In the heavy sound of panting, as if his lungs were about to explode from his chest, Ren braced his hands on his knees, struggling to catch his breath.
A stone in his heart had just dropped into an invisible abyss, unsettling, hollow, and ice-cold.
Slowly, he turned his head back, sweat still blurring his vision, gazing into the pitch-black void behind him, where just minutes ago, death had screamed and chased after every breath they took.
In that flickering light from the safe zone's glow, Ren saw a pile of shattered bones, the twisted, massive corpse of the bone centipede… lying still, torn apart by just… two deadly strikes.
"...Just two strikes?" he muttered, chest still heavy. "That's terrifying…"
The one who took down the centipede… was Fatal Scythe. No doubt about it… it had destroyed the bone centipede in less than three seconds from the moment the battle between those two demonic entities began.
And chased after them a mere second later… If it hadn't been flung back by the shockwaves of their clash… they probably wouldn't have made it to the safe zone in time.
A shiver ran down his spine, not from fear. But from the feeling that some other law was silently at work beneath this dungeon. Something beyond the understanding of any player.
'What else now… things are already insane enough… a few more won't make a difference…'
Ren swept his gaze across the safe zone. The pale light wrapped around them like a thin protective film. The sense of false peace crept in...but it only made his head feel even more strained.
A place like this, in the deepest layer of the dungeon, with a safe zone?
It didn't make sense.
"No way…" Ren muttered. "...it was made to protect players?"
No. It didn't feel right. Everything here, from the dungeon's design to its monsters, wasn't made for players to survive.
Then why?
Why was there a safe zone?
Copper slumped down next to him, face pale, but his eyes still held a faint glimmer.
"You thinking the same thing I am?" he asked softly, voice barely audible.
Ren nodded slightly.
"This safe zone… wasn't made for us," Copper whispered. "It was built… to isolate something."
Not to save people.
But to keep something… locked inside.
"I owe you my life," Copper said hoarsely, each word dropping heavy as stone onto the ground. But his complexion had improved, no longer as ghostly pale as during the chase.
Ren didn't respond. He simply sat down in silence, his back resting lightly against the cool wall behind. His breathing slowed gradually, but his heart still pounded fiercely, like the echo of a storm that had ravaged his insides.
An HP vial opened, its bright red liquid flowing down his throat like fire. Ren closed his eyes, letting it heal a body cracked and splintered like a machine forced to run beyond its limit.
Only after his health returned to a safe level could his mind begin to do what it needed: observe.
He scanned every corner of the safe zone. But...
There was nothing.
No treasure chests. No hidden passages. No greetings. No NPCs or supportive items of any kind.
Just a circular space, paved with dark gray stone, so silent their breathing became deafening. Around them stood a soft, flickering wall of light, shifting slowly like calm water beneath moonlight.
It was neither warm nor cold.
Only one path opened through the wall of light ahead, leading into a hallway that seemed safer… but was so unnaturally quiet it felt fake.
"Is that all?" Ren muttered.
Copper raised an eyebrow but didn't answer. He pulled out a short dagger, lightly tapping the edge of the light wall, no reaction. But when he tossed a bone fragment from their earlier chase toward the barrier...
It couldn't pass through.
The bone fell at the edge, bouncing back as if it had hit an invisible sheet of glass.
Ren narrowed his eyes. "One-way…"
"Only the living can enter," Copper nodded, his face darkening. "Or at least… only something with awareness."
Ren gave a slight nod. This curtain of light wasn't meant to protect them from monsters.
It was a gate. A lock.
And that lock had just opened when they stepped in.
They hesitated for a moment… but still stepped through.
There was no other choice. No way to turn back.
The path ahead was the only one, and it was as silent and merciless as fate itself.
.....
They stepped into a room.
A room... identical to the one they had passed before, with rough black stone walls, faint flickering light, and winding grooves like fossilized veins of the earth.
But...
Not quite the same.
Ren was the first to speak: "...Something's off."
Copper didn't answer. He had seen it the same moment as Ren. He stepped closer to the wall, running a hand along the cold, corpse-like stone.
Symbols. Carvings.
They had changed.
No longer were they the vague symbols of distant memory.
Now… they were sharper. Stronger. Vivid, like they had been etched just yesterday… or minutes ago. Some even oozed a glowing crimson light, like blood seeping from wounds in the stone.
Ren stepped closer, staring at one of the carvings.
A figure stood in the void, reaching upward to touch a massive crack between two dimensions. From that hand, the world split in two.
In the dim light, Ren stared at the symbols winding along the wall like living serpents slithering through the stone veins. He spoke softly, his voice barely more than breath dissolving into the dark:
"Is this… another kind of message?"
Copper narrowed his eyes, brows furrowed in a mix of focus and doubt. He shook his head slowly, then spoke:
"No… This isn't a separate message. This is the next part. A puzzle piece continuing the tale that came before."
