It began with tearing.
Not of skin or flesh—but something deeper. Something primal.Zen's body arched against the pain as an invisible force seemed to claw through his very essence, ripping him open from the inside out. He screamed. But it wasn't his voice anymore. It was hollow. Distant. Like a memory already fading.Suddenly, Zen opened his eyes.
But the world around him was not the lab or the magic circle either.He was somewhere else. A place he had never seen before.
He floated, weightless, in a void that stretched endlessly in all directions. There was no up, no down. Just emptiness. A quiet, cosmic stillness. His body—if it could even be called that—was translucent, shimmering faintly with threads of light. A soul-form. Ethereal. Untethered.
He tried to breathe, but there was no air. No sound. No heartbeat.
And then Zen saw it.
A behemoth.
Its body coiled through dimensions Zen couldn't comprehend, its limbs shifting like tendrils of smoke that bled into solid bone, wrapped in chains made from languages Zen didn't know existed. Its eyes—if they were eyes—glowed like black stars, collapsing inward endlessly.
It was ancient.It was terrifying.
And it was awake.
"Who… dares… wake me…"The voice came from everywhere. From inside Zen's chest. From the walls of his thoughts."I had just escaped that wretched place…"
Nitya.Even without it saying the name, Zen knew.The behemoth had been sealed there… with the orb.
Then it turned its shifting gaze toward him. Zen couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.
"You..."
The thing opened its maw—an endless rift of gnashing void—and swallowed him whole.
Zen didn't fall.He disintegrated.
His body turned to particles, scattering like dust under a cosmic wind. His soul followed.But just before nothingness took him—something else interrupted.
[In—ti—a—summo—ing…]
[—ountdown…initi—]
[Bzzzzzzt—]
[Anom—ly—detec—]
[Err—rr—rr…]
[Er-rr—rrr…]
[Initi—ting term—ation of…anom—]
The broken voice rattled through his unraveling consciousness, mechanical and fractured. It vibrated in his skull like static under pressure.
And then the lightning.
Not real lightning. Not sky born.Something older. Worse.
It struck through him like divine judgment. Every thought, every memory, every fragment of Zen was obliterated.
He exploded from the inside outscattered across unseen planes.
As his awareness finally slipped into oblivion, he heard the last, garbled whisper of a broken machine…
[Er—rr…]
[Err—r—rr—rr—…]
Then, silence.
*******
"Ahh—!"
A bolt of pain ripped through Zen's spine like lightning. He jolted awake, gasping, as if surfacing from deep, black water. The cold hit him first—stone-cold, damp, and bitter against his skin. He lay on a cracked floor littered with dust and dried moss, under the faint flicker of a dying torch wedged into the wall above.
He blinked and sat up, chest heaving. Iron bars loomed to his left, their rusted forms twisted with age and neglect. A damp smell of rot, rust, and something acrid filled the cell. His wrists bore fresh bruises from shackles. This wasn't a recovery room. It was a dungeon.
"He's awake," a girl's voice said from the gloom—quiet, but filled with curious hope.
Zen turned his head slowly.
In the hazy light, several figures emerged.
"I thought Soul Devourers were supposed to be strong," scoffed one of them. "He looks like he's been chewed and spat out."
The speaker crouched near the wall like a beast ready to pounce. His hair was wild and silver, matted with grime, and sharp ears twitched with every sound. His robe was torn at the sleeves and marked with old bloodstains, exposing lean muscle and furred limbs. A thick wolf tail swayed behind him. His amber eyes held no welcome—only challenge.
"Don't tease him, Ceaser," came another voice, calm and gentle, as though trying to soothe the very air. "He just arrived yesterday. You know what it's like… how much he's suffered."
The one speaking was Elli, a tall, willowy figure seated against the wall, arms wrapped around her knees. Moss and vines wound naturally through her torn sleeves and around the bases of her antlers. Her long hair, tangled and trailing with dirt, still held a strange grace. Even in this pit, she emanated peace. Her warm gaze met Zen's. "You're safe. For now."
"You're always soft," Ceaser muttered.
"If Elli hadn't healed you, you wouldn't be talking now," came a voice like grinding stone.
Zen looked toward the corner, and his breath caught.
A massive figure hunched there, his form slouched to fit within the cell's cramped space. His body looked like a statue shattered and rebuilt chunks of stone fused with dark metal and deep glowing cracks. His eyes, dull orange like cooling magma, stared shyly. Emith, the earth spirit. He was quiet, but when he spoke, his words echoed.
"Shut up, Emith," Ceaser snapped with a scowl.
Emith shrank back like a child scolded by a parent.
From above, a flicker of light descended and spun between them.
"Don't bully Emith now," said a sharp, confident voice.
A small figure landed in front of Ceaser, floating just an inch off the ground. Her fiery hair was matted with soot, and her wings shimmered like cracked glass glowing with embers. Her prison robes were scorched and patched together, smoke curling off her shoulders. Izora, the fire fairy. Despite her size, her presence crackled with heat and pride.
Ceaser bared his teeth in a grin. "Do you want to fight, Izora?"
"Bring it on, mutt," she snapped, fire dancing on her fingertips.
"Enough!" Elli stood between them like a sudden wall of calm. "Now, now. Stop it, both of you. You're scaring him."
The tension melted.
Izora backed off with a smirk. Ceaser growled low but turned away, arms crossed.
Zen stared at them.
Who were these people?
Zen groaned, a dull throb pulsing behind his eyes like a heartbeat echoing in a cavern. He raised a hand to his temple—only to freeze.
Something was wrong.
His hand felt… wrong.
It wasn't pain he felt—it was alien.
His touch registered a hard, jagged texture where his skin should have been. He blinked, eyes adjusting to the dim torchlight of the cell, then slowly turned his hand in front of his face.
Three fingers.
Armored. Elongated. Not wrapped in flesh but in a living obsidian shell veined with glowing blue energy.
His heart should have pounded—but it didn't.There was no heart.There was no pulse.Only a hum. A vibration, deep and unceasing, resonating from somewhere within, like a cursed crystal set into the hollow of a construct.
"What…?" Zen gasped, his voice echoing with a distortion, like metal scraped across stone.
He looked down at himself—his chest was broad, sculpted like a blade, etched with glowing runes that pulsed in sickening harmony. His body was no longer flesh. And the light spilling from his core—an emerald fire trapped in a prison of bone and steel.
His legs ended in clawed feet that clicked against the stone, and his entire form shimmered faintly with spectral energy. An unfamiliar tail whipped behind him, lined with curved spikes. He was a beast. A demon. A construct. Something else entirely.
"This is not me…"
Panic crashed over him like a black tide.
"Is this a trial by the Tower?"He had heard of them—tales of souls tested in illusionary realms, of transformations and warped realities. But no trial had ever felt this real. Not like this.
"But… I died.""I remember it clearly."
So how was he here? Summoned? Reincarnated? Resurrected?
He thought about the strange voice he had heard in his final moments.
He didn't know. And that terrified him more than the body he now inhabited.
"Hey," a voice came, gentle and close.
Zen's head snapped up.
Standing before him was Elli. Her soft features glowed faintly in the low light. Despite her prison clothes and the dirt that stained her pale skin, there was warmth in her moss-colored eyes. One of her antlers had a chip. Her hands were stained with dried blood and dirt, but they were steady.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Zen stared at her, his breath catching—or what passed for breath in this shell. For a heartbeat, he couldn't speak. Couldn't move.
Elli tilted her head slightly, her voice quieter now. "It's a lot. I know. Waking up like that. But you're not alone anymore."Her words were simple, yet they carried a warmth that made him feel he could trust her.
Zen's voice cracked as he sat up, eyes still wide with confusion."Where… where am I? Who am I? Why am I here?"
There was a pause. Then a dry laugh broke the silence.
"Well, damn. He's really lost his shit," Ceaser muttered, arms crossed, a smug grin playing on his lupine face.
Elli narrowed her eyes and glared at him.
Ceaser's ears twitched. His smirk vanished. He looked away.
Elli offered a gentle smile."Don't worry—you're just in shock. Don't stress it."She glanced around briefly, then added,"You're in a dungeon called the Iron Maw… in the Vespara Domain."
Zen's voice was shaky. "Why… are we here?"
The air grew tense. Even the flicker of torchlight on the damp stone seemed to hold its breath.
Elli hesitated. "We—" she began, but before she could finish, the heavy cell door creaked open with a metallic groan.
"That's our cue," Ceaser muttered, already on his feet.
Elli gave Zen a soft glance. "It will be better to see for yourself. Follow us."Zen followed them.
As the cell door creaked open with a groan that sounded too much like something in pain, Zen followed the others—Ceaser, Elli, Emith, Izora—into the corridor beyond.
He wasn't the only one.
All around, other cell doors clanked open in sequence, like a ritual long repeated. Dozens—maybe hundreds—of prisoners stepped out of their cells in eerie synchrony, forming a slow-moving line that stretched through the cold metallic bowels of the dungeon. None spoke. None resisted. Their footsteps echoed like a dirge.
Zen looked around.
A creature with glassy eyes and a sunken face shuffled beside him, its arms limp like they'd forgotten how to lift. A man with bark-like skin stared ahead blankly, lips cracked and bleeding, whispering something no one heard. A three-eyed woman walked with her head lowered, fingers trembling, her third eye closed as if it too had given up.
Their bodies varied. Their races too. But their expressions were all the same—Devoid of hope.Drained of soul.Empty.
It was as if the Iron Maw had eaten more than just their freedom.
The corridor was massive, ribbed with black iron supports that resembled a beast's open jaws. The walls wept rust. Chains clinked lazily from above, swaying with no wind. Every sound felt distant—muted, as though the dungeon itself swallowed anything that tried to break its silence.
Zen wanted to ask where they were going, but he didn't. The air felt like it was crushing his lungs.
Looking at the faces around him made the words die in his throat.
This place doesn't have the concept of hope, he realized.
It devours it.
And still, the line moved forward.