The path twisted.
Crimson-glowing vines slithered along the walls. The air hung heavy with whispers, like fragments of lullabies sung by things that should not have voices.
Renji walked alone now. Zach was gone, pulled back by some boundary of the trial he couldn't cross.
Then—the temperature dropped.
He stepped into an enormous cavern that shouldn't have existed. A cathedral carved from obsidian and bone, crowned with a thousand floating candles that dripped liquid shadows instead of wax.
And at the center… it waited.
A chained creature loomed above a throne of fractured glass and silent screams. Twelve black chains bound it from all directions—anchored to nothing yet unbreakable. Its body was tall, impossibly long-limbed, with arms like cruel blades and antlers of bleeding gold.
Its face was veiled behind a mask of porcelain cracked down the middle—half beauty, half horror. Red light pulsed from within. Its skin shimmered with impossible textures, like static over wet silk.
