They stood before the stairs to the third floor, frozen.
Something held them back—perhaps the nagging doubt of plans still unfinished, or a deeper question: Was Toloméa once a fighter for the Kormany? Lefelob burned to know more.
"I… I don't understand," he stammered, nudging her. "Why? Why are you here in this place? In such an insignificant castle?"
Toloméa's smile was small and sad. "I don't think this is the time to tell everything," she said. "Someone set me up. And I... I ended up here." She shook her head as if trying to scrub the memory away.
"But know this," she added, voice dropping, "I will have my revenge, one way or another." The single question had lit a torch under feelings that had lain smothered for who knew how many years.
Cesar and Lefelob held their tongues. Though questions swarmed their minds, they chose silence. Toloméa tried to look unshakable, but she could not hide the anger, the grief, the bitter frustration of being left to rot by that nameless figure she would not speak of.
"By the way…" Toloméa said after a beat, the sadness still there between her words. "Why did you come here?"
Cesar answered first, voice tight. His thoughts drifted to Yuusaba. "I'm… looking for someone," he said, embarrassed. "His name is—" He froze, unwilling to speak it aloud. He shrugged off the thought and looked down.
"His name is Tevon. I've been told I must find him, but I don't know where."
Toloméa's smile returned, softer this time. "Tevon? It has been so long since I heard that name… Two, maybe three years. Since I was locked away, I haven't heard it."
Cesar looked up, eyes widening. "You know Tevon?"
Toloméa made a puzzled, almost distant face. "Well, yes. It surprises me that you seek him. But I'll avoid asking too many questions," she said with a wry laugh.
Cesar said nothing, but at last let out a quiet sigh of relief. For the first time in a long while, there was a glimmer of hope—for him, for Yuusaba.
"Come on—only two floors left." She turned and began up the stairs. "After that, I'll help you look for Tevon. And together we'll take our revenge." She glanced back, her smile gentle but filled with understanding. "…Right, Lefelob?"
Lefelob blinked, stunned by the unexpected appeal. "Oh—yes," he managed.
Was Toloméa aware of his hatred for the Kormany all along? Was that casual question a message aimed at him, hidden from Cesar? He shook his head—he had never seen this girl before, or perhaps he had and could not remember.
"Your father was a good man," Toloméa murmured, her voice low. "He did not deserve his end—killed by the Kormany, the very ones he served faithfully."
Lefelob's blood froze. He crumpled to the ground as if struck. The old wound, the memory of his father, reopened with brutal force.
She had known him. She had even known his father—known what had happened to him. And yet, until that very moment, despite having already met Cesar and Lefelob, she had acted as if none of it mattered. As if nothing had happened.
Tears threatened at the corners of his eyes.
"Don't despair," Toloméa said, reaching toward him but keeping her tone steady. "What's done cannot be undone. I know your hatred for those who murdered your father. We will take our revenge." She looked at Lefelob and smiled, a fierce and sure expression. "We will take it together."
[•••]
A dim light flickered across the desolate, deserted expanse of the third floor—the penultimate level of the ruined castle. It barely cut through the gloom, like the last breath of a dying flame. The three continued onward, slowly—not out of caution, but weariness.
Lefelob kept his eyes low, still haunted by unspoken questions. Cesar, for his part, was exhausted. The endless absence of sunlight, the suffocating humidity—his body was beginning to bear the marks. His breath came short. His steps grew heavier.
Toloméa, who had only recently stood so tall—so defiant—was now beginning to falter. The gas she had been forced to inhale during her captivity still lingered in her system. It was no ordinary gas; it was designed to weaken, to suppress, to dissolve the very core of power in its victims. On normal people, its effects were devastating. Body mass wasted away, strength withered, and over time, those exposed became nothing more than husks—parasites of themselves. Creatures of breath and bone, barely alive.
She could feel it. Still moving through her veins. Two long years in that hell had quietly hollowed her out. It hadn't just ravaged her body—it had gnawed at her soul. And now, she could no longer ignore its toll. The poison had been lethal, even for her.
The air grew colder as the corridor darkened. The faint light from the lower floors no longer reached them.
"Shit… I'm out of flashlights…" Lefelob whispered.
Now, even shapes began to vanish into the dark. Nothing could be seen. The third and fourth floors had always been forbidden—even to the guards. There was no real entrance to this level. It had only been accessible because Toloméa had blasted through a sealed wall—a wall that was impossible to open.
Now, all light was gone. Pure, absolute darkness.
And Toloméa—she was stumbling. Her steps dragged. Her breath came shallow and hoarse. Cesar and Lefelob halted, alarmed.
"Toloméa?" Lefelob called, rushing to her side as she collapsed to her knees. He caught her before she could fall further and gently lowered her to the cold stone floor.
She couldn't speak.
Her skin had begun to show blotches—signs of internal decay from the gas—but in the pitch black, neither of them could see it.
"What's happening to her?" Lefelob asked, his voice tight with confusion and fear.
Cesar knelt beside her, squinting through the dark. He pressed a hand to her forehead—and jerked it back immediately.
