He stood at the edge of the abyss.
Before him, a corridor stretched like the throat of some buried titan—its walls narrow, its ceiling arched, all carved from a black stone that swallowed even the memory of light.
Void didn't move at first.
The dust from the fallen door still hung in the air, curling around him like smoke clinging to skin. Silence pressed against his ears, thick and suffocating.
The path looked simple.
Straight. Empty. Almost too welcoming.
He took a step forward.
The stone beneath his foot was rough, cold, but solid.
Another step.
Still fine.
Then he saw it.
Ahead, the floor changed.
What had been natural rock now gave way to tiles. Square. Perfect. Inhumanly precise. They stretched in a grid, endless, symmetrical, identical in color and shape—yet wrong.
His skin prickled.
Void stopped.
He'd never seen this kind of trap before.
And yet… he knew.
The moment he looked at those tiles, his instincts screamed.
Step wrong, and you die.
He didn't know how he knew.
But he did.
He crouched, staring at the deadly mosaic ahead.
There were no markings. No hints. Just rows upon rows of ancient tiles that felt like they were waiting.
Waiting for him to choose wrong.
He picked up a pebble from the ground and tossed it lightly ahead. It clattered on a tile—
Nothing.
He frowned.
Again, this time farther. Still nothing.
"Don't play dumb," he muttered to himself. "I know you're not just decoration."
He stood, his jaw clenched. The mask on his face hummed faintly, reacting to his tension, echoing his heartbeat like a second skin.
The corridor mocked him.
One wrong step, and it could be spikes. Fire. Magic. Maybe just vaporization.
He wouldn't know until it was too late.
Damn it.
How am I supposed to cross this?
There was no bridge. No path above. No sign from the walls. No clue.
No logic.
Just Void, and the silent challenge laid before him by some ancient, dead civilization.
And that made something inside him burn.
He wasn't supposed to be here.
He should've died in the desert.
Should've bled out in the pit.
Should've been forgotten.
Yet here he was—face to face with puzzles designed for beings greater than mortals.
This place wasn't made for someone like me…
He laughed bitterly.
"…And that's exactly why I'll survive it."
He exhaled slowly.
Let the frustration bleed out.
Let the doubt die.
He closed his eyes.
And listened.
To everything.
To his heartbeat.
To the vibrations in the stone.
To the subtle shifts in the air as it brushed across the corridor.
And somewhere deep within—
He felt it.
A faint pull.
Like his body was being nudged by invisible hands, like something deep in his bones knew where to step.
Instinct.
Not intellect.
Not reasoning.
Something older.
His first step landed on a tile left of center.
No sound. No tremor. Safe.
He took another. Diagonal this time.
Still safe.
His body moved before he could think. He felt sweat slide down his spine, but his face was calm.
There was no logic to the steps. No pattern. No rhythm.
Only feeling.
At one point he leaned forward to place a foot—and his entire body screamed NO. He froze. Shifted a few inches to the right.
Safe.
Minutes passed.
Or was it hours?
Void didn't count them.
He existed only in the moment. A creature made of motion, guided by an unseen thread.
His breathing was shallow now. Legs trembling from holding impossible stances. Fingers twitching from tension.
But the end was in sight.
One final tile.
He stepped.
The pressure vanished.
He stumbled forward onto natural stone once more and collapsed to one knee.
Behind him, the corridor remained silent. No trigger. No trap. No applause.
Just survival.
Void laughed, low and breathless.
"You almost had me," he whispered. "But not today."
He stood, every muscle aching.
Yet something inside him had changed.
It wasn't just the mask or the dragon's energy anymore.
It was him.
He had trusted himself—not knowledge, not sight, not logic.
Just… himself.
And it had saved him.
He looked down the next part of the corridor. Still dark. Still unknown.
But now, his steps were lighter.
More confident.
He didn't need a map anymore.
He was the path.
His breath still shallow, Void pressed forward.
The trap-riddled corridor faded behind him, swallowed by darkness, and what lay ahead was a silence so profound it felt almost… reverent.
His footsteps echoed now.
The passage widened gradually, and the air grew colder. He could feel something—an unease, a pressure like the breath of something immense just outside perception.
Then he saw it.
The corridor opened into a massive chamber.
The ceiling was high, impossibly high, disappearing into shadows beyond his sight. The walls were marked with ancient inscriptions, symbols older than memory, carved with such precision that they seemed untouched by time. A faint red glow pulsed from the floor, like the slow heartbeat of a sleeping god.
And in the center…
A statue.
Monumental.
It stood over two meters tall, carved from a stone so pale it bordered on translucent. Its shape was unmistakable: a winged being, head bowed, knees to the floor in eternal submission. Its wings—immense and feathered—were folded inward like a bird trying to protect itself from a storm.
But it was chained.
Enormous, black iron chains wrapped around its chest, wings, and arms, bolted deep into the surrounding floor and pillars. The chains were far too large for any human to lift—thick as trees, forged in some forgotten era. They groaned softly with each distant vibration in the ground.
Void stepped closer.
The statue's face, though serene in its suffering, was streaked with something—
He froze.
Blood.
Crimson trails ran from the corners of its eyes, down its cheeks, and along its marble neck. The blood looked fresh. Too fresh. And it didn't drip or dry—it simply wept, slowly, endlessly, as if the statue itself were alive.
Void felt his heartbeat slow.
This wasn't just decoration.
This was deliberate.
A warning?
A memorial?
Or… a prisoner?
He looked into its face. Despite the agony carved into its expression, despite the iron shackles and the blood-tears, there was no hatred.
Only sorrow.
A deep, ancient sorrow that seemed to echo across centuries.
Void took another step forward, drawn to it.
His voice was barely a whisper.
"…What are you?"
The statue said nothing.
The chains groaned.
And behind him, the door to the corridor sealed shut with a low, thunderous hum.
Void didn't flinch.
He simply stood there, staring at the angel's bleeding face—his own expression unreadable behind the black mask.
The silence returned.
But this time… it was different.
He wasn't alone.
Not anymore.