The tunnel wound onwards, a seemingly endless gullet of stone and shadow. The air grew progressively damper, the rhythmic dripping coalescing into the distinct gurgle and rush of moving water somewhere nearby. Condensation slicked the uneven walls, gleaming wetly in the unsteady halo of Gregor's torch. The faint draft had become a steady, cool breeze, carrying the clean, metallic scent of deep earth and hinting, perhaps, at a larger space ahead.
For Gregor, Lyra, and Renn, every step was a prayer, every shadow a potential lurking horror. Yet, the presence walking calmly behind them, occasionally commenting on the poor structural integrity of the Labyrinth or asking if anyone smelled popcorn, was a constant, baffling source of security. Fear still gnawed at them, the ingrained terror of the Maw and its Shadow Walkers, but it was now overlaid with a thick layer of sheer, unadulterated bewilderment directed at their unlikely savior.
Gregor, despite his exhaustion and lingering fear, found his pragmatic nature reasserting itself. He needed to understand, at least partially, the being they were following. He glanced back, the torchlight catching the impassive curve of Saitama's bald head.
"Saitama… sir," Gregor began, his voice raspy. He still wasn't sure how to address someone who held up collapsing ceilings with one hand. "That Guardian… back there… No blade, no spell known to man can pierce its hide easily. How did you…?"
Saitama blinked, as if Gregor had asked him about the weather. "Hm? Oh, the rocky fella? I didn't really pierce anything. Just sorta… tapped his leg when he tried to run past. He wasn't very stable. Like a badly stacked pile of Jenga blocks, you know? One wrong move…" He shrugged. "Guess he skipped leg day. Bad form."
Gregor stared, utterly failing to reconcile the image of the terrifying, nigh-invulnerable Chasm Guardian with a poorly stacked children's game. "Bad… form?"
"Yeah. You gotta have a solid stance," Saitama explained earnestly, demonstrating with a slight, almost imperceptible shift in his own footing. "Balance is key. Otherwise, you just kinda… fall over. Especially if you're made of crumbly rocks and angry purple stuff."
Renn, listening intently, whispered to Lyra, "Did… did he just give tactical advice based on tripping a demon construct?"
Lyra just shook her head, a tiny, hysterical smile playing on her lips. "I think… I think I've stopped trying to understand." She tightened her grip on Saitama's cape again. It felt strangely… normal. Just fabric. Yet the man wearing it defied every law of reality she knew.
Their path abruptly opened onto a ledge. The tunnel ended not in another passage, but at the edge of sheer, breathtaking emptiness. Gregor held the torch high, its flickering light swallowed by an immense void. Before them lay a chasm, impossibly vast, plunging down into depths the torchlight couldn't begin to penetrate. A low roar echoed from far below – the sound of a great underground river, carving its path through the heart of the world. The opposite side of the chasm was barely visible, perhaps sixty or seventy feet away, another dark opening in the rock face, mocking them across the abyss. The cool breeze they'd felt emanated from this vast emptiness.
"Dead end," Gregor breathed, his brief flicker of hope extinguishing like a snuffed candle. His shoulders slumped. "Seven hells… a dead end."
Renn let out a low moan of despair, sinking to his knees on the ledge. Lyra covered her mouth, tears welling in her eyes. After escaping the Maw's clutches, after witnessing impossible feats, to be stopped by a simple, impassable gap in the rock… it was a crueler blow than any Guardian.
Saitama walked up to the edge, peering down into the darkness, then across the chasm. "Huh. Big gap. Guess the construction crew ran out of budget before they could finish the bridge. Typical." He turned to the despairing group. "So, this is bad?"
"Bad?" Gregor laughed, a harsh, broken sound. "It's seventy feet across, maybe more! With a drop into oblivion! We can't jump that! No one can!" He slammed his fist against the rock wall in frustration. "We're trapped. The Walkers… they'll find us eventually."
Saitama looked across the chasm again, then back at the group, then back at the chasm. He seemed to be weighing options, though his expression remained unchanged. "Seventy feet, huh? Doesn't look that far."
He took a couple of steps back from the edge.
Gregor watched him, a sliver of insane hope warring with grim reality. "What are you doing? Don't tell me you're going to try and—"
Saitama took a small, preparatory hop, like a child about to jump over a puddle. Then, with no visible exertion, no dramatic crouch, no surge of energy, he simply… hopped forward.
It wasn't a leap fueled by desperate strength. It wasn't a jump enhanced by crackling magic. It was… a hop. A casual, almost lazy movement.
Yet, he soared.
He sailed across the seventy-foot chasm as if gravity were merely a suggestion he was politely declining. His yellow jumpsuit and white cape fluttered mildly in the updraft from the abyss. His trajectory was flat, unhurried. He landed on the opposite ledge with a soft thump, his red boots planting firmly on the rock. He didn't even stumble.
He turned back, looking across the vast gap at the three utterly stunned figures silhouetted against the torchlight.
"See?" he called out, his voice echoing slightly in the huge cavern. "Easy. Your turn."
Gregor, Lyra, and Renn stared, jaws slack, minds completely blanked by the sheer, physics-defying impossibility of what they had just witnessed. He hadn't jumped. He'd practically strolled across seventy feet of empty space.
"Our… turn?" Lyra whispered, her voice barely audible.
