"What is it?" Satou asked, already on alert. His hand had moved to his blade, and he could feel [Nightmare Sight] activating involuntarily as his combat instincts engaged.

Shadow stepped out of the carriage with surprising grace despite their injury, landing lightly on the ground. They moved forward several paces, examining the landscape with what seemed like intense focus despite the hood concealing their face.

"This spot," Shadow said, gesturing at the seemingly empty air in front of them. "This is one of the Illusion Forest's most dangerous zones. People call it the Eternal Loop—travelers who enter here become trapped in recursive time, experiencing the same moments over and over until they die of thirst or starvation or simply lose their minds."

Freda, now awake and leaning against the carriage doorway for support, looked at the area with her mage-trained eyes. She extended her magical senses, trying to detect the enchantments Shadow was describing. "I don't see any magical arrays or active spells. How can you tell?"

"Because I've been here before," Shadow replied, that mysterious voice carrying a weight of memory. "Three years ago, during my second attempt to reach Merc Assault's fortress. I was trapped in the loop for what felt like months but was only three days in real time. I learned to recognize the signs—the way space folds back on itself, the temporal inconsistencies, the sensation of déjà vu that never quite resolves."

Shadow moved their hands in a complex gesture, fingers forming patterns that seemed to leave trails in the air like phosphorescence in water. Then Shadow began speaking—not in any language Satou recognized, but in something older and more primal. The words had weight to them, presence, as if they were physically pushing against reality itself.

The syllables were harsh and beautiful simultaneously, carrying harmonics that shouldn't be possible from a human throat. They resonated not just in the air but in Satou's bones, in his very essence. It was like listening to the universe speak its own true name.

Freda gasped, her scholarly mind immediately trying to parse what she was hearing. "That's... that's not any magical language I know. Not Ancient Draconic, not Primordial Speech, not even the Demon Tongue or the Language of Creation. What is that?"

Shadow didn't answer, too focused on the incantation. Their hands moved faster, tracing symbols in the air that glowed with silver light that seemed to exist on multiple planes simultaneously. The strange words continued, building in intensity and complexity, each syllable layering upon the previous ones to create a tapestry of sound that made reality itself tremble.

Then reality broke.

There was no other way to describe it. One moment they were standing in a twilight forest with wrong-colored trees and an uncertain sky. The next moment, space itself seemed to shatter like glass struck with a hammer, revealing something that had been hidden underneath—or perhaps revealing the truth that had always been there but concealed by layers upon layers of illusion.

The trees vanished like smoke dispersing in wind. The sky changed from its uncertain twilight to a proper darkness lit by a blood-red moon that hung too large in the sky. The ground beneath their feet shifted from packed earth to worked stone—black basalt carved with runes that pulsed with malevolent energy.

And suddenly, they were standing at the base of a massive fortress that simply hadn't been there a moment before.

The fortress was a nightmare made manifest in stone and shadow. Built from black volcanic rock that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, it rose like a twisted fang from the landscape. Towers spiraled at impossible angles, connected by bridges that defied gravity and conventional geometry. Windows glowed with sickly red light, like infected wounds in the structure's flesh. Gargoyles perched on every corner, their stone faces carved into expressions of such profound malevolence that looking at them too long made Satou's skin crawl.

The central keep rose at least two hundred feet into the air, its pinnacle disappearing into low-hanging clouds that roiled with unnatural energy. Walls thick enough to withstand siege engines surrounded the entire complex, and Satou could see murder holes, arrow slits, and what looked like magical artillery positions built into the fortifications.

This wasn't just a fortress. This was a monument to power and cruelty, built over centuries by someone who wanted the world to know they were dangerous.

And surrounding them—materializing from the now-revealed reality like actors stepping onto a stage—were figures. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.

All of them wore the same distinctive garb that made Satou's blood run cold with recognition: black robes with deep hoods that concealed their faces in impenetrable shadow, ceremonial armor pieces that bore symbols of nightmare and terror etched into the metal, weapons that gleamed with dark enchantments that made the air around them seem to warp. They stood in perfect formation, creating a ring around Satou's party that extended at least fifty meters in every direction.

Satou's blood turned to ice as recognition slammed into him like a physical blow.

He knew these robes. He'd seen them before, burned into his memory during those hours of torture in the nightmare realm. During the endless agony, he'd caught glimpses of Merc Assault's servants moving through the shadows of that terrible place—attending to their master, maintaining the nightmare constructs that had tormented him, whispering encouragement to their lord as he systematically tried to break Satou's mind.

These were Merc Assault's people. His cult. His army. The servants who'd enabled and supported the monster who'd tortured him.

And they'd walked directly into the middle of them.\

The carriage driver's hands tightened on the reins, the demon horses sensing the sudden tension and danger. Grimnir and Kelvin were already moving, positioning themselves defensively. Urgot struggled to his feet despite his injuries, weapon in hand. Freda's exhausted face hardened with determination as she began preparing what magic she could manage.

For a single frozen moment that felt like it lasted an eternity, nobody moved. The robed figures simply stood there, silent and still as statues carved from darkness itself. Satou's party was clustered near the carriage, surrounded on all sides by hostile forces that outnumbered them at least ten to one.

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