Ibaan's eyes widened as he saw the creature—completely different from every abomination he had faced so far. It looked more like a small forest spirit than anything twisted or hostile. It felt as if the world inside the walls and the world beyond them belonged to two different creations altogether.

The creature's purple eyes softened, its fur and feathers shifting like a living cloak. Calmly, it sat down without showing even a hint of aggression, which Ibaan found strange. But his heart melted a little; it looked so fresh and gentle that he almost wanted to keep it. The creature felt harmless—safe and even.

And Ibaan had no intention to fight. He only stared into its purple eyes, feeling a rare moment of peace settle over him.

He stepped down the stairs, and as his foot touched the soft green ground, it truly felt like he had crossed into another world.

"Huh?" He glanced back at the branch where the small creature had been—but it was already gone, without a single trace.

Yet Ibaan kept walking without reacting, the Utopian's Duke faintly shimmering as he turned it in his hand.

Then he spotted it—another creature, nothing like the gentle one from before. This one crouched beside the bushes, half-hidden in the shadows, its presence so strange and unpleasant that Ibaan's lips curled into a thin smirk.

Its body was heavy and beast-like, covered in dark, sagging skin. But its long, bent neck ended in a twisted face that looked almost human—glowing eyes, sharp fangs, and curved horns. Wet strands hung from its head like rotting hair. It stayed low to the ground as if dragging its own weight across a swamp, blue skulls scattered around its feet.

It opened its mouth, thick saliva dripping between its long teeth.

For a moment it was silent—and then it let out a shriek so loud, creepy, and unbearable that it cut through the entire forest.

Ibaan's face twisted at once into pure disgust. The soft, peaceful feeling from before vanished, replaced by dread and a sick heaviness rising up his throat, as if the whole world had tilted. His ears throbbed from the creature's awful roar, sharp enough to make his skin crawl.

Without hesitation, he summoned the Saint of Dusk mask. Shadows curled out like a serpent and formed over his face, the black surface veined with dim grey lines that contrasted with the mask's amber eyes. The single horn on the left jutted out like a dark spike.

His vision split and sharpened.

Everything slowed.

Leaves drifting from a blooming tree fell as if time itself had stretched apart—what took seconds in reality felt like minutes through his enhanced sight.

He stared at the terrible creature, its body still trembling from the shriek, its glowing eyes locked on him. He was just about to charge when the air warped—two more of the same horror slipped out from the bushes beside it. In the blink of an eye, all three shifted positions, and the two newcomers appeared on the branches of the blooming tree above, moving faster than anything he had seen so far.

Even with the Saint of Dusk mask slowing the world in his eyes, their speed cut straight through his sight. He couldn't track them. Not even a blur.

His heart hammered hard, and a cold shiver crept down his back.

He had no choice left. He had to use the true gaze.

But before Ibaan could even summon it, the creature standing in the centre simply vanished—gone without a trace.

Ibaan's eyes widened beneath the mask, straining to follow even a hint of movementbut the creature was simply too fast.

In the next instant, its twisted, human-like head appeared right beside his own.

He didn't even get the chance to react.

A crushing force smashed into his face and skull, metal-hard bone grinding against the mask, pushing deep enough to slice his skin. The blow shot through his head and spine like a hammer from the heavens.

Ibaan was flung backward and slammed into the wall behind him, hard enough to crack it open. Dust burst out in all directions as a hole formed in the stone, and his body dropped to the ground immediately after.

Under the mask—fearsome to humans but useless against monsters like these—his face was soaked in red. Fresh blood streamed down, slipping through the tiny gap under his chin.

Cough! Cough! Cough!

'damn… the… fucking… hell…' he cursed inwardly, each word breaking apart as pain ripped through every part of him.

Coug—

His cough never finished.

Another brutal force smashed into him from below, launching him straight off the ground. His body shot upward in a blur, rising through the air in seconds.

His vision shook as he flew high above the land—higher than the tree tops, higher than anything he had ever reached. From up there he saw a forest that spread endlessly in every direction, a sea of towering trees.

And far at the edge of his blurred sight… another massive wall rose into the sky, perfectly circling the first one he had seen. Near that distant wall, a crimson tower climbed upward, almost matching the wall's height as if the two were locked in competition. And only a few kilometres away stood the nearer tower—the same one he'd seen from the gate.

Blood pooled in his eyes, turning the world into streaks of red and shadow.

And in those quiet last moments before he lost control of his senses, one thought slipped out from the deepest corner of his soul—an old, buried memory he never wanted to recall—yet it surfaced on its own.

'Aaah! Fuck it… I'm dead. Master, I'm dead. I couldn't love more, I couldn't even find her. I couldn't protect her. I'm sorry. At—'

Before the last name in his mind could form, his body vanished from the sky.

An another unseen blow slammed into him, hurling him straight down. He crashed into the ground with such force that the lanc split, leaving a deep, uneven hole. The impact bounced him back into the air like a broken doll.

His spine snapped. His bones shattered. Every part of him crumbled into pieces inside his own skin.

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