A faint breeze brushed against my face, like a ghost trying to whisper secrets into my ear—but I wasn't in the mood for gossip. I kept moving, each step pulling me closer to the top of the tower, where a pressure so dense it could squish hope itself loomed like an unwelcome landlord.

  My eyes flickered red, cutting through the gloom like a glitch in reality. Shadows followed me, curling around my limbs like loyal pets made of nightmares. My presence faded into the obsidian mist as darkness licked at my heels.

  Then came the whisper—soft, silky, and cold as frostbite. It slithered into my mind, coiling around thoughts long buried. The voice lulled me like Nyx herself, seducing me with dreams of sleep after too many nights clawing for survival. My vision blurred, and I drifted—mind, body, and soul—into the abyss.

  My breath came ragged, each inhale like sucking tar through broken ribs. My legs trudged forward unwillingly, sloshing through a swamp so black it felt like walking through melted despair.

  "...Why am I even here?" I muttered.

  It had been weeks—weeks of eating mystery meat, dodging toothy freaks, and playing 'Guess the Hallucination' just to stay alive in this half-baked imitation of Earth.

  "Who are you then?"

  My inner voice asked.

  "I'm just... a kid trying to survive in this hellhole." I mumbled. The words felt hollow. Fuzzy memories played hide and seek in my head.

  Why was I walking toward death again?

  "To prove a point?" my voice asked, with the casual cruelty of someone flipping through my trauma like it was a magazine.

  "What point?" I snapped, annoyed at my own sass.

  "To avenge mother, then?"

  I hesitated. "She wasn't even my real mother..."

  "To get revenge?"

  I sighed. "I don't even care about that anymore."

  "Then why? To get stronger?" The tone sharpened—too sharp, like a broken glass pressed to my throat.

  "I just want to go home." I said. Quiet. Honest.

  "Home? That’s cute. There’s no home left for you. No mommy, no couch, no pizza nights. Lei? Dead. Eaten by something with too many legs."

  I clenched my jaw. "You're lying. They're out there. I know it."

  "Wishful thinking. You’ve seen what this world does to people without power. They’re either corpses or cuisine."

  "No!" I growled. "I won’t believe you. Not until I see it myself."

  "Then go see it. Watch them scream. Watch them suffer. And when you’re a shell of what you used to be... I’ll be waiting. Hungry."

  "...I?"

  My breath caught. My skin crawled. I’d been so focused on arguing with myself that I hadn't realized I wasn't talking to myself anymore.

  My heart hammered in my chest like it was trying to escape. I turned my head slowly.

  A tall, towering wall stood before me—smooth, black, and reflective like obsidian drenched in ink. My eyes locked on something staring back at me.

  A single, enormous eye.

  Serpentine. Cold. Knowing.

  Its slitted pupil stretched across the entire surface of the mirror. It didn’t blink. It just watched—calmly. Hungrily.

  “You’re me… and I am you.”

  It said, in my voice, but laced with something far too ancient, far too cruel.

  Terror gripped me, primal and paralyzing. My body froze, shackled by fear as that monstrous gaze bore into me. The black swamp bubbled, and suddenly I was sinking—pulled under by invisible hands, swallowed whole by liquid dread.

  I thrashed. Fought.

  Screamed in silence.

  It didn’t matter.

  "Pointless… it’s all pointless..."

  The cold kiss of oblivion wrapped around my ankles, dragging me down—and then…

  A sound.

  A voice.

  Faint, but familiar.

  Muffled, but real.

  Calling to me through the darkness.

  A thread of light in a sea of ink.

  “[...]”

  “[...ord!]”

  “[...My Lord!]”

  “[MY LORD! WAKE UP!]”

  I jolted awake, blinking like someone hit the snooze button too hard.

  Did… did I just napwalk?

  My eyes snapped open as a burst of interwaves flared through my brain like a very aggressive espresso shot. Hunter’s voice crackled in my head, sounding more panicked than usual—which was saying a lot considering they were usually the calm murder-happy voice in my life.

  I stood, dumbfounded, just a few hundred meters from the towering hell-spire itself. Which begged a few questions. Namely: How in the Nine Depths did I get here while asleep?

  “What happened?”

  “[My Lord! Are you awake now?]” Hunter’s voice practically sighed with relief. “[You have been walking in your sleep for over an hour! I tried everything—shouting, waving interwaves, emotional guilt trips—but you just kept trudging forward like a possessed zombie.]”

