Elias' breath hitched. What?
The creature lunged. And the world snapped to black.
Its claws hooked deep into his side, tearing through flesh like paper. Elias screamed, his vision exploding in stars, as he flung to the ground. Before he could even attempt to recover, the beast was already on him.
It didn't kill him swiftly. No. It savored him.
The grotesque thing's mouth split open far wide than it should have. Ligaments tore as its jaw unhinged, revealing layers upon layers of fangs, spiraling down into a gullet lined with writhing, vein-like tendrils. Its claws pinned Elias down. One hooked through his shoulder while another punctured his thigh. Pain unlike anything he had ever felt before pulsed through him.
Then, the creature began to feast.
Its teeth sank into his side, crunching through his ribs as if they were dry twigs. The sound of bone snapping echoed through the chamber, followed by a wet, tearing noise as sinew and muscle were stripped away. It yanked back its head with a chunk of Elias' flesh dangling from its jaw. His chest heaved in agony as blood gushed in crimson arcs, soaking the floor beneath him.
Elias' vision began to blur, his lungs rattling as they filled with blood. A ragged wheeze escaped him, but no scream came. His voice was gone, drowned in his own lifeblood.
Blood splattered against the shelves. He couldn't scream anymore.
[ Critical damage sustained. Initiating emergency override… ]
The words appeared before his eyes just before they, too, blurred out of focus.
The Sigil of Vitality ignited in a broken, desperate stutter, like a heart beating out of sync. Golden veins burst from his wounds, weaving erratically, stitching skin back together with violent precision. It was not gentle. It was invasive.
The energy spilled outwards, leaking from his broken body into the very bones of the castle. Then, it brushed against something dark. The monster.
The effect was immediate.
The creature jerked backward, howling in agony. Patches of its flesh split open, bubbling and burning as if scalded by some acid. Its sinew trembled and snapped as something deep within its core fought back. From the shredded wreckage of its mouth, a new voice emerged – wet, broken, and certainly… human.
It choked, spitting black ichor with each syllable. One clawed hand shot to its chest as if trying to claw something out. Its spine convulsed, cracking with sickening pops as its body twisted unnaturally inward, fighting itself.
The creature fell to its knees, screeching in a language long forgotten. Golden veins had spread onto its body. Its bulging eye rolled back, and beneath the beastly surface, Elias thought he saw something – someone, clawing from within.
"…H-help…"
But Elias couldn't answer. His world had already started to implode.
[ The Sigil of Vitality has started to corrode due to extensive damage. You may also suffer from corruption. ]
The grim words floated in-front of him, yet Elias was already lost to the encroaching darkness.
He screamed. His mouth foamed red. His spine arched unnaturally as golden veins snaked up his neck and wrapped around his skull.
Then, darkness.
A first breath. Not taken. Stolen.
A flood of sensations slammed into his mind.
Screaming. Heat. Cold. Light. Darkness.
Overwhelming.
Every color in his vision bled into the next. Every sound had weight. Every breath burned.
And then – silence.
When his senses returned, he found himself standing inside a room. It was unfamiliar. Too clean. Too bright. Marble floors gleamed beneath his bare feet. Golden arches curved overhead. The smell of antiseptic stung his nose.
He looked down at his hands. They were not his.
He examined the room carefully – the strange cleanliness of it, the sterile scene. No winds. No visible exits. Just white light pouring in from an unseen force. The marble beneath him felt oddly warm.
He turned towards the far end of the room. There, a door he hadn't noticed before opens with a mechanical hiss.
A man stepped through, his footsteps measured and posture composed. Dressed in formal attire - a high-collared coat with strange insignia on the chest – he looked like someone of rank.
Elias tensed as the man met his gaze.
And then, he recognized. The man bore his face. Elias stepped forward instinctively. "You… who are you?"
The man blinked in confusion. "My name is… Elias," he said in a calm voice.
Before Elias could respond, a sudden force ripped through the room.
"Wait!" Elias reached out, but his form unraveled into glimmering particles which scattered into the air.
The space around him shifted.
This time, it was another room.
This one was dark and filled with the scent of oil and copper. A single mirror stood at its center.
