Roga Roya left the last dungeon chamber and walked toward the first.

At first, nothing felt wrong.

The corridor was the same narrow stone passage it had always been. The air was thick. The walls were damp. His footsteps echoed in a familiar way, a sound he had heard countless times while dragging prisoners to their fate.

Then he reached the first chamber.

Normally, the crack of his whip against the bars would send the captives into chaos–moans, screams, begging. It used to excite him. It reminded him of his authority. It reminded him that everyone inside those cells was lower than him.

This time, the sound came out wrong.

Too dull.

Too empty.

And worse–no cries followed.

Instead, a stench drifted out of the chamber.

Rot.

Old bone.

Something that had forgotten how to be flesh.

His flame stick flickered once.

Then went out.

"Tch… Did they all die?" Roga muttered.

He stepped closer and snapped the bladed tip of his whip hard against the bars.

No clang.

No echo.

The sound died the moment it was made.

He frowned.

The bars were still there.

But they weren't iron.

He reached out and touched them.

They were soft.

Slimy.

The surface bent slightly under his fingers.

He sniffed his hand.

The smell hit him instantly.

Roga staggered back and vomited violently.

The stench was like rotten bone and decayed flesh mixed together.

The white spiderling that always stayed near the chamber ceiling was gone.

That unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.

Swallowing hard, he forced himself forward, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

The door slammed shut behind him.

Darkness swallowed everything.

The stench thickened.

He clamped a hand over his nose and mouth. Sweat poured down his face. His stomach twisted as if boiling from the inside. His bowels cramped painfully. He bent forward and retched again.

"Damn it… I'm going to throw up again…"

He forced himself deeper into the prison.

It was pitch black.

He dragged his feet forward carefully.

If they were dead, he thought, I would've tripped over their bodies by now.

His foot scraped stone.

Nothing else.

If they're alive, another thought followed, not even a single moan would escape my ears in this silence.

His breathing turned ragged.

A faint crawling sound came from the dark.

Roga froze.

Despite his broken meridians, he was still a member of the Roga Tribe.

Yet his entire body was drenched in sweat.

Cold sweat.

His hands trembled as he groped forward until his fingers met the bars again.

He pushed.

Nothing moved.

He pulled.

Nothing.

He felt along the surface for a door.

There was no door.

Confusion crept into his chest.

He kicked the bars with all his strength.

Nothing.

No sound.

No vibration.

He punched them.

His fists slipped off the slimy surface and smashed into his own face.

Pain exploded across his nose.

Blood filled his mouth.

But fear was stronger.

He punched again.

And again.

Nothing worked.

He vomited again.

Then again.

Three times.

Each time weaker than before.

His vision blurred.

His chest heaved.

Then a desperate idea struck him.

He ripped the whip from his belt, pulled out a flask of oil from his qiankun bag, and drenched the leather.

He shoved his arm through a narrow gap in the bars and hurled the whip outward, aiming toward where he remembered the light being.

It fell short.

He tried again.

And again.

The whip never reached the flame stick outside.

"Damn it!"

He slammed his head against the bars in rage.

Then kicked again.

Nothing changed.

Exhaustion crushed him.

Shaking, he slid down and sat in the darkness–exactly like the other captives once had.

His knees drawn to his chest.

Roga Roya raised his right hand and rubbed his palm over the inside of his left wrist. His fingers searched the skin slowly, as if afraid of what they might find. His expression shifted between confusion, bitterness, and something close to regret.

Then he felt it.

The emblem.

The prisoner mark that the Association branded onto every detainee before locking them into cells.

His breathing faltered.

"…Who knew I would return to this place," Roga muttered, his voice hoarse. The words tasted wrong in his mouth. He lowered his hand and clenched it into a fist, blaming himself even as a knot tightened in his chest.

The eerie voices grew louder.

They weren't human.

They weren't half-bloods.

They weren't the captives he used to torment.

They were distorted, jagged sounds–like screams dragged through broken throats. The kind of noise that didn't belong to living lungs at all. They scraped against his ears and dug into his skull.

Roga's chest tightened.

The air felt thinner.

His heartbeat climbed, pounding hard enough to make his vision pulse. His right hand closed tightly around the handle of his whip, knuckles whitening as he forced himself into a ready stance, preparing to strike at anything that dared emerge from the dark.

A bitter surge rose from his stomach.

He spat the foul liquid onto the floor, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, trying to hold onto what little dignity he had left.

A creaking sound echoed through the chamber.

Wood scraping against wood.

Slow.Deliberate.

The sound made his skin crawl.

"This… this is a nightmare," he muttered.

To prove it wasn't, he slapped himself twice. The sharp sound rang in the darkness. His face reddened instantly, and the dried blood at his nose split open again. He sneezed as tears welled up in his eyes, the sting making his head feel light and hollow.

Then the screaming began.

Not from one direction.

From everywhere.