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  That… actually tracked. Between the horrors, sleepless nights, and existential crises, my body probably just checked out like a mall worker on Black Friday.

  The [Ungodly] trait?

  Oh, it’s amazing. It patches you up, revives you from death, and even smooths out those nasty spiritual fractures.

  But alas, it does not come with a decent REM cycle.

  “I guess I’m just tired,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. “Any unwanted guests while I was out?”

  “[None, my Lord. I’ve been pulsing interwaves in a ten-meter radius while cloaked to alert us in case of threats.]”

  “Good,” I nodded, stretching my stiff limbs. “But from now on, keep your interwave output tight—one meter max. We’re trespassing in Big Ugly’s living room. Let’s not knock over the vases.”

  “[Understood, my Lord.]” Hunter replied crisply.

  Now that I was back in the waking world, I took a moment to assess our situation.

  The tower stood tall like a jagged spear stabbed into the world, built atop a sheer outcrop surrounded by a colossal abyss that looked like it was carved by an ancient tantrum. Its base was formed of jagged granite spires, and the tower’s surface was smeared in black, viscous goo that pulsed like a sick heartbeat.

  Charming.

  The area was dead quiet—eerily so. No aberrants. No monsters. Just bones. Piles and piles of bones stacked in the cracks and chasms like someone got really into bone decor. From deep within the abyss, the wind carried faint, tortured wails. They weren’t loud… but they lingered.

  The air flickered between hot and cold like it couldn’t make up its mind, the pressure bending and twisting with invisible currents. It felt like walking through a blender made of invisible hammers. A normal human would’ve exploded into pieces just by stepping into this place.

  The smell? A delightful mix of rotting meat, sulfur, and a very specific kind of decay that says, “Hey, something ancient and hungry lives here!”

  As I stepped closer to the gate—currently sealed by an invisible wall that screamed, No Soliciting or Mortals Allowed—the air bit into my skin like tiny needles.

  Yup.

  I was in His domain now.

  And oh yes—He knew someone was here.

  “He can’t see me.”

  “He doesn’t know what’s coming.”

  I whispered to myself. A little pep talk never hurt anyone—well, unless you count the people who heard it and immediately died after. I climbed the cold, unforgiving obsidian stairs, each step echoing like a death knell.

  “Activate [Truthseeker].” I whispered. My radius was tight—now three meters max. No point in lighting myself up like a beacon.

  Silence.

  No readings. No movement. Nothing lurking behind the thick stone walls.

  Still… I didn’t trust it. The quiet was too loud.

  This was the kind of calm that came before the world set itself on fire.

  Then it hit.

  A crushing pressure swept across the area like a cosmic sledgehammer. The air shook. Hunter’s body shimmered with static, trembling uncontrollably.

  “[M-My Lord…]” Hunter’s voice cracked, tinged with raw panic. “[The monster… He’s moving… He’s coming for us now!]”

  And just like that, the tower wasn’t so quiet anymore.

  It was listening. And it was awake.

  “Hunter! Can’t we climb the outer walls instead?!” I shouted, my voice ragged with desperation. The stone beneath my feet groaned, and the distant shrieks of something unnatural echoed through the vertical halls before us. We were moments away from being discovered—in the worst possible place imaginable.

  Fighting in a tight open space, boxed in on all sides, against a creature of impossible strength?

  That was no battle. That was a slow, certain execution. One wrong move and I'd be launched off the edge, into the bottomless abyss yawning beyond the cliff. There wouldn’t even be bones left to bury.

  “[My Lord… that’s not possible,]” Hunter answered, his voice trembling with something far beyond fear. “[The outer walls are no longer stone. They’re alive. Covered in black biomass—the same kind of material bonded to your core… and mine. That wall, pulsing like an artery, isn’t part of the tower. It’s part of him. The King. If we so much as brush against that vile gloop, we risk being devoured—or worse, merged. Absorbed into his flesh like insects into sap.]”

  I snapped my gaze to the nearby wall.

  It twitched.

  The surface pulsed with sickly, slow contractions. A thick, tar-like sheen oozed across it, veins bulging beneath the surface like worms waiting to reach out and drag.

  “Can’t you just absorb it?” I asked, trying to keep my hands steady, even though it trembled with unease—an unnatural twitch, like it too didn’t want to go through that gate. It sensed what waited beyond.

