The chamber was death.
Niko stood frozen in the threshold, breath shallow, the air thick with rot and rusted iron. Blood clung to the walls like ancient paint. Bone fragments. Muscle. Torn flesh strewn without care. A single, curved horn glinted in the muck, blackened and crusted with drying gore. Whatever it belonged to—it hadn't died clean.
His body seized with nausea. He gripped the doorframe, swallowing back the wave rising in his throat. 'I'm… too late.'
Then—footsteps behind him.
"You should've walked past, boy."
Niko turned slowly. The same guard, the one he'd lied to, stepped from the shadows of the hallway. His expression was calm, cold. "You're not one of us."
Niko didn't answer.
"I figured, when you asked about the chamber. Didn't think you'd be stupid enough to come here, though." He gestured to the carnage. "Curious types usually don't last long."
'If the sacrifices are already gone,' Niko thought, 'what were they planning for me?'
His eyes narrowed, rage bubbling under the surface. 'These weren't warriors. These weren't fighters. These were people…'
The guard stepped forward. "Don't try anything. You're outnumbered."
Niko raised a brow.
"Out—"
Pop. A blur of motion beside the guard. Then another.
Clones.
Two of them. One had only one leg and tried to steady himself by dragging a jagged cane. The other had vacant eyes and drooled as he grunted in confusion. Both stood defensively.
"You like it?" the guard asked, a crooked grin forming. "Each body I make lives just long enough to fight. Doesn't matter if they're…imperfect."
"You call this power?" Niko said. "Looks like rot from the inside out."
Another clone stepped out of the guard's shadow—this one jittering as if its bones didn't sit right under the skin. It stumbled, twitched, and snarled.
The first clone rushed forward. Niko moved before it could blink.
He dodged the swing and drove his knee into its side. Something cracked, and it folded like paper.
The others followed. Niko ducked, twisted, letting the broken clones wear themselves out trying to land a blow. The guard watched, arms folded, waiting for Niko to trip.
"I don't know what you came here to find," the guard said, "but there's no salvation here. No freedom. This world is already spoken for. We're just helping bring it back to order."
Niko caught one of the defective clones by the neck and slammed it into the wall. "Order? This is carnage."
The guard shrugged. "You don't understand. This is necessary. You think the gods slept forever? They only waited. For us to prepare the Pale Arc. For the War God to awaken again and erase the devils who poisoned this world."
'The War God again,' Niko thought, 'and devils… Who are they even fighting?'
He turned to the original, the real guard, his expression unreadable. "So what—this War God's gonna descend and make it all better? That your plan?"
The guard smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Not better. Clean."
Niko scoffed. "You sound like a mad priest."
The guard's smirk widened. "You'll understand soon enough. There are reasons the Oche family was never touched. Reasons you'll never walk free again."
That name again—Oche.
Niko's expression darkened.
'Enough of this.'
He stepped forward again, slow this time.
The guard raised a brow. "You really think you're not going to die here?"
Niko exhaled. 'I've seen worse than you in the first week here.' He rolled his shoulders.
"No," he said. "I think you are."
And he lunged.
Niko's body moved on its own. Rage, revulsion, and something deeper—an ache he didn't understand—drove him forward. The moment his foot slammed against the ground, the guard's hand shot to his side, pulling a short hooked blade, lips curling into a twisted grin.
"You should have stayed quiet, rat."
Niko didn't answer—his fist did. It came like a whipcrack, catching the guard's jaw and sending him sprawling back. But as soon as he hit the floor, there was a shimmer—like heat distortion—and suddenly, two guards stood where one had fallen.
Niko blinked. One of them had no arm. The other was… drooling, eyes glassy and unfocused.
'He can replicate—but they're flawed. Defects,' Niko realized. 'This might be fun.'
The armless one charged first, compensating with kicks and shoulder slams. Niko ducked a wild swing, swept the man's leg, and twisted his body mid-motion to pivot into a low kick to the other one's stomach. The second clone stumbled back, babbling nonsense.
The original guard got up again, spitting blood. "You think you know anything about what's going on here?" he snarled.