A full circle of resentful moans closed in around him, pressing against his ears, crawling under his skin. It felt as if the air itself had turned hostile, filled with the echoes of hatred and pain.

A calm, cold voice cut through the noise.

"The one who always enjoyed fear… finally fears the fear of others." Kiaria murmured.

Kiaria was watching through the Insight vision.

His breath hitched.

The creaking sound returned, clearer now.

It no longer sounded like wood.

It sounded like teeth grinding together.

Low, wet, heavy grinding.

Mixed with it was a deep, territorial murmur, like something marking its presence in the darkness.

Roga raised his left hand forward, clutching the extinguished flame stick as if it could still protect him. His right hand tightened on the whip, ready to strike.

His hands were shaking.

Badly.

But he forced them still through sheer will and the last scraps of pride left in his chest.

"Whatever you are… come out," Roga growled. His voice wavered but didn't break. "I am Roga Roya, servant of the Roga Royal bloodline. I'm not afraid of anything. Come out."

The darkness in front of him stirred.

A greenish-black wisp of flame appeared at the center of the chamber.

It was small.

Too small.

It didn't light the surroundings. It didn't chase away the shadows. It just hovered there, flickering weakly, like a dying breath given form.

Roga swallowed hard.

He gathered what remained of his courage and took a step forward.

Then another.

His legs didn't move straight ahead.

Instead, he shifted sideways, dropping into the Roga Tribe's defensive stance–the one taught for ambushes and unknown threats. His body stayed angled, whip raised, every muscle coiled tight.

The closer he moved, the farther the flame drifted.

Not fast.

Not far.

Just enough to stay out of reach.

His jaw clenched.

A cold realization crept into his mind.

It wasn't guiding him out.

It was leading him deeper in.

Roga Roya didn't think anymore.

He ran.

Whatever it was, he would face it head-on. His legs moved on instinct, driven by panic and the last scraps of pride still burning in his chest.

This time, the green-black wisp didn't drift away.

It hovered in place.

Breathing hard, Roga raised his flame stick and lowered it into the wisp. The flame took a moment to catch. Those few seconds demanded his full attention, and strangely, that focus steadied him. His racing thoughts slowed. His trembling hands became firmer.

The flame spread.

Weak light spilled outward, but the darkness devoured most of it. The glow barely reached a hand's length ahead.

He lifted the flame stick higher.

Two massive green ghostly eyes flickered open in front of him.

Then vanished.

The shock hit him like a blow.

Roga cried out and fell backward, his grip loosening. The flame stick clattered against the stone.

His heart hammered wildly as he scrambled forward on all fours and grabbed it again.

Panting, he yanked out five more flame sticks. One by one, he struck them to life, his movements frantic and clumsy. He hurled them into the darkness, trying to burn a path of light through the void.

But he didn't need to.

The wisp expanded on its own.

It swelled outward, thickening and brightening into a deep green flame. Its glow pushed back the darkness, revealing the space around him.

Roga's breath caught in his throat.

This wasn't the dungeon chamber he knew.

The stone walls were gone.

The bars were gone.

He stood inside something vast and curved, like the inside of a monstrous mouth-like malachite green prison. Around the flame, black shadows spun in a fast, tightening circle. Each shadow stretched forward into a skull-like shape, hollow eyes wide in silent screams.

This wasn't the first dungeon chamber at all.

It was the mouth of the Ghost Prison Hollow Face Spider.

But Roga didn't understand that.

He only knew that wherever he was, it wasn't a place meant for humans.

The skull-shadows drifted toward him.

Roga roared and lashed out with his whip.

The bladed tip tore through the shadows, scattering them like smoke.

They vanished–

Then flowed back together.

Again.

And again.

Panic clawed up his spine.

He swung wildly, breathing hard, his strikes growing more desperate with every useless blow.

–

In the real first chamber…

A single boy stood behind the bars, watching.

Everyone else in that cell was dead.

They had eaten spoiled porridge mixed with the ashes of the boy's mother.

The boy was not touched by death yet.

The hatred in his heart had made him stubbornly cling to life.

He watched Roga Roya with wide, unblinking eyes.

But what he saw was not what Roga was truly facing.

To the boy, Roga looked like a madman–screaming, flailing his arms, whipping empty air, stumbling and roaring at nothing. Like someone haunted. Like someone losing his mind.

The boy's lips slowly curled upward.

He smiled.

It wasn't a joyful smile.

It was a fulfilled one.

–

In the pseudo palace…

Kiaria watched through the Eyes of Insight.

What he saw was different from both of them.

A small, harmless-looking spiderling–white and glossy–hanging above the ceiling where Roga Roya was standing. Fine web threads extended from its limbs, sinking into his head, his shoulders, his spine.

It wasn't attacking his body.

It was controlling his mind.

A slow, precise psychological invasion.

Kiaria leaned back in his throne.

A quiet laugh escaped his lips.

"The real punishment hasn't even begun yet," he said softly.

A sly smile curved across his face.

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