GURGLE. GURGLE. GURGLE

Something spilled out, made of both liquid and gas. A shifting mass of colors pooled across the floor like a colossal beast's disremembered remains. At the same time, it also seemed like a smoke that slithered with a will of its own. As the ooze spread, the Ashen Knight shuddered.

The impossible, unthinkable, had wavered.

SKRRRK.

Steel scraped the void. The knight swung without hesitation, crimson aura bursting from his blade. His strike wasn't aimed at us or the sludge, but empty air. Then, he vanished into the cut he'd made. A ripple lingered where he disappeared.

"Did it just run away?" Naneow's voice cracked.

It looked that way. The titan puppets breaking free earlier, was it his doing, or this thing's? The sigil, the barrier of titans, the Ashen Knight's apparition—they could all be on the same side. And yet, even he had fled.

Plop. Plop...

Mud fell from nowhere.

GURGLE...

"You... broke... it..."

The voice seeped into my skull. It was neither words nor language, but pure intent, pressed raw against the mind.

"What the hell..." Naneow muttered, scythe tightening in her grip.

"A slime?" she whispered. "No... too big... that isn't..."

"You have... come... well."

The air burned crimson with foreboding.

I tore Isaac free from the inventory. "Isaac..."

"Why drag me out now? I can't do anything right now. Maybe if I can sacrifice that..." The crow slowly stopped as its beak pointed at Naneow. "What... is that...?"

The crow froze mid-sentence. Its beak shut. Its black eyes, always darting, locked and trembled. The chatterer, the cynic, the schemer had been rendered speechless. The pressure was suffocating.

Gurgle... Gurgle...

"Naneow..." Thankfully, the crow broke the silence. He stood still. "Shoot it. I'll bind the bullet."

Naneow nodded once. She readied her scythe as rest, shaft as barrel.

CH-CHAK.

A silver round slid into place.

"Burn. Spread. Freeze."

Was it because he was out of energy? Even with only three curses stacked, his feathers paled white with strain.

BANG!

The shot pierced at a speed impossible to dodge, forming a mass, and passed through. The cursed round spun then flared, before dissipating like smoke. Regardless, it left neither wound nor mark.

KRAKABOOM!

The bullet exploded against the cavern wall instead. Ten meters gouged, scorched, and frozen.

"This..."

The same distortion as when the Ashen Knight struck at me. Untouchable. Untouching.

"At last... we..."

The ooze swelled. Blue, green, crimson. Shifting every time my eyes dared focus. Rotten, slithering filth, yet alive with an unbearable will to persist.

"We... must... together..."

Clank. Clank. Clank...

The sound of bullets being fired and shell casings flying felt very distant. It was as if only I and that sticky mucus before me existed.

"We are... one... I must... become... eternally... great..."

The mud didn't even react to Naneow and Isaac's attacks. The oozing slime slowly gathered together.

Whoosh!

Blue and red curses layered over the bullets in rapid succession. The crow's feathers had turned half white from the strain, yet nothing changed. The clumped mass that had gathered ignored everything and slithered toward me.

Naneow looked at me and shouted, "Do you remember that book by Kevin Ashton? The one about the monster hiding underground? It looks just like that...!"

It had to be, yet I could not recall it. Perhaps because the ever-growing mud felt disturbingly familiar, I failed to recognize it as something to be feared. Like the thing described in Ashton's book. I recalled the illustration of the creature absorbing silvery Lurium in a city. Only then did clarity snap into me.

As the mud drew closer, threatening to swallow me whole, I felt as though everything would collapse.

"Run... you guys have to run first...!"

Naneow grabbed my shoulders and shook me violently. "What are you saying? What about you?"

Clatter.

The writhing mud, as if hatching into form, turned its sticky gaze upon her.

"Don't... worry... about me, Naneow. Hurry... run. I beg you."

When she hesitated, I shouted,"You can't... help!"

Even with my inventory, I knew I could not protect them. Perhaps because I poured all my sincerity into that cry, Naneow faltered and stepped back.

The crow beside her beat its wings and stared blankly at the mass. "It doesn't stop. No... There's no thread. No thread... this reaction is only possible without threads. It's unaffected by both beginning and end. Even the goddesses who watch the threads could not..."

"You, fall back too...!"

Then it happened. Mud dripping from empty air swelled and pulsed into a grotesque mound. Even the air and time itself seemed caught within it.

