We were all gathered inside a cramped, makeshift cubicle, surrounded by a circle of fire that Tadeus had raised. It was smaller—much smaller—than the first one he had conjured, but it was still the only barrier between us and that cursed water that crept along the edges like a patient beast.
Several hours had dragged on since the collective frenzy, and most of the competitors were slowly beginning to recover.
Wounds were closing, breathing was steadying, and minds, though heavy, were regaining some degree of clarity.
The exception was Eva.
She remained in terrible condition—her body pale and broken, every breath she took sounding like a struggle against death itself. What surprised me most was seeing her supported by Von's broad shoulders. Perhaps out of guilt, since he himself had been the one to crush most of her bones during the chaos.
I sat on the rough, blackened ground, observing those who shared the cramped space with me.
Frida, the demoness with the ice scythe, kept her eyes closed, a cold aura pulsing faintly around her even at rest. Tesla, the alchemist surrounded by clinking vials, seemed to be silently reorganizing his formulas, probably already calculating how to turn the tiniest reagent into something lethal. Calen, the quiet archer, almost disappeared among the others—her presence so subdued she seemed like just another shadow among so many gathered prodigies.
And right in front of me, Alden and Tadeus stood firm, together maintaining the only thing keeping us alive.
The water wouldn't relent. Every passing minute, the thin film accumulated, adding another layer and raising the level at the border Alden had created. The currents thickened, pressing against the defenses, trying to seep through the cracks in the fiery circle. Alden, his staff driven into the ground, gritted his teeth as thick beads of sweat rolled down his round face. Tadeus, keeping the fire alive, was already breathing like a man who had burned through half his prana reserves just to hold that blazing wall in place.
"Here, Tadeus, Alden—drink this." Tesla handed them a small opaque vial filled with a shimmering red liquid.
"What's this?" Tadeus asked, his voice still hoarse.
"An elixir to accelerate prana recovery. Family recipe."
Alden didn't hesitate.
He downed it in one go, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his robe. His face flickered between pale and flushed, as if his body struggled to adapt to the strength of the substance. His once-luxurious clothes, now dirty and stained with blood, clashed with the clumsy posture with which he held his staff.
Meanwhile, Frida and Calen whispered to each other, occasionally glancing at Alden while observing the small groups reforming around them.
A bit farther away—but close enough for us to feel their tense silence—stood the heirs of the twelve families: Nathanael, Samael, Varetha, Leon, Darius, Mirage, and Norwenna. The bluish and reddish glow still flickered behind Mirage. Her twin blades finally betrayed her origin—the Hidrargiros family, renowned for creating unorthodox weapons. Even Frida's ice scythe was one of their forged masterpieces.
But what stood out most was that even after all this chaos, her skin and clothes remained immaculate, almost as if she had changed into an identical clean set. Not to mention her perfectly made-up face and her vibrant blonde hair that looked untouched by battle.
In the corners, isolated, were Waan and Weel, while Von stayed beside Eva, who could barely breathe.
"You already knew each other?" I asked Alden.
"Yes, yes…" he replied with a weary smile, trying to mask his fatigue. "Tesla's family is one of the empire's biggest elixir producers. We've had old trade ties. And Calen and Frida… well, they're from the far south of the empire. We've crossed paths more than once."
"So that's it… you're a spoiled, well-connected, overpowered rich kid."
Alden patted his round belly with a theatrical flair.
"Not spoiled—just energetically well-stocked."
Frida raised an eyebrow, replying with a mocking grin:
"'Energetically well-stocked,' my ass. You're just addicted to sweets. That's why you're so round."
"If you keep teasing me like that, Frida, I'll cut off the strawberry shipments from the capital to your city."
She simply stuck her tongue out, ignoring the blatant blackmail.
Tesla, who had been watching quietly, turned his gaze to Calen.
"I'm surprised to see you here, Calen. Didn't think you'd last this long in this madness."
"I got lucky." Her voice was calm, almost cold, despite her injuries. "Me and that big guy over there," she pointed toward Von. "We fell into a subterranean labyrinth infested with monsters. They came in waves. In the end, the other competitors were eliminated one by one and left eggs behind. I just had to collect them and find an incubator. I didn't have to fight anyone."
"Interesting..." murmured Tesla before she shot back, teasingly,
"And you? It's not every day you see an alchemist qualify for a tournament like this."
Tesla let out a weary sigh.
"I ended up in a volcanic region. If not for my potion stock, I'd already be dead. It was hell inside another hell. But apparently, the competitors went insane—battles that should've lasted days ended abruptly when a group launched a suicide attack… More than fifty were eliminated in a single clash amid flowing lava. In the end, I survived only because they tore each other apart... and I just had to collect the rewards."
His eyes met Tadeus's for a brief moment. Both of them knew they were talking about the same region, and the heavy silence that followed said enough.
The relaxed tone of the conversation was suddenly cut short by a cold voice that sliced through the dense air.
"Do you feel that?" Samael murmured, staring fixedly at his own hands, as if something invisible clung to them.
Silence spread among the groups, all eyes turning toward him.
"What is it?" Varetha asked, frowning.
"I… I can't feel my hands."
Nathanael tried to rationalize, his tone uncertain.
