He felt fresh and free, exactly as advertised by the denizens of Mondstadt - the soft and gentle breeze wafts around his messy black hair, a fact that his leader insisted on making more proper.
The man lay under a tree, he felt oddly comfortable on the ground - he wasn't sure what it was but he did attribute it to the atmosphere. It wasn't going to last long, however.
His eyes wandered the nearly boundless ocean across the cliff but someone's voice made him want to groan. It was a reminder of his old days in training back in his country but he welcomed it.
"Tokarev!"
He looked back to see his leader, almost 20 years of service to the cause of the Fatui. He smirked, the man had looked like he was about to keel over from trying to climb the slope.
"Ivan, are you sure you won't pop your spine? We all know what happened last time when you tried jumping across only a 3-meter gap!"
"Not like you're any different. We're only 15 years apart!"
"Hah! Say what you want, I may be 36 but you're nearing your retirement old man."
Ivan thought it was a good response, chuckling at his own sentence. He pats the side where he sat while overlooking the ocean but with only an island chain visible on the horizon.
"Say..." Ivan's tone got darker as he sat down. "Do you think it's a good time and all? Retiring now since it's been so long?"
Tokarev had widened his eyes. Ivan was serious. "Wait? Really?!" it was his only other person who had fought and worked with him for years. "You're... leaving?"
"I know. Knowing the years that pass makes me want to finally rest. Ever since I'd been leading my squad, you're the only one back then being the most unruly among... them."
His previous smile falters to a sour look, it was a grim reminder of all the other comrades he had fought with - now dead because of the nature of his work, a Fatui responsible for investigating anomalies and monsters filling them wasn't unusual.
"It's been a long time, hasn't it? To think you've only been a leader when I came in. Was I 21 at the time? I already forgot."
"Yeah... 5 years as a grunt and 15 years with my first squad - only you left though."
The memories halted, it wasn't a nice callback, brother-in-arms lying dead or attending their funerals never sat well with the duo, especially when all of the original was replaced just as quickly as they died.
"Let's get you that retirement then. So, does a Fool speak with many words or none at all?"
Ivan nodded. "We're going deeper than before. He has a guess but we have to get down beyond the floors not even conceivable to man." He sets his eyes beyond the cliff and narrows his sight on the chain of islands of Musk Reef, commonly known as something else.
The Spiral Abyss.
"Should I call the others then?" Tokarev stood up, stretching and preparing for the mission assigned to them. "Do you think they're up for it?"
"Sure do. Very talented even though they're only in their 20's. Reminds me of someone I know." he nudges Tokarev at his side.
"Psh... You didn't tell me I'm talented back when I joined you."
The aging man smirks. "I know, I didn't say it was you I was talking about. Hah!"
Tokarev rolled his eyes while Ivan heartily laughed before heading down to the base of the cliff. They had their talk but business was coming, they had to be serious.
Meeting up with the rest of their members was disheartening, a new set of faces replacing the old ones but they had gotten used to months of tasks because the new members were only recently in the field.
Each one had a special peculiarity with them. Ivan never held opinions for his subordinates but Tokarev had some reservations among them.
Ekaterina was too cheery and active even before and after using her Delusion.
Baron had most of his attention on his observations and technical knowledge than anything else, to the point where they had a workshop just to satisfy his demands.
Aleksandr was normal but whenever his Delusion started being used, he became sadistic almost. Although Tokarev always had time to appreciate each other's personalities.
Kustrow wasn't that bad of a guy to be with but he was cold as in he didn't do anything but be negative. Ivan was a leader and learned to handle each of them but Tokarev always had something to say to each of them.
Still, they were Fatui and had to set those aside for the greater goal. Serving the Tsaritsa.
"Aleksandr," Ivan called out. "Tell Ekaterina to make her stop playing with the fish in the water by electrocuting them."
"Sorry sir, I told her I was hungry but I didn't expect her to try and catch fish. She caught one but kept continuing to pester the wildlife."
"Well, she can pester some enemies over at the Musk Reef. I'm going to tell the others. Tokarev here can let you and Ekaterina to the boats, it'll be not long before then."
Ivan turned but stopped just as he was to walk away. "Oh and drop the sir part. We're all family in the squad. No need to address me like we're strangers."
Aleksandr nodded before coming face-to-face with Tokarev. "The Spiral Abyss? So that's why we're stationed here. Nothing but Hilichurls around here, maybe I could get some action."
"You probably will, I'm sure Ivan wouldn't mind if you go to the front like always."
"Hm... so do we go now?"
