His fists pumled the mirrors—one after another—shattering them into glimring fragnts that danced like dying stars in the void.
But no matter how many he destroyed, more appeared. Each one ca with a new scene, a new truth, a new mockery.
A barrage of lives he never lived.
A montage of fates that all wore his face.
In one, he was a white-haired young man, radiant and righteous, standing tall against a behemoth—fighting for the world as its beloved hero. Crowds cheered. His sword glead with virtue.
But the scene twisted. Shifted.
The sa "hero" stood over the butchered corpses of his party, hands soaked in their blood. Eyes dead. A sinister contract etched into his skin, demonic runes glowing.
Another mirror ford.
An orphan this ti—Cassius, ragged and thin, rummaging through trash for scraps. Desperate. Alone.
He found a loaf of bread.
But it wasn't his.
A child held it first.
Cassius slit the child's throat without hesitation.
Another flash.
A peaceful life—a warm, sunlit ho. Laughter. A wife and two children. Mia, alive and safe, sitting by the window with a book.
Perfect.
But then the lights dimd.
Screams echoed.
Blood spilled across dinner plates as masked figures invaded, enemies drawn not to so noble man—but to a criminal who had been hiding in plain sight. Cassius, the loving father, had been the architect of dozens of underground cris. This was his retribution.
Scene after scene.
Life after life.
And in every path, whether through pain or peace, love or loss, the result was always the sa—
He turned dark.
A killer.
A traitor.
A monster.
Each version of him committed cris. So for survival. Others for gain. So simply... because they could.
Criminal.
Sadistic.
Psychopathic.
He wasn't always caught. But the rot was always there—festering behind the eyes.
Cassius's hands trembled, his breaths uneven. Yet he stood unmoving amid the endless storm of images.
And then—
CRACK.
Every mirror shattered. All at once.
A storm of silver shards spun through the air like a cyclone of judgnt. He shielded his face instinctively, body tensing—expecting a monster to descend from the shadows of his exposed soul.
But nothing ca.
No enemy. No creature.
Only laughter.
Hundreds of voices. Layered over each other. Dissonant. Mocking.
It echoed all around him.
Each one said the sa things—whispers of rot that crawled under the skin.
"You are pretending!!"
"You can't hide your real self."
"You don't love Mia."
"You don't love anyone."
"You are a disgrace to humanity."
"You should have just died."
"You are selfish."
"You are sadistic."
"You're not even human. Just a stain in flesh."
The cacophony grew louder. Accusations piling one atop the other, like bricks in a tomb.
Cassius's body shook.
He gripped his head, clutching at his hair so hard it felt like he might tear it out—desperate to rip away the voices, the truths, the damned versions of himself they spat into existence.
But he didn't break.
He didn't collapse.
Instead—
He laughed.
A deep, slow, and mad laughter. It rose from his gut like bile, then erupted from his mouth like wildfire.
It echoed across the void—louder than the taunts, louder than the lies, louder than the truth.
A laugh that didn't care anymore.
Mocking them back. Mocking the world. Mocking himself.
"You think I didn't know?" he spat between breaths, his grin unhinged. "You think I didn't see what I am?"
He looked up, eyes wild and radiant.
"I'm everything you said. And worse."
"But you made one mistake—"
The shadows pulsed.
His voice turned sharp. Controlled. Unfathomably cold.
"You thought I was ashad of it."
With a snap of his fingers, lightning danced across his arms, twisting with that dark, empty force he still couldn't na. The fusion of storm and silence.
His fists clenched.
The ground beneath him cracked from sheer pressure.
"I'm not pretending," he growled.
And then, as if the world itself feared him in that mont, the darkness fell silent. The laughter ceased. The illusions scattered like ash.
A single line blinked before him:
« Floor 8 Cleared – Congratulations. You survived yourself. »
Cassius stood alone, breathing slowly. His chest rising and falling in rhythmic, deliberate patterns.
His smile faded.
But the madness lingered—quiet now, but not gone.
Never gone.
He cracked his knuckles.
"Next floor," he muttered, "bring sothing real."
And he stepped forward—into the next nightmare.
...
« Floor 9 »
« Objective: Defeat the Monsters »
Cassius stumbled slightly as his feet t solid ground, the transition between floors jarring as always. He inhaled sharply—sulfur, tal, rot—the floor stank like death marinated in ti.
