The Cursed Extra-Chapter 130: [3.3] Into the Mouth of the Beast (What Could Possibly Go Wrong?)

Chapter 130: [3.3] Into the Mouth of the Beast (What Could Possibly Go Wrong?)

"The worst part about portals isn’t the transit. It’s knowing what’s waiting on the other side."

***

"Team Two!"

Vance’s group swaggered forward. Still laughing among themselves. Their formation was sloppy. More concerned with looking confident than actually being prepared.

Vance blew a mocking kiss toward our cluster before disappearing into the tear. His teammates followed. Still snickering at some joke I couldn’t hear and didn’t want to understand.

I let myself flinch at the gesture.

Keep thinking you’re the big threat, Vance. Keep wasting energy on intimidation.

One by one, the teams vanished. Each passage sent ripples through the magical construct. I watched the containment field grow more unstable with every transit.

The fractures in the magical framework spread like cracks in thin ice. Grew longer and deeper with each team that passed through. By the time Team Seven approached, the portal’s edges were fraying visibly. Spit sparks that left afterimages on my retinas.

It looks worse every time. The portal wasn’t designed for this much traffic. Or maybe it’s just old. Either way, someone should probably do something about that before it collapses and kills everyone.

But that’s not my problem. Not today.

Rhys paused at the threshold. His knuckles white around his spear’s shaft. The weapon caught the light differently than the enchanted gear the noble students carried. Plain steel. Honest wood. Maintained with care but lacking any magical enhancement.

He looked back once. Scanned the remaining students. His eyes found mine across the crowd.

For a moment, neither of us moved. The connection lasted maybe half a second. But it felt longer. Like something important was being communicated without words.

Then he nodded. Barely perceptible. More acknowledgment than greeting.

And stepped through.

See you on the other side, Rhys. Try not to die before I can save your ungrateful ass.

"Team Twelve!"

I looked around. Suddenly aware that we were the last team standing before the portal. The other students had either entered or been assigned to later waves.

It was just us.

The rejects. The failures. The ones nobody expected to survive. House Onyx’s finest. Which was to say House Onyx’s most forgettable.

Marcus fumbled with his manual. Tried to find the page on portal transit procedures. His glasses had slipped down his nose again. He squinted at the dense text with the expression of someone hoping the words would rearrange themselves into something more helpful.

Thomlin just sighed. Checked his sword for the dozenth time. A ritual that had more to do with anxiety than actual inspection.

Seraphina watched me. Waiting. Those grey eyes saw too much.

I took a shaky breath. Stepped toward the portal.

"Let’s... try not to die in the first five minutes?"

The joke fell flat. Landed with all the grace of a dead fish. But it served its purpose. Marcus actually smiled. A small thing that didn’t quite reach his eyes but was genuine enough. Thomlin snorted. The sound almost approving.

Even Seraphina’s expression softened slightly.

"That’s your grand strategy?" she asked. "Survive five minutes?"

"I’m working up to ten," I replied. Managed to inject just the right amount of nervous humor into my voice. "Maybe fifteen if we’re really ambitious. Baby steps, you know? Can’t run before you walk. Can’t walk before you crawl. Can’t crawl before you stop lying on the ground crying."

The portal loomed before us.

Now that I was close enough to really see it, I understood why the other students had hesitated before stepping through. It wasn’t just a shimmering doorway. It was a visible wound in reality. Layers of space were folded and twisted into a passage that screamed defiance against physics.

This thing is going to fail soon. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. But soon.

Another problem for another time. Right now, I had a team to save and skills to steal.

I stepped forward. Felt the portal’s pull against my skin like static electricity. The air grew thick. Heavy. Wrong. Every breath felt like inhaling soup.

Behind me, I heard Marcus muttering prayers to half a dozen gods. His voice rose and fell in a rhythmic cadence that suggested he’d memorized them for exactly this kind of situation.

Thomlin was cursing under his breath. Creative profanity that would have impressed sailors.

Seraphina’s breathing was steady. Controlled. The rhythm of someone who had trained themselves to remain calm under pressure.

The portal’s surface touched my outstretched hand.

And the world exploded into sensation.

Cold beyond imagining. Beyond anything I’d ever experienced. It wasn’t the cold of winter or ice or even the void of space. It was something deeper. Something that reached into my bones and squeezed.

Pressure came next. Threatening to crush my skeleton into powder. To compress my lungs until they couldn’t expand.

Darkness followed. Not the absence of light but the presence of something else entirely. It had weight. It had texture. It pressed against my eyes like wet cloth.

I felt myself falling. Stretching. Compressed into something that wasn’t quite human anymore.

Then, abruptly, it was over.

I stumbled forward onto rough stone. My boots scraped against loose gravel. The sound was startlingly loud after the silence of transit.

The air here tasted different. Stale. With undertones of decay and something else. Something predatory. Something ancient and hungry that had been waiting in these tunnels since before humans had names for fear.

Behind me, my teammates emerged from the portal with varying degrees of grace.

Marcus pitched forward and nearly fell. Saved only by Thomlin’s steadying hand. The manual had slipped from his grip during transit. He scrambled to retrieve it with the desperation of a drowning man reaching for a lifeline.

Thomlin himself looked pale. His jaw clenched against what might have been nausea or terror or both.

Seraphina stepped through like she was walking into her own parlor. Silver hair settled around her shoulders without a strand out of place.

Of course she managed to make portal transit look elegant. Of course she did.

The portal snapped shut behind us with a sound like breaking glass.

We stood in a rough-hewn chamber carved from living rock. Its walls marked with tool scratches and old bloodstains. The scratches told a story of hasty excavation. Workers who had dug these tunnels with more concern for speed than aesthetics.

The bloodstains told a different story. One I tried not to think about too hard.

Torches burned in iron sconces. Cast dancing shadows that made the space feel alive and malevolent. The flames flickered in patterns that didn’t quite match the air currents.

Three tunnels led deeper into the warrens. Each one yawned like a hungry mouth.

The left passage sloped downward. Vanished into darkness that the torchlight couldn’t penetrate.

The middle one continued straight ahead. Its walls slightly more finished than the others.

The right curved away to the north. The sound of distant water echoed from somewhere within.

"Well," I said. Looked around at our new environment with the expression of someone who was doing their best to seem brave and failing spectacularly. "We’re not dead yet. That’s something."

Marcus consulted his manual again. Squinted at a hand-drawn map that had been copied from a copy of a copy. The lines faded and unclear. "According to this, we should take the middle passage to reach the Crystal Caverns. It’s the most direct route to our objective."

I nodded. Already knew which path we’d take. And which one we’d abandon once I manufactured my excuse.

Somewhere in these tunnels, Team Seven was walking toward their doom. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Somewhere else, Vance Thorne was probably setting up his own ambush.

But first, I had a performance to maintain.

"Right," I said. Shouldered my pack with a motion that somehow managed to look both determined and reluctant at the same time. "Middle tunnel it is. What could possibly go wrong?"

The darkness ahead swallowed our torchlight like a living thing.

I stepped forward into the throat of the warrens.

Carrying forty-seven lives on my shoulders.

Wearing the face of a coward.

Time to rewrite a tragedy.