chapter 40: Descending to the Heart
They began running through the labyrinth, following the roots, Isabela in front with the flame on her finger indicating the direction while Aldric came behind, holding her sleeve tightly.
Not even hours had passed when they began to see more vegetation, not only roots descending from the ceiling, but moss covering the walls, small plants growing in damp crevices, and the air becoming more laden with the smell of wet earth.
Aldric grew happier as they advanced, smiling for the first time since they had entered the tunnels. "Finally... finally!"
He saw light at the end of the tunnel ahead, a large opening that showed natural light, and he couldn’t hold back, he let go of Isabela’s sleeve and ran towards the light with childlike excitement.
"ALDRIC, WAIT—"
He jumped through the opening without looking at what was below.
There was no earth.
Isabela managed to grab his hand at the last second before he fell completely, holding on tightly as his body swayed over the void. He looked down and saw that the opening led directly to a huge underground lake, dark water so deep he couldn’t see the bottom.
Aldric was breathing heavily, his eyes wide, staring at the water below. "Down there... down there is just water..."
He tried to pull himself up, but the backpack full of stolen artifacts weighed him down too much, so he grabbed Isabela’s arm with both hands in a panic. "Don’t let go! Pull! Pull! I CAN’T SWIM! I CAN’T SWIM!"
Isabela looked at him with that neutral expression that showed nothing.
"Oh no... you crazy woman, DON’T LET GO OF ME! I apologize for yelling so much... please..."
Isabela let go.
"YOU BITCH!" Aldric yelled, falling, his voice echoing through the open space until he hit the water with a loud splash.
He sank quickly, the backpack full of treasures weighing him down like an anchor, pulling him straight to the bottom.
He tried to swim but couldn’t surface properly. He began to remove the straps of his backpack with growing desperation, took it off and let it sink on its own, but he still couldn’t surface fast enough. He continued taking things out—a knife attached to his belt, something heavy in his pocket—but his oxygen was running out, his lungs were starting to burn, he needed air.
That’s when he saw it.
Bright eyes beneath him in the darkness of the water, multiple pairs approaching rapidly from the depths. He began to try to surface even more desperately, his arms and legs moving uncoordinatedly, and then the creature opened its enormous mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth.
Isabela, who had already dived, grabbed him by the collar and began to propel them both upwards, generating ignition throughout their bodies.
The fire didn’t completely extinguish underwater; it created bubbles of steam that exploded around them, generating propulsion, and she used that to move quickly.
She was fast, much faster than normal swimming, but she couldn’t completely escape the jaws of the monster that was right behind her, biting the water where they had been half a second before. Isabela saw solid ground ahead, the rocky shore of the lake, and she didn’t stop generating propulsion until they broke the surface and flew about two meters into the air before falling onto the solid rock.
The creature leaped after them, its enormous body emerging from the water in an arc, its scaly black skin with fins on its sides and its head that was just a giant mouth. It almost caught up with the two of them, but fell back into the water a few centimeters from the shore, remaining there repeatedly jumping, trying to catch them at the edge.
Isabela didn’t wait to see if the creature would eventually get out of the water; she picked up Aldric like a sack of potatoes thrown over her shoulder and ran towards the forest ahead, enormous trees with thick trunks and exposed roots forming a dense network.
They ran a few meters into the woods until the creature was no longer visible, only the distant sound of it hitting the water gradually fading until it disappeared completely.
Isabela finally stopped, threw Aldric to the ground roughly, and leaned against a tree, panting, her soaked clothes clinging to her body and her hair dripping.
Aldric lay on his back on the ground, coughing up water and breathing deeply, alive but traumatized. "You... let... me go..."
"Shut up, I saved you," Isabela replied simply, still trying to catch her breath as she walked in the direction the flames indicated. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂
The tunnel finally opened, and they arrived at a kind of slope made of irregular stone that jutted out, giving a complete view of where they were. Isabela approached the edge and contemplated the surroundings, trying to process what she saw.
It was a gigantic dome made entirely of natural stone, with a high arched ceiling, and hundreds of holes in the surrounding walls. Tunnels of all sizes carved into the rock in chaotic patterns, some large enough for a cart to pass through, others so small that a person could barely fit, the surface of the dome was full of holes scattered across it as if something had excavated without any planning, just digging in all possible directions.
Beneath everything, covering the entire floor of the dome, was water. A still, black lake that reflected the faint light emanating from bioluminescent crystals scattered across the walls, its depth impossible to estimate just by looking.
Anything that emerged from the tunnels and couldn’t fly or hold on would fall straight into that water.There was only one place with solid ground, exactly where they were now, a small island of stone and earth covered in strange vegetation that glowed faintly, luminescent mosses and plants that Isabela had never seen in her life growing among the rocks.
And in the middle of it all, dominating the entire island, was a tree.
It wasn’t a normal tree. The trunk was too thick, it must have been easily ten meters in diameter, with black, twisted bark and bright veins running all over the surface, pulsing slowly as if the tree had its own heart.
The branches stretched in all directions, rising and spreading until they touched the stone dome above, and when she looked more closely she realized that they weren’t just branches, they looked like roots supporting the entire structure of the dome.
There were also creatures flying around the tree, strange and irregular silhouettes that moved in slow circular patterns, membranous wings beating silently, bodies too elongated to be normal birds. Aldric crawled to the edge of the slope to see where they were. His eyes widened.
"This... this is..." he couldn’t finish the sentence, he just stared in utter bewilderment.
This was the first dungeon for both of them. Neither of them had ever been in anything like this before. Isabela had heard stories, read accounts, but seeing it in person was completely different—the scale, the strangeness, the feeling of being inside a dungeon. They stood there for a few seconds just trying to process what they were seeing, until Isabela finally broke the silence.
"The tree... it has to be it. The core must be there."