He pointed to a line of text that seemed to bore into their minds, ancient language carved roughly into stone, yet translated directly into their consciousness by magical light… crystal clear, word for word.
"When the era of the Old Gods faded into the dust of time, there rose those who called themselves the New Gods, who dared to sit upon the sacred throne and inherit the fragments of power left behind."
Copper read each word as if etching them into memory. His voice no longer explained, it recited, like a lost scripture buried deep in the mud of history.
"They believed themselves the heirs to the legacy of the Old Gods… But their souls had decayed, forever trapped in hollow vessels. Boundless power accompanied by absolute indifference.
Before the wars fought for favor, they simply watched… and let the blood flow."
Ren said nothing. Every word Copper spoke seeped into his bones. On the stone wall were images of massive beings, expressionless faces, scepters in hand, standing above thousands of kneeling mortals… with eyes hollow, as if all below were nothing but broken puppets.
"With cold hearts and bloodied hands,
They exiled those who refused to worship,
And rewarded the blindly devout.
Glory born of oppression.
Order born of fear."
Ren clenched his jaw. A stabbing sensation pulsed in his chest. He didn't know if he was angry at the injustice in the tale or because a buried part of himself once felt the same.
Copper paused. His hand rested on a faint line of text, the carvings smeared with what looked like blood...uneven, no longer clean like the rest. He exhaled, slightly trembling, then continued:
"There were uprisings, small waves rising in the ocean of discontent. But all were extinguished… until he appeared."
A faint carving emerged: a lone figure beneath a shadowed sun, holding something unclear., weapon or symbol, no one could tell.
"Only once.
Only one being.
The one who bore resentment and rejected all light.
The embodiment of the Reverse Side.
It was he who made the Sun bleed."
Ren shivered. Not from fear, but because his heartbeat stuttered, as if a faded memory flickered in his subconscious.
"The Sun… bled?" Ren echoed.
"Not literally," Copper replied, his gaze heavy with doubt. "Or maybe it was. We don't know. But ever since then, light was never pure again. The world began to change."
"At great cost, he was buried in a shattered battlefield..
And became forgotten."
A quiet settled, like night fog descending into the stone room. No one spoke.
Only the cold whisper of rock… and the feeling that this story was far from over.
Copper's voice dropped lower as he read on, like unearthing a buried tragedy:
"Four shadows of suffering tore down the Sun,
Dragging the world into eternal night.
All beings sank into the abyss,
Hunted by creatures that knew no light."
Ren tightened his fists. The carved images came alive before his eyes: the sun falling, darkness spreading, twisted beings swarming over humans and animals like parasitic fungi.
"Those who lost faith left the world.
Those who still believed… stayed, waited,
Clinging to hope amid despair."
"From them, seven sinners were born...heirs of hope.
And they, in agony beyond name,
Reignited the world's light…
At a price no one dared speak aloud."
Ren swallowed hard. His gaze stopped at a carving of seven flames burning atop seven altars, each surrounded by a different symbol, as if representing seven distinct sins.
"The Seven Deadly Sins…" he repeated, voice dry.
Copper nodded. "Not a curse.
A legacy.
A legacy born of blood, sacrifice… and fear."
Silence followed. Only their quiet breaths and the flickering flames reflected in their eyes.
Ahead… the story wasn't over.
And somehow, they were heirs to a chapter no one else dared open.
Copper stood still before the deeply carved lines, as if each character whispered a secret forgotten since the dawn of the world.
Magical light washed over his face, casting wavering shadows like waves over the face of a rotting god-statue.
He tilted his head slightly, eyelids low, and read with a voice that touched on the forbidden:
"Those who rejected divinity..
The souls who no longer believed in destinies
Bestowed from thrones above…
Left behind the land of origin
And stepped into the nameless flow of time…
They did not die.
They did not live.
They simply… disappeared."
Ren held his breath. A vague chill crawled up his spine, like an invisible hand brushing his neck.
His eyes followed the next carving: a procession of people swallowed by darkness, yet strangely… beneath their feet, a faint glow, as if they carried light away from the world, not as if the light had forsaken them.
Copper spoke again, this time, each word struck the air like a bell:
"And when the ancient stone layers tremble,
When the fragments of the world intertwine like webs, Becoming one unified form...
When light no longer shines by rule, And the boundary between the two realms, Grows thin as morning mist…
They… the descendants of the vanished…Shall return."
Ren clenched his fists. A strange sound echoed in his mind, not footsteps, not a heartbeat… but a resonance. A voice, faint and old, like an echo from a dream never fully remembered.
Copper pointed toward the center of the carvings, where all the lines of text converged. A symbol emerged: a solar eclipse, torn by four fractures, and at its heart, a small, glowing dot that pulsed as if breathing.
"Plaedem…"