Elias staggered towards it as his heart continued to pound. In the reflection, eh saw himself. Pale. Eyes wide. Wounds gone. But when he glanced down at his body, they were not his hands. Not his body.
He wasn't himself.
He looked back at the mirror.
Yet he was able to see himself in the reflection. It remained the same.
Everything shook and the world around him warped.
He now stood at the center of a vast void. Lights pulsed in arcs around him – sigils, runes, distortions in space. In front of him stood something.
Perhaps a creature, or a force.
A mass of shadow and golden light, shifting shapes and eyes that blinked in and out of existence. A thing that defied comprehension.
Screams echoed around him.
"Sir, the conduit is distorting! We can't stabilize it!"
"The core's resisting form! It's trying to break through!"
"We need a decision, now!"
They were talking to him.
Elias turned, slowly realizing he was in the same body, but this time, he was surrounded by people in panic.
He didn't know what to say.
He looked at them.
He didn't understand any of it.
Yet, his mouth moved on its own.
"Open it."
Elias gasped awake.
The sharp chill of the library returned all at once. Pain lanced through his body. Every muscle screamed. His breath was uneven.
The shattered shelves loomed around him. The blood was still fresh. His wounds half-sealed, glowed faintly with corrupted sigil lines.
[ Recovery in progress. Corruption detected. Advising caution. ]
He winced, forcing himself to sit up. His joints ached. His head throbbed.
"The… monster," he muttered.
Gone.
Nothing but a trail of ruptured wood and wet, black ichor where it had once stood.
He turned to the System.
"What… was that? What happened?"
The response came slower than usual.
[ You suffered critical injuries. The Sigil of Vitality was activated. However, your proximity to the caste's unstable mana led to unexpected corruption. The Sigil reacted not only with your body but with the monster and the castle itself. ]
Elias gritted his teeth. His whole body trembled.
"And the dream? It was like… I was a completely different person… I saw myself in front of my eyes!"
[ Corruption often manifests through fractured perception. What you experienced was likely a blend of latent memory, foreign consciousness, and displaced identity. ]
He stared down at his hands. His veins still glowed faintly, golden light pulsing beneath his skin.
He wasn't just injured anymore. He felt… different.
He swallowed, breathing heavily. "What the hell is going on here…?"
No answer came.
Only silence, and the faint glow of a corrupted sigil's power still crawling beneath his skin.
The scent of blood, frost and old parchment clung to the air. Shelves towered around him, warped and cracked, looming like silent sentinels. The faint glow of corrupted sigil lines pulsed faintly beneath his skin.
[ Recovery is still in progress. Pain suppression limited. Proceed with caution. ]
He grunted in acknowledgement. His legs trembled but held. He glanced around. Then he heard a faint rustle.
He turned sharply.
Nothing.
He picked up his fallen sword, placing it back in the hilt, and started walking, slower than usual, each step deliberate. His boots crunched against scattered shards of wood and broken spines of books. At every corner, his eyes flicked towards the shadows between the shelves.
There, a hunched shape was partly hidden behind a collapsed bookshelf.
The monster.
Its grotesque form lurked just out of full view. At times, it growled softly, low and guttural, but never stepped into the open. Its presence trailed Elias, like a predator unsure if it still wanted to hurt.
Elias' heart pounded, but he didn't run. Not yet.
He passed a crumbled pillar and stopped. There, fluttering slightly in a weak draft, was a piece of cloth caught between two shelves. He leaned down to pick it up.
It was a pink ribbon.
No, a scrap of fabric – once pink and embroidered with a yellow flower. Now, it was stained with something dark. Not just blood. Blackened blood, dried and thick as though corrupted by time and despair.
Elias stared.
The monster had been near this.
He shivered. But there was something off about their entire encounter. The way it had spoken during the attack. The word it had muttered.
"Help…"
And the way it hadn't finished when it had the chance.
"System," Elias whispered, glancing towards the shadows, "what's with its… behavior? It's acting… weird."
A pause.