  “[No, My Lord… Not this time,]” Hunter whispered, “[It’s not inert biomass. It's a thinking, breathing part of the King itself. If I tried to absorb it, I might be drawn in instead. His will is threaded through it—his desire to consume, to dominate… I can feel it. He knows we’re here. He’s hungry. That wall is just an extension of his malevolent intent.]”

  Sh*t.

  My pulse hammered in my ears as I scanned for another escape. None. The writhing walls had slowly begun to encroach, subtly tightening like muscle fibers drawing prey into a gullet. Worse yet—I could feel it now. A pressure. A presence descending from above, inch by inch. He was coming. The King himself.

  “No other choice…” I muttered under my breath. My fingers curled tighter, clenching my fists. I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat and ran—straight into the open gate of darkness.

  The moment I crossed the threshold, it hit me like a wall of knives.

  Cold.

  Not the kind you feel in winter or in death—but a cold that scraped down to the soul. It sank beneath my skin, crawled into my veins, and curled around my spine like an icy parasite.

  My senses began to betray me.

  First, my hearing dulled—no more echoes, no more breath. Then touch—the ground beneath me vanished, or perhaps I had ceased to perceive it. Even my enhanced sight flickered out, like a dying flame.

  I was suspended in something that wasn’t space. Wasn’t air. Wasn’t anything.

  Only the creeping void.

  “I’m inside the Void.” I whispered, but even my voice felt distant, smothered by an unseen fog.

  It was here I first truly tasted fear—the kind that doesn't scream, but whispers. A thousand eyes in the dark. No movement. No warmth. No time. Just… watching.

  “[Yes… We are within the Void, My Lord,]” Hunter murmured, barely audible in my mind. “[The King has forced a dimensional shift. This is a pocket realm—constructed, deliberate. And we are not alone.]”

  I stiffened. “What do you mean, not alone?”

  “[There are beings surrounding the tunnel—just three meters away. Countless of them. Staring. Silent. Their eyes are like glass marbles—white, expressionless. They aren’t moving… because they don’t need to. They’re waiting.]”

  My skin prickled. “Why can’t I see them?”

  “[They belong to the Void. You don’t see the ocean’s depths when you dive into the dark… but the predators see you. They see the glow of your soul like a beacon. And they’re drawn to it. These creatures… they’re the helpless souls consumed by the King, devolved over time. Fragments of their past lives. They’re nested in the dark.]”

  “Nested…” I repeated, the word lodging like a splinter behind my eyes. My imagination flared with images of malformed things curled within the abyss, twitching, smiling with too many teeth.

  Hunter tried to soothe me, his tone gentle despite the horror: “[That you can sense them at all is incredible, my Lord.]”

  I clenched my jaw, fists trembling.

  They couldn’t touch me here. Not yet.

  I am inside a Void Tunnel—a path wrapped in cosmic energy, forged by the System. An incorruptible filament of translucent light, flowing like molten starlight through the abyss. It hummed with power—my only shield. Anything that touched the tunnel without my will would disintegrate instantly.

  But they still watched.

  I began to drift, pulled forward by the tunnel’s momentum. The light beneath me shimmered like crystalized time. And then—

  Something slammed into the tunnel.

  Not a physical impact—but a spiritual one. A screech that rippled through my blood and marrow. The Void twitched. Cracks formed in the filament, hissing with black mist.

  Hunter gasped. “[Something… something powerful is pressing in. My Lord—it’s him. He’s trying to reach inside. He’s not waiting for us to arrive—he’s dragging us to him!]”

  I turned.

  The darkness breathed.

  And there it was.

  A shape emerged—massive, formless, built of writhing horror, myriad of slit eyes that blinked sideways, canines of different sizes that whispered monster languages. A fragment of the King aberrant, manifesting within the Void like a parasite born from the skin of the realm itself.

  The tunnel shuddered.

  Reality frayed.

  “Faster!” I roared and surged forward, the tunnel’s light screaming with friction as I tore through it like a comet. Behind me, the creature pressed harder against the tunnel walls, trying to block my path before I reached the end.

  And then—light.

  Pzzzzzt. Pzzzt.

  A sudden, sharp sound pierced the silence, a black hole tore open in the fabric of reality itself. From within it, I emerged, accompanied by Hunter.

