One month passed.
The days now moved like the wheels of an old machine that kept turning despite the cracks spreading across its frame. There was no morning. There was no night. Only a rhythm shaped by the most basic need to stay alive. They woke before the first light touched the cracks of stone above the nest. Then they performed physical training inside the cramped room that always smelled of dried sweat, old metal, and the faint moss clinging to the corners of the walls. After that, they would enter the processing corridors with bodies already working before their minds were fully awake.
The routine was exhausting, but it was the only thing keeping them alive.
Every day began with clearing corridors one through three. There was no heroism there. No bravery worth telling. Only a brutal efficiency forged from tragedy. Since the day Dean and Reis died, they had stopped giving even the smallest room for mistakes. Even pain felt distant now, as if their bodies were slowly shutting down parts of their nerves to preserve their mental strength.
When they returned to their room, they held evaluations. Short. Harsh. There was no friendliness left in their vocabulary. They scrutinized each other's mistakes, snapped at one another, reminded one another. Some days Dorde exploded at Ted for the smallest error. Some days Glenn nearly struck Zorilla because of a misplaced step. But none of it ever turned into true division. Instead, they shaped one another, pounding each other into forms that almost defied logic.
They no longer moved like a group of people trying to survive. They had become machines. Machines carved by guilt, loss, and hardened resolve. Machines with one shared purpose. To return to the fourth corridor. And this time, no one would die.
Throughout the month, they gathered seven cores from corridors one through three. Five were stored in a small stone container in the middle of their room. Their lights pulsed softly in shades of blue, green, yellow, red, and a faint blended color they had never seen before. The remaining two cores had already been absorbed by Ted and Dorde. They granted great power, but also a heavy mental burden.
The results were clear.
Zorilla now resembled a living statue carved from stone. His body was not merely large, but dense and solid like a ship's knot soaked in strengthening fluid. The attacks of five small monsters at once could not push him back even half a step. His body rejected injury. Wounds that would drop a normal person vanished within minutes. He was no longer simply strong. He was the group's foundation.
Dilos evolved in a different way. If Zorilla was a fortress, then Dilos was a living shield. His ability to read attack patterns developed to an almost unbelievable degree. From the tilt of a monster's torso, the way its back leg shifted, or the vibration of the air when its head moved, he could predict what attack would come next. He no longer blocked. He prevented. He dictated the rhythm. He forced monsters to move according to his design before crushing them.
Each day he became harder to strike, as if he saw time move a fraction slower than everyone else.
Dorde was lightning. The core he absorbed accelerated his neural pathways to a near unnatural level. His movements sliced through the air like thin lines of silver. In a single breath, he could eliminate three small monsters. His body was light yet tough. He became an invisible executioner. For anyone not watching him closely, Dorde seemed to vanish only to reappear in a burst of blood.
Ted was the opposite of Dorde. He was not fast. He moved slow and precise, like an hourglass counting grains one by one with absolute certainty. But that precision was lethal. His thrown blades never missed. His strikes never failed to hit a monster's weakest point. He knew where the thinnest tendon was, where the most fragile bone sat, where the softest flesh hid. Over the month, Ted became an executioner with an almost inhuman calm. He killed like a surgeon opening a patient's organs with the perfect tool.
But the most complicated development remained Glenn.
His blue-purple core had calmed compared to a month ago. Blue was now dominant. The purple only appeared when he was angry, or when his emotions shook with memories he no longer needed. But from Glenn's expression, Clive knew something was wrong.
Every time someone spoke the names Dean or Reis, Glenn swallowed hard as if he were holding something back. His fingertips trembled subtly, a detail he thought no one noticed. Sometimes his gaze went empty for a split second, as if hearing a voice no one else could hear.
Clive knew Glenn was fighting. Not facing monsters. Something alive inside him.
And Clive himself had become a creature even he barely understood. His new senses had grown into a living radar. He could feel the energy of a core from afar, like pressure grazing across his skin. He could tell whether a monster had a core simply from the faint vibrations on the corridor walls. He could sense a monster's fear, its anger, or its hunger even before it showed itself.
He had become the sensor. The navigator. The compass inside a labyrinth that wanted to consume them.
*******
That night, they sat in a circle around the container of cores. The multicolored light pulsed softly. Their shadows danced on the stone walls like strange creatures guarding an ancient ritual.
Clive stared at the cores without blinking.
"We are not touching any of these cores. Not until we are certain we can control the will of the monsters inside us."
Glenn took a breath. His voice trembled slightly.
"I still hear whispers from my core. Every day it offers me power. Sometimes it says it can erase my pain. If I give in now, I might never come back."
Dorde added softly,
"Ted and I are still adjusting. Our bodies are strong, but our minds aren't stable yet."
Zorilla looked at them and then at the cores.
"Those cores can become weapons or they can become bombs. It all depends on whether we can restrain ourselves."
The agreement was made. The cores would remain untouched. None of them were ready to take a greater risk.
And that day marked the start of their mental training.
*******
Every morning they sat in a circle within the darkness. The meditation was not for peace. There was no peace in this nest. The meditation was meant to enter the darkness within themselves. To touch the will of the monsters trying to seep into their minds.
Clive adapted the fastest. He could converse with the faint will of the monster inside his old core. He understood its thought patterns. He understood its fear. He borrowed its memory. Not as a threat, but as a tool.
Zorilla, Dilos, Ted, and Dorde learned to build barriers around themselves against the foreign whispers gnawing at the edges of their consciousness. The training was exhausting. It drained emotion down to the marrow.
Meanwhile Glenn… Glenn was in the quietest battle of all. The dual will inside him was slippery, intelligent, and dangerous. Sometimes it tempted him with a gentle voice. Sometimes it threatened him with a harsh one. Sometimes it attacked in the middle of the night. Sometimes it whispered the names of Dean and Reis in the most painful ways.
But Glenn endured. With burning eyes. With a soul pulled between two sides.
*******
At the end of the first month, Clive noticed something had changed. The will of the small monster inside him no longer pushed him. It followed. It submitted. It became a tool.
And that night, right after meditation ended, Clive lifted his head.
"I will absorb another core."
The words fell like a heavy stone dropped onto the surface of water.
Silent. Weighty. Splitting the air of the room.
Ted was the first to respond.
"You know the risks. You could lose yourself. You could die. Or worse."
Clive answered without looking away.
"I am ready."
Dorde stood up with anger he could not hide.
"You have not fully mastered the will of your first core. If you force this, you could go insane. You could turn into a monster."
Zorilla rolled his shoulders slightly.
"I do not agree. But I can see his resolve. Look at his eyes."
They all turned.
Clive's eyes truly were different that night. There was a calm born from someone who had already made peace with the death of his old self. There was a small flame, but sharp and unwavering.
Glenn finally nodded.
"If that is your decision, I will not stop you. But we must do this properly."
And the room tightened, stretched like the hide of a drum pulled too taut.
*******
They extinguished the lights. Oil torches were lit. Shadows flickered jaggedly across the walls like spirits gathering. The five cores were placed on a flat stone surface. Their lights merged like the heartbeat of an alien creature.
Ted examined each core with eyes so cold it looked as if he were inspecting a living human organ.
Finally, he pointed at one.
"This one. Its energy is the most stable."
Clive replied.
"I choose this one."
No one responded.
Zorilla prepared leather restraints on the side of the room. If Clive lost control, they would hold his body without breaking his bones.
The ritual began.