I walked toward it, as though entranced. Sprouts pushed from me. Like shoots breaking from the cracked stump of a tree that had endured the winter. Like red magnolia blossoms blooming over a grave. Like hibiscus sprouting fresh green on a plateau buried in frost storms.

My entire being itched in chaos. Viscous mud erupted from me as if my flesh were a gateway to another space. The mud clung to hollow bones and swelled them larger.

My mind drifted both far and near. I could no longer judge distance. As the mud ballooned, memories thrashed violently. New fragments latched onto my thoughts as though they had always been there.

It felt like a blade of grass meant to be devoured by the world, and beyond it, I saw the countless intersecting landscapes. The moats and abysses, the web of restrained yet conflicting principles. This was infinity, the thread that conceals and hides. I remembered myself moving along those threads, hunting.

Suddenly, hunger gnawed at me.

"..."

Something to drink lay nearby. All Lurium belonged to me. I had to steal what spun in the wrong place and fill my belly. When I fixed my eyes on the prey holding a sickle, thick saliva pooled in my mouth. Prey that had lived three hundred years. If I sucked its veins dry, such delicacy it would be!

I reached to crush it. Just then, a worthless crow, who'd glimpsed fragments of truth, moved its beak as if to speak.

The surge of electrifying memories drowned everything out.

***

"..."

The wind howled. It was the thick, bloody wailing of corpses piled upon a black mountain. No stars shone. Had they even been devoured by the Apostles, or had they simply not yet arrived?

It was always the same. In the dark, humans were eaten, cut, skinned, unable even to scream properly. If starlight raced toward us, how long would we have to wait for it to arrive? The king never waited. A world unstained by light became sharper still.

From within the pack, a prophet with severed limbs whispered, "My king..."

She had traded her prophecy for ruined nerves, leaving her with no sense but a cold one. The world would always be cold, and cold again.

"There are many enemies," she said.

The boy carrying her flinched. He was mute.

The king echoed her words, murmuring, "Many."

A thrill rose again at his fingertips. The endless hunt gave not despair, but an unfathomable ecstasy. Countless cities had fallen. Millions of humans had been bred like cattle. Standing upon a hill, the king looked down on the broken world.

He murmured inaudibly again, "Many."

No matter how many enemies were slain, they never ended. The blood-wind brushing his outstretched hand felt bright and refreshing. Only the prophet could read his heart. She closed her eyes in the cold.

Four thousand humans gathered behind him, carrying not weapons but hope. Only the king could fight the Apostles. A hero upon the throne. A solitary king, noble, inevitable from the beginning.

He sought neither starlight, nor permission from the gods. He was a rift born alone. Those thousands who followed were not even judges or spectators. Trinkets, barred from the gateways of the world, unable even to flee. Extras upon the stage, meant only to witness, preserve, praise, and applaud.

The prophet shivered at an unyielding cold she could never escape. Frost seeped through what little remained of her ears. Sound reached her faintly.

"My king, the kind of enemy is..."

Her words came with difficulty. Now, it would begin. Pleasure enough to bring tears. An ecstasy unimaginable until now.

Caw! Caw!

A snow-white crow cried out sharply as it circled.

Caw! Caw!

Among the pitch-black mountains, a lone, bleached-white crow locked eyes with the king and shrieked desperately. Each time it cried, its beak split wider.

Slowly, the king raised his head and gazed upon the bothersome bird. "How dare you look at me?"

"My king...?"

The surrounding humans stared at him in confusion. Just as the beak threatened to split apart, the king stretched a bare hand toward the screaming crow. Darkness warped, sending out waves.

***

I stopped moving.

"You...? Ghhk... kuhluk... are you coming to your senses?"

The hand gripping Naneow's neck slackened, and the flood of memories began to separate.

Gurgle... Gurgle...

The mud writhed helplessly in the air, unable to cling to me.

"Wh... y...?"

Bzzt...!

[61.71%...]

[Assi...]

[59.95%...]

[Assimilation... in...]

[Assimilation Rate... is too...]

[You have awakened from the dream.]

[The Assimilation Rate is too low.]

[The Assimilation has been rejected.]

"Foo... lish..."

The air warped.

The crow's voice pierced the haze. "Toward it!"

Its feathers had grown so pale they seemed like mist. Its beak split into dozens of thin strips, flapping loosely.

Isaac shouted, "Lead it toward the upper floor! Make it go wild if we have to! We'll drag out as much information as possible here!"

"Upstairs...?"