The creature emerged from the darkness like a memory best left buried.
Its silhouette first took shape in the pale halo of moonlight that filtered through the ruined stone arch above. It moved slowly, confidently, stepping forward on sleek, digitigrade legs, its armor catching the light in broken, glassy reflections. Five meters tall, maybe more, it had the poise of something that had never needed to run.
Belial froze.
The creature's smile widened, unnatural and sharp, stretching far too wide across its face. It had no eyes—just a smooth, glistening curve where a human might expect sockets, and short, shapened horns protruded from either side of its head, each no longer than a hand's length. The ribcage jutted out prominently beneath the black plating of its torso, shifting slightly with every breath it took, as if the thing were constantly preparing to lunge. A long tail swept behind it, moving like a serpent tasting the air.
There was no mistaking it now.
Belial's breath caught in his throat. The Blind Witness, he whispered.
His voice seemed to vanish into the silence of the ruined courtyard, swallowed whole.
This thing followed us? he thought bitterly. It was supposed to be in the catacombs…
The thought hit him like a curse. Of all the places, of all the levels. The catacombs were deep below—three levels back. There, at least, it had rules. Boundaries.
That's what he thought at least.
" That suicidal bastard...," he muttered aloud, dragging a hand down his face. His gaze lingered on the figure before him. He studied its slow, deliberate movements—the way it tilted its head as though listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat.
"Always taking the easy route, huh, Main Character?" he added, the bitterness in his tone evident. "Leave the consequences for everyone else."
Belial had fled the Blind Witness once before. Back in the catacombs, he'd made it a point to never linger too long, to keep his profile low, his noise minimal. He'd left the loot, the side quests—hell, even a few allies—just to stay under the thing's radar. Because he knew what would happen if it marked him. What it really meant to trigger the Haunted System.
And now… it had found him.
The cold iron mark pulsed beneath the skin of his forearm. A dull ache. A memory.
He clenched his fists and took a step back. The stone beneath his boots crunched softly. The creature cocked its head at the sound.
Great.
The Haunted System was a mechanic tin the game. If you escaped an "important" monster—one of the keystones of the world, a lore-anchored guardian of the deeper scripts—and it remembered you… it would follow. It wouldn't just be an encounter. It would become the encounter.
And now Belial was locked into it.
No more shortcuts.
No more stealthy runs or clever skips.
This monster would thread itself through his every route. It would adapt, change, learn his patterns. It would show up in places it shouldn't be. And worst of all—it wouldn't stop.
He sighed.
The wind brushed across the broken stones and overgrown roots around him, lifting dust and petals from the decaying gardens of the level. The moonlight turned the crumbling walls silver. For a moment, everything seemed still.
The Blind Witness took another step forward. Its long limbs moved almost gracefully, disturbingly quiet. It didn't need to be fast. It only needed to be present.
Belial's heart hammered in his chest. He scanned the area, noting what little cover there was: a toppled column, a half-collapsed arch, a fountain long since dried. None of it would help for long.
His mind raced through possibilities—sigils, traps, maybe a delayed teleport. But his gear wasn't built for this kind of fight. He hadn't specced for survival, only mobility and dialogue optimization. The Witness was not something you talked your way out of.
"I didn't plan for this," he muttered, already backing away.
But he knew better. He had asked for it, in a way. By surviving. By fleeing instead of dying back then. That's how the System worked. Escape came with consequences.
He glanced up at the creature again.
It hadn't changed. Not much. Still towering. Still smiling. Still blind. But even so, it saw him.
That was what terrified him most.
Belial's voice dropped to a whisper. "In every run, I avoided you."
Because he had learned early what others didn't. In the first stages, the "Main Character" was too weak. Too reliant on narrative momentum. If the Witness latched on then, before the next checkpoint, you were doomed. It didn't care about balance or fairness. It didn't level with you. It scaled to fear.
Another step. The tail curled forward, like a scythe searching for a throat.
Belial swallowed hard.
He could run. Maybe. He still had a few tricks left, a few charges on the blink ring. But this wasn't about this moment. This was about the rest of the game.
If he escaped now, it would only follow again. The pattern had started. It would haunt every stage. Pop up at the worst times. Become his shadow.
He was in it now. All in.
The Haunted System had targeted him. Locked on.
Belial exhaled slowly and drew his blade. The weight of it was familiar, grounding. It shimmered faintly in the moonlight, like it remembered blood.
"Alright, Witness," he said quietly. "You got me."
He stepped into a low stance, feet steady, breath controlled. His shadow stretched long across the stones behind him, while the Blind Witness stood silently ahead, smiling, patient, cruel.
He wasn't ready.
But sometimes, in this world, that didn't matter.
"Damn," Belial muttered, eyeing the looming shadow as it crept closer. "Was I that musty you were able to follow me all the way here? Really gotta get some deodorant after all of this."
The Blind Witness gave no reply, only tilted its head again—too much like a curious animal. Or a god trying to remember how flesh moved.
Belial could try hiding, sure. But what was the point? His scent would give him away. It always did. The Haunted System didn't track with logic...it tracked with obsession.
It knew its target.
No talismans. No cloaking Items. Just him, a battered sword, and a lot of bad decisions.
"Okay," he muttered. "Tag and run."
And then he bolted.
The moment his boots hit the ground with purpose, the creature reacted. It didn't scream. It didn't roar. It just moved. Fast. Silent. Like it had waited for the chase all along.
Belial vaulted over a cracked stone railing, dropping into the lower courtyard below. Moss-covered tiles broke underfoot as he landed, knees bending with the impact. No time to breathe. He shot forward again, weaving between crumbling statues and half-dead trees, eyes scanning for...
There.
A low growl came from the shadows ahead. A trio of spined ghouls, their greenish hides twitching as they fought over scraps of an old corpse. Perfect.
Belial didn't slow.
He sprinted right through them, kicking the closest in the ribs as he passed. It screeched and lunged at him...but then froze, sensing something behind.
A second later, the Blind Witness dropped into the monsters grounds like a stone falling through water.
The ghouls turned in unison, snarling, but their postures shifted as they realized what they were looking at. Their aggression collapsed into pure, feral fear.
The monster didn't even draw a weapon. It simply stepped forward.
Behind Belial, he heard the first wet crunch.
He didn't look back.
Up the trees. Through the arch. Down the bushes. He ducked through a hollowed crystalized stone passage choked with ivy and fungus, turned a sharp corner...
and dropped into a hidden tunnel, half-remembered from a previous run.
Come on, come on… this goes deep enough, I can lose it…
He ran through the dark, his sword out in front to catch cobwebs and slashing roots. His breath came hard and ragged. The air was thick, almost muddy with age and spores. But the deeper he went, the quieter the world became.
No footsteps.
No whisper of armor.
No tail scraping the stone.
Just the tunnel. And him.
He slowed. Just slightly. Just to catch his breath.
Silence.
He allowed himself one moment of relief. One breath. Maybe he had lost it. Maybe the system was just—
thnk
The sound was small.
A click.
Right above him.
Belial looked up.
Two dark hands slowly unfolded from the stone ceiling above, pulling aside roots like curtains. A head descended after—upside down, smiling wider than ever, blind eyes inches from his face.
The Blind Witness had never stopped chasing.