"Yeah," Saitama called back encouragingly. "Just gotta get a running start, maybe? Or, you know, flap your arms really fast?" He demonstrated with a few half-hearted flaps. "Probably doesn't work, but worth a shot, right?"
Gregor finally found his voice, shouting across the chasm, "We can't DO that! We're not… whatever you are!"
Saitama tilted his head. "Oh. Right. Hmm." He looked around his side of the ledge. "Okay, hang on. Maybe there's a rope? Or a conveniently placed vine? Nope. Just rocks." He tapped his chin. "Okay, plan B."
He disappeared into the dark opening on his side for a moment, then reappeared, dragging something long, pale, and surprisingly sturdy-looking. It looked like a colossal rib bone, easily eighty feet long, bleached white with age, likely from some long-dead subterranean behemoth.
"Found this!" he announced, hefting the giant bone with one hand. "Kinda dusty, but it looks long enough."
With another casual display of impossible strength, he lifted the massive bone and carefully, precisely, laid it across the chasm, one end resting securely on his ledge, the other landing with a solid thunk just inches from Gregor's feet. It formed a narrow, precarious-looking, but apparently stable, bridge.
"There!" Saitama said brightly. "Instant bridge! Kinda wobbly, maybe, but better than flapping your arms. Come on over! Maybe this side has snacks!"
Gregor stared down at the colossal bone bridge, then across at Saitama, who was now peering expectantly into the new tunnel opening. The sheer, unadulterated weirdness of their situation was reaching peak levels. Saved by a man who defeated monsters by tripping them, held up ceilings, jumped across impossible chasms, and built bridges out of giant dinosaur bones, all while complaining about the lack of convenience stores.
"Well," Gregor said to Lyra and Renn, his voice shaky but resolute, "it's… a bridge. Let's go. Slowly."
Holding the torch high, Gregor cautiously stepped onto the bone bridge, testing its stability. It held firm. He started shuffling across, followed closely by a terrified but determined Renn and Lyra, who kept her eyes fixed firmly on Saitama standing on the far side, an unbelievable beacon of safety.
Following Behind…
Kristoph, Zenon, and Elara reached the ledge overlooking the chasm just moments after Saitama had created the bone bridge. They remained hidden in the shadows of the tunnel mouth, observing the scene with professional stillness that belied their internal astonishment.
They had heard the despairing cries, Saitama's baffling suggestion about arm flapping, and then witnessed the casual deployment of the colossal rib bone.
"By the Light…" Elara whispered, her hand instinctively going to her locket again. "The strength… it's absurd. To lift that bone… it would take siege equipment. Or powerful earth-shaping magic." She ran a quick diagnostic scan. "No residual magic detected on the bone, or from him during the lift. Purely physical."
Zenon scanned the chasm and the bridge, his tracker's eyes assessing the risk. "The bone seems stable enough. Likely from a Deep Wyrm or a similar megafauna carcass. Fortuitous find for them." He looked at Kristoph. "Crossing that… it exposes us. Limited cover."
Kristoph frowned, watching Gregor, Lyra, and Renn carefully make their way across the bone bridge towards Saitama, who had now wandered a few steps into the new tunnel opening on the far side.
"We cannot cross that bridge without risking detection," Kristoph stated quietly. "And jumping… is clearly not an option for us." He glanced at Elara. "Sorceress? Can you bridge the gap magically? A path of light? Or levitation?"
Elara concentrated, assessing the vast space and the ambient energies. "Levitation for all three of us across this distance would require significant power and concentration, Commander. Possible, but slow, and it would create a visible magical signature. A light bridge… the span is extreme, the anchor points uncertain. It would be unstable, and equally noticeable if anyone were observing from the other side, or below." She shook her head. "Neither option is ideal for stealth."
Kristoph nodded grimly. Their quarry had once again overcome a seemingly insurmountable obstacle with ridiculous ease, leaving them stranded, forced to find a more conventional, and far more difficult, solution.
"Zenon," Kristoph ordered. "Search the ledge. This ledge, both directions. Any other paths? Handholds leading down? Anything?"
Zenon immediately began scanning the rock face, his eyes and hands moving with practiced skill, searching for any crack, any ledge, any ancient carving that might offer an alternative route. Kristoph watched the trio finally reach the other side, disappearing into the tunnel behind Saitama, the torchlight vanishing with them. They were putting distance between them again.
After a few tense minutes, Zenon returned. "Nothing easy, Commander. Sheer drop mostly. There are some faint handholds further down, maybe fifty feet, leading to a narrow ledge. Looks precarious. Might continue downwards, possibly towards the river level. It would mean a difficult climb down, and then finding a way back up on the other side, assuming that lower ledge even connects."
Kristoph weighed the options. A long, dangerous climb down into the unknown depths, or abandoning the pursuit. Their orders were clear, but so were the risks. He looked across the chasm at the dark tunnel entrance where Saitama had vanished. The sheer unpredictability of the Tempest made him hesitant to lose contact. Understanding this anomaly felt increasingly vital.
"We descend," Kristoph decided. "Elara, provide magical light only as needed, minimal intensity. Enhance our grip, if possible. Zenon, lead the way. We move quickly but safely. Losing them now is unacceptable."
With grim determination, the three knights prepared for a perilous descent into the abyss, following the trail of a man who treated chasms like puddles and giant bones like construction materials. The gap between Saitama's reality and their own seemed to widen with every step.