"Let's wait for Ekaterina to stop bothering the fish."
Later...
Boats sank into the freshly wet sand, the waves crashed as Tokarev pulled them to the shore, making sure the tides wouldn't whisk away their only means to leave the island.
Ivan led the group as they saw the portal of the Spiral Abyss opening with a deep hum. It vibrated and left the air with a shaking sensation as if they were experiencing turbulence.
"Remember, cycle if you need to. Our Delusions may be a cut above the average but that doesn't mean anything in the Abyss. Losing your mind means we have to off you ourselves. Am I clear?"
""Yes!""
Walking inside, Ivan prepared his wind Delusion, they landed inside with floors that reached a dark expanse. The rest of the team followed while keeping each other's backs covered.
Day 1
Hilichurls wake from their slumber and charge at the group. "Let's go." the leader commenced.
They fought with fury, each strike bearing down the weight of their gifted and artificial powers. It ate away at specific parts of their minds and some could feel physical afflictions.
It didn't matter to them, it was only a setback to their power.
The squad headed deeper, the first floor came and went. The second arrived and they handled it. They traversed more than ten floors and were cleared as most of the group was starting to feel the worsened effects of their Delusions.
What felt like days translated to only hours in the time-absolving space inside the perceivably bottomless pit of madness. If they could fight as a team, no monster would stand in their way.
Day 4
Ivan stepped into another floor, what floor specifically he couldn't determine. They had already passed what was known, The Fool had commanded their descent and they weren't going to fail the Harbinger nor would they disappoint the Tsaritsa.
"Lawachurls! Four of them! I can handle one Stonehide Lawachurl on my own! Aleksandr and Ekaterina, you deal with the Frostarm Lawachurl! Kustrow, you're against the Thunderhlem Lawachurl! Tokarev, I trust you can take the other Stonehide!"
"When am I not able to?"
Hydro wasn't a great element against Geo, a wave toppling a mountain is as hard as trying to extinguish the sun. But Tokarev had mastered his Delusion, a wave can be molded, and water can be formed into whatever he wanted.
He hefts his great blade to his shoulder as the Lawachurl in front pounded its chest, a sheen of the stone element encasing him in a shield. Tokarev was confident, he had fought many before.
The monster roars alongside its kin. Tokarev saw each one battling their counterparts and smiled at the determination of each.
"Looks like it's me and you, Stoner!"
The creature leaps through the air, but Tokarev dodges by dashing to the front, he aids his first hit with a wave of highly pressurized water at the edges of his blade.
"Haaa!"
His great blade impacts the stone-made shield. It shatters in only one swing, Tokarev breathed deeply after his swing, Hydro made it more effective but his weapon being bigger and heavier blade helped.
The Lawachurl was angered, its bulky and stone-jagged features towered over Tokarev, it started to dig its heels to the ground and ran as fast as it could. Almost twice his height, Tokarev still knew he could handle a telegraphed strike.
He dodges to the side and swings his great blade, the Lawachurl groans before whippings its right hand back immediately after Tokarev strikes.
To the Lawachurl's surprise, the swing stops and bounces over a hard surface. It turned around after the failed charge and looked at Tokarev with a shield much like its own.
Hydro concentrated to a dense sphere around Tokarev, he poised for a strike as the Lawachurl raised its arms for a slam.
He ducks under the strike, his great blade following along while sparks flew from the Lawachurl's arms rubbing against the blade's flat side.
With one well-placed and empowered strike through the chest, the Lawachurl screams in agony, it tries fighting back but Hydro suddenly erupts from the edge of the blade.
Sooner or later, the Lawachurl dies and lies on the Abyss' ground, it would soon be consumed by the same room. It was an oddity everyone observed in the Spiral Abyss.
"Good, the others are finishing up as well."
The team was swift, they weren't assigned to abnormal places and creatures for no reason. It was a normal detachment during the first few years but the higher-ups took notice of Ivan's experience and soon assigned him to search ruins, study a historical area, crash sites, and all the like.
But this mission would be their most memorable so far.
Day 7?
Days would seemingly pass, but the bottom was not yet near as they would have thought. They were the best of the best but the best had limits. A limit that they couldn't just live without ignoring.
Day 17?
The deeper they got, the harder the enemies, the Abyss tainted many minds of those who ventured here and got lost in the madness. Evidence of that was the old Fatui still wandering the depths, corrupted by the influences of the Abyss and stuck to the whims of the echoing floors.
Was it the 100th? The 200th? Neither was true, Baron kept count so it was actually the 84th floor.