  The first thing I noticed was the absence of the King’s presence. It was as if his dark, oppressive aura had been severed, leaving behind only the faintest trace. A strange, eerie quiet filled the space—almost too silent.

  I looked around.

  I was standing in the center of a vast, medieval-style room that stretched out like a forgotten cathedral, easily the size of a small courtyard. The towering walls, black as night, loomed around me, their surface unnervingly decorated with rows of skulls.

  These were not mere decorations—they were attached with careful precision, their hollow eyes gazing down at me, as though they had a purpose to their grim placement.

  The torches lining the walls didn’t emit the usual red flames. Instead, they burned with an unnatural blue fire that cast an unsettling glow across the room, their light somehow more haunting than anything I’d ever seen.

  I scanned the room for an exit, but there was nothing. No windows. No doors. Just endless stone and cold, suffocating darkness stretching on.

  “How the hell am I still breathing?” I muttered internally, baffled by the situation. “What sorcery is this?”

  "[My Lord, those blue fires are fueled by cosmic energy.]" Hunter responded, his tone as steady as it could be, despite the strangeness of the surroundings.

  Now that he mentioned it, the lack of oxygen in the air should have suffocated me by now in this closed room. But I wasn’t gasping. No, I was breathing. The cold was another matter entirely.

  The room should have been scorching with all the energy radiating from those blue flames. But instead, the chill was unbearable. I felt it biting at my skin, creeping under my cloth, sinking into my bones. The stone floor beneath me was like ice, sending waves of discomfort up through my legs just by standing for a moment.

  Great, I thought, looking down at myself. I’m practically half-naked in a freezing hellhole.

  Just my luck.

  My hair and face were already covered in a layer of tiny icicles, the cold seeping through my thin shorts. My body jerked involuntarily as my muscles contracted, making it hard to move or think straight. It was as if every inch of me was freezing over, my thoughts slowing like molasses in the dead of winter.

  But then—thankfully—my [Void Cloak] kicked in. A subtle warmth surged through me, dulling the biting cold. I could still feel the chill lingering, but it was bearable now, my body managing to fight off the worst of the frost.

  Still, the constant shivering was annoying.

  “Regulate my body heat.” I ordered, the words slipping out like a plea. The fog that escaped from my mouth only made it worse. I really hated this cold.

  "[As you wish, my Lord.]" Hunter said, the slight strain in his voice hinting that even he was uncomfortable.

  Immediately, I felt something warm settle around my chest. It wasn’t just the heat. It felt like something had wrapped around my heart—soft, but persistent. It pulsed in steady intervals, quickening just enough to raise my heartbeat to normal levels, keeping me alert, keeping me from passing out or convulsing like a fool in the cold.

  The warmth spread outward, chasing the chill from my limbs. My muscles relaxed, no longer fighting the freezing air. And just like that, my mind cleared. It was as though I’d just been slapped awake after days of exhaustion. Every inch of me felt more alive, more aware—like I’d drunk ten cups of coffee. Which, honestly, was probably not a healthy idea, but I wasn’t about to complain.

  “So, now what?” I thought, scanning the room for any sign of movement. There were no monsters lurking in the shadows. No sounds. Nothing.

  This place… it felt like a test. A challenge. Like the next floor wouldn’t reveal until I earned my way through it. And, of course, I was right.

  As soon as my foot moved forward, a flicker of light erupted in the center of the room, appearing from nowhere. It wasn’t a regular light, either. This wasn’t the soft glow of an ordinary torch or candle. No, this was something grand.

  Something ominous.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle under my breath.

  “Oh, perfect. A dramatic entrance.”

  It was as if the room itself had recognized my skepticism. The flickering light intensified, casting long, jagged shadows across the skull-adorned walls, making them seem to twitch with life.

  The sensation in the air shifted. A quiet hum began to buzz at the edges of my perception, like the calm before a storm.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Let’s see what kind of ‘boss’ this is,” I muttered to myself, stepping forward, heart hammering in my chest.

  Whatever this was, it had just begun. And there was no turning back now.

  Finally.

  A thick, viscous sludge of black goo erupted from the cold stone floor, spreading across the surface like a pool of blood someone had carelessly spilled. It was the kind of sight that made your stomach twist in unease, the very sight of something that didn’t belong.

  And from the swirling muck, a head—still encased in goo—emerged, slowly and deliberately.

  Outer Celestials,

  The Chronicles of Leafshade by Max Dan!

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