After walking along the trail for some time, I decided to stop and rest a little at the top of a hill I found.

  Choosing high ground isn’t random. It’s strategy. Visibility, in case I need to spot enemies or anything important from afar — and it delays the attack of beasts that are poor climbers. Lately, this has been my safe harbor.

  Now, I needed to light a fire.

  I picked up two reasonably sized stones that I assumed would be suitable for creating a spark, no matter how small.

  I struck them once.

  Nothing.

  I struck them again.

  Nothing.

  I struck them a third time.

  They broke.

  No spark.

  I stared at the pile of branches in front of me, as if they could mock me. I sighed.

  “Shit.”

  No success.

  For now, I would have to settle for letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. I lay down on a larger rock, resting my forearm over my face.

  Tired. Sore. Heavy. Sleepy.

  I closed my eyes for a second.

  Then the images came too fast. Memories I would rather not recall.

  Days without sleep do strange things to you.

  That, I know very well.

  But until I’m certain it’s safe, it’s better not to lower my guard.

  Out of pure reflex, I lifted my face — perhaps expecting the false comfort of stars or the ridiculous trace of some constellation I wouldn’t even know how to name. I searched for a fixed point. A north. Anything familiar that could convince me the world still made sense.

  But of course, there was nothing.

  In its place, there was an enormous void — a thick layer of nothing, covered by gray clouds and a moon as white as the sun of this place.

  I stared for too long.

  An uncomfortable sensation began to form.

  So I stopped.

  It was time to look beyond the surroundings of this place.

  It was time to look inward.

  Sitting on the cold stone, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, focusing on the sensation beneath the skin of my forearm.

  The Mark responded almost immediately.

  Not like before — not passive, not dormant. There was a steady flow now, as if something were circulating through it.

  Fed.

  The interface manifested in my mind with its usual coldness.

  [Souls: 0500 / 5,000 (Grad E)]

  The number remained steady.

  Even so, I couldn’t look at it as a simple count. Each unit carried weight. Experience. Survival. Death.

  The description below remained unchanged:

  “Souls can be allocated.”

  It did not say “spent.”

  It did not say “consumed.”

  As if they were pieces being moved across an invisible board.

  I mentally skimmed through the familiar options. The system’s structure hadn’t changed, but the feeling had. There was something deeper there now — something I previously had no access to.

  A new line had remained active since the last time:

  [Paths: Available upon qualification.]

  I frowned.

  “What are the [Paths]?”

  This time, the silence wasn’t immediate.

  The Mark grew warm.

  Then the hill vanished.

  The Labyrinth of Shadows rose around me, as always — endless corridors, walls that absorbed any trace of light, and the hollow center where the Mark floated, or at least the core where it remained.

  The core of my soul.

  When I took a step, the walls trembled — not physically, but as if the very notion of space had been strained. The shadows recoiled, compressing to the sides.

  Then the corridor before me split.

  Not in two.

  In five.

  Five openings tore through the void, each deeper than the last, like fractures carved into absence itself.

  There was no light within them.

  There was density.

  Then came the impact.

  A flash straight into my mind.

  Lucanus… Kabuto… Hercules… Atlas… Caucasus…

  The names were not heard.

  They were imprinted.

  Like iron pressed into flesh.

  For a fraction of a second, I felt weight.

  Mandibles crushing, carapace, absurd strength into structure, support, resistance that does not bend.

  Something ancestral. Primitive. Unshakable.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  And then—

  Everything collapsed.

  The Labyrinth closed as if it had never opened.

  The five routes ceased to exist.

  The hill returned.

  I stood still for five seconds, waiting for something else to happen.

  “Tsk… seriously? I can’t take these visions anymore.”

  Silence answered, as always.

  I swallowed the rest of my water and began descending the hill.

  The terrain changed gradually.

  First, the grass grew taller.

  Not green. Never truly green. It was a washed-out shade, as if the color had been drained before it could be born. The blades were thicker than normal and bent less in the wind, as if resisting movement.

  Then the air.

  It grew heavy.

  Not warm — just saturated. Each breath felt like it carried something with it. Too much moisture, but without the scent of life. There was no fragrance of wet earth. No organic odor of decaying leaves.

  It was just…

  Stagnant water.

  I kept walking.

  The ground began to give beneath my steps. Not like ordinary mud. It was more elastic, as if something beneath the surface was holding the weight before slowly giving up.

