Reinhard flinched.
Not from fear—
But from the weight pressing down on him.
The air felt heavier in here than outside, like sothing was pressing down on him. But when he glanced at Yor, she looked perfectly fine, as if nothing was wrong.
"You okay, Yor?"
"Hm? Yeah... I am just taking it in." Yor muttered.
He fell silent. So it’s only affecting . But why not Yor unless it’s related to her Void abilities?
Yor sighed and stepped inside the mansion. He followed.
The first door they reached stood open and revealed a bedroom with white walls and white floors. Nothing else remained except the faint outline where a bed might have once pressed against the far wall. Yor stopped in the doorway and stared at the empty space for a long mont before speaking in a voice so soft it was barely more than a whisper.
It still sohow echoed.
"I used to dream here," she said softly. Her fingers touched the doorfra gently. "Every night I would lie in bed and imagine what I wanted to beco. And my grandparents would co inside to listen to each of them... We would stay up late talking about futures that felt so close, I could almost touch them."
Her smile was small and fond and sad all at once.
They moved to the next room. A dining hall that stretched impossibly long with space for a table that could have seated twenty people. It held nothing now except white emptiness and the ghost of als that would never be eaten again. Yor stood at the threshold, and her expression went neutral, like a mask sliding into place.
"My father sat there," she said, pointing to an empty space. "Mother beside him while I sat close with my grandparents... I rember sitting down while listening to my grandfather’s tales that would constantly get picked apart by my mother... Thinking back, they were ridiculous but still made all of us laugh." She paused. "It felt like the most wonderful thing in the world because we were together."
She turned away quickly.
The next room was a study with built-in shelves that held no books and a space near the window where a desk must have once stood. Yor paused longer here. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and her jaw tightened before she finally spoke.
"This is where I was supposed to plan everything," she whispered, staring at the empty window that showed only the twisted streets outside. "My education. My career. My future. My parents would sit with and help decide, guide toward the life they thought I should have."
Reinhard had been listening to every word and watching the way her expression shifted with each mory. But sowhere between the third and fourth room, he noticed sothing changing in his own body.
His legs felt heavier than they should have been. His breathing ca slightly harder, and a weight pressed down on his shoulders that grew stronger with each step deeper into the mansion. It felt like chains wrapped around his chest being slowly tightened, the air being pulled from his lungs and replaced with sothing thick and suffocating.
They climbed the stairs to the second floor.
More empty rooms waited, and Yor continued her tour through mories. Reinhard struggled to keep his feet moving forward through the invisible resistance that pushed against him with every breath.
Yor turned to look at him after they’d explored the sixth room. Her eyes widened. He was leaning against the wall for support, face slightly pale, breathing in shallow gasps.
"We should leave." She said quickly, moving to his side. "It might be the oppressive atmosphere, and we’ve been here too long already."
Reinhard chuckled, but it ca out strained. "Guess mansions aren’t my thing."
"Co on." She gestured toward the stairs. "Let’s get out of here."
He nodded and pushed off from the wall. The weight on his shoulders lessened slightly with each step toward the exit.
But Yor stopped suddenly at the top of the stairs. Her whole body went rigid. She was staring at a room they’d passed without entering because the door had been closed then.
It stood open now.
Another study, identical to the one downstairs, except this one had sothing different. Unlike the others, it had a painting hanging on the door showing three faces captured in perfect detail. They had wide smiles and bright eyes and the kind of joy, two parents and a daughter frozen in a mont of pure happiness.
Yor stared at the painting like she’d forgotten how to move or breathe. Her hand slowly rose toward the three smiling faces as if she could reach through ti and touch what she had lost.
The mansion shuddered.
Like it had heard her.
A tremor ran through the walls and floor that made everything shake. The white walls seed to curve inward slightly, as if the mansion was taking a breath and preparing to collapse around them.
Yor’s eyes widened. She jerked her hand back and shook her head hard.
The trembling grew stronger.