"Couldn't it just be the effect of low prana levels?"
Samael shook his head firmly, still staring at the fingers he could barely move.
"No… it's different. It's like something is draining my senses—one by one."
"What do you mean, draining?" Nathanael shot back, but there was hesitation in his voice.
"I'm sure of it. We need to get out of here… now."
A stir spread among the competitors. Each, seized by the creeping dread of that idea, began frantically checking themselves. And gradually, the realization came.
Some noticed their speech slurring, as if their tongues had grown too heavy to obey. Others saw their vision blur, the edges twisting unnaturally. There were even those who clutched their ears in panic when they realized they could barely hear anything beyond the muffled echo of distant voices.
"This place is stealing our senses..." someone whispered, and the murmur spread like wildfire.
"Not just that," Norwenna added, her voice cold and clear. "The weaker our senses become, the easier it is for us to be controlled."
A chill rippled through the entire group. Norwenna, after all, had the authority to say that. She had been the only one to be controlled without moving a single muscle, as if the Pagoda itself had chosen to ignore her. Her elemental affinity meant nothing in that distorted space. To the being—or the thing—that commanded the artifact, she was a dead spot, an invisible stain on the board.
The slit of the primal eye toward which we were heading seemed to tremble. But we didn't notice any of that.
Everyone stood in alarm, and even injured, began forcing their pace as fast as they could. The strain around Alden and Tadeus grew far worse. The circle of fire protecting us began to shrink, closing into an ever-tighter space until we were practically pressed against one another—moving forward as if that single act were the only defense against the invisible weight pressing down on us.
The farther we advanced, the more we felt the black sky begin to lower. The abyss above seemed to compress, pressing against our backs, our heads, until it weighed upon our legs. Each step cost more than an entire battle.
A suffocating pain began to take hold in our hearts, leaving everyone gasping. Consciousness wavered like a dying flame. Stumbling became frequent—bodies fell and rose again like broken marionettes, only because another beside them pulled them back up before they could be left behind.
Pain appeared in places we hadn't even imagined existed. Behind the eyes, throbbing in insane pulses. Inside the lungs, as if we were breathing needles. Sometimes within our own minds, as if our inner worlds were being attacked—shattered by something we couldn't comprehend.
The ground beneath our feet began to dissolve, like quicksand turning into a sea of stars. The corrosive mist constantly evaporating around us didn't just burn—it entered our lungs, settled in our veins, and crushed our courage until it turned to dust.
Soon, we began to bleed from every opening. A whole group of beggars staggering through the darkness, dragging their feet and bleeding from their eyes, their noses, their mouths—even their pores. The metallic stench mixed with the mist, making it impossible to tell where flesh ended and dissolution began.
Each step was like trying to force magnets of the same pole together—an invisible repulsion screamed for us to turn back. Moving forward was an act against nature, against ourselves.
And then, at some point, as if possessed, someone began to recite:
"He who walks the cosmos must strip away all that he is. Only then can he bear the burden of what lies beyond."
The voice echoed among us—trembling, hoarse, yet heavy with undeniable weight.
Minutes later, it was no longer a single voice. It was a chorus. A whole band of mutilated, blood-soaked bodies mumbling in unison like feverish believers.
"He who walks the cosmos must strip away all that he is. Only then can he bear the burden of what lies beyond."
The same phrase, repeated like a mantra. As if the Pagoda itself had turned us into priests of a profane ritual.
One by one, they began to fall.
Calen was the first, collapsing like a puppet without strings. Norwenna fell soon after, her lips still murmuring the prayer before fading into silence. Darius staggered, tried to grab hold of Varetha, but pulled her down with him. Eva had already succumbed before even regaining consciousness—her eyes rolled white, a thread of black blood trailing from her ear.
Despair spread like a plague.
We began to drag them, pulling their bodies as though they weighed tons. Every muscle screamed, every nerve burned, yet we kept going. It was like carrying living corpses that refused to move, but that we couldn't abandon.
Everyone's eyes began to lose focus. Pupils trembled, drifting away from reality as if they no longer saw this world. Some dragged others, stumbling through a cycle of pain and despair, staying upright only because someone beside them pulled them forward.
Then, our skin began to tear.
It tore as though we were being unstitched.
Not in cuts or ordinary wounds, but in deep fissures—as if our flesh were no longer enough to contain us. But instead of blood, what emerged was something impossible to describe: a blinding white, as though our very souls were exposed. A reflection of what we were—of the willpower that still clung to existence amid collapse.
The pain went beyond the body.
It wasn't just flesh and bone—it was the mind itself being torn apart. Neurons screamed in unison, every synapse bursting like shards of glass inside the skull.
Thoughts fractured, memories crumbled like burning leaves, and still we were forced to endure. Consciousness tried to fragment, to flee, to dissolve into the void—but anyone who dared to yield vanished forever.
Our entire inner world became an arena of pain.
The heart would race and then seem to stop; the air burned as it entered the lungs; voices screamed inside our heads, blending with our own. It was as if every piece of us were being ripped in half, forced to stand on the edge of the abyss.
And then, everything exploded into white.
There was no ground, no sky, no body. Only a single, unbearable brilliance.
And only those who managed to keep their will unshaken crossed through the black rift.