Just as Altherion braced for another strike, his knees nearly giving out beneath him, a sharp whistling sound tore through the air.
SHUNK!
A long, black-bladed sword came flying from the shadows like a streak of death, spinning with inhuman precision and pierced clean through the monster's back.
The creature let out a shriek that rattled the very walls. Its body spasmed violently. The blade stuck out of its chest, quivering with unnatural vibrations, as if it carried something more than steel, a curse, a command, a silence.
Altherion froze.
The monster, now truly enraged, twisted its grotesque form, eyes flashing with raw fury. It tore the sword from its body with a roar and charged in the direction the blade had come from.
From the smoke, he stepped out.
Calm. Silent. As if he had been walking this path not for minutes, but for centuries.
He didn't rush. He didn't flinch. His expression was unreadable, too still, too detached. As if this place, the blood, the fear… all of it was beneath him.
His cloak barely moved despite the turbulence in the room. One hand held nothing, the other raised slowly.
The monster lunged.
And in a blink it was over.
In a single, elegant movement, the man appeared behind the creature. His hand now held the same black sword, wrenched from the monster's body faster than the eye could follow.
The blade sliced clean through the monster's neck.
No resistance. No sound. Just the soft hiss of air being parted.
The creature froze mid-motion, then collapsed, its body thudding to the ground like a broken puppet.
Dead.
For real, this time.
Altherion stared, blinking through the haze of blood and exhaustion. The pain was still there, searing through his bones but his mind focused on the figure now walking toward him.
Footsteps slow. Controlled. Not arrogant but confident in a way that sent chills down his spine.
The man stopped a few steps away, raising his gaze to meet Altherion's.
A silence passed between them.
And then, finally he spoke. His voice was soft, almost disinterested.
"Too slow," he said, eyes narrowing toward the remains of the monster. "If I had arrived a minute later, it would have taken the Harmonicon."
Altherion's breath hitched.
That name again.
Before he could say anything, the man turned slightly, looking toward Liesette's unconscious form.
"Tch. You should pick your companions more carefully," he muttered.
He sheathed his sword with a whispering slide, as if the weapon itself feared him.
Altherion narrowed his eyes. "Who… are you?"
The man didn't answer at first.
He began to walk away slowly like the fight had never happened.
Only as he passed Altherion's side, he gave a small, almost invisible smirk.
Then he spoke, so quietly it was nearly lost in the echoing ruins:
"%#=^;+."
And like a shadow swallowed by deeper darkness, he was gone.
***
The dust had not yet settled. Blood,.his and the monster's was still pooling beneath his boots, soaking into the cracked stone like dark ink on torn parchment.
Altherion stood in the aftermath, legs trembling. Every breath he took was sharp, painful, as if his ribs had forgotten how to move.
One eye was half-closed, swollen. His shoulder burned where claws had scraped bone. The world tilted slightly, but he forced it back into place with sheer will.
He looked down at her.
Liesette lay crumpled on the cold ground, her body limp, one arm twisted awkwardly beneath her. Her hair, once so neatly arranged, was now tangled and matted with blood. Her chest still moved, slow, shallow breaths. A faint whimper escaped her lips.
Even now, unconscious and broken, she looked… small.
Altherion's jaw clenched.
"She lied to me," he muttered, voice hoarse. "She tricked me. She almost got us both killed."
His fists trembled.
"But…"
His gaze softened, just a fraction.
He remembered that night in the library. Her laughter, awkward and warm. The way she offered to carry his books, even though she knew nothing about them.
How she smiled every time he doubted himself reading Trilium, pretending he was smarter than he felt.
And then her shielding him from the monster, despite knowing she wouldn't survive a direct hit.
"…I owe her," he whispered.
Silently, painfully, he knelt beside her. His knees screamed in protest, and his vision darkened for a moment. He fought it off. There was no time for weakness.
Carefully, he reached under her shoulders and legs. She didn't stir.
"I'm not doing this because I forgive you," he said through gritted teeth, lifting her slowly. "I'm doing this because I'm not like you."
He adjusted her onto his back, letting her arms drape over his shoulders. The pain was immediate. A surge of white-hot agony lanced up his spine. He nearly dropped her.
"Damn it… you're heavier than you look," he growled, forcing himself upright. His steps faltered at first, boots dragging through the dust and broken debris of the ruined temple.
The temple halls were silent now. Whatever ancient echoes had lived here… had fled.
Each step felt like a hundred.
But he kept going. Carrying her.
Not because he trusted her.
Not because he forgave her.
But because no one else would.
And because despite all her lies, all her foolish pride, she had chosen to stand beside him when it counted.
Even liars deserved to be saved, once.
Even if they didn't remember why.
***
Altherion's steps grew heavier. Not just from pain, not just from the weight of the unconscious girl on his back but from something else.
A pressure. A tension in the air that prickled his skin like needles made of frost.
The exit should have been close. He remembered the hallway, twisted stone pillars and that cracked arch where sunlight once poured through.
Now?
Nothing.
Only more walls.
More shadows.
More silence.
He turned a corner. And another. Then stopped.
The hallway looped. Back to the same mural. The same broken statue.
He froze.
"…No."
He turned around, took a different path, left this time. Then right. Then straight.
Same place.
The walls... they were shifting. Not with sound, not with movement, but with intention.
The temple was watching. Breathing. Deciding.
Liesette whimpered faintly behind him. Her breath was hot against the side of his neck, but her weight was growing heavier. Or maybe he was growing weaker.
Altherion stumbled against the wall, catching himself with a hand.
