"Are you crazy!?" Shun's voice cut through the still air like a blade. His eyes, sharp and silver in the lamplight, narrowed on Belial as if trying to pin him to the tent wall.
Belial didn't flinch. He leaned against the tent's central pole, his smirk unwavering. "Maybe I am..." His tone dipped, cold and low. "But you're no different from that madwoman if you let your soldiers die without giving them a real way to protect themselves."
The silence that followed was heavy, thick with the weight of unspoken truths. The canvas walls of Shun's tent seemed to close in, the flickering stone. Outside, the camp's low sounds drifted in—clinking gear, soft footsteps, the occasional cough from a soldier too weary to stifle it. Men and women worn thin by this world's relentless demands. People relying on Shun, their captain, to lead them through the crucible of survival.
Shun didn't answer immediately. He looked down, jaw tight, his fingers twitching as if resisting the urge to curl into fists. The burden of leadership pressed against him, a tangible force. He was no stranger to hard choices, but this...this was something else. The First Stage wasn't just a trial; it was a forge, a place where bodies and minds were broken and remade. Or simply broken.
"And how do you know this information?" Shun finally asked, lifting his gaze. His voice was quieter now, but no less firm, each word measured, probing.
Belial stepped closer, his eyes glinting with a fire that was equal parts conviction and defiance. "Listen," he said, voice stripped of pretense, "do you want your soldiers to die? Or do you want them to survive and grow stronger?"
"I want them stronger," Shun said, the words spilling out almost before Belial could finish. "Of course I do. But won't that just lead to more casualties?"
Belial shrugged, the motion casual but his eyes sharp. "They've got two healers now, right? One's a rookie, sure, but the other's got real skill. Not perfect, but enough to patch people up after a First Stage run." He paused, then added, "More than most get."
Shun fell silent again, his thoughts racing behind those storm-gray eyes. The First Stage was no mere battlefield. It was a place of raw ether, where the air itself could burn the lungs, where the mind could fracture under visions of past sins or futures unmade. He'd passed it himself, alongside Toren, but the cost had been steep. Too many hadn't returned.
"How can I trust your word on this?" Shun asked, his eyes narrowing once more. "You just arrived not long ago. I barely know you."
Belial's smirk returned, but it was colder now, edged with challenge. He turned, already heading for the tent's flap. "Well," he tossed over his shoulder, "if you plan on being a two-man army, be my guest."
And with that, he vanished into the night.
The chill of the cavern air clung to Belial's coat as he made his way back through the dimly lit camp. Blue and violet crystals embedded in the rocky walls cast soft glows, their light flickering like half-forgotten memories. He weaved between tents, stepping over scattered supplies—a cracked blade here, a torn pack there—and nodded at the occasional passing soldier. Most didn't meet his eyes, their gazes fixed on the ground or the horizon, as if looking too long at Belial might invite his reckless fire into their own hearts.
His mind, however, was elsewhere.
The First Stage... that's just the beginning, he thought grimly.
In the original flow of the game—the world he'd once known as a story, a system of rules and rewards—the protagonist had never needed to worry about training troops. He'd had the Maiden, a bright-eyed enigma wrapped in silk and power. Her support ability was absurdly strong, a narrative crutch that turned battles into parades. Healing that mended shattered bones in seconds. Buffs that made soldiers untouchable. Immunity phases that laughed in the face of death. It was all so clean, so convenient.
Plot armor, Belial thought bitterly. He had damn plot armor.
And what did Belial have?
A fractured unit of wannabe hunters or adventurers, barely holding together under the weight of their own survival.
Two healers.
one, Xin, a an intelligent fellow; the other, a rookie named Lira, still learning to steady her hands under pressure. A commander, Shun, who looked like he hadn't slept properly in a week, his silver hair matted with sweat and resolve. Belial didn't have a Maiden. He didn't have a system designed to hand him victories.
There was Xin, Raven, and Shun.
Three fighters, each a force in their own right. Xin, with his healer's precision and unyielding heart. Raven, a towering enigma in Obsidian armor, his silence louder than most men's words. Shun, the captain, whose will held the camp together like iron stitching flesh. Each was worth ten average soldiers, maybe more.
But that wasn't enough.
The madwoman in the ruins was no distant threat. Her influence had seeped into the tunnels, twisting ether into miasma, Hollow beasts into nightmares. She was gathering power, a storm building in the shadows. And when she struck, she wouldn't face them with mercy or hesitation. She'd come with annihilation.
As he approached his tent, Belial ran a hand through his hair and let out a long, tired breath. Inside, Xin was already asleep, sprawled beneath a thick cloak. His breathing was slow, peaceful—a stark contrast to the sharpness he wielded when conscious. The sight stirred something in Belial, a flicker of warmth he quickly buried. Sentiment was a luxury he couldn't afford.
He glanced at the bedroll beside Xin's, debating whether to collapse or keep thinking. His body ached, the wound at his side a dull throb beneath Xin's fresh bandages, but his mind was restless, a beast pacing its cage. Sleep wouldn't come, not with the weight of what lay ahead pressing against him.
He stepped outside again.
Raven's tent stood a short distance away, a solitary structure reinforced with extra poles and plates, built wide to accommodate the man's bulk. Whispers followed Raven like shadows. Some claimed he never removed his armor, that it was as much a part of him as his own skin. Others swore he didn't sleep, that he stood watch even in the dead of night. Belial wasn't sure which version he believed more. Raven was an enigma, his movements too fluid for someone encased in heavy plate, his silence a wall no one had breached.
There's something in that shell, Belial thought. A sad something maybe
And yet, there was a strange feeling, a gut instinct, that Raven wasn't as unreadable as he seemed. Beneath the helm, behind the quiet, there was a person who'd probably seen too much, carried too much. Given time, perhaps Raven would share whatever truth he kept locked away. Or perhaps not. Trust was a currency they were all short on, and Belial was no exception.
He turned back toward the crystals embedded in the cavern wall, their faint shimmer mirrored in his eyes. His thoughts drifted again to what lay ahead. The First Stage was only the beginning. The later stages—Second, Third...these weren't just tests of strength. They were psychological crucibles, designed to break the body, the mind, or both. Visions that clawed at buried guilt. Trials that turned allies into enemies.
One by one.
I need more than fighters, he realized, the thought crystallizing in the cold air. I need a structure. A unit. A machine that can adapt and strike and heal and protect and keep moving.
A militia, perhaps.
But no. The word felt wrong, too grounded, too ordinary. It belonged to a world of technology and normalcy, not this jagged hellscape of crystal and Horrors. He looked around at the cavern—the rocky walls veined with glowing light, the impossible geometry of the deeper layers, the air thick with the promise of danger. This wasn't a place for militias or battalions.
It was something else entirely.
In this world of gleaming peril and slow-burning madness, words carried different weight. People carried different weight. They weren't just soldiers or survivors. They were fragments of something greater...shattered by circumstance, reforged by necessity, unified by a purpose that burned brighter than fear.
Haa...
A low laugh escaped Belial's throat, humorless but not without hope. It echoed softly against the cavern walls, swallowed by the vastness. Here, in this crystalline hell, he wouldn't build a militia.
He'd build something sharper.
A Cluster.