Chapter 251
Accept (2)
As IAM walked further down the dark path, his steps echoing faintly against the damp, uneven ground, he noticed something strange—his breathing no longer hurt.
He paused, glancing down at himself. The scratches on his arms, the bruise on his ribs, even the burning line across his chest—gone. His skin was smooth, untouched, as if none of it had ever happened. The only proof of the battle was the faint metallic scent of blood still clinging to his clothes.
A deep, uneasy breath escaped him. He felt… different. His body thrummed with energy yet at the same time, his mind felt heavy, fogged with exhaustion. It was as if something had fed him strength while draining everything else.
He pressed a hand to his temple and looked around. The grotesque landscape twisted in silence around him—the walls slick with black residue, pulsing faintly as if alive. Every few steps, the ground seemed to shift beneath his boots, almost breathing.
Where… am I?
He tried to think, to recall something—anything. His last clear memory was a blur of noise and pain. Faces flickered in his mind, voices without names. But the harder he tried to grasp them, the faster they slipped away.
His frown deepened. A low growl of irritation escaped him as he pushed forward, determined to keep moving. Standing still felt dangerous here—like the shadows would swallow him whole if he lingered too long.
After what felt like minutes—or hours—he reached another open space.
He froze.
It looked exactly like the one he had just left: the same jagged walls, the same suffocating heat, the same stench of rot hanging thick in the air. But this chamber was much larger. And unlike the last, this one had something waiting at its center.
Right in the center stood a massive pile of arms — dozens, maybe hundreds — stacked haphazardly on top of one another, rising like a grotesque tower. Each arm was an exact replica of the next, identical down to the smallest scar or wrinkle. Yet, the pile continued to grow.
IAM tilted his head upward. From the ceiling, a gaping hole bled a slow stream of thick, black liquid. Each droplet that fell twisted midair, reshaping, reforming — and by the time it struck the pile, it solidified into another arm, perfectly molded, indistinguishable from the rest.
He felt something stir deep within him — an odd pull that drew him closer, almost magnetic. Without thinking, IAM stepped forward until his knees met the cold floor beside the base of the pile. Slowly, almost reverently, he reached out and picked up one of the arms.
It was soft but cold to the touch. He turned it in his hands, studying every inch of it. The shape… the size…It looked familiar — painfully familiar.
It was a woman's arm.
He didn't know whose, but some instinct deep in his chest told him he should.
For several seconds, IAM just stared at it in silence, his breathing shallow, his mind refusing to piece together the recognition clawing at the edges of his thoughts. Then, without a word, he let the arm slip from his hands.
It hit the ground with a soft, almost human thud before rolling back into the pile, swallowed instantly by the others.
IAM circled the pile slowly, his footsteps faint against the damp floor. The mound of arms towered over him, each one pale, slender and lifeless. The smell of iron hung faintly in the air.
He walked all the way around it once, scanning for any sign of movement, of an exit. But there was nothing.Only the sound of the thick, black liquid dripping steadily from the hole in the ceiling, adding new arms to the heap one by one.
When he finally reached the spot he had started from, he stopped.
There was no exit in this room. Just the endless pile in the center and the darkness pressing in from every side.
He turned, glancing toward the direction he had come from—and froze.
The way back was gone.
In its place stood a flat wall of pitch-black substance, solid and smooth, erasing any trace of the passage that had brought him here.
He took a step closer, reaching out, but the wall rippled faintly at his touch, almost fluid—then stilled again.
IAM stared at it for a long moment, then slowly lowered his hand. A hollow feeling crept up inside his chest.
He was stuck.
…Or was he?
IAM turned his gaze upward, fixing on the hole spilling endless arms from above. The steady rhythm of dripping and thudding filled the air, and without hesitation, he began to climb. The limbs were slick and cold beneath his hands, yet firm enough to support his weight. Each movement brought him closer to the source, to that dark, gaping wound in the ceiling that breathed the arms into existence.
But just as his fingers brushed the edge, the entire pile shuddered. A deep tremor rippled through it, breaking the fragile balance that held the limbs together. IAM's footing slipped. The world spun as the mountain of arms began to collapse beneath him, dragging him down in a violent, suffocating tumble.
He hit the ground hard, the air rushing from his lungs. A smaller heap of fallen limbs cushioned the impact, though the chill of them clung to his skin. He coughed, pushing himself up, when a sound — a faint rustling—drew his attention.
The pile beside him moved. Slowly, a shape began to emerge, rising from the chaos of arms. It was enormous—the size of a house — forcing its way free as the severed limbs slid off its body and hit the floor in soft, wet thuds.
The thing that stood before IAM was grotesque. Its form was bone-thin, assembled from long, jointless limbs that bent and straightened in impossible angles. The creature's motions were jagged and wrong, every twitch and stretch defying nature. Its entire body resembled a skeleton sculpted from stained, brittle bone — brown and cracked.
It made no cry except for clicks.
The sounds came irregularly, echoing faintly through the room. Each click reverberated in the air, bouncing off the walls in erratic patterns. IAM realized it wasn't random — it was listening. Searching.
The creature had no eyes, flesh, or mouth. Just dark hollows where those features should've been — pits that shimmered faintly, pulsing as though sensing something unseen.
It was blind. But not unaware.
Each click mapped the world around it, every vibration helping it see through sound alone.
As IAM slowly pushed himself upright, his muscles trembling from the fall, something strange flickered through his mind — Deadline Creature… Spawnling.
The words came uninvited, as if whispered directly into his thoughts by a voice that wasn't his own. He froze for a moment, confused. He didn't understand what they meant or why they appeared.
But it didn't matter.
The thing in front of him had begun to move