"Damn it! She's freezing!"
He looked at Lefelob, his worry plain in his voice."This—this is from the gas she told us about, isn't it?"
Lefelob didn't answer. He wasn't looking at either of them anymore.
He was scanning the void around them, searching for something—anything—that could help them regain control before it was too late.
Her eyes widened, pupils dilating as her consciousness began to fray. She was no longer seeing the dark corridor of the third floor—her mind had slipped, dragged into the depths of memory, or perhaps madness.
The gas had done more than drain her strength. It had left her open, vulnerable. Unmoored from reality.
She now stood—at least in her vision—in a room carved into the earth, with jagged stone formations jutting from the walls like frozen screams. An underground chamber. She had been there before. She was sure of it.
Before her stood three figures: a boy with his face obscured in shadow, another wearing a smooth, expressionless white mask, and a silent girl whose features were too blurred to recognize. The masked one said nothing. Neither did the girl. They simply watched.
It was the boy in shadow who spoke, his voice calm, too calm—each word like a needle under the skin.
"Don't do it, Toloméa. You know it, I know it—and soon the whole world will know it. Things are better this way."
His tone was almost gentle, but beneath it was the chill of something cruel, final. He wasn't just talking. He was sealing a fate.
Toloméa's own voice echoed in her mind, trembling—soaked in desperation."Hinaji… You can't carry out that plan. It's madness."
Tears streamed down her face—both in the vision and in reality, though neither Cesar nor Lefelob could see them in the darkness. That name, Hinaji, spilled from her lips in a whisper, trembling through the air like a ghost.
Cesar's head turned sharply. "Hinaji?" he repeated, puzzled. He looked at Lefelob, who could only shrug in confusion.
That name carried weight. Fury. Betrayal. A name not forgotten.
Toloméa's breathing turned ragged. Her body trembled as the hallucination deepened.
In the vision, Hinaji stepped closer. His words turned prophetic, almost cult-like.
"The sun, symbol of light and prosperity, alternates each day with the moon… the symbol of darkness and evil. Ancient clichés, perpetuated for millennia—clichés that the Kormany and I exist to destroy. Remember, as the world will remember, that the sun—joy itself—also illuminates the moon. And in that light, the moon will be reborn—a new beginning. A new era… that will save us all from a certain end.
The Moon clan is reborn."
And with those words, the vision fractured. Reality gave way. Toloméa collapsed entirely—her body limp, unconscious. Her memories had scattered, shattered like glass. Whatever truth they had once held was now locked behind fog and pain.
"Toloméa!!"Lefelob's voice cracked through the darkness, sharp and desperate.
But no answer came. Only the sound of silence—and breathing. His own and Cesar's, heavy and uncertain. Toloméa lay still, swallowed by a dark oblivion she might never awaken from. Her body had collapsed, but something deeper had been broken inside her. And Lefelob could feel it… he had no words for it, but something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
That cry—his cry—was the drop. The cursed drop that broke the dam.Or perhaps, the one that finally awakened something that had waited too long in the dark.
From that moment on, everything changed.
They would be tested—not with blades or battles, but with things no human mind was ever meant to endure. The kind of truth that leaves scars deeper than flesh.
And maybe—just maybe—it was the first true explanation for the impossible aura of mystery that surrounded that castle… or every castle still standing in the world, as Lefelob himself had once said.
They hadn't even realized they had reached the end of the corridor. And yet—now—they saw it:
A room.Vast, circular. Hidden until now. As if it had been waiting for them. A faint light had lit above it, revealing its immensity.
At its far end: a door. Simple, wooden, already open. Beyond it, a spiral stairwell, barely lit… leading upward—the final floor.
But before they could even step forward, they heard it.
A sound. Or more than one.Four.
A deep, grinding resonance echoed through the chamber. Then, from some random points of the room, some cages appeared.
Four of them. Little, arranged like pieces on a chessboard. From within each one, a terrible roar. Not of beasts, but of energy. Something ancient.
From the bars, blue fire burst forth, slithering like living serpents through the air—and the flames from all four cages twisted, circled, then united into one spiraling vortex.
Symbols began to burn on the stone floor—perfect, glowing circles etched with forgotten runes.
Cesar staggered back, his face hollowed by terror.
"What… is this?" Lefelob breathed.
The flames disappeared. Then, they emerged from the glowing circles.
Humanoid, but only barely. Towering, their limbs too long, their torsos too narrow, their movements unnatural. Their flesh was translucent, like crystallized mist—beneath which something dark and ancient pulsed with every step. Their eyes—if they had eyes—shone with the same blue flame that now danced along the walls.
Cesar turned toward Lefelob, his voice barely more than a whisper:
"Lefelob… Can you… explain this?"
But Lefelob didn't respond.
He couldn't. His mouth was dry, his mind racing. These were not machines. Not soldiers. Not even monsters. They were something else. Something older.
He had never seen anything like it.
Who built this place? Who built all the castles?
Did the Kormany really have anything to do with this?