At the highest point of the Hollowshade, above the tangled pillars and glowing caverns, there was a room few ever entered, a vast chamber of dark stone carved into the ceiling of the hollow itself.
Its floor was polished obsidian, and towering black drapes lined the walls like funeral banners.
In the center of the room stood On.
He wore a long black coat, buttoned to the neck, stitched with dark ornants that shimred faintly like onyx. His clothes were royal. The weight of nobility clung to him not with pride, but with judgnt.
His skin was pale against his long black hair, which spilled over his shoulders like wet ink. Heavy black eyes, half-lidded and unwavering, scanned the floor below him.
Eight figures knelt before him, heads bowed. All of them had black hair tied down and dusted with dirt and blood. Their clothes were torn. Their bodies trembled in silence.
Beside them stood Geroe, a thick-ard guard with a coarse beard and a deep, sand-worn voice.
"These are the newcors," Geroe said, bowing. "They also match the description of a whisper you gave us."
On didn’t move.
He stared down at the row of bodies like they were stones in a riverbed.
"...Look up," he said quietly.
The n remained frozen.
Geroe snarled and took a step forward. "He told you to look up!"
The eight raised their faces. Fear etched deep into their eyes. Cuts across skin. Teeth clenched. Their expressions all mirrored the sa silent question: Why are we here?
On’s gaze swept across them, unhurried, unreadable.
Then, he sighed. Softly. Almost in pity.
"None."
Geroe hesitated. "None, sir?"
On’s face barely shifted. "That one," he pointed with a slight tilt of his chin, "his hair is brown."
Geroe blinked, looking at the man in question. "...my apologies, seems like he’s just dirty, my Lord."
"Doesn’t matter." On’s voice was cold as stone. "I told you I’m looking for a soone with black hair, and a scar on their face."
Geroe let out an awkward breath. "Apologies."
On turned his back on them and began walking toward the wide window behind him, overlooking the hollow below.
"Get them out of my sight."
"Yes, my Lord," Geroe said, bowing again.
Then paused. "What should we do with them?"
On didn’t answer right away.
"...Where are they from?"
Geroe straightened. "Seven of them are from Sanatria. One—" he nodded toward the man with the dirty brown-black hair "—is from Sarodenly."
On stopped walking. His gaze darkened slightly.
"We don’t need more newcors." There was a pause. "Send those from Sanatria in the labyrinth, kill the one from Sarodenly."
A few of the kneeling n flinched in shock. The man in question scrambled forward. "Wait! What are you saying?! We’re from the sa land!"
On slowly turned to face him, one hand resting calmly on the hilt of a thin blade at his side.
"That’s exactly why I’m choosing you," he said.
"Labyrinth will give you a slow and painful death. This is rcy."
Before the man could speak again, On moved.
It was fast, clean, a single flash of silver that carved a deep red line across the man’s throat. The man gasped. Then collapsed to the floor, twitching, choking on his own blood. The others scread.
"Please, don’t send us back in there!"
"We’ll serve, anything but the labyrinth!"
On stepped over the dying body and walked past the others, his boots silent. He didn’t look at them. He didn’t speak again.
And the guard, Geroe, with an apologetic grimace, gave a small nod.
"Then i shall take them to labyrinth my lord."
One of the n suddenly started coughing. At first, no one reacted. The sound was thick and heavy, as if torn from the lungs of sothing already half-rotten.
Another cough followed, wet, strained, and this ti, On’s eyes narrowed.
"Stop Geroe," he said.
They all halted. One of the n clutched his chest and swayed slightly. His skin had turned pale, almost ashen, and his breath ca in gasps that rasped like torn fabric. On stepped closer, eyes sharp.
"Take off his jacket."
Geroe moved without question. With a swift pull, the prisoner’s filthy coat was yanked open, and beneath it, horror blood.
Pale fungal stalks sprouted along his ribcage, clustered like tumors, their surfaces glistening with translucent ooze.
Veins of sickly green pulsed between the stems, disappearing into his skin. Small, twitching mushroom-like growths wriggled slightly, as if sensing the air.
Geroe stumbled back with a curse, throwing up his shield with practiced instinct. On took a single, quiet step in retreat, gaze fixed on the man whose body had beco a nest.
Then the man scread, high and hoarse, and his chest burst apart. Organs and mold exploded in all directions, a wave of blood-soaked spores and twisting roots.
Geroe blocked the worst of it with his shield, the rest splattering the walls in sick steam.
