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The darkness was real absolute. Not the comforting dark of a moonless night, where stars still pinpricked the sky and shapes gradually resolved from shadow; this was the dark of the deep earth, where light had never touched and never would, save for the feeble lanterns carried by desperate men.
Grandpa Arlet moved with the group; his borrowed face arranged in Vance's characteristic expression of barely contained terror. It wasn't difficult to maintain; the tunnel was genuinely oppressive, its walls pressing close, the weight of millions of tons of rock hanging above them like a sword suspended by a thread. Every creak of the ancient supports, every drip of water from unseen fissures, every crunch of boot on stone echoed in the tight space like the footsteps of giants.
One knight whistled in impression. "This place really is big, to think it is just one out of the many caves in that place."
Enoch's voice echoed from ahead, calm and instructive. "The industrial city was built on layers. The upper levels; forges, factories, barracks. The middle levels; storage, quarters, administration. And the lower levels..." He paused. "The lower levels are where the real work happened. Mining. Extraction. The gathering of resources that built the Walls themselves."
One of the younger knights spoke up, his voice hushed with a mixture of awe and fear. "Sir, if these tunnels lead outside the Walls, why don't the Titans get in? Wouldn't they just... walk through?"
A reasonable question. Grandpa Arlet filed it away, noting the young knight's face; a fresh recruit, probably new to the Order's deeper secrets. Good to know the ranks weren't all hardened fanatics.
Enoch's answer came after a moment, his tone carrying a hint of something that might have been amusement. "The Titans don't navigate tunnels. They're drawn to light, to movement, to the scent of humans in open spaces. Underground, in darkness, they're... less effective. Besides, the exits are sealed. Not blocked, sealed. With stone and steel and, in some places, with older methods."
"Older methods?"
But Enoch didn't elaborate. The question hung in the stale air, unanswered, as they pressed deeper into the mountain's guts.
They descended for what felt like hours, though Grandpa Arlet's internal clock; still calibrated from his Wrecker days; said it was closer to fifty minutes. The tunnel branched repeatedly, but Enoch never hesitated, taking lefts and rights with the confidence of a man following a well-marked trail. He knew this place intimately, had studied its maps until they were etched into his memory like scripture.
Finally, the tunnel opened into a larger chamber. Natural, mostly, though its walls bore the unmistakable marks of extensive mining. Iron rings set into the stone spoke of old ropes and pulleys. Rusted rail tracks led to a collapsed shaft in the far wall. And everywhere, in the walls, in the ceiling, in the floor, veins of crystal glowed with faint internal light.
Iceburst stone. Grandpa Arlet recognized it instantly; the same volatile mineral that powered ODM gear, that could explode with devastating force if mishandled. The chamber was a powder keg wrapped in a bomb factory. One spark, one misplaced step, and they'd all be slumped dead in the middle of nowhere.
Enoch raised a hand, halting them. "From here, we proceed on foot. The horses stay."
They dismounted, tying the animals to iron rings set in the walls. Grandpa Arlet copied the others' movements, keeping Vance's nervous energy alive in his posture, his darting glances, his trembling hands. The knights were all on edge now, the weight of the rock above them pressing on more than just their shoulders.
Enoch gathered them in a tight circle, his golden mask gleaming in the crystal-light. The runes on its surface seemed to shift, to writhe, as if alive with their own malevolent purpose.
"Beyond this chamber lies the final tunnel. It runs for approximately three miles, gradually rising, and emerges in a ravine approximately two miles south of the exterior of wall Rose, leading us straight into the forest of giant trees." He paused, letting the information sink in. "The tunnel is old. Unstable in places. Do not touch the walls. Do not kick loose stones. Do not; under any circumstances; disturb the iceburst deposits. One mistake, and this entire tunnel becomes our tomb."
He looked at each of them in turn, his masked face unreadable but somehow conveying the weight of absolute authority.
"The boy is in that forest. The creature is with him. Our mission is to observe, to assess, and if possible, to acquire." His voice hardened, the cultured tones giving way to something colder, more fanatical. "We are instruments of divine will. We do not fail."
The knights nodded, some with fervent conviction, others with barely concealed terror. Grandpa Arlet, in Vance's body, nodded along with them, his mind already racing ahead.
Three miles underground. Unstable tunnels. Iceburst deposits that could explode at the slightest provocation. And at the end of it, Eren; alone out there and unaware of their incoming arrival.
He had to get there first. He had to reach the boy before the Knights did.
Enoch turned and led them into the final tunnel.
Said tunnel was narrower than the others, its walls rough-hewn and marked by the scars of ancient tools. The iceburst deposits grew more frequent here, their pulsing light casting strange, shifting shadows that danced and writhed like living things. The air was thick with mineral dust, sharp and acrid, burning the lungs with every breath.
"Put these on."
Enoch's voice echoed from ahead. He was distributing items from a pack; gas masks, their filters bulky and their eyepieces dark. "The dust in this section is concentrated. Pure mineral particles. Without protection, your lungs will be clogged within seconds."