And that's when he saw it.
The stone, previously bare was moving. Not like a carving, but like flesh.
A twisting trail of symbols slithered across the surface, glowing faintly with sickly silver light. Letters in Trilium, but not etched. Not burned.
Alive.
The sentence formed slowly, the letters writhing into shape like worms finding their places.
"When the path ahead is lined with thorns, the path behind is already lost."
Altherion's breath caught.
He stared.
Read it again.
And again.
His throat tightened.
He staggered back, bumping into the wall behind him, trembling.
"This… this is wrong," he muttered. "This isn't how it's supposed to go. This isn't-"
He looked around wildly.
"WHERE'S THE EXIT!?"
His voice echoed down the stone corridors, swallowed by the void. No answer.
Only the breathing stillness of the cursed temple.
He clutched Liesette tighter.
Her skin was cold.
Too cold.
His own blood was still dripping from his side, his leg, his temple.
They were trapped.
His mind raced.
Equations. Maps. Floor layouts. The angles of each room. How long they'd walked. The magic patterns he remembered.
But no formula gave him an answer.
Nothing made sense.
He slumped to his knees, still holding her.
The words on the wall pulsed once, as if laughing at him.
His breath came in shallow bursts.
The weight on his back was gone.
But... when?
His hands trembled as he reached behind him.
Nothing.
Only air.
His eyes widened. He turned.
Just the heavy silence again. That suffocating, unnatural silence.
His knees buckled. He scrambled to his feet, staggering like a drunk toward the corridor behind him, but the hallway was gone. No stone. No wall. No mural. Only...
Darkness.
Where had she gone?
Had he dropped her?
Had someone taken her?
Had she ever been with him?
Altherion blinked.
Once.
Twice.
The hallway flickered. Briefly, the image of Liesette bloodied, unconscious flashed before him, lying on the cold stone floor. Then gone.
Now there was only fog.
The edges of his vision bled into shadow. His chest tightened.
He pressed his back to the wall was it still a wall? It felt too warm. Too soft. Like flesh.
He pressed his palms to his temples. His thoughts once precise and cold were now a thousand broken pieces spiraling in opposite directions.
Where are you?
Where is she?
What were you doing again?
Was this a dream?
"Think, think, damn it."
But even his voice sounded like someone else's. Warped. Echoed.
A drip of blood slid down his temple.
He tried to remember what spell he last cast. What trap he avoided. The last thing Liesette said.
But instead, his memory gave him... nothing.
Only fragments.
Laughter?
Screaming?
Did he scream?
Was that his voice?
He dropped to all fours.
His vision swam. The floor shifted beneath his fingers, not stone, not earth, but something slick. Something moving.
He crawled forward. The space pulsed with an invisible heartbeat, like the whole temple was alive and he had been swallowed by it.
He saw something in the distance.
A figure?
No, a mirror.
A mirror with no reflection.
No, wait. There was something.
A faint ripple.
Himself?
But not.
A version of him, mouth open in silent panic, blood pouring from one eye, a shattered watch on his wrist, wait, did he wear a watch?
No... no he never-
A thousand thoughts snapped at once.
Altherion screamed.
But the sound made no echo.
Only silence. Only fog.
***
He didn't know how long he had been crawling.
Time had unraveled, minutes stretched into eternities, or maybe they never moved at all. His arms felt numb, his breath ragged, like he was drowning in air that wasn't meant for lungs.
"I don't remember..."
He whispered that to no one. Over and over. As if repeating it could carve clarity into the fog inside his skull.
What was he doing here?
Why was he here?
There were pieces, a girl with black hair, a temple with breathing walls, something chasing him. A sword. Blood. But the order was lost. Faces blurred. Names slipped like water through his fingers.
He reached another corner.
No... there was no corner here before.
Was this the same temple?
The architecture twisted in ways that didn't make sense. Angles folding inwards, impossible corridors looping into each other. But in the center of it all there.
A figure.
A silhouette at first.
Still. Calm. Almost unnaturally so.
Altherion rose, unsteady. His legs barely held him, but he moved anyway. Drawn forward by a presence both foreign and familiar.
The man stood with his back to him, his body bathed in the pale, ghostly glow of floating glyphs. There was something unspoken in the air around him like the calm before a storm that had already destroyed the world.
He said nothing.
He didn't need to.
Altherion's breathing quickened.
There was something about this man.
The shape of the coat. The pattern etched on the sword at his hip. The way he stood, as if the entire world was beneath him and yet not worth noticing.
And then-
The figure turned.
Just slightly.
Enough to show a glimpse of a sharp eye. One that glowed faintly... blue? Violet? No... both?
Altherion froze.
He knew that face.
He knew it.
From somewhere else. Somewhere on a screen, accompanied by a health bar and dialogue he never read.
A face he had seen once, briefly, before skipping a cutscene.
"...You."
He didn't mean to say it aloud.
The word escaped him before he could catch it.
The figure's gaze met his.
And in that moment-
everything around them fell silent.
Like even the twisted reality of the temple dared not breathe between the two.
Altherion's lips trembled.
His thoughts were still a mess, but this he recognized.
Not by name. Not by memory.
But by something deeper.
Something buried.
A presence that didn't belong here.
A presence too perfect, too composed, too... scripted.
Arviel.
It came to him like a whisper in the void.
Not spoken.
But known.
And with that realization, something inside Altherion snapped back into place.
Not fully.
But enough.
Enough to feel fear again.
Enough to realize...
he was not alone in this nightmare.
And he wasn't sure if that was a good thing.