A sharp crack tore through the corridor.

The sudden motion jolted the butterfly away, its wings scattering as it drifted upward and clung to the rim of a wall lamp. From there, it hovered, unseen, watching the scene below unfold.

A sturdy man stood behind her, whip still vibrating in his hand. Prisoner markings wrapped around his wrist, half-hidden beneath his sleeve, worn openly without fear.

"Old meat," he barked, voice coarse."Do you need a special invitation to work?"

The whip snapped again, cutting air close to her back.

"S–Sorry… sorry," the old woman begged."I'll come immediately."

She bent forward in haste.

The movement exposed the marking on his wrist more clearly as he leaned down. He grabbed her hair and yanked her upright, forcing a gasp from her throat, then shoved her toward the corridor leading deeper into the fortress.

Her walking stick slipped from her grasp and fell.

He hooked it with his foot.

The kick came down hard.

Wood cracked and split.

"You'll work without a third leg today," the prisoner said coldly.

On the stone floor nearby, her son lay on a stretcher. His body was stiff with pain, his eyes wide as he watched the humiliation unfold without the strength to rise or intervene.

The prisoner turned toward him.

He placed his boot on the man's waist–directly over the deep wound.

Pressure sank in.

Blood spread beneath the sole.

"Useless," he said with a grin."The longer you take to enter that room, the longer I massage his wound."

He pressed down harder.

The man's body trembled violently. His jaw clenched as he swallowed the scream, breath breaking but never escaping.

Terror seized the woman.

She tried to move faster.

Ahead, the doorway stood open, a faint shimmer of an identity-sensing formation stretched across it. Her legs failed before she reached it, and she collapsed onto the stone.

The prisoner stepped forward.

His heel ground down again.

The wound tore open.

Blood flowed freely now.

The man's hands clenched into fists, nails digging into his palms as his body shook.

She looked back once.

Then she rolled.

Without the walking stick, she dragged herself across the floor, rolling toward the formation–anything to lessen the pressure crushing her son's body.

"Good," the prisoner shouted, laughter echoing through the corridor."Old ones should die early."

He lifted his foot slowly.

"Only then can the young die early too."

His gaze swept the passage, daring anyone to interfere.

"Whoever blocks the way," he roared,"I'll make them feel this."

The butterfly shifted behind the wall lamp.

Its paper body folded inward again, joints collapsing with careful precision. Wings layered over wings, frame compressing until the origami form reached its smallest possible state.

It dropped lightly to the wall and began to walk.

Each step was deliberate.

Ahead, a narrow opening cut into the stone–a hollow, tubular passage carved for aeration. Without hesitation, the butterfly slipped inside.

The air changed immediately.

The passage smelled of blood and old sweat, thick and stagnant. The butterfly paused only long enough to draw its mandibles across its face, cleaning residue from its form, then continued forward.

Darkness swallowed everything.

No light reached inside the tube. Stone pressed close on all sides, narrowing space until direction became the only certainty.

The walk continued.

Minutes passed.

Then hours.

One hour.

Then thirty-eight minutes more.

At last, a faint glow appeared ahead–dim, unstable, flickering with heat rather than light. The butterfly moved toward it steadily until the hollow space widened at its end.

It reached the edge.

Beyond the opening, stone steps spiraled downward into shadow. The hollow passage connected directly to a concealed stairway embedded deep within the fortress structure.

The butterfly unfolded.

Layer by layer, the origami frame expanded. Wings stretched, joints locked, form restored. It lifted into the air and followed the stairs upward instinctively.

From its perspective, the steps felt vast–each rise a cliff, each landing a platform.

Then movement interrupted the ascent.

A man appeared from above, descending slowly. In his hand burned a flame stick, its light revealing only what lay immediately ahead of his feet.

The stairway was narrow.

Barely wide enough for one body to pass at a time.

The flame's angle told the truth.

This path was not meant for ascent.

It led downward.

The butterfly retreated instantly.

It folded its wings tight and slipped back into the aeration hole, clinging to the darkness as the man passed beneath, his steps heavy and unhurried.

Only after the flame faded did the butterfly emerge again.

It followed.

Downward.

The stairs spiraled endlessly, looping again and again, stone curving in on itself. The air grew heavier with each turn, heat and stench thickening until breath itself seemed weighted.

After the third spiral, the steps finally ended.

A long stone floor stretched ahead.

Iron bars lined the walls.

Shadows pressed close.

The dungeon had been reached.

The dungeon extended in a single direction, long and unbroken, its stone floor worn smooth by years of dragged bodies and restless feet.

The butterfly flapped softly and followed the man as he moved, the flame stick in his hand casting unstable light that revealed only fragments of the corridor at a time. Each step echoed too clearly, as if the walls themselves were listening.

He stopped at the first cell.

The chamber beyond was vast. More than thirty bodies were packed inside, pressed close together, with no distinction of age or tribe. Identical chambers stretched onward in sequence, each filled the same way, each holding its own silence.

He pushed the door open.

It was not locked.

There were no chains, no bars barring the exit–yet no one attempted to flee. Fear alone sealed the space more effectively than iron ever could.

He entered.

The women inside instinctively shifted, clustering together in practiced motion, forming a loose barrier. Their posture was not meant to block him, but to conceal something behind them.

The butterfly drifted lower and examined them closely.

No tokens hung at their waists. No markings of rank or affiliation. They were not guards, nor Association personnel, nor registered prisoners of authority.

They were commoners.

From other tribes.

The butterfly rose above them.

In the far corner, a woman sat on the floor, wrapped entirely in cloth, her body concealed except for her head. She remained motionless, her presence deliberately erased from attention.

