The seabed of the Tranquil Sea at night was pitch black and eerily silent. Yet this was no dead ocean.

  “So many animals,” Aaron whispered.

  Luther gave a small nod. The two boys stayed close together, holding their breath as they observed. Before their eyes unfolded a strange, alien world.

  They saw all sorts of unusual creatures: lobsters the size of cars, fish with sharp horns jutting from their mouth, giant two-headed eels, all swimming, crawling among the seaweed, weaving through cracks in the rocks, or lying hidden under the sandy floor.

  The silence here was because every creature moved without making a sound, and most of them were colored in dark shades. This was the way of life for beings of the Dark Side: either live like a shadow, or become prey.

  Inkshadow glided forward with quiet speed, his long tentacles moving in smooth, sinuous motions. Only when he came close would the surrounding creatures notice and scatter away.

  He led them farther and deeper still. Aaron pulled out his EPhone, cupped a hand over the screen, set the brightness to the lowest level, and glanced down.

  “About ten miles from the shore,” he murmured after checking the GPS.

  They continued on for a while longer until a massive transparent wall appeared ahead. It stretched from the seafloor all the way up to the surface. If Aaron and Luther were to rise above the water, they would see that the barrier extended to cover the sky as well, shaped like an enormous dome.

  “What is this thing? Let me search,” Aaron said. “Oh… this is the Mariana Shield. If you want to set up a settlement in the Shadow World, the first thing you have to do is protect it from the local wildlife, or they’ll be attacked nonstop. This shield keeps malevolent and dangerous Dark Side creatures from entering the market’s area. It’s completely safe because it’s built using the Pact of Sacred Fire.”

  They kept moving along the dark seafloor toward some unknown destination.

  “This is thrilling but so fun! It’s like we’re in one of those adventure movies,” Aaron said with a grin.

  Luther gave a small nod and took his hand.

  The creatures around them grew fewer and fewer, but those that remained were much larger and looked far more threatening.

  “That clam over there is a fierce beast, about the same level as an official knight or a novice mage. Wow, that snake is ferocious-class, same rank as me!” Aaron whispered.

  As an elder beast, Inkshadow was still the ruler of this territory. Every monster that saw him veered away at once, fleeing in other directions.

  “Seventy miles,” Aaron reported after checking the GPS.

  The two boys exchanged uneasy glances. After all, Acher had warned them not to go past a hundred miles.

  “Are we close yet?” Luther asked InkShadow.

  The octopus gave a small, slow nod of his round head, and both Luther and Aaron let out a breath of relief.

  About five minutes later, they arrived at a region full of jagged undersea mountains.

  Aaron tilted his head back to look.

  “Wow… these peaks must be fifteen hundred to two thousand feet tall,” he said in awe.

  Inkshadow swam around for a moment before slipping into a cave entrance hidden behind a crack in the rocky wall.

  They followed the passage deeper into the mountain. The farther they went, the wider the tunnel became.

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  At the end of the cave stood a massive, smooth surface, dozens of feet tall.

  “Oh… this looks like… a mirror? Why would something like this be here?” Aaron muttered.

  Luther frowned.

  “This feels. Familiar,” he said.

  “You’ve seen it before?” Aaron asked.

  “Don’t remember.” Luther shook his head.

  Inkshadow stopped a short distance from the glass-like wall.

  He moved his tentacles in a strange pattern, and bit by bit, his entire body, including the bubble holding Luther and Aaron, began to change color, fading from sight until it looked as if an invisibility cloak had been draped over all of them.

  Then the octopus touched the glass with the tip of a tentacle and stepped right through.

  “It’s an entrance!” Aaron said.

  On the other side was an immense undersea corridor. Towering mountains lined both sides, each one dozens of times larger than the peaks outside. In the middle lay a vast white stone road, so wide it looked as though it had been built for giants.

  The place was in dead silence. Luther and Aaron couldn’t see a single living creature.

  “GPS can’t track us here anymore. That was… a space portal we just passed!” Aaron said, his voice trembling slightly. “Let’s go back.”

  Luther gestured for Inkshadow to retreat, but the octopus blinked his big eyes and kept moving forward instead.