Niko raised a brow, sidestepping as another clone popped out—this one with two legs but a caved-in chest. "I know enough," Niko said flatly. "I know you killed people for your god. I know you'd have killed me too."
"You think this is about killing? You don't understand what the Pale Arc needs. What the gods demand."
Niko's lip curled. "If the gods are like you, maybe they need to be stopped."
The original lunged again, faster this time—clean, sharp strikes. Niko deflected one with his forearm and elbowed the man's neck. A flash—two more clones appeared. One was covered in burns, the other staggered with twisted legs. Still dangerous. Still coming.
The clones fought clumsily, but in numbers. Niko danced between them—grabbing the burnt one by the wrist and throwing him into the twisted one. Their bodies crashed into the wall with a sick crunch.
"You're strong," the guard panted, eye swollen. "But you're alone. And the War God doesn't take kindly to defiance."
That name again.
Niko paused, gaze sharp. "What is defiance, anyway? Wanting to live? Wanting to think for yourself?"
A blade grazed his side. He winced, then grabbed the guard by the collar, dragging him in.
"Tell me something," Niko hissed. "What's the chamber for if the sacrifices are already used? What were you gonna do with me?"
The guard laughed, teeth bloody. "You'll find out. If you live."
Suddenly, the man flared with light—one more clone burst from him. This one looked perfect—normal. Fast.
Niko narrowed his eyes. 'Looks like I don't get to play around anymore.'
…
Two hours earlier…
The road to the Sanctuary gleamed beneath the sunlight—sunlight so warm and gold that it made the cobbled stone seem dipped in honey. The 50th Ring breathed with a rhythm unlike anything Juno had experienced in the rest of the House. People walked freely here. Grass grew in vibrant green. Markets chattered with color and sound, and for a moment, it felt like he'd fallen into a world untouched by the laws of the House.
Juno's boots clacked lightly as he walked beside Mena, hands buried deep in his coat pockets. His shadow, once twitching and restless in the Blank Space, now trailed behind him in peace—though it still shimmered unnaturally at the edges.
"…This place is too sunny for my liking," Juno muttered with a scowl, squinting up toward the pristine sky.
Mena sighed. "It'll be dark soon, Lord Juno."
Juno rolled his eyes. "Didn't ask for your optimism."
They passed through the outer gates into the city proper. The tall iron arches gave way to sprawling streets lined with stone and ivy. Citizens moved without fear here, smiling, haggling, laughing. There were no guards with halberds, no automated surveillance drones, no House Watchers on high platforms. It was jarring.
Juno paused in the middle of the street as a child ran past, chasing a wooden hoop. The kid glanced back, laughing, before disappearing down a vine-covered alleyway.
Juno stared after him for a long moment. "This ring… it's alive."
Mena gave a slight nod, though she kept walking. "That's what the stories say. Morrow—the one of the Ten—favored this place. She said it reminded her of something long gone."
Juno grunted and kept moving.
But then—he stopped again.
His eyes, sharp and cold, were drawn upward.
The sun.
A perfect circle, blazing and still—until it wasn't.
It flickered.
Just for a second. Like a candle guttering under a breath of wind. Barely a twitch, a pulse in the fabric of the sky.
Juno blinked hard, his face unreadable. Then a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. Not out of amusement—but something darker.
"…Did the sun just blink?" he murmured, tone light but lined with something jagged.
Mena turned. "What?"
Juno looked down and waved it off. "Nothing. Probably going insane. Or maybe the punishment's working faster than I thought."
He laughed quietly to himself. It wasn't forced—but it wasn't natural either. A dry, splintered thing.
The punishment…
He didn't need anyone to remind him. The House didn't break its contracts. Every time something happened in this place—every loss, every shift, every revelation—he shifted too. Sanity wasn't something he was trying to cling to anymore. It was something he was bargaining with.
His thoughts scattered like birds as Mena gestured to a nearby inn with a shaded balcony.
"We should eat. Find a place to sleep before you lose what's left of your mind."
"Too late," Juno said, grinning faintly. "That ship's sunk."
But still, he followed.
He couldn't stop thinking about the flicker.
He wondered—was it real? Or was it just another crack spreading in the mirror of his mind?
And somewhere, far below, Niko was already wading into darkness.