The silence that followed his words was thick. Heavy. Not the kind born from peace, but the kind that lingered after truths were flayed open like wounds.
The boy shifted uncomfortably, his arms still wrapped around Herwoj's unconscious frame. The echoes of the young man's story twisted in his mind — game shows, slaughter, gods watching like bored emperors from behind glass.
The man exhaled slowly, dragging a blade across a piece of fungus on the wall, carving a strange symbol — half for survival, half to keep his hands from shaking.
Then he looked up.
His eyes, pale like old steel, stared into the boy's.
"Names. Let's start there. If we're gonna survive the next hour, I'd like to know who I'm risking breath for."
The boy hesitated, eyes darting to Herwoj, then back to the man. His voice came out thin, raw.
"Kaito… my name is Kaito."
The name felt too human for this place.
The man nodded once, filing it away. Then his gaze fell on Herwoj, still unconscious but breathing — barely.
"And him?"
Kaito licked his lips, unsure if he had the right to speak it. But the name came anyway, quiet and solid:
"Herwoj."
Kaito asks in return softly His name but the young man replies "I can't remember "
The cavern responded in its own strange way — the very stone groaned, as if tasting the name for the first time.
The man's brow twitched.
"Herwoj…" he repeated slowly, like trying the weight of a sword he hadn't drawn in years. "Yeah. That's a name the world isn't ready for."
He stood up and sheathed his jagged weapon.
"Alright then. Kaito. Herwoj. Follow me. You've just stepped off the board. And trust me—"
"—the pieces that don't belong? They either break the rules… or get erased by them."
The ground trembled once more, faint but ominous, and the shadows along the cave wall shifted — not away from them, but toward.
Their footsteps echoed through the narrow stone corridor, the faint crunch of gravel beneath their soles the only sound—until the air itself began to hum.
Not loud.
Just… aware.
The deeper they walked, the colder it became. Not the cold of temperature, but of absence. As if the world forgot to bring heat this far down.
Kaito gripped Herwoj tighter on his back, and the boy's breath misted despite the lack of wind.
The young man led them through the winding paths with practiced ease, never pausing to choose a direction. Like he knew the veins of the dungeon better than his own skin.
And then, he spoke.
"I didn't survive alone."
His voice was quiet. Not ashamed—but reverent, like he was speaking about the dead.
"Down here, the cave talks. Or… it remembers. I started hearing them after my tenth night without food. Thought I was going insane. Whispers from cracks in the stone. From water dripping the wrong way."
He glanced over his shoulder, eyes gleaming with something that wasn't quite human anymore.
"Voices of the ones who passed the trial. Some of them survived it. All of them died later. Not from wounds… but from being forgotten by the game."
"The System didn't know where to put them. So it buried them deeper than code. Into the cave itself."
Kaito looked around nervously.
"You're saying… there are people inside the walls?"
"Not people," the man replied. "Echoes of them. Fractures. Maybe even regrets."
His hand slid along the rocky wall as they passed a jagged groove etched into the stone. It pulsed faintly, like veins under skin.
"Sometimes, if you listen hard enough, they answer back. They warned me when traps were near. Told me which monsters to avoid. Gave me names I shouldn't speak aloud."
A pause.
"They also told me when he would show up—the Rabbit. They always know when he's coming."
Kaito swallowed, unsure if it was awe or dread crawling up his throat.
"You trust them?"
"No," the man said bluntly. "But they're all I have. You'll hear them too, eventually. The deeper you go, the louder they get."
He stopped suddenly, placing a hand on the wall.
Silence.
Then a faint whisper—like breath through a flute. Kaito couldn't make out the words… but Herwoj, still limp on his back, flinched slightly.
"They know him," the man muttered, not turning around. "Your friend. They said he's not supposed to be here yet."
"What does that mean?" Kaito asked.
"It means… someone cheated."
The cave fell silent again—too silent.
The young man stood still, his hand still pressed to the stone, his eyes unfocused, staring into some memory only he could see.
"They said…"
"…he's not supposed to be here yet."
Herwoj's shallow breathing was the only answer. His face was pale, skin clammy, as if his soul was being tugged from elsewhere.
Kaito swallowed, tightening his grip.
"I don't care what they said," he muttered. "He saved me. He saved all of us."
The young man finally turned, his gaze sharp—not angry, but… weighing something.
"It's not about what he did. It's about what he might become."
His voice wasn't suspicious—it was tired. Afraid of hope.
"But," he added quietly, "you're the first living voices I've heard in… years, maybe. Maybe longer."
He stepped forward, his expression softening—just slightly.
"So I'll trust you. Both of you. For now."
The moment hung between them like a fragile thread.
Then the cave rumbled.
It was subtle at first, like a long breath exhaled from deep below. Dust drifted from the ceiling. The walls around them pulsed once, faint veins of pale blue light flickering erratically across the stone.
The young man's face drained of color.
"No," he whispered, turning his ear toward the wall. "Not now."
Kaito stepped back.
"What's happening?"
The whispers returned. Louder now. Urgent. Desperate. They weren't calm anymore—they were panicking.
Faint words clawed at the young man's ears:
"It sees you."
"Run."
"You should not have spoken."
"The monster… has turned."
"The Defilement shouldn't be able to follow this far underground…" the young man muttered to himself.
The ground groaned beneath them, and from far behind—in the depths of the tunnel—they heard it.
A scraping noise.
No footsteps.
No breathing.
Just scraping.
Like claws on bone. Like something dragging itself forward, not because it needed to—but because it wanted them to hear it.
"We have to move," the young man snapped. "Now."
Kaito looked at Herwoj, still unconscious.
"But he—"
"Now!"
The air behind them began to hum, the same way it did before the Defilement arrived.
But this time, it was quieter.
More personal.
Like the cave itself was holding its breath.
And somewhere, far too close for comfort, came the sound of a dry voice—not from a throat, but from a memory:
"Found you."
The whisper had barely faded when the first hole appeared in the stone wall.
It was small—no bigger than a fist. A jagged, black void that oozed shadow like pus from a wound.
Then another.
And another.
The young man stopped in his tracks. His voice came out hoarse, almost reverent:
"It's not just following us…"
The cave began to bleed darkness. From every hole, something slithered. A tendril. A malformed limb. A skull-shaped mass of gas that pulsed with faint yellow veins.
"It's entering."
The walls convulsed.
The pieces poured out—arms, legs, spine, lungs that should not breathe, eyes that pulsed without sockets. Each part came from a different hole, slipping into the cavern air like smoke twisting into meat, rebuilding itself like an idea forcing itself into reality.
The shadows bled together, writhing, forming a grotesque creature far too massive for the tunnel—but it didn't care. Its body folded, bent, and reformed as it chased, coiling through the narrow corridors like a serpent that devoured universes.
It had no fixed shape—sometimes tall, sometimes wide, sometimes flat—but its hunger remained the same.
Kaito screamed, clutching Herwoj tightly.
"RUN!" the young man barked, already turning.
The whispers screamed now—no longer coherent, no longer calm.
They howled, as if being torn apart.
"No—NO!"
"It's feeding on us!"
"The dead—he's eating the DEAD!"
The Defilement didn't just devour the living—it devoured everything. Memories. Echoes. Even the spirits trapped in the walls, the ones who had whispered their guidance for years, were now being sucked away, their voices disintegrating into ash mid-sentence.
One by one, their cries vanished into silence.
And still it came.
The light from Kaito's stat screen flickered violently as they ran, barely illuminating the collapsing path ahead.
Behind them, the monster's face—or what passed for it—pressed through the stone wall, stretching it like skin, its grin stitched from bone and misery.
"You don't belong here," it whispered, not in words but certainty.
And with a wheeze, it exhaled.
The ceiling cracked. The ground buckled.
Everything ahead was falling apart
The jagged rocks clawed at their feet as they ran, Herwoj barely conscious in Kaito's arms, the young man in the lead, his ragged coat slicing the air behind him like a dying banner.
The cave screamed behind them. The Defilement was faster than shadow, faster than noise. Its limbs scraped along the walls with a wet, slithering sound, its hollow breath like a furnace made of fear.
And then—
"There's a place!" the young man shouted.
Kaito's lungs burned. "W-What!?"
"A monument. I've only heard whispers. Something deeper… something old. It's said to hold a remnant of power—forgotten even by the gods."
He leapt over a fallen stalagmite as a piece of the ceiling behind them exploded, crushed by the creature's fury.
"I never went that far. No one has. The whispers always warned me. But now—"
He looked back at them, eyes gleaming with a strange mix of fear and hope—
"—we've got no other path."
Kaito nearly tripped as the floor cracked under them. "Will it save us?!"
The young man didn't answer.
"If the monument doesn't save us…" he muttered, mostly to himself, "then maybe it'll end this… properly."
Behind them, the Defilement surged, its massive head crawling through the tunnel like a spider made of grief and rot. Its chest cracked open, revealing countless mouths whispering dead languages, the ghosts of consumed souls crying through teeth that weren't meant for speech.
Suddenly, the cave widened.
The darkness grew colder, deeper than death.
Ahead: a massive stone archway loomed. Faded carvings were etched along its surface—glyphs from before the world had shape, half-erased by time and screams.
The young man skidded to a stop just short of the threshold.
"This is it…"
He turned to them.
"If you step through this, there's no going back."
"What's in there?" Kaito asked, tightening his hold on Herwoj.
"I don't know," the man said. "But I know this: the Defilement won't follow. Not directly."
A pause.
"Because whatever power was buried inside there…" he whispered, looking up at the monument's carvings, "…even it is afraid."
Kaito met the young man's eyes, breathing hard.
"If there's even a chance that monument can help us… open it."
The man stared at him for a heartbeat, searching for hesitation—and found none.
Without another word, he pressed his hand against the glyph-carved archway. The stone beneath his palm trembled. Symbols ignited one by one, like dying stars flaring in defiance, and the great doors rumbled open with the sound of grinding bones.
A cold wind swept from the depths of the cavern beyond—dry and ancient, carrying whispers not meant for mortal ears.
As they stepped through the gate, the air changed. It was heavier here. Time felt slower, more fluid—like something was watching.
Then—
A choke.
A splatter.
"Herwoj!" Kaito gasped as the boy in his arms twisted violently, coughing—
Blood poured from Herwoj's mouth, dark and viscous, his eyes rolling back briefly before snapping open in raw pain.
"Something's tearing inside him," the young man muttered, dropping to help steady him.
"The backlash… from whatever that thing inside him was. It's eating at his flesh like cursed fire."
"No," Herwoj rasped, voice hoarse, barely more than breath. "Keep going…"
Kaito slung Herwoj's arm over his shoulders and helped him walk. Each step felt like dragging a collapsing world.
After several long minutes, the corridor widened… until they entered a silent chamber lit by unnatural blue torches clinging to the walls like dying spirits.
And there—etched into the floor in pale, glowing lines—were three branching paths.
Each corridor was unique. They didn't lead into darkness… they led into something worse—into emotion itself:
The left path pulsed with a dull, red hue, and smelled faintly of burning wood and blood. The air shimmered with heat, as if fire waited at the end. From within, they could hear muffled cries of rage.
The center path was pitch-black. No sound. No scent. Just stillness—a silence so absolute it hurt the ears. Yet something about it beckoned… like a forgotten promise.
The right path was shrouded in a pale, blue mist. Cold, sorrowful energy seeped from it. They heard weeping—distant, feminine, beautiful, and broken.
They all stood in silence.
"Three paths…" the young man whispered. "Each with a different curse."
Kaito looked to Herwoj, who clung to consciousness by a thread.
"We can't afford a wrong turn."