On stepped back just in ti, untouched, but his expression grew grim.
The other prisoners began to convulse. Their eyes widened, rolled back, then twitched in different directions as if possessed.
One by one, they fell to their knees, spasming violently. From the puddles of gore, fungal tentacles slithered toward them, faster than vines, guided by instinct, and began to thread through their skin.
Their bodies twisted. Bones snapped. Spines bent the wrong way. The fungal growth stitched them together, limbs fusing, skin lting into one another, until the line between man and monster blurred completely.
The screaming grew worse, layered, echoing from multiple throats all at once.
Geroe gritted his teeth as he watched the fusion unfold.
"Damn it... One of them was already infected."
He glanced toward On, who stood motionless at the far end of the hall, fingers tight around the hilt of his blade.
"This is bad. Go, send the signal. I’ll hold this thing until backup gets here."
On didn’t argue. Without a word, he turned and ran, his silhouette disappearing down the black corridor like a whisper fading in smoke.
Behind him, the creature rose.
What had once been seven n now stood as a single grotesque figure, towering and jagged, its form composed of stretched skin, broken limbs, and twitching fungal mass.
Multiple arms flailed at uneven angles, so far too long, others ending in stumps still dripping with torn nerve tissue. Its legs bent inward, then outward, bones clicking in unnatural rhythm as it shifted its weight.
From its torso erged a grotesque bloom, eight human heads twisted together in a circular pattern, faces crushed and stretched around a central gaping mouth.
Countless jagged teeth, were human in shape, but sharpened and lengthened unnaturally. Every one of them had been taken from the n it had just consud.
The mouth opened. A sound poured from it, not a roar, but a scream. A terrible, high-pitched scream, filled with pain and madness, as if the creature still rembered what it once was.
Geroe raised his shield and braced himself, sweat dripping down his brow, breath steady but tight.
"Alright then," he muttered. "Bring it on, you ugly bastard."
On didn’t waste another second. The monstrous shriek still echoed behind him, and spores were already spreading into the corridors like a plague.
He turned sharply, ran to the far end of the throne room, and leapt straight through the tall arched window, glass shattering around him in a rain of shards.
He didn’t fall.
He landed on the curved side of a black stone pillar just outside the upper chamber, his boots scraping the polished surface. With practiced ease, he bent his knees and used the montum to slide down its length, hands grazing the pillar to control his speed.
The massive column groaned under his weight as he descended, but On moved like water, leaping from one ledge to another, bouncing between stone fixtures, before landing in a crouch at the base of the village.
The mont his boots touched the ground, nearby guards turned.
"It’s On, what’s he doing down here?"
On halted as he turned towards villagers.
"Code Black."
The effect was imdiate.
The guards’ faces drained of color. One of them cursed and took off running, while another shouted commands at the top of his lungs. "Everyone inside! Code Black! Seal the village!"
The entire lower village sprang to life with panic. Doors slamd shut. tal beams were lowered over doorways.
Hidden floor hatches opened and families crawled inside like rats fleeing rain. Bulbs of light dimd, then flickered red. Alarm bells rang, dull and low.
Only those with weapons remained above ground, Defenders and a few Builders with combat enhancents. They gathered at key points, eyes scanning the building, unsure what exactly had triggered the call.
On, anwhile, broke off into a run, his coat billowing behind him, boots skimming over stone as he sprinted toward the far edge of the village. But before he could get far, a voice cut through the chaos.
"What’s going on?"
He skidded to a stop and turned his head slightly.
Behind him stood a young man, tall, confident, and oddly out of place in the panic. He wore a coat identical to On’s, the sa sharp cut and layered black fabric, but his was trimd with blue ornants that shimred like glass.
His hair was a striking golden blonde, slicked back loosely, and his eyes were bright sky blue.
"Enren," On muttered.
Or rather, the body Enren controlled.
Enren Rodelyan, high-ranking Neba user from Sarodenly, son of Monarch Magma Rodelyan.
He couldn’t enter the trial himself. His Neba burned bright yellow, far too powerful to match the green that bound others to the Trial Of Truth.
But Enren had found a loophole. Using his ability, he had taken possession of soone else, a weaker host from Sarodenly, one whose green Neba allowed him entry.
Now that puppet stood before On, animated by a distant mind still seated sowhere in a royal chamber of Sarodenly far away.
On sighed.
"It’s bad," he said simply, walking past him. "One of the newcors was infected. If we don’t stop it now, we are all finished."
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