  “Just a little longer,” Luther said, taking a deep breath. “Can’t leave him alone. This is dangerous. He’s being reckless.”

  Inkshadow swam on for a bit, then pointed one tentacle toward something ahead.

  Following the direction, Aaron and Luther spotted dense thickets of pitch-black thorn bushes along both sides of the corridor. Growing among them were large, purple fruits the size of a human head, somewhat like tomatoes but covered in reptile-like scales.

  “Dark magic. Strong and pure,” Luther assessed.

  The octopus looked at them with wide, round eyes, his tentacle still pointing at the strange fruits.

  Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Oh… you want us to pick them for you?”

  Inkshadow gave a slight nod, his eyes curving in a happy expression.

  “Hmmm… these plants must be dangerous if even an elder-class beast like him can’t handle them. Let me try,” Aaron said.

  He picked up a rock and hurled it toward the bushes. The moment it touched the sharp thorns, the rock began to corrode and melt into purple liquid within seconds.

  “That’s some nasty poison,” Aaron muttered. “My fire sword might work, but I can’t use it here. I’ve got a bad feeling. Something dangerous is lurking around this place.”

  “Let me try,” Luther said, pulling out his scythe.

  A reaper’s weapon should be strong enough… right?

  Just as he lifted the blade to cut the thorn bushes, they began to quiver. Then the branches pulled back, revealing the fruits inside.

  “Ohhhh..”

  Luther swung the scythe to harvest the fruits, then created a shadow hand to grab them and pull them out. Holding one of the scaly fruits in their hands, both Luther and Aaron caught a strange aroma that made them want to take a bite right away.

  Inkshadow waved his tentacles in pure delight.

  They moved along the corridor, picking more fruits as they went. Inkshadow even created another bubble to store their haul.

  At the sixth bush, the octopus came to a sudden stop. He grabbed the bubble containing the boys and wrapped it with his tentacles, flattening himself against the ground.

  Through the small gaps between the coiled tentacle, they saw it: a colossal shadow looming over the corridor as it swam. It was as massive as the mountains on either side.

  Luther and Aaron didn’t dare make the slightest sound.

  Only after the shadow had passed for a while did Luther dare to move and signal to Inkshadow that they should head back.

  This time, the octopus agreed, giving a sign that he would retreat.

  Aaron took a deep breath, looked toward the far end of the corridor, and whispered:

  “Luther, ever since we got here, there’s been something… something calling to me, from that direction.”

  There was a rare look of hesitation and uncertainty on Aaron’s face.

  There’s a great thread of fate waiting for you. Acher’s voice flashed through Luther’s mind.

  “You and Inkshadow should get out of here. Let me go check it out,” Aaron said.

  “No. Don’t joke. Like that. I’m coming with you.” Luther seized Aaron’s arm.

  “You go on ahead,” Aaron told Inkshadow.

  The octopus gave a small shake of his head.

  “Don’t worry. We can teleport away if things go badly. If you follow us, you might get stuck here,” Luther explained.

  Inkshadow hesitated for a moment, then pointed toward the entrance, signaling he would wait there for the two boys.

  “Alright. If anything happens, you leave right away. Don’t worry about us,” Luther said.

  The octopus extended a tentacle, touching both boys. A thin layer of water enveloped them, and then the water bubble burst apart.

  “Oh! We can breathe and move underwater freely now!” Aaron exclaimed. “Uh … but I think there’s a time limit. This layer of water is already starting to wear away.”

  Inkshadow waved in farewell and crawled toward the entrance.

  Luther then summoned his cloak of ambiguity. It grew larger, expanding to cover both boys.

  “Whoa, that’s huge,” Aaron remarked.

  “Since I reached adept mage. Controlling it gets easier,” Luther replied.

  “You’re amazing!” Aaron grinned.

  The two of them walked along the vast corridor, noticing that every so often they passed domed chambers exactly like the one they had just left, all sharing the same design.

  At the far end of the path stood an enormous gate of white stone veined with gold, its twin doors left slightly ajar. Upon their surface was an intricate carving of a mountain range beneath a blazing sunset sky.