Silence.
No sound.
No light.
No walls.
They found themselves standing on a land with no features, no directions, no end.
A white sky.
A gray floor.
And a silence so heavy it felt like it was crushing their chests.
Every member of the squad stood at the exact same moment, as if they had all stepped out of the same dream.
The hounds were gone.
The battle was gone.
The terror was gone.
As if they had awakened from a nightmare they didn't know they were trapped in.
Kim lifted his head, eyes wide.
"What… was that?"
Sam drew a long, shaky breath.
Alden stared at his palms as if he wasn't convinced he still existed.
Before any of them could ask another question…
a blinding light crashed down on them and pulled them back into reality.
They returned within the kingdom's borders.
Their clothes were torn, small cuts marked their arms, their eyes were bloodshot… but they were alive.
They stood in a straight line.
Then Kim turned… Sam turned… Alden turned…
The empty space between them was unmistakable.
"Adolf…?" Sam whispered, sounding like a child who had lost a brother.
Kim stared at the empty spot for long, suffocating seconds.
Alden wiped his face with a heavy hand and said, without looking at anyone:
"Missing…"
They couldn't explain anything… and they returned to the kingdom looking like walking husks.
---
Far from them…
in a completely different place…
Zas was half-standing, half-collapsed, breathing like someone who had just crawled out of a grave.
His body trembled, his knees betrayed him, sweat dripping off him like rain.
He tried to stand—and failed.
He gathered his strength again, clenched his teeth hard enough to crack them… lifted himself—only to crash back down.
"Damn…" he muttered between shattered breaths.
He lifted his gaze.
The sky above him spun like a giant spinning wheel devouring his sight.
He tried to stand again.
Half a rise… a third of a rise… shaking…
And he fell.
His fists pressed into the ground until his knuckles turned red.
He tried again.
Once… twice… ten times… twenty…
Every fall worse than the last.
A full day passed…
only three jumps.
His body was ruined, his chest rising and falling in a frightening rhythm, his fingernails broken from dragging himself upward.
"When… do I keep going…?" he asked himself, knowing the question had no answer.
But he rose.
And pushed.
And repeated.
By the end of the second day… he reached twenty jumps.
Then collapsed like a corpse left in the open.
He lifted his head slowly…
The old man stood above him, wearing that same ancient chill.
Holding his staff as if it was something more precious than life.
"Not a bad improvement."
Zas reached for the sword beside him…
He raised it slowly, but the weight dragged it back down like an anchor.
"Ugh… this is impossible… this isn't heavy… this is a boulder."
The old man's voice came out cold and drunk:
"Before you finish the hundred… we'll work on something else."
Suddenly, something pierced Zas's mind.
A terrifying pressure… like a colossal hand squeezing his brain into clay.
Like he was being crushed from within.
He grabbed the sword, roared, and unleashed the strongest strike he could muster.
A strike powerful enough to split a mountain in half—
But it vanished before reaching the old man.
It faded.
Evaporated.
As if the air swallowed it.
Zas staggered back, shock carved into his face.
"What are you? Are you… human?"
The old man didn't answer.
He tapped his staff on the ground.
"Enough. Finish the count."
Then he disappeared.
Leaving Zas alone in a world he did not know…
between a task that was breaking him…
a body that betrayed him…
and a destiny waiting somewhere ahead.