Grandpa Arlet accepted the mask, examining it quickly. Crude by galactic standards, but functional. He fitted it over Vance's face, adjusting the straps, testing the seal. Beside him, the other knights did the same, their movements practiced; they'd done this before.
Even the horses wore masks, crude leather and cloth contraptions that covered their muzzles and filtered the worst of the dust. The animals stamped nervously, their eyes rolling white in the crystal-light, but they didn't resist. They'd been trained for this, or drugged into compliance…Either was possible.
The tunnel sloped upward gradually, as Enoch had promised. The iceburst veins grew so thick in places that they had to walk single file, picking their way over exposed deposits, their boots inches from catastrophe. The masks made breathing difficult, made communication impossible; they moved in a silence broken only by the crunch of stone and the occasional nervous snort from the horses.
Grandpa Arlet kept his eyes moving, scanning the walls, the ceiling, the floor. He was looking for weaknesses, for opportunities, for anything that might give him an edge when the time came to act. Because the time would come. He couldn't let these people reach Eren. He couldn't.
A hand touched his arm.
He turned. Anya was beside him, her eyes visible through the mask's eyepieces; wide, frightened, glistening with unshed tears. She gestured urgently, pointing to a small alcove off the main tunnel, a natural recess in the rock where they could speak without being overheard by the knights ahead.
Grandpa Arlet hesitated. Every instinct screamed to stay with the group, to maintain his cover, to wait for the perfect moment. But Anya's fear was real, and fear could be useful. He followed her into the alcove.
For a moment, they just stood there, breathing through their masks, the sounds of the group fading as the knights moved ahead. Then Anya pulled her mask aside just enough to speak, her voice a terrified whisper.
"I can't do this."
Grandpa Arlet kept Vance's expression; nervous, sympathetic, slightly clueless. "Can't do what?"
"This." She gestured vaguely at the tunnel, at the darkness, at everything. "This mission. This life. I didn't sign up for—for this. For hunting children. For going beyond the Walls. For..." Her voice cracked. "I'm going to die down here. I know it. I can feel it."
Grandpa Arlet studied her for a long moment. She was young; younger than Vance, even. She'd been recruited, probably, or born into the Order, raised on stories of divine purpose and cosmic purity. And now she was here, in the dark, about to hunt a ten-year-old boy through Titan-infested forests, and the weight of it was crushing her.
"Everyone's scared," he said quietly, pitching his voice to match Vance's nervous tenor. "Anyone who says they're not is either a liar or a fool."
"But you're not scared." Anya's eyes searched his face. "You've been... different since we stopped. Calmer. Like you know something we don't."
Grandpa Arlet held her gaze. "I know that panicking won't help. I know that we're here now, and we have to see this through. And I know..." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "I know that fear is just information. It tells you what matters. What you're afraid to lose."
Anya blinked. "What are you afraid to lose?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of goggles; simple things, but with lenses that seemed to shimmer faintly in the dim light. He put them on, settling them over Vance's borrowed eyes.
Anya stared. "What are you doing? Those aren't—"
"It's a shame, really." Grandpa Arlet's voice changed; lost Vance's nervous edge, gained something older, sadder, more certain. "I can't let you get to your destination."
Anya's eyes widened. "What? What are you—"
"Deploy armor." Enoch's voice rang out from ahead, sharp with command. "Now. We're approaching the exit zone. Standard protocols."
The knights ahead began pressing something on their wrists; buttons, controls that activated panels on their chests and arms. Plates slid into place with soft clicks, forming crude but effective body armor. Grandpa Arlet watched them, noting the mechanism, the placement, the gaps.
Except he didn't press anything on his own wrist.
Enoch turned. His golden mask caught the crystal-light, reflecting it in cold, flat planes. Behind him, the other knights had stopped, their eyes turning toward the alcove where Grandpa Arlet and Anya stood.
"Vance." Enoch's voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it. "Deploy your armor."
Grandpa Arlet didn't move.
"Did you forget to wear it?" Enoch took a step forward, his hand drifting toward something at his belt. "Or did you forget something else?"
Anya backed away from Grandpa Arlet, her eyes wide with dawning horror. "What's going on? Vance, what did you—"
Grandpa Arlet moved.
It was faster than any human should have been able to move. His hand dipped into his coat and emerged with a weapon that had no place in this world; a compact, sleek device that hummed with barely contained energy. A laser gun, salvaged from his Wrecker days, hidden for decades, waiting for a moment like this.
He fired.
The beam was thin, precise and near invisible in the crystal-light; but its effects were anything but. It struck a vein of iceburst stone in the wall, a cluster of crystals that had been glowing faintly for millennia.
For one heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the world exploded.