Reinhard grabbed her hand and pulled. "Run!"
They sprinted down the steps while the mansion groaned and shifted around them. Dust finally began falling from the ceiling in sheets, held frozen for who knew how long until now. The doors rattled in their fras, and the floor tilted slightly beneath their feet as they raced through the entrance hall.
They burst through the front doors and stumbled onto the stone path outside.
The shaking stopped instantly, making them pause. The two of them quickly turn around, and to their surprise, the mansion is still standing. Looking exactly as pristine and untouched as when they’d entered, giving no sign that it had just tried to fold in on itself monts before.
Reinhard bent over with his hands on his knees and gulped air. The suffocating weight had lifted entirely. "You okay?"
Yor nodded slowly, staring back at the mansion with an unreadable expression. "We should go et the others. The reason I wanted to co here was for this place, and now I’ve seen it."
She paused, but it lasted slightly too long.
"There’s no point in staying longer."
Reinhard straightened and looked at her carefully. "You sure?"
"Yes." Her voice was firm.
Yet even after saying that, they still stood for a mont.
Reinhard saw that Yor seed to be lost in thought, most likely recalling the painting of her parents she saw.
Then she turned around and began walking away. He followed behind her, both of them following the faint pull of magical connections through the streets.
It took them past Echoes whispering their phrases and Sentinels watching with eyeless gazes.
The walk brought them to a large open area where the buildings pulled back to create space. A cracked circular plaza stretched before them with intricate patterns carved into the stone.
Reinhard stepped onto the edge of the plaza.
The mont his boot touched the carved stone, the entire area began to tremble while the harmonic hum rose to a pitch that made his teeth ache.
The sound of shattering glass echoed across the ruins.
Nine forms materialized in the center of the plaza. They were made of sothing like shadowed glass that caught no light and reflected nothing, shaped into hounds with sleek bodies and razor-sharp edges where their limbs t the ground.
They stood perfectly still before turning their heads in perfect unison and locking onto Reinhard and Yor.
Yor sighed and drew her sword in one smooth motion. "We’ll need to take care of these pests first."
Reinhard drew his own blade and felt the familiar weight settle into his grip. A grin spread across his face. "It wouldn’t be a proper ruin without monsters."
The hounds rushed forward as one. Their glass bodies made no sound as they moved across the cracked stone, forms blurring.
The first one reached Reinhard and opened its mouth. A stream of grey flas poured out; it looked like fire but moved like smoke. He twisted to the side and let it pass. Then his sword ca up to et the hound’s next attack, but the creature phased out of existence for exactly two seconds before reappearing behind him, jaws open wide.
Reinhard had already moved.
He spun and brought his sword down in a clean arc that caught the hound mid-leap and shattered its glass body into fragnts. They dissolved before hitting the ground.
Yor rushed through the pack. Her sword cut lines through the air, never wasting a single motion on anything except killing strikes. Two hounds rushed her from opposite sides, and she stepped backward once, watching them collide where she’d been standing. Then her blade flashed twice. Both creatures fell apart in silence.
Another hound teleported in a short burst that should have put it directly at her back. But she was already turning. The small hop was easy to predict once you saw the pattern, and her sword t it the mont it materialized.
Reinhard fought three at once.
His blade slashed between their attacks, his feet carrying him past their flas and snapping jaws. They tried to surround him, and he let them. Then he exploded outward with strikes that ca too fast to follow and left nothing but glass dust in his wake.
Four hounds left.
Then two.
Then none.
The last creature dissolved into shadow and glass fragnts.
Reinhard and Yor stood in the center of the cracked plaza, breathing slightly harder but completely untouched. He sighed before noting the arrays and symbols close to them, ones he didn’t recognize. There were even cracks near them, like sothing tried to co up from below.
Reinhard lowered his sword. "Now, where are the others? They should have heard-"
The ground beneath their feet began shaking again. And this ti, the cracks in the plaza started glowing with purple light.
Then sothing beneath the plaza... moved.
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