Fighting over and over again took a toll on their minds. It was getting harder for them to handle the side effects of their Delusions.
"Ack!" Aleksandr cried out, an arrow lodged itself in his leg. The arrow gets snapped from the base as he narrowed his eyes on the Hilichirl reloading its crossbow.
"You fucker!" He dashes at the small masked creature and separates from the group, he used his clones to misdirect and escape from the rest of the team. While flames full of anger reared from his blades adorning his arms.
"Aleksandr! Get back to formation!" Ivan shouted but he hasn't heard him, either by blind wrath or by choice.
He didn't care what repercussions it would make, he only had one thing on his mind. Grabbing the Hilichurl by the head, a burst of flames surrounds him and burns the poor thing getting handled in his grasp.
Aleksandr wasn't done.
Repeatedly slamming the cremated body of the Hilichurl on the ground he huffs and cries in anger while jamming his blade to the remnants of the Hilichurl.
"This is for the arrow! Cockroaches the lot of you! This is why we exterminate your fucking villages!" He kept going on the already dead Hilichurl, pure rage seeped into his mind as he kept abusing the corpse.
"Aleksandr!"
He rears his head just as another arrow almost hits him in the head. His walk was filled with haste, stepping to another Hilichurl before doing the same thing all the while screaming his hatred at it.
Ivan couldn't take the scene, he rushes forward with his feet surrounded by wind and grabs Aleksandr by the shoulders.
"Aleksandr! Snap out of it!"
To his word, the man with the red mask fades from his rage and looks around. "Sorry, I didn't know-"
"Not now! We will discuss this as a team later, find your spot at the formation. Move!"
The battle went, as usual. The monotony of their situation was dangerously eating away at whatever remained of their sanity. It was clear they had to sit down and talk while they still could.
"How deep will this go?" Tokarev wondered, he looked to his meal... or close enough to what they could scrounge up. It was slime, it wasn't healthy but neither did starving. Provisions were supposed to last weeks, had they truly gone so deep?
The leader grabs everyone's attention with a whistle. "Aleksandr, what happened back there?"
"I got mad, these creatures are so irritating. They take so long to die and I can't rest without knowing their small attacks annoy me."
"Aleksandr, hand me your Delusion. We can rest here for maybe an hour before we head to the next floor."
Aleksandr follows and could feel himself get weaker but more in control of himself. It was the same as not using the Delusion while still leaving it attached but knowing it wasn't in the vicinity made his clarity.
Baron stood from their rest and moves closer to the walls of the Abyss, it wasn't physically present but a force kept them from going over the edge. He stared at the unending sight before turning to the others.
"How long has it been?" he said, reaching for his hat and letting it rest in his arms.
Ivan replies. "I don't know. A month maybe, judging from the amount of food we have eaten."
"Strange. It's been precisely 16 days, 12 hours, and 18 minutes. Our watches may have broken the moment we entered but my count should be close to the actual time."
The rest of the team looks at each other. "Only about 2 weeks? That doesn't feel right at all."
"That's because we might have a difference in perception down here. I have a guess in mind, it's like pressure - our bodies are usually acclimatized to the surface, in the example of water, the deeper we go, the more pressure our bodies experience. I have a feeling that may be the case with time down here. We might not be exactly going faster in time but our minds are being influenced. The deeper we go, the more time we feel goes by."
"Is that the case?" Ivan curiously confirmed.
"No, I require testing to see if my hypothesis is correct. Otherwise, we don't have many ways to tell other than our opinions."
Kustrow sighs. "Sheesh, you might be our brains but that was a disappointing conclusion."
"Be glad we still have a conclusion to find out." Baron places back his cap and walks to the group. "An unknown end is better than a predictably bad future. Take salvation in knowing there can still be an answer to a search."
"Let's head downwards then. You all look ready for another floor, the Tsaritsa expects our success but we can still retreat for now. We have gone deeper than anyone had ever tried." Ivan announced.
"No!" All of them apart from Tokarev replied. "We can't disappoint her, not now, not ever." Aleksandr proclaimed.
They all nodded, Tokarev and Ivan were worried but they had a point. They weren't going to retreat when they still had some fight in them.
Day 19
Fighting more and more did not make them motivated at all. It was tiring and they couldn't rest for one moment, sleeping in the Abyss is one way to make sure you would get consumed by afflictions or ambushed by wandering Abyssal enemies.
Day 21
They reached more, Baron counted. It was reaching the third week to his count but the group felt months. They starved but each time they did, they tore off slimes and satiated their hunger pains.