The iceburst stones didn't just combust; they screamed. A torrent of pure, pressurized gas erupted from the fractured vein, white and thick and blinding, filling the tunnel in seconds. The knights cried out, hands flying to their masks, but the gas was everywhere, seeping through seals, burning eyes, choking lungs.
Grandpa Arlet was already moving. He grabbed Anya's arm, shoved her away from the blast zone; not out of mercy, but because she was in his way; and sprinted for his horse. The animal, trained for chaos, stood trembling but ready. He vaulted onto its back, snapping the reins, and spurred it forward.
The tunnel was chaos. Knights stumbled blind, clawing at their faces, coughing and retching. Horses screamed and reared, their primitive masks no match for the gas. One knight, an older veteran with dead eyes, managed to grab Grandpa Arlet's leg as he passed, yanking him from the saddle.
They hit the stone floor hard, the impact jarring through both their bodies. The knight's eyes were red-rimmed, streaming tears, but his grip was iron. "Traitor!" he snarled, his voice raw with fury. "You dare betray the Order?!"
Grandpa Arlet rolled, planting a foot in the knight's chest and kicking him back. In the same motion, he pressed a hand to his face, feeling the ID Mask shimmer and shift. The false features melted away, revealing his true weathered face, his sharp eyes, his grey beard.
The knight stared, shock cutting through the pain. "You're—who the hell are you?"
"Someone who's been fighting your kind longer than you've been alive." Grandpa Arlet's voice was cold, final. He didn't give the knight time to recover. A precise strike to the temple, and the man crumpled, unconscious or dead; Arlet didn't have time to check.
He scrambled for his horse, but another shape was already moving through the gas. Enoch, his golden mask protecting him from the worst of the irritant, had mounted his own steed and was charging forward, one hand raised with a weapon of his own; a near bulky, crude laser gun that hummed with the same energy as Arlet's, but less refined.
The first shot went wide, scorching the wall where Arlet had been standing. The second was closer, singing his sleeve as he swung onto his horse's back.
"Go!" he shouted, and the animal needed no further encouragement. It surged forward, hooves clattering against stone, racing toward the faint light ahead; the exit, the surface, freedom.
Behind him, Enoch's voice echoed through the tunnel, distorted by the gas and the distance. "I should have known! Back from the past to haunt the present! After all these years, Arlet—you should have stayed dead!"
Arlet didn't answer. He was too focused on the path ahead, on the growing light, on the rapidly closing gap between him and the surface. His horse was fast, but Enoch's was faster, and the blasts were getting closer.
The tunnel opened suddenly into a larger chamber; the final chamber, with the exit visible ahead, a crack of grey sky against the black rock. Beyond it, freedom and the ravine. And Further Beyond it, the Forest of Giant Trees.
Arlet didn't slow. He aimed his laser gun at the rock above the exit; at the unstable, iceburst-veined rock; and fired.
The explosion was immense. Rock shattered, cascading down in a torrent of stone and dust, blocking the tunnel entrance. Enoch's horse reared, screaming, and the alchemist himself threw up an arm to shield his face as debris rained around him.
For one frozen moment, through the narrowing gap, their eyes met. Enoch's golden mask's indifference met Grandpa Arlet's weathered features, set in grim determination.
"Next time, old man." Enoch called, his voice carrying over the roar of falling rock. "Next time, I won't miss."
Arlet said nothing. He just watched as the last stone fell, sealing the tunnel, sealing Enoch and his knights in the darkness below.
As Grandpa Arlet kept going, he burst from the mountainside like a man reborn.
The ravine was narrow, its walls steep and shadowed, but above; above was sky. Real sky, grey and vast and open, with the first hints of sunset painting the clouds in shades of orange and gold. He dragged in a breath of clean air, ripping the gas mask from his face, filling his lungs with oxygen untainted by mineral dust and ancient death.
His horse stumbled, nearly falling, but caught itself on the loose scree of the slope. Arlet patted its neck, murmuring soothing nonsense and removing its own gasmask, letting the animal catch its breath. They'd made it. Somehow, against all odds, they'd made it.
He looked back at the mountainside. The entrance was gone; buried under tons of rock, sealed as effectively as any tomb. Enoch and his knights were trapped, maybe dead, maybe just delayed. It didn't matter. They couldn't follow. Not now. Not yet.
But they would find another way. Enoch was resourceful, fanatical, driven by a purpose that transcended mortal fear. He'd survived worse than a cave-in. He'd find a path, and when he did, he'd come hunting.
Arlet had to move.
He checked the tracker. The green dot pulsed steadily; Eren's signal, still alive, still somewhere in the forest ahead. The distance was manageable now, just a few miles. If he pushed hard, if his horse held out, he could reach the forest before full dark.
He spurred the animal forward, picking his way down the ravine toward the tree line.
The Forest of Giant Trees loomed ahead, and somewhere in that darkness, a boy was waiting.
Grandpa Arlet rode toward the trees, ignoring the possibility of encountering a titan in titan marked territory.
Chapter 30-31 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.