Kaiser stepped through the final door, and an unsettling chill slithered down his spine. The spiders remained there, in the background, overshadowed by the silent haze of their own existence, perceiving all there was to see.

  As he walked trough the frames of the door, he entered a home that was on fire, actually, fire would be a tame way to describe it... it was more of a burning inferno, and in it, the air was filled with smoke and the pungent scent of burned wood and melting fat.

  Amid the inferno, Kaiser’s eyes settled on a chilling sight: a mother with her body burned beyond recognition, holding her two children. The children were alive, wriggling and screaming as the fire closed in on them up. Their screams cut through the air, unformed, unintelligible, hopeless yet at the same time their dainty little bodies shook with pain and hopelessness.

  Kaiser took a step forward and his instincts screamed at him to protect the injured. His hands stretched out, twitching with desperation, but when they came into contact with them, they passed right through like he was made of fog. Shock struck him, but nonetheless he tried again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Each attempt was met with the same result. His hands clawed at the air, powerless to do anything but witness the unspeakable.

  “No!” His voice broke, raw and guttural, as frustration and helplessness overtook him. His fists slammed into the ground, and yet nothing happened to even the floor beneath him. “No! I can save you, please, please… Just grab onto my hand!”

  The children’s cries, so desperate only moments ago, faded into pitiful whimpers, then into silence. A silence that rang louder than any scream, more deafening than the fire’s crackling hunger.

  Kaiser knelt there, shaking, as the reality of it sank into his bones like poison. His chest heaved with a raw, primal pain, and then, as if his very soul were being torn from his body, he threw his head back and roared—a sound not meant for human throats, a sound that carried anguish, fury, and the unbearable weight of powerlessness.

  The fire did not care. The world did not stop. The house still burned, reducing what once was to embers and ash.

  And then—BOOM.

  A thunderous explosion erupted outside, sending tremors through the collapsing walls. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling, forcing him to instinctively shield his eyes. The sheer force of it sent the air shuddering in his lungs, and through years of survival instincts honed in war and bloodshed, he knew—he had to move.

  But his body resisted.

  He forced himself to rise, his movements sluggish, drained of purpose. His steps were heavy, lifeless, dragging him forward like a man already half-dead. Each stride carried him further from the burning ruin of what he could not save.

  As he stepped through the collapsing doorway, the flames roared in his wake, greedily devouring what was left. He emerged into a world of devastation—a sky choked with smoke, the ground scarred with fire and ruin.

  The kingdom where he had once lived in laid in ruins. Majestic towers, emblems of?might and pride had collapsed into jagged rubble. The?streets were unrecognizable, under mounds of debris and corpses. The sky was a choking gray, suffocated with ash and?smoke, casting an apocalyptic image over the desolate landscape.

  Above the destruction, a battle raged. Kaiser’s eyes widened as he saw himself—a younger, battered version—locked in ferocious combat with a swordsman whose presence radiated malevolence. The man’s stark white hair stood in sharp contrast to the dark magic coursing through his rusted blades.

  Sabel Stoorm.

  The memory crashed over Kaiser like a tidal wave. This was the day his hometown was obliterated—the day he first fought Sabel Stoorm.

  The fight was brutal, each strike of their weapons reverberating like thunder through the ruins of a recently lively city. The younger Kaiser fought with everything he had, but Sabel was relentless. The cursed blades tore through his flesh, the rust infecting his body and slowing his miraculous regeneration, and then for the first time in his life, Kaiser’s immortality was tested to its breaking point.

  The younger warrior faltered, and Sabel drove one of his jagged blades into Kaiser’s chest. Pain exploded through him as the corruption spread, turning his flesh to rust, eating him alive from the inside out, but Kaiser didn’t give up so easily, as he plundered his hand into his chest and ripped his own heart out.

  Kaisers vision went blurry, even tho he was only watching a memory, and then the vision ended as abruptly as it had begun. Kaiser was hurled backward with violent force, his body slamming into the floor of the final room. The door slammed shut behind him, sealing the nightmare away.

  And there he laid, heaving on the ground and gulping for air, trying to stitch the vision back to the reality around him. The phantom pain of the blade left an ache in his heart that?would never leave him alone, something he knew would never fully heal. He trembled when his hand grazed the place where the sword of that cursed memory had pierced his body, as if expecting to still find the wound, only he was able to find nothing.

  Kaiser finally raised his head, his visage empty, his senses filthy with the unavoidable?goddamn wave of memories. The pain in his chest remained, but as he forced his eyes?ahead, he watched another door appear. This one was?routine — almost painfully so. Polished wood, a simple brass handle, and no hint of the?horrors that came before. It was there, an invitation to escape or another snare. Desperately in need of distraction, he pushed to his feet, his body weighed?down with pain, memories, agony, sadness, hopelessness… Yet he still grasped the handle all the same, all the while his facial expression barely changed.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Kaiser entered a dimly lit chamber as the groaning door opened. At the center sat a girl, one who looked like she was barely eighteen years old with pink hair that was disheveled and flecked with soot. Her face was deathly pale and lifeless, with dark pits for eyes that seemed to pierce the depths of his core. She remained motionless and mute, but the aura around her was one of hopelessness.

  The spiders that had followed him, silent and crying, came toward the girl. They climbed up her small torso one by one as their long, lash-like legs raced over the floor. As though seeking safety in her poverty, they slowly sank into the holes at the base of her eyes and soon after their frail bodies were engulfed by the emptiness. The girl opened her mouth to speak, but Kaiser's reaction stopped her.

