After several dashes between the alcoves, Veil finally reached the solitary face at the far end of the chamber. Unlike the others, this one stood alone—carved into a bare wall, isolated. As he approached, the faint glow he had noticed earlier faded away, vanishing as if swallowed by the stone.

  A cold shiver ran down his spine.

  The face slowly opened its eyes—and stared straight at him.

  The traps stopped instantly, as though the entire hallway had gone still in his presence. And yet… no door appeared, no exit revealed itself in the shadows. He knew this wasn’t over.

  While he scanned the area for any sign of a way forward, a faint whisper echoed.

  It was fractured, broken by ragged breaths, difficult to understand—but a few words reached him clearly:

  “Free… all… succeed… me… kill… last… then… others…” the voice whispered, hoarse and pleading.

  Veil froze, doubt growing rapidly in his mind.

  Were these faces… really human? Alive?

  He turned toward Alynia and shouted what he had just heard. She nodded, her gaze dark, but she couldn’t confirm it. The voices were too faint for her ears to catch.

  Cautiously, she stepped out of the alcove.

  The silence pressed heavily on her shoulders, dense and suffocating. No arrows fired. No trap triggered. Everything felt... suspended, as if the corridor itself was holding its breath—waiting.

  Her eyes met Veil’s across the space.

  “Break the faces on the walls,” Alynia commanded, her voice resolute.

  Without delay, she extended her claws as Veil drew his dagger. They struck at once, each aiming at a nearby face.

  To their surprise, the stone—meant to be solid—gave way strangely. Instead of hard resistance, it yielded like something soft, almost organic, letting their weapons sink in effortlessly.

  But the moment they pulled their blades free, the wall screamed.

  A horrible wail—like the one they’d heard before, but deeper, more overwhelming.

  This time, however, no arrows came from the walls.

  Instead, beneath their feet, a sinister cracking sound echoed.

  The floor was fracturing.

  Veil and Alynia covered their ears, the shrieking cry driving pain straight through their skulls—but she, even through the noise, understood what was happening.

  “Little Wolf—break them! Now!” Alynia yelled.

  He looked at her, disoriented, his head pounding with the sound.

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  “What?! Why?!” Veil shouted back.

  “We don’t have time to explain—JUST DO IT!” she snapped, her voice urgent.

  Veil didn’t argue, but something behind Alynia caught his eye.

  Dust was rising in swirling plumes—signs the floor was beginning to collapse.

  “Alynia, behind you!” he called out.

  The cracks spread, widening one by one as the floor broke into jagged slabs and began crumbling into a bottomless black void.

  Despite her exhaustion, Alynia gritted her teeth and threw herself into motion. Each face she destroyed unleashed a new inhuman shriek—piercing, maddening, as if clawing directly into their minds.

  Veil, his breathing ragged, picked up speed as well, striking down face after face. One, then two... eight...

  Only two remained.

  The floor kept breaking apart, creeping dangerously close to Alynia. She tried to move forward, but a treacherous crack caught her foot and made her stumble. Her gaze instinctively shot to Veil—just for a moment—but in that look, there was a silent plea he could read loud and clear.

  But Veil was already moving. He leapt toward the final face and drove his dagger straight through its center.

  A deep sound echoed through the corridor.

  It wasn’t a scream.

  It was a command.

  A resonance that demanded silence.

  In an instant, everything went still.

  But inside their minds, the screaming continued—pounding against their skulls like voices that refused to be silenced.

  Then Veil heard it.

  A voice—different from the fragmented whispers before.

  Clear. Steady.

  “Thank you… You’ve freed us. You ended our suffering. Now we can finally rest in peace,” the voice whispered, suddenly gentle.

  Veil’s blood ran cold.

  His breath caught, and a wave of dizziness swept over him. His legs gave out beneath him, and he dropped to his knees.

  Rest in peace…?

  He looked up at Alynia, his eyes shaking.

  “Does that… does that mean we just killed people?” Veil asked, voice breaking.

  Alynia, who had just barely managed to stand, froze. She rushed toward him, exhaustion carved deep into her face.

  She knelt beside him, trying to understand what had shaken him so badly.

  “What’s wrong?” Alynia asked, serious.

  Veil couldn’t tear his gaze away from her. His eyes were glassy with tears.

  “They thanked me… They said we freed them,” Veil murmured, overwhelmed.

  His voice trembled under the weight of it.

  “We killed people, Alynia… people trapped behind those walls…” he added, devastated.

  Alynia took his hands gently and lifted his face to hers before turning toward the corridor.

  “Look,” she said, calm and solemn.

  Veil slowly turned his head.

  The floor, shattered just moments ago, was whole.

  The walls that had once been covered with faces were now plain stone—bare, unmarked.

  No sign of traps.

  Everything was... normal.

  As if none of it had ever happened.

  A long silence followed, the air still heavