After what feels like an eternity navigating the stinking veins of the slums, we emerge into a vast, unexpected opening. A cavern. Light, not sunlight, not torchlight, but something stranger, pours from the ceiling above. It pulses faintly, like a heartbeat, painting the smooth stone walls in silver-blue hues. I squint. The light doesn't flicker, and yet it feels alive.
Yusuf steps into the clearing and stops. He raises his hand, and with a motion too fluid to be clumsy, conjures two chairs out of nothingness. Or perhaps they came from a storage artifact. It's unclear. Everything about him is unclear.
He motions to one of the chairs. "Sit," he says.
I obey, easing into the chair. My shoulder aches again. The madness of the last hour, the alley, the shrieks, the magic, the wall, it had numbed the pain. But here, in the stillness of the cavern, it returns like a ghost.
"You saw the interface, right?" Yusuf's voice is calm, almost too calm. His eyes, glassy and fever-bright, rest on mine. "Only someone authorized by the Administrator can enter this dungeon unscathed at your level."
I don't answer.
"So," he presses, leaning forward, "you must be marked by the Administrator."
I tense. "Maybe I am," I say quietly. "But that's not why I sought you out."
His grin widens like a crack in broken porcelain.
"I came because I need you to teach me Divine Resistance."
He slams his palm on the armrest, eyes gleaming.
"You must be marked! No one else could have found me, let alone walked these halls and lived. The Administrator... maybe he hasn't abandoned us after all."
He rises from his chair, begins to pace. Words tumble from him like a dam broken.
"You want to fight the gods?" His laughter rings out, shrill and raw. "Good. GOOD. You should. Gods, pah! They crave worship, but give nothing. Parasites! Draining essence from the world just to delay their rot."
He's trembling now, laughing with tears in his eyes. "You want Divine Resistance? That's the first nail in the coffin! Ha! You're already walking the path. The gods will see it. They'll feel the change, oh yes, they will."
"I just want to learn," I say. "Not rant."
But he ignores me.
"I could have crushed them," he whispers, barely audible now. "Tier Eight. That's all it takes. Just Tier Eight, and they become ants... crawling ants. But I took the oath. I swore I wouldn't,because I thought there was still hope..."
He breaks off, eyes cloudy, lost in a memory soaked in blood and regret.
"Yusuf," I interrupt, more forcefully now. "Can you teach me Divine Resistance or not?"
His eyes snap back into focus.
"Yes," he says, voice suddenly low, reverent. "Yes. It's his will. The Administrator sent you. I was told to wait, and mold the one who would end their tyranny. And now you're here."
He steps forward, and for the first time, his madness fades to solemnity.
"I will teach you," he says.
"Not now," Yusuf says, his voice suddenly calmer, steadier-like stone cooled after the heat of a forge. "I need to prepare the catalysts. Meet me tomorrow. I will mold you into someone who will change the world."
He doesn't ask. He commands. And something in me knows, this isn't bluster. He means it.
I stare at him for a long moment, the firelight flickering in his eyes like twin stars from a dying galaxy. "So… you really are a Tier 8 being."
He doesn't boast. Doesn't smirk.
"Yes," he answers simply. "But it doesn't matter what tier I am. I am bound by the promises of old." His eyes cloud over, shadows passing across them like clouds over a drowned moon. "I cannot change this world, not directly. All I can do is witness the rot... and feel it eat away at the bones of what was once beautiful."
Then he straightens, and the mad glint in his eye sharpens into a razor's edge.
"Go back. Rest. Come here at this time tomorrow." His hand rises, not hurried, not forced, and he traces something in the air. A motion smooth as breath, yet the very air shivers in response. Mana twists unnaturally, bending like it's afraid to disobey.
No words.
No chant.
Only intent.
And then,
The world folds.
In the span of a heartbeat, the cavern, the echoes, even Yusuf vanish like a dream at sunrise. I blink once, and I'm back. In my bed.
The blankets are cool beneath me. The room is dark, save for the soft reddish glow of moonlight slipping through the mountain crests, casting long shadows across the stone floor. It tries to spills through the window like liquid memory, painting the world in blood and silence.
My heart still races.
My shoulder still aches.
But everything else feels unreal, like a ghost pressed against the edge of sleep.
Had it really happened?
Or was it all a hallucination wrapped in pain and secrets?
Then I see the faint smear of dirt across my boot, the same boot I wore into the slums.
And I know.
It wasn't a dream.
And tomorrow, I'll return to the man who claims gods are insects... and promises to teach me how to kill them.
After dinner, I lie in bed, eyes tracing the cracks in the ceiling like constellations of worry. Tomorrow looms heavy in my chest, a storm of promises and trials. The duel at dawn. Training with the knights. Then again with the mage. And beneath it all, the hidden truth of Yusuf and the path he claims will lead me to reshape the world. I don't know how I'll endure it all, how I'll keep pace with the demands of gods, men, and madmen alike. But maybe that's the point. To do what should be impossible. To make the unachievable my new foundation. Because if I don't, then all of this, all of me, will be for nothing.