"Aaahh."
Zen jolted upright, a scream tearing from his throat.
His chest heaved. Cold sweat clung to his skin. The air in the slave quarters was stale, thick with the scent of damp stone and rot—but all he could smell was fire. The echoes of his dream clung to him like smoke.
His heart pounded like a war drum, loud in his ears.
It took a moment before he realized he was awake.
Just another nightmare.
He groaned and ran a shaking hand through his sweat-matted hair. Every muscle in his body ached—shoulders heavy, back stiff, legs sore. The journey to Nitya, the fight for the orb, the return... the cost. It had taken everything from him.
And even now, rest betrayed him.
He swung his legs over the edge of the cot. The stone floor was cold beneath his feet. His breath came in ragged gasps as he buried his face in his hands.
He wanted to sleep. Gods, he was so tired.
But rest had become a battlefield.
His body trembled—not from fear, but from the weight of memory. The scent of blood. The sound of whispers. The feeling of being swallowed by a darkness that didn't end.
Then the silence hit.
And it wasn't just silence.
It was absence.
She wasn't there.
His sister—her tiny hands always clinging to his sleeve. Her sleepy voice whispering his name when he cried out in the night. She used to sit beside him until the fear passed, even when her own eyes were heavy with sleep.
She used to wipe away his tears without a word.
Now... she was gone.
He had chosen this. Chosen to give her a new life. Far from this nightmare. Somewhere bright. Somewhere safe. A future without chains or monsters.
But right now, in the dark, with the phantom weight of her hand no longer beside him—
It hurt.
A lump rose in his throat. He didn't cry. Not fully.
But his hands clenched into fists.
His heart ached—not from weakness.
From love.
From loss.
Then, the air chilled.
A low hum pulsed through the stone walls, and the shadows began to shift. From the corner of the dim chamber, something unfurled peeling away from the darkness like smoke gaining form.
It floated.
Thin and long. Corpse-like. A body stretched beyond reason. Pale, semi-transparent skin sagged over a skeletal frame. Its arms were too long, ending in clawed fingers that moved with slow, deliberate grace. In the center of its chest, a single vertical eye glowed with faint green light—unblinking, watchful.
It had no mouth.
Yet its voice echoed inside Zen's mind, scraping like glass.
"You're awake."
It raised one clawed hand and tossed a vial toward him. Zen caught it clumsily. Inside, the liquid swirled—thick, luminous, colored like molten fire and venom. Red and green.
"Drink. Now."
Zen hesitated—but drank.
The moment it touched his throat; something surged through him. First a sting. Then warmth. Then… light. Heat flooded his limbs. Pain vanished. Cuts closed. His muscles loosened. The exhaustion ebbed, if only slightly.
He stared at his hands—still shaking, but no longer from weakness.
"Get up," the demon rasped. "Follow me."
It turned without waiting and drifted through the stone wall like smoke.
Zen stood. His body ached, but it was bearable now. His mind, though fractured. Shaken.
He took a breath and followed.
The stale air of the slave quarters gave way to the stillness of the outer halls. Torches flickered along the jagged walls, casting uneven shadows that danced like specters. The ceilings stretched unnaturally high, and the walls seemed to breathe. A low vibration ran through them—like something massive, sleeping just beneath the surface.
Outside, the world was crimson twilight—neither night nor day. Towering black spires rose in the distance, cloaked in mist. Strange creatures moved along the ridgelines, their crawling silhouettes casting long, twitching shadows against the sky.
The ghostly demon—Veyrax, he called himself—glided ahead, silent and fluid.
They passed through a rusted gate, descending into a tunnel carved deep into the mountain's heart. Cold seeped into his bones. Whispers echoed from the stone, though Zen couldn't tell if they were real or just remnants of the dream.
Eventually, they emerged into a wide, dim chamber.
The air smelled of metal, ink, and burning bone.
An experimental facility.
Crimson glass tanks lined the walls; each filled with grotesque forms suspended in fluid. Runes etched into the floor pulsed with light—feeding energy into ancient machines that hissed and clicked softly.
Veyrax led him deeper, toward the central chamber.
There, the atmosphere changed.
The air thickened. Colder. Heavier. As if the room rejected reality itself.
Strange devices dangled from the ceiling—like mechanical spiders, dripping fluid, twitching as if half alive. Pipes slithered into the walls. Tables lined with stains. Cages. Jars filled with twitching limbs and blinking eyes.
At the center: a raised platform, surrounded by tall, red-lit tubes. Inside them, shadows writhed failures, or things not yet born.
Veyrax bowed low.
His voice was barely a breath.
"Master, I brought him."
Silence.
Then… the air stirred.
And something began to descend.
From a spiral of black mist above the platform, a figure emerged—larger, heavier, infinitely more terrible than Veyrax.