When that couldn't be done more. They resorted to eating meat from Hilichurls. When the Hilichurls started running out, they ate monsters. When the monsters ran out, they ate the Abyss mages.
Their bodies could digest it and they were fine going through the floors leaving waste behind. Anything they leave will disappear, it was the nature of the mysterious place in the Abyss.
It poisoned their sanity, it was taboo to do such a thing but they couldn't take it anymore. They had to reach the end... reach the end... reach the end... reach their end.
Day 30
As they neared the next floor, something odd started to happen. Their Delusions started to hum like a frequency constantly ringing out.
Baron immediately took notice and felt the strange occurrence. "Odd, is this another sign?"
"Sign? We've been stuck here for months!"
"Actually it's only been-"
"I know!" Kustrow reacted negatively. "Baron we know you're educated and all but-"
Without another moment to talk, the floor rumbled. It had never done so before and each of them was already with a stance at the strange event.
"Be vigilant. Baron, any guesses as to what Abyss creature go do something like that?"
Baron held up his scepter, a protection shield surrounded the group as they each covered a section of the formation. "Not to my knowledge, Lectors conceivably?"
Their questions were answered, not by a monster appearing but by the construct itself. A split in time and space had formed, much like how a tear forms in fabric.
*CRACK!*
The ceiling began first, then the walls, and then the ground. Eventually, each of them lowered their guard in favor of being alarmed at the Spiral Abyss somehow cracking.
"How curious-"
"Now's not the time to be curious! Look!" Kustrow pointed to the cracks. Darkness bled through the cracks, it wasn't a physical object. It was pure nothingness being represented as the room began to collapse.
It was slow but they couldn't just wait and see.
"Ivan, what do we do?!" Tokarev had a panic in his voice, much to everyone doing the same. They walked toward the next floor slowly, not sure if they had the correct choice to go up or could even do so.
Ivan's mind had enough seconds to have a decision, he wasn't sure what would happen but he didn't need to wait any longer. "We go deeper!"
They all followed, sprinting through the room as they tried to reach the next floor spiraling downwards. "Shit!" Kustrow yelled. "Enemies?! What?! How are there so many of them?!"
Lectors numbering half a dozen showed themselves, each with their array of abilities while the group tried to fight but panicked as the cracks began forming underneath.
"Leader?!"
"We kill them quick!" he commanded. "We can't risk getting stuck!"
They nodded and quickly went into action. Each of them at first wanted to duel the Lectors one-on-one but Ivan ordered them to focus one at a time.
The building started bleeding black, the room was enveloped in more cracks as the team rapidly tried fighting the Lectors off. Eventually killing a third before the room was halfway toward being destroyed.
"Ekaterina!"
She responded, a shock of pure energy crackled around her, frying the Abyss Lector with its protection of a shield being weakened enough.
"Aleksandr, Tokarev!"
They both react, the second last Lector being pummeled by Hydro and Pyro, an elemental reaction increased their severity as they both slash at the Lector.
It staggers back before reenergizing itself with a last-ditch attempt.
"Get over here!" Aleksandr ran out of patience, the threat of being involved in darkness made him more aggressive. He grabs at the Lector, strangling it from behind while torrents of flame envelop him.
"Everyone!"
The others finish the last Lector, they try to catch their breath from the fight but the darkness started rapidly expanding the moment the Lectors fell in battle.
They rush without another second.
"Wait!"
Ivan usually saw something below their floor where the next would appear but this time... nothing.
Their Delusions started from a hum to now a glow, a glow they didn't recognize. One with white light instead of their respective elemental luster.
It shook and violently jittered from its place. Ivan didn't know what was happening.
"What's wrong?" Baron asked, he was observing the darkness approaching. "It's getting close!"
Ivan looked to his side and saw Tokarev peering over the edge where it looked like the Abyss ends, or rather where it continues to go down.
"Ivan?" Tokarev grabbed his friend's arm. "What's going to happen?"
"..."
"I don't know..."
"Ekaterina! Watch the ground!" Baron screamed, the darkness crept to where they were, huddling to where they should've gone down to the next floor.
She bumps into the rest of the team as they all closed together while the darkness started spreading.
Kustrow saw the walls starting to be enveloped in darkness. Both in front and at the back, the Abyss seemed to consume all. "Leader?! Your call?!"
"Jump!"
"What?!"
Tokarev didn't wait, with their last days in question. Tokarev and Ivan shook their hands, a reassurance they gave before they did the unthinkable.
They leaped.