  "I will not be deceived again, creature of illusions."

  The room began to shake as the oppressive weight of the air surrounding him increased. His presence exuded a primordial and dreadful aura, and his eyes blazed with a rage born of torture. The man's muscles coiled like a loaded spring and he took a purposeful, precise stride forward. Every ounce of strength in his body coiled into a single point, his fingers clenching so tightly that his knuckles blanched. With a sharp exhale, he twisted his hips and unleashed his punch like a cannonball.

  The sound of the impact rang through the room like an earthquake as it impacted with roaring intensity. With a horrible snap, the girl's tiny body flew and was slammed into the wall after being flung back. She tried to push herself up but her weak body trembled and slumped to the ground.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the deafening silence. Her words were fragile, full of fear and regret, but they did nothing to stop the man who had nothing but hate on his mind.

  Kaiser towered over her, engulfing her in his shadow. His face was a faceless mask, and he acted in a robotic manner, as though under the influence of an entity that was beyond human comprehension. His silence was more horrifying than any spider monster he faced this day. The girl jumped to her feet, tears spilling down her face and raced after the door desperate to get away from the inhuman thing that wanted her dead.

  Yet she didn’t make it.

  Kaiser’s hand shot out, clenching her arm in a grip of iron strength that made her cry out in pain. No hesitation and no mercy. With a growl that resonated through the walls, he hurled her through the door, and instantly she flew like a rag doll, smashing trough the door’s frame with such force that the room seemed to shake. As she vanished over the other side, the room into witch she had been smashed into started to change, the ordinary timber writhing and deforming, while the walls were starting to distort into an excruciatingly vibrant picture. The world beyond started to reveal her life—her history, just as it had revealed Kaiser his.

  Kaiser was still consumed by rage, so he hurtled through the door after the girl, his body turning into a blur of power and fury. His thoughts were a tempest, clouded by the need to end this torment, to destroy the nightmare once and for all. He didn’t notice the shift around him—the subtle familiarity of the realm he had just escaped from. He failed to notice the burnt remains of houses that once echoed with laughter, or the crumbling ruins of a community. The flashing recollections, the pieces of the girl's life reliving like a shattered memory were all invisible to him. He only saw a target, a figure that needed to be eliminated.

  With irresistible ferocity, he charged. Like unstoppable weapons, his fists sliced through the air, with each blow coming down with greater force than the last. He struck her once, then again, the force of his blows causing his knuckles to flare. However, there was a problem. Once capable of destroying mountains and killing enormous creatures in seconds, his strikes struck nothing. Now only did he realize that every time his fists should have connected, they simply passed trough the girl like she was made of mist.

  It was not until the quiet that followed his storm of violence that he really saw her. The girl was crumpled on the ground, her frail body curled in on itself like a wounded animal. She was not shrinking from him in terror, as so many had before. No, her terror was a self-oriented one, toward something much deeper and much more harrowing. Her cavernous eyes—those empty hollows that once devoured the light—were wide open. Their gazes did not turn towards the Immortal Warrior but rather the memories that circled her like ghosts.

  The crying spiders scuttled in frantic patterns, their thin legs twitching as they swarmed around her, their mournful wails echoing in the air. Their flailing mirrored her own panic; their weeping caught in time with the shattered gasps that slipped from her mouth.

  And Kaiser? He stood over her like a specter of death, his towering frame radiating power and malice. His eyes glowed faintly, like embers smoldering in a dark void, and his expression was devoid of humanity. The sweat and blood streaking his face made him look monstrous, as though he were some unholy warrior born from rage itself. Even his stance—a hunched, predatory crouch—screamed cruelty, a predator cornering its prey.

  The girl trembled violently, her small hands clutching at her chest as though trying to hold herself together. Her pale, dirt-smeared face was streaked with tears, her lips trembling as not-vowel sounds came from her throat. Her fear was not merely fear; it was despair, a total and complete breakdown of hope.

  Kaiser finally saw her, truly saw her, and the realization crashed into him like a wave of cold water. She wasn’t an enemy. She wasn’t a monster. She was a child, trapped in the depths of her own pain, reliving the horrors that had broken her. Every fragment of her life now played out around them in haunting detail.

  Kaiser stood over her for a long moment, the air between them thick with the aftershocks of what he had nearly done. He was no stranger to violence — he had shattered armies, brought down kings, left cities burning behind him. But this? This was different. There was no honor in crushing something that was already broken.

  With a slow breath, he dropped to one knee beside her, his movements deliberate, not hesitant. He reached out, not clumsily, not with fear, but with a soldier's certainty, and laid a hand lightly on her trembling shoulder.

  “I misjudged you,” he said, voice low but steady, carrying the weight of command even in apology. “You aren’t a monster. You’re a survivor. There's a difference, and I should have seen it."

  The girl didn’t respond. Her tears continued to fall, her sobs filling the silence.

  Kaiser stayed there, kneeling in the ruins of his rage, beside the girl he had so cruelly misunderstood. He did not feel like a monster. He did not feel like a savior. He felt like a man who had miscalculated. And Kaiser Dios did not accept failure lightly, not from his allies, and never from himself.

  'This girl,' he thought, 'Will not be another casualty of my mistakes.'

  The Minecraft server on the last day of that "two week phase"