[ The corruption may have left fragments of prior identity. It appears to recognize your presence as significant. However, its behavior remains unstable. Prolonged contact is not advised. ]
Elias sighed, rubbing his temple. He turned away, ignoring the twinge of something – pity? – that pulsed in his chest. He had more immediate problems. He was still lost.
"Any suggestions on how to get out of here?"
[ A conventional approach is recommended: choose a wall and follow it consistently. ]
Elias nodded and placed his left hand against the nearest bookshelf. The surface was cold and rough.
"Stick to the left. Got it."
He moved forward with his hand tracing the shelf's edge. The shadows danced around him, the monster's presence lingering just out of reach. Time passed, unmeasured. The silence frayed his nerves.
Then – the library shifted.
The air grew heavy. The ground pulsed beneath his boots. A low groan echoed as the entire layout changed again. Shelves twisted. Corridors stretched or vanished. The path he'd marked was gone.
He cursed and stopped.
"I can't do this over and over," he muttered, frustration mounting. His eyes scanned the towering walls of books. The shelves themselves were the prison. He needed to stop thinking like a lost traveler.
He needed to break the maze.
With a grunt, he shoved one of the bookshelves. It barely budged.
But the books –
He grabbed the nearest volume and hurled it behind him. Then another. And another. The thuds echoed, stirring dust. He clawed through the tomes like a madman, until finally, there was space.
A hole through to the other side.
Elias stuck his head through the gap. A corridor. Different from the one he was in.
He ducked through, coughing as dust swirled around him.
"Alright," he said. "Push through. Stick to the wall. And if it changes, make a new path."
He repeated the process. Push books aside. Carve gaps between shelves. Crawl through. Stay to the left. Again and again.
The library shifted twice more.
Each time, he cursed but pressed on, combining the System's maze-solving advice with his improvised destruction. Slowly, the dead ends became fewer.
Then, he saw it.
An opening.
A circular chamber at the heart of the labyrinth. The ceiling arched high, supported by carved pillars shaped like outstretched hands. In the center stood a spiraling staircase, its marble surface glowing faintly blue, surrounded by torn books and cracked chains.
Elias stared, chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.
He stepped forward –
But then, he froze.
A whisper.
It was behind him.
He turned around to see the creature emerge from the shadows at last, fully exposed. Its malformed limbs dragged behind it, broken bones jutting through the skin. Its jaw hung partially unhinged and one eye glowing faintly – a distinct, unnaturally vibrant blue that shimmered like cracked sapphire amidst the rot.
It wasn't charging.
It was trembling.
"Please… don't leave me…"
The voice was no longer monstrous. It was human. Cracked. Familiar.
Elias' heart stilled.
Something stirred deep within him. A memory he didn't have. An ache he couldn't place. The pink cloth. The way it stared at him, not with contempt but with pleading.
He took a step forward.
"Who… are you?" he asked.
But before it could answer –
Shift.
The world twisted.
The path to the chamber cracked. The staircase blurred. The shelves closed with a thunderous groan.
A bladed edge of collapsing wood sliced clean through the creature's neck.
Its head rolled across the floor with a sickening crunch, landing at Elias' feet. The mouth opened one last time, jaw twitching.
From deep within the creature's severed throat, a different voice – clearer, softer – rose like a whisper.
"E-Elias…"
The blue eye blinked slowly, just once. Not in pain, but in recognition.
"…Please… help me…"
Then the head shuddered. A faint glow pulsed from beneath the cracked skin, like something inside was still alive, still aware. The monstrous flesh began to wither, but the voice remained.
"I… I didn't… want to become this…"
The words bled out in a broken sob, fragile and raw. Words tumbled out in fragments, scattered and weakening.
"...didn't want to become this… it hurts…"
The trembling jaw slacked. The words broke apart like shattered glass. Chocked by grief. By shame.
"I was just… protecting…"
The last breath escaped in a whisper, dry and final.
Then stillness.
The eye dimmed, not from death, but from release.
Elias didn't move.
Not when the walls sealed shut.
Not when the System flickered faintly in his vision.
He simply stared at the head in front of him. At the thing that had been someone.
Someone who… remembered his name.
"…What… the hell?" he whispered, only this time, there was no anger in his voice.
Only sorrow.