Descending to Level 5 was like falling into the memory of another world.
There were no screams in that place.
Kaleth's blood, still warm, continued to fade on Rheell's claws as they descended. The final abyss of level 4 opened like a ruined womb, and after crossing the damp, breathing threshold, the world simply… changed.
It was vast.
Not in a physical sense, but in an existential one.
Rheell felt it before his legs touched the ground:
as if space had stopped pressing in,
as if death itself had forgotten how to pursue.
And Lumis, on his back, carried like a small child, vibrated softly.
Not in alarm, but as if she remembered something she had never seen.
Before them, level 5 opened like a new abyss, but reversed:
it wasn't stone, it wasn't mud, it wasn't death.
It was living beauty. Majestic. Sickly.
The ceiling was so high it resembled a sky, but there was no sun.
Only thousands of floating points, tiny lights, pulsing like sentient dust.
Some brushed Rheell's armored plates and clung for a second, then escaped without leaving warmth.
The air was thick, heavy with sweet and humid scents.
The smell of rotten fruit. Of acidic nectar. Of ancient moisture and vegetal blood.
Enormous trees rose like spiral columns, with thick roots climbing dead stone and translucent leaves that dripped liquid light.
Each branch vibrated softly, as if it breathed.
And from the canopies, soft vines fell, chiming as they swayed.
Like organs dangling from a sleeping body.
Lumis slipped off Rheell's back and moved through leaves that sang on contact.
They sang in frequencies so soft they felt like dreams.
She released a pulse. Not of warning—but of wonder.
Rheell felt it in his inner ribs.
Everything here was… cleaner. Older.
He didn't feel watched.
He felt received.
But not with love.
Rather, as part of something that had waited too long to remember its own name.
A multi-legged creature crossed silently in the distance, dragging leaves with its belly, followed by tiny insects with bone wings.
None of them fled. None attacked.
Not out of respect—Because Rheell was like them.
A beautiful mistake.
A creature that shouldn't be alive—but was.
And through the undergrowth, he saw ruins.
Smooth stones covered in moss.
Faceless, broken statues.
Symbols carved by hands that no longer existed.
A buried past, wrapped in roots, that did not want to be unearthed.
Lumis climbed back onto his back, her hands around his neck, her inner lights turning soft yellow, like childhood fog.
Rheell didn't know if it was joy.
He only knew he didn't feel hunger.
And that, in the abyss, was almost sacred.
In the distance, they saw something: "The Fortress."
The first time he saw the Fortress, he didn't understand it.
It was during the descent between level 4 and 5, when he was still more flesh than mind.
Just an instinct with claws.
A hunger on legs.
Through a fissure opened by the partial collapse of a rock, his rudimentary eye glimpsed, for brief seconds, a profile of straight lines and orderly lights among the mist.
Structures. Movement. Metallic sounds.
Things that didn't belong to the abyss.
He didn't know how to name it.
He couldn't see it clearly.
The moment passed like a reflection on water: curious, threatening, without defined shape.
Now, standing on roots that pulsed beneath his feet, he remembered.
In the distance, among open canopies and vegetal columns, there was a still silhouette, carved by human hands.
An artificial structure emerging among undergrowth and bioluminescence like a tumor unsure whether it was cancer or symbiosis.
The Fortress.
A block of reinforced concrete, watchtowers, hanging platforms, flickering lights.
And men.
Armed.
Watching a world they didn't understand.
He had seen it before. But not like this.
Before, it was just a shape in the shadows.
Now, it was an idea.
A threat.
A center of order within an impossible ecosystem.
And as Lumis pulsed softly upon his back, Rheell thought—for the first time, not with rage, but with quiet curiosity—that humans, too, knew how to adapt.
But this place…
this nameless garden, this vegetal night, this temple of sleeping light…
did not belong to them.
Still, the silence of Level 5 was beautiful.
A humid, bioluminescent calm, scented with unknown flowers and roots pulsing like sleeping hearts.
Lumis walked ahead, her small steps pressing softly into the spongy undergrowth.
She looked like a child.
A child wrapped in translucent membrane, with glowing skin and veins that emitted a faint light.
Her gelatinous tail slid behind her like a living feather.
Her eyes were large, spherical, with no eyelids or lashes. Innocent.
Too innocent.
Rheell followed, cautious. Something in the air felt wrong.
His mutated body trembled with each step.
The beauty of this place had intoxicated them.
And that was their mistake.
The attack wasn't a roar, nor a gunshot. It was a whisper.
Something passed beside him, slicing the air.
A sharp murmur.
A shadow that smelled of blood before it arrived.
Rheell turned too late.
The blade struck.
A curved, double slash.
Not deep. Not fatal.
Precise. Painful. Humiliating.
— "Did you see that?" —said a male voice, carefree, amused.
— "Didn't die. Just dropped. That's better."
From between the trees, through mist and floating lights, he appeared.
Hunters. One of the boys named the more experienced one: "Dazekrul."
He wore matte black armor, covered in molded bone plates and red markings painted with fingers.
Two curved blades extended from his arms, fused to his flesh like they were part of him.
At his hips, chains with spinning blades swayed as he walked, as if they already knew they'd soon be slick with meat.
His eyes were pale, almost yellow.
His mouth smiled before he spoke.
But there was no joy. Only hunger.
— "It's yours if you want, Korran," he said to a boy on his left.
— "Cut the leg, not the throat. Make it scream. Mutants scream pretty."
The two companions—young, armed, afraid and thrilled—moved forward like trained dogs.
But Lumis stepped in.
Small. Trembling.
Arms extended.
Her larval body in human shape glowed a weak yellow.
She didn't attack.
She didn't know how. She was afraid.
She just tried to protect.
Dazekrul looked at her.
His smile widened.
Not in mockery.
In fascination.
— "Is that a larva? No… that's something else already."
In a swift motion, he hurled a chain.
The blades spun.
Lumis screamed.
A high, wet sound, full of fear.
One of the blades tore across her back before Rheell caught her with his body.
The mutant roared.
Leapt and struck.
Dazekrul sidestepped gracefully—like dancing.
And with two crossing slashes, he cut the skin on Rheell's face, leaving a bleeding line across his jaw and the side of his skull.
He didn't kill.
Didn't finish.
He just played.
— "See, Korran? That's how they bleed. They tremble like humans, but cry like things."
Rheell collapsed on a damp root, half-blind.
Lumis crawled to him, dragging her gelatinous tail, whimpering low, her back torn open.
The warmth of the abyss offered no comfort.
The lights no longer felt magical.
Everything smelled like fear, flesh, and iron.
Dazekrul raised the blades once more.
But at that moment, a burst of spores fell from above: a nearby tree, triggered by the motion, released a breath of red dust.
The spores momentarily blinded the group.
It was enough.
Rheell, with what little strength he had, took Lumis and fled.
Not running.
Not escaping.
Crawling, with a burning fury he had never known.
Dazekrul didn't follow immediately.
— "See?" he told the apprentices, cleaning the blade.
— "Sometimes, fear makes prey run for their lives," he said, laughing.
Rheell didn't know how long he crawled.
Didn't know how much blood he had lost.
He only knew one thing: That name.
Dazekrul.
Was now carved into the deepest part of his flesh.
Not out of fear.
But something worse.
Hate.