A boy's voice broke the silence.

"Lord… why are you here?"

The man turned slowly, the prisoner markings on his arms clearly visible in the firelight.

"You want to know?" he replied, stepping forward.

Before he could reach the boy, an old man lunged ahead and seized the boy's waistband, pulling him back with trembling strength. He dropped to his knees immediately, pressing his forehead to the floor.

"Lord, forgive him," the old man begged."He is only a child. We will teach him. Please… forgive him this once."

The man sneered and looked down at his boots.

"Don't dirty them."

The whip cracked.

It wrapped around the old man's neck and hurled him backward into the group of women. Bodies collided and fell together, the fragile formation breaking apart as they crashed into the wall.

The cloth shifted.

The hidden woman was exposed.

The man laughed sharply, recognition lighting his face.

"So that's where it comes from," he said."All this respect."

He stepped forward.

The women grabbed his leg without hesitation, clinging to it with desperate strength, collapsing their weight onto his foot. Men joined them, voices overlapping in broken pleas, begging him to stop.

"Please–just this once–""Let them go–""Please–"

The man raised his whip.

The voices ceased.

Bodies tensed.

Eyes closed.

But the lash did not fall on them.

It snapped sideways, arcing toward the woman in the corner.

Before it could strike, the boy tore free.

Spiritual energy flared from his body as he moved faster than the whip itself, throwing himself between them. The lash struck diagonally across his body, tearing flesh from shoulder to waist.

He screamed, but his hand clamped around the whip.

He held it.

"You cannot take my sister from me," the boy said, his voice shaking but resolute.

The hidden woman did not move.

She remained pressed into the corner, breath silent.

The man snarled and yanked the whip hard.

The boy was ripped from the ground and hurled across the chamber. His head struck the iron bars with a dull, final sound, and his body collapsed, unmoving.

"You deserve it," the man muttered, spitting on him.

He turned back toward the corner.

The whip lashed again and again.

There was no space for it to coil properly, the blows landing raw and close. The woman endured without sound, every cry swallowed before it could escape.

Her silence only enraged him further.

Spiritual energy surged as he seized several women by the hair, tearing them away from his leg. Screams filled the chamber as he kicked them down and bound them together with practiced cruelty.

He pointed at the rest.

"One more step," he said coldly, looping the whip around the unconscious boy's neck,"and he dies here."

No one moved.

The hidden woman trembled violently.

She could not endure it.

But she could not rise.

"Good," the man said, pointing at their faces one by one."Very good."

He dragged the boy across the stone floor like hunted meat, the whip biting into his neck as his head struck the ground again and again.

Then he turned back.

He seized the woman by the hair and pulled her up forcefully. Strands tore free and fell to the floor, but he did not loosen his grip.

Something slipped from her arms.

A baby.

Tiny.

Wrapped in cloth.

Asleep.

Not even a week old.

The man burst into laughter. He hung flame stick on wall.

"How dare you hide such a gift from me?" he said.

His grin widened as he tightened his hold.

"Why struggle like this? You can make more later. You should."

His eyes gleamed.

"That's how we get promoted."

He grabbed the infant by the leg.

The baby did not wake.

"This one," he said, "I'm taking."

He kicked the others aside and dragged the woman out by her hair, the child dangling from his hand as he left the cell.

The butterfly followed.

Outside the fortress, the Chief's vision blurred as tears streamed silently down his face.

Inside, the man dragged her past cell after cell, the butterfly hovering at each entrance. Every chamber held the same truth–Association members, other tribes, all human, all broken.

At the final chamber, the butterfly stopped.

Inside lay bodies.

Still.

The butterfly slipped into the final prison chamber.

Its wings stirred no air as it moved between iron bars and shadow, hovering over the bodies laid within. They were not strangers. Every face it passed belonged to a companion lost during the trial assessment in the Borderlands.

Treasure hunters.

Missing.

Declared vanished.

All of them were here.

The butterfly withdrew slowly.

It turned and followed the trail of movement, angling toward the chamber where the woman and the infant had been dragged. Its flight halted abruptly as invisible resistance pressed against it.

A formation.

Dense.

Layered.

Absolute.

Concealment could breach it, perhaps, but not without risk. The complexity of the structure and the uncertainty of duration made entry a gamble that could not be afforded.

The butterfly remained at the threshold.

Through the open doorway, it watched.

The chamber beyond was vast, its walls etched with crimson lines that pulsed rhythmically. At the center, a massive red formation rotated endlessly, inscribed with molten symbols that burned without flame.

Within it was a beast.

Its form resembled a bull, broad and horned, yet its torso was disturbingly humanoid. The lower half of its body did not exist, severed into flowing magma that merged seamlessly with the formation beneath it.

Molten chains bound its arms and shoulders, glowing white-hot as they strained against its movements. Each time it shifted, lava spilled from its body, striking the ground and hardening into blazing crystalline fragments.

Around it, old men and old women moved in silence.

They worked like miners.

Bent backs.

Shaking hands.

Among them was the same old woman from before, her movements slow, her posture broken, her eyes empty. None spoke. None looked toward the beast.

They collected the lava-forged crystals carefully and carried them away through side passages, their steps practiced and resigned.

The prisoner arrived.

He knelt before the formation without hesitation, dragging the woman behind him. She no longer resisted. Her body followed without strength, her gaze unfocused.

In his hands, the infant stirred faintly.

The man lifted the baby.

He raised it toward the beast.

The beast's movements stopped.

Its molten hands lowered slowly, lava dripping from its fingers as it leaned forward. The heat intensified, the red formation flaring brighter in response.

The old men and women turned away in unison.

Then–

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