“Great, we’re separated from the others; now what?” Sunghye asked.

“We go further in,” Kai responded and purposefully took a few more steps into the darkness, his spell of light following them along.

Sunghye’s PM by then was going nuts with messages from Sehun generally causing mayhem for the other members. Even though they had the flame torch with them, they were surrounded by darkness and because of the Warbeast’s imagination he was freaking out. Sunghye felt sorry for Kyungmi and Chen.

“When you texted me about this quest, I didn’t think it would be that bad,” Sunghye said as they continued to walk.

The fact that something else hadn’t jumped out and attacked them yet definitely worried the Demigod.

“How was I supposed to know?” Kai shot back. “You know as well as I do that the descriptions are always so vague. Plus aren’t you up for the challenge?”

Sunghye pouted, it was after all most of the reason why she did say yes to the quest in the first place. (The other reason was because it was Kai asking her but it was a small, small detail.)

Unlike how it began when they entered the cave, nothing lit up for them along the walls and nothing else appeared.

There was a silence that Sunghye did not enjoy.

Kai must have felt the same way because a second later he started to whistle a tune nervously but then stopped when the darkened cave wall gave way to something extraordinary.

With the light that Kai was making, it illuminated the crystal-like substances that were embedded in the walls and reflected different wavelengths of colour. It was as if she was walking into a rainbow. Her skin was glowing and she watched amazed as the light danced off of her and Kai.

“What is this?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Kai responded. “But I have a feeling we’re getting closer.”

When the two walked into the kaleidoscope part of the cave for a few metres, a rumble shook the ground for a few seconds and then stopped before starting again.

“Okay, not an earthquake…” Sunghye commented with wide eyes.

Kai didn’t answer right away, opting to listen for a few rounds before he said something.

“An animal?” he suggested cautiously.

“That big though? I feel like it’s probably a monster.”

“Well, then why don’t we find out?”

“Isn’t it the wrong move for us to go towards the source of the sound? Practically every horror movie tells us not to,” Sunghye said, trying to keep her voice from raising a higher octave.

“If you haven’t noticed, we only have one way to go right now,” Kai responded with a quirk of his eyebrow and mockery in his tone.

Sunghye huffed. “Fine but you’re walking in front of me, so if there does happen to be a monster, it’ll be too busy fighting you that it won’t see me getting away.”

The Elf halted in his tracks suddenly which made Sunghye almost collide into him.

“What?” she asked.

“Dare I say that these are your true colours?” Kai teased.

Sunghye rolled her eyes but there was a smile lurking on her lips. “Of course, do you regret teaming up with me now?”

Kai just regarded her for a few seconds which made the Demigod squirm under his gaze. Eventually he answered her.

“No,” he said with all the teasing gone from his voice. “I don’t regret it at all.”

Sunghye cleared , not knowing how to respond back when he suddenly got so serious and just pushed him, forcing him to move again.

“Come on, let’s get going.”

Luckily for her, the Elf listened to her and they both fell into a silence that was no longer comfortable or scary. It was a different type of silence that the Demigod hadn’t experienced before and she didn’t know if it was a good feeling.

When the cave walls finally opened up into a larger space however, Sunghye felt thankful for the disruption until her eyes laid upon the creature that was occupying the room.

It was a bird of sorts, the size of a retriever dog, its feathers sparkled red and gold with one of its wings curled over its body. The bird was sleeping as heard from the snoring that emitted from its beak. Now that they were up close, the sound was obviously a snore and Sunghye reprimanded herself silently for assuming something bad.

She realized quickly though it was much worse.

One of the bird’s eyes opened and stared right at them, bright yellow and piercing. It stood up then and right in front of their eyes, grew in size until they were barely as tall as its feet.

When the bird’s wings expanded, it touched at the end of each side of the room. The wings caught fire and Sunghye jumped back in alarm while Kai’s light went out.

They didn’t really need it anymore anyways, when the creature in front of them was clearly burning.

It finally clicked to Sunghye what it was; a Phoenix.

A high level monster apparently, as her game vision let her know the name of the creature which was “Uxeli”.

Sunghye briefly wondered how to pronounce the name, but had her thought process interrupted when Uxeli let out a shriek so loud it caused some of the cr