A suffocating darkness enveloped him. It wasn't just absence of light—it was weight. Thick, sentient. The kind of black that made you question if you still had eyes.
He stood still, chest heaving, blood pounding through his ears louder than the silence. Every part of him scread. His limbs throbbed with overexertion, skin torn in places, and a migraine carved daggers behind his skull.
Nausea twisted in his gut like a living thing.
But he didn't vomit.
He didn't waver.
Because beneath the pain, beneath the weariness—sothing stirred.
Sothing raw.
Enjoynt.
Not from triumph or pride, but from the violence itself. From the surrender. From peeling off the mask of morality and embracing the primal, blood-drenched self that laughed in the face of pain.
He wasn't standing just because of Mia anymore.
He was standing because he liked it.
This state. This madness. The brutal honesty of it.
No expectations.
No pretending.
Just him, the enemy, and the slaughter in between.
A sharp roar tore through the darkness, followed by a blur of movent. Sothing large, fast, and furious swiped at him with a heavy claw that whistled through the air.
Cassius moved on instinct, ducking low.
His body, battered as it was, obeyed without hesitation. He pivoted, used the montum, and kicked back hard.
His heel slamd into sothing solid—dense, thickly furred. The impact sent the creature sprawling backward, crashing into a wall with a dull thud and a bone-deep growl.
Cassius didn't wait.
He steadied himself, took in a breath laced with copper and smoke, then muttered, "[Lightning]."
Crack.
Athyst lightning erupted from his body, violent and radiant, wrapping around him in serpentine arcs. The oppressive darkness recoiled, revealing glimpses of the beast.
Its hulking fra was covered in matted, brown fur—dense like carpet and glistening with filth. It had the massive bulk of a bear, but its face was avian—a grotesque hybrid with an owl's hooked beak and enormous, intelligent eyes that glead with predatory intent.
Above its head floated the identifier:
« Owlbear »
« Rank: ★★ »
« Drop: Brown Fur »
The creature snarled, undeterred. Blood dripped from its cracked beak, but its legs tensed, readying for another charge.
Cassius narrowed his eyes.
"I hit it full force... and it's still standing?"
His lips curled into a grin.
"Good."
The owlbear launched forward with surprising speed, its jaws open wide—revealing rows of small, jagged teeth. Its roar echoed like the screech of a banshee as it leapt.
Cassius didn't flinch.
He kicked off the ground, launching into the air. Ti slowed for a heartbeat. His body twisted mid-flight, and with the full force of gravity and lightning combined, he spun and slamd his foot into the owlbear's face.
BOOM.
The impact was cataclysmic. Lightning detonated across the creature's head, lting fur, flesh, and bone in a spectacular burst of athyst sparks.
Its skull exploded, gore splattering the walls—and Cassius.
He landed in a crouch, blood dripping from his chin, his violet eyes glowing.
The owlbear collapsed in a twitching heap.
Cassius didn't even wipe the blood from his face. He didn't need to.
Because now, the hunt had begun.
More eyes blinked in the darkness.
More low growls.
Dozens.
They surged forward, emboldened by rage and hunger. But to them, all they could register was a blur—a radiant phantom cloaked in lightning and death.
Cassius moved like wrath incarnate.
One by one, they died.
Before they could swing, he was there.
Before they could roar, they were silenced.
His fists struck with thunder, his feet shattered ribs, his lightning burned through armor-like fur as if it were paper.
Claws slashed, but never hit. Beaks snapped, but caught only air.
All they saw—just before death—was a ghost wreathed in violet fire. A storm, unfeeling and untethered.
A reaper wearing a mortal shape.
The battle didn't last long.
It couldn't.
Because there was nothing left to resist.
Only a pile of twitching corpses and the scent of burnt fur.
And standing atop them all, Cassius, his chest rising and falling, his head tilted to the side—listening for more.
But there were no more.
The floor was silent once again.
And the system acknowledged it.
« Floor 9 Cleared »
Cassius exhaled slowly, his body still glowing faintly with residual lightning.
There was a grin on his face again.
It didn't fade.
Not this ti.
He raised a hand to his chest, felt the wild thrum of his heartbeat, and whispered to himself—
"Let's go deeper."
And with that, the world shimred again as he was pulled into Floor 10.
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