The moment Sevryn vanished into the crack, the infected beast lunged at Kael like a missile. He barely dodged—just a hair's breadth from death.
Kael's eyes darted from the broken earth to the monster now inches away. No time to panic.
He snapped his focus to the beast and lunged for the iron rod—his makeshift weapon wrapped in cloth to keep from cutting his own hands. But before his fingers could close around it, the beast slammed down where the rod lay, snarling.
Kael had no choice.
In a flash, he reached to his belt and yanked out the military knife—the one he'd taken from a fallen FHC officer. Without hesitation, he thrust it at the beast.
It missed… just barely.
The monster flinched—an instinctive reaction. But Kael pressed forward, slashing again. The blade scraped its skin, barely making a cut.
Its hide was thick. Too thick.
Suddenly, with a skull-shattering force, the beast slammed its head into Kael's chest. He flew backward, crashing into the dirt, breath ripped from his lungs.
Before he could recover, it charged again—but Kael rolled, dodging death by inches. The beast's head smashed into a tree, stunning it for just a second.
Enough.
Kael grabbed the rod.
Roaring, he dashed toward the beast.
It turned, howling—and lunged at him head-on.
Kael wasn't foolish enough to take it face-to-face. He sprinted to the side, leapt onto a tree trunk, used one foot for elevation, and hurled himself into the air.
In midair, he swung the iron rod down—slamming it into the beast's gut.
The rod pierced deep. Not enough to kill, but enough to make it stagger.
Kael clung to the rod, trying to stab it again—but its hide was like stone. The knife barely pierced flesh.
Roaring, the beast began leaping wildly, slamming into trees, trying to throw Kael off. One wild jolt sent Kael flying—he hit the ground hard. His hand was bleeding.
Desperate, he stabbed the knife into the beast's eye.
It shrieked—blinded, but not broken.
Pain didn't stop it. But it knew damage.
It went berserk.
Kael saw it change—movement more erratic, stronger, faster. His heart pounded. He scrambled to climb a tree. No training, no experience—just sheer will to survive.
The beast rammed the trunk—hard.
Kael slipped.
He fell.
Mid-air, the beast struck him with its head—again.
But this time, it backfired.
The knife, still lodged in its eye, went deeper. The monster reeled—stunned.
Kael didn't waste the moment.
He rammed the iron rod into its neck—deeper than before.
Bone cracked.
The beast shuddered—and fell.
Dead.
But the victory was cruel.
Kael's grip slipped.
The rod tore through the beast—and straight into Kael's side.
Pain exploded. He collapsed.
Blood. Darkness. Silence.
---
Scene Shift
Sevryn's eyes fluttered open.
He wasn't in the forest anymore.
He lay in a long, rusted hallway, surrounded by strange metallic paths and crooked ladders—some leading up, some descending into shadows.
What was this place?
And where was Kael?
And is this place is a maze it looks like a maze
Sevryn staggered through the shifting maze, lightless and infinite. The hallway was rusted and alive — walls breathed shallowly, like lungs on the edge of collapse. Iron ladders weaved like veins through the ceiling, leading nowhere or somewhere worse.
His breath fogged the air.
The silence... was wrong.
Then—
A distortion rippled in the air.
It stepped out — not from around the corner, but through the wall — as if it had never been bound by dimensions. Eight feet tall, glitching between frames of reality. Bones on the outside. Veins twitching over its skull. Its mouth was stitched shut, but its scream vibrated inside Sevryn's bones.
The chase began.
Sevryn ran, pulse screaming louder than his footsteps. The entity moved like a skipping record — one second far, next breath at his neck. It didn't follow the rules of space.
Metal shredded behind him. Claws sliced a piece of his coat, then flesh.
Sevryn hurled himself over gaps, scaled a twisting ladder, blood dripping onto rusted steps. His shoulder slammed into a corner — dislocated. But pain didn't matter now. Only escape.
A soft glow—
The Lift.
No doors. Just light humming. Salvation or trap — it didn't matter.
He leapt inside.
Slapped a button.
The creature's tongue — black and barbed — shot through the air, wrapping his ankle.
The lift dropped.
A sharp snap.
The tongue tore.
Blood sprayed. A high-pitched shriek echoed above as the tongue thrashed like a dying serpent.
---
LEVEL -152
Flickering, wet floors. The walls here whispered—actual words—but they were in reverse. A floating cube passed him, faces pressed against the surface, all screaming silently. He turned away.
A mirror appeared in the next corridor — but it showed him smiling, even when he wasn't.
Then the floor warped — and something invisible followed him, slicing him open in patterns, like it knew him. His vision blurred.
He passed into—
---
LEVEL -196
Gravity folded sideways. Time twisted here.
He entered a room where his wounds sealed shut—only to burst open again the moment he blinked. His hand fractured when he touched the wall; his breath came in gasps. Something was following him again, but now… it felt curious.
He no longer ran. He stumbled. Limped. Bled.
The lift awaited again. No buttons this time. It just knew.
---
LEVEL 404
The doors hissed open.
Silence. Absolute and unnatural.
A void stretched in every direction — stars frozen in the black like corpses mid-scream. A colossal boulder floated at the center of a glowing platform. Upon it, something... rested.
A being — humanoid only in shape. Scaled, faceless, unmoving. A massive sword plunged deep into its back, pulsing faint blue light into the void. Its chest barely rose — as if sleeping.
Sevryn's knees buckled.
His right hand — broken. His side — slashed to the bone. His face — bloodied, pale.
But as he inched closer, the entity's eye cracked open.
Just a slit.
Yet it was enough to crack reality.
The ground beneath Sevryn fractured, like glass under fire.
He plummeted.
---
He didn't scream.
He didn't breathe.
He just fell — through shadow, through silence, through something watching.
Then—
Impact.
A spike — rusted and ancient — pierced clean through his body, out his back. Blood poured like ink onto the cracked floor.
But something was different.
He didn't cry.
He didn't plead.
Instead, Sevryn's lips curved upward.
A smile — not childish, but ancient. Cold. Knowing.
And in that silence, surrounded by cosmic dust and dying echoes—
Something else smiled back.