It didn't walk. It simply was floated.
Reality bent around it.
Shadow-like skin clung to an inhuman frame. In some places, the flesh was translucent—revealing bones of silver, organs suspended in obsidian glass, and a core of churning light that never stopped shifting. Too many limbs. Arms. Tendrils. Wings. Talons. They folded and unfolded with the sound of screaming wind.
Its face held no eyes. Only a wide, stitched grin that opened sideways, across where its jaw should be.
When it spoke, the voice wasn't a sound.
It was a feeling.
Like fingers tightening around Zen's lungs.
"So… this is the boy who returned from Nitya."
It circled Zen like a predator. Silent. Weightless.
"You're more ordinary than I expected."
It passed behind him, form shifting in and out of focus.
"I'd love to cut you open. See what made you so special."
A low chuckle drifted from the void—dry, cold, amused.
"But… fate has other plans."
It stopped before him.
"Pity."
Ekrid tilted its grinning head.
"Tell me, Zen… do you know of the Tower?"
Zen nodded slowly. "A little."
The creature's grin stretched wider.
"Of course. Only a little. Most mortals know only fragments. Enough to fear… or to dream."
It glided around him again.
"Three hundred and sixty-nine years ago, they appeared. All over the world. Silent, sky-piercing spires. Born overnight."
It paused, one disjointed finger tapping a jagged jaw.
"At first, we thought them divine punishment. Or perhaps... a rift in the world, a cosmic inversion. But then—"
Its tone lowered, as if amused by an old joke.
"And then… ^people began to be summoned inside."
Zen's breath caught.
"They faced trials—strange, harrowing. But when they returned... they were changed. Stronger. Faster. Some even claimed to hear the voice of gods. Or devils."
The air grew dense, pressing against his skin.
"Religions bloomed like weeds. A golden age followed. Three years of miracles. The world believed it was blessed."
A grin split the master's face, jagged and unnatural.
"But it was only the calm before the storm."
Ekrid's voice dropped.
"No one questioned why the Tower changed them. No one asked what it was preparing us for."
It leaned close.
"Not until they came."
The walls pulsed.
"The Corrupted Beings."
It said the words like a curse.
"Seven Forbidden Zones carved themselves into the world like scars. Other than the trial takers no one knew how. Or why. Mana itself was corrupted. Tainted."
The walls pulsed faintly with a flicker of dark light.
"And from that corruption came the Beings. Creatures of immense power. But hollow. Mindless. Stripped of reason. Driven by instinct alone. They were born of the rot. Strengthened by it. But broken."
The Ekrid tilted its head.
"We still don't know what caused it. But it wasn't the Tower."
A beat.
"It was something else. Something beyond us."
Its voice sank into a whisper.
"And yet… the Tower prepared us for it."
Zen felt a strange pressure settle in his chest, cold and immovable.
The Ekrid began circling again—slowly this time. Like a vulture waiting for the corpse to cool.
"Do you know how one is summoned to the Tower?" it asked, its voice slithering through the silence.
Zen shook his head.
Ekrid hovered behind him. Cold. Watching.
"Not by bloodline. Not by strength. Not even by desire. It simply… selects, a logic beyond our understanding."
It floated forward, each word deliberates, falling like ash.
"In humans, the signs do not come by chance," the Ekrid murmured. "They begin precisely when the child turns twelve. That's when the soul is summoned."
Zen frowned. "Why twelve?"
Ekrid's grin sharpened.
"Because that's when the Zeroth Trial begins."
Zen's blood ran cold.
"The Trial of Worthiness," the creature whispered.
The words seemed to weigh down the air.
"It is the first test. And the most important. Everything that comes after depends on it."
It paused beside him, letting the silence settle before continuing.
"That's where you earn your 'class.' Where your foundation is set. In the Zeroth Trial, the soul is thrown backward—into the past. Not the soul's past, but the past. Ancient memories, embedded deep in the fabric of reality itself."
Zen's breath caught.
"There, you become witness. Or participant. You suffer. You bleed. And if you survive… you return. You bring back something older than memory. Something etched into your soul like fire into stone."
It stepped back, smiling faintly.
"And if you don't survive?"
A shrug. "Then your body just disappears."
Zen said nothing.
"The trial after zeroth is different," the Ekrid added, after a beat. "it's where the chosen are cast out into other worlds. Other planets. Realms soaked in corruption."
It tilted its head, grin sharpening.
"But you don't need to know about that. Not yet."
The room fell silent.
Then:
"The Tower doesn't train. It uses."
Ekrid drifted to the side, said with soft voice.
"And yet... I wonder."
Its stitched smile widened.
"What memory would you be forced to survive?"
*************
1. ^people - here people mean's all beings.