  Trees — or rather, something attempting to imitate trees — began to appear around me.

  From a distance, the shape was convincing.

  Vertical trunks. Irregular branches.

  An almost competent attempt to copy what a tree should be.

  But the closer I got, the less the illusion held.

  The “trunk” wasn’t wood.

  It was ore.

  “I’ve walked for miles… I’ve never seen a leaf. Never seen wood. Never seen anything grow toward the light.”

  I looked at the sky.

  Always it.

  Always that pale, unmoving thing.

  I deduced that the white sun must be the main culprit.

  If that was even a sun.

  Who knows.

  Beyond that, only fungi existed in this place. As if only they had managed to adapt in time.

  No insects hovered over the waters. No birds. No distant croaking.

  If this place was trying to imitate a swamp…

  It had forgotten the most important part.

  Life.

  Suddenly, I no longer wanted to remain there.

  It wasn’t immediate fear. It wasn’t a visible threat.

  It was worse.

  The sensation of being somewhere that should not exist the way it did.

  I sank another step into the mud, forcing my body to keep moving. The ground gave way with a wet, unpleasant sound.

  Then, a few meters ahead, the sound changed.

  The texture changed too.

  The resistance of the mud vanished.

  Now, beneath my feet, there was sand.

  I lifted my gaze.

  The mineral vegetation was gone, replaced by a vast, open stretch. The ground was still damp, marked by shallow puddles and dark stains, but the surface was rocky — irregular, exposed.

  “How strange…” I murmured, taking a few steps forward. “First a swamp. Now a… beach?”

  At least, it looked like one.

  But there was no salty wind. No blue horizon. No sound of waves.

  I looked more carefully.

  “No… there’s no ocean.”

  What stretched before me was not a coastline.

  It was as if I stood adrift at the bottom of a colossal river that had dried ages ago. An immeasurable riverbed exposed, revealing only its naked rocks and ancient scars.

  That was when I noticed.

  On the horizon, something moved.

  A dense mass, far too white to be ordinary vapor, advanced slowly, swallowing the landscape as it came.

  It did not rise or dissipate.

  It advanced.

  A thick, continuous gaseous layer.

  As if the very air were being replaced.

  Fog.

  “This sounds like danger…” I muttered to myself. “It’s not good to stay somewhere without visibility.”

  The fog advanced.

  My first reaction was simple:

  Turn back.

  I was ready to turn around and forget that place existed.

  Until—

  Thud.

  I froze.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  The sound continued.

  Then, without warning, the ground began to tremble in rhythmic beats.

  Almost like… footsteps.

  Large ones.

  Very large.

  And the most terrifying part—

  Close.

  It was approaching.

  On reflex, all I could do was leap and slip into a tiny fissure between the rocks. My body moved before my mind caught up.

  The opening was too narrow. My shoulders scraped against rough stone. I felt the fabric of my clothes catch and nearly tear. The rock was cold, damp, smelling of ancient mineral and stagnant water.

  In front of me—

  Thud.

  The impact was so strong the stone vibrated against my back.

  I held my breath.

  The silhouette of a gigantic being emerged from the fog.

  I hadn’t even seen it approach.

  It was simply there.

  As if drawn into the air in a single instant.

  I tilted my head up to see better. The fog curved around its body, revealing imprecise contours, as if the air itself struggled to define its shape.

  It must have been over ten meters tall.

  The creature slowly tilted its head to one side. Then to the other. As if searching for something or confirming.

  It stood still.

  Still for too long.

  The silence inside the fissure grew heavy. I could hear my own breathing bouncing against the stone.

  Then—

  It turned.

  Not toward me.

  But directly toward the fissure.

  My stomach dropped.

  It couldn’t see me.

  It had no way to.

  Even so, the sensation was of being pierced through.

  Seconds dragged on.

  Then its head returned to its original position.

  Thud.

  The creature took another step.

  Then another.

  The tremor slowly faded until it vanished along with the silhouette, swallowed once more by the fog.

  I waited one minute.

  Two.

  Maybe more.

  Long enough to steady myself and gather the courage to step out.

  When I thought I was safe, I realized something.

  My chest tightened.

  The horizon line had disappeared.

  While I was hiding…

  The fog had advanced.

  There was no visible path left.

  I thought that, after that, I could simply leave.

  But the creature had kept me there too long.

  Without realizing it, there was nowhere left to return.

  The fog had swallowed me completely.