The grinding of stone doors echoed like the breath of the Exterminating Ground itself. A new figure had entered—a voodoo mask adorned with jagged engravings across its forehead and cheeks, its eyes hollow, its skin plated in cracked armor. He walked with thunderous steps, ignoring the corpses littered along the path, making a beeline toward Aiden.
"You. The slave," the mask's voice rang sharp and metallic. "The Silver Voodoo Mask has summoned you to the Chief's House. Move."
Aiden blinked once. That name—Chief's House—rang with weight. Not one slave had ever returned from it with the same eyes. Or at all.
As the warrior mask led him through the giant sealed gate, a wave of light slammed into his face. Aiden winced and staggered back, covering his eyes. He hadn't seen the sun in over a month. The warmth should've felt like freedom. It didn't. It burned like mockery.
The elite voodoo masks—dozens of them—stared at him with narrowed, gleaming eyes behind their grotesque designs. Their whispers slithered between the wind like venom.
"What is that filth doing here?""He reeks of the ground.""A creature like that should be on a leash.""Disgusting."
Aiden walked in silence. He said nothing. But he watched. He watched the way they carried themselves. The way their ranks worked. How they obeyed—without question—Silver's orders. Useful.
Finally, they reached a towering obsidian building veined with glowing blue lines. Inside, on a throne of tendrils and bones, sat the Silver Voodoo Mask—relaxed, chin resting on his tentacled fingers.
"Ah, slave," he said, voice slick like oil on glass. "You've arrived. I have a special task for you today."
Aiden kept his posture low, eyes calm. He's going to try to frame me, he thought. He had already seen the signs—the sudden kindness, the shift in tone. The Silver Mask wanted him gone. But not through a fight. Through execution.
"You'll be assisting the Grand Library today," Silver continued. "Cleaning, reorganizing. Nothing more. Sounds manageable, doesn't it?"
Aiden smiled faintly. "Yes, my lord. I'll do what you ask of me."
Silver chuckled. "Marvelous. Marvelous indeed." He gestured lazily. "Warrior, escort him."
And just like that, the grin on his mask widened—unnaturally. Like a predator who had already sunk the trap.
The library was built like a tomb. Massive, circular, endless rows of aged tomes and dust-choked scrolls. No guards. No watchers.
Aiden didn't waste time.
He scoured the shelves silently, hands darting from book to book. Most were irrelevant—rituals, history, mask construction—until he found it. A thick black book with a red sigil burned into the cover.
"Of Flow and Flame: The Core Principles of Aura Manipulation."
Bingo, he thought.
Without hesitation, he shoved the book deep into the side of his pants, under the tunic. It scratched against his leg. He whispered, smirking to himself:
"You really think I won't steal something?"
Then suddenly, the entire library shook.
A tremor? No—footsteps. Heavy, brutal, shaking the walls. Screams erupted outside, followed by an explosion of something wet hitting the floor.
Aiden rushed to the entrance and peeked through the cracked door.
There he was.
That man.
The one from before—the red-eyed entity, the one who was once just an echo. Now fully formed, older, taller, wrapped in a long black coat soaked in blood, dragging a jagged metal hook in one hand.
Behind him, a trail of corpses—voodoo masks, slaughtered like animals.
His eyes burned through the smoke and haze.
"WHERE… is that robber?"
The air around him pulsed with unnatural pressure. Aiden's breath hitched. The man looked far more dangerous than before. Not just a manifestation—but a living nightmare, hunting something.
Or someone.
And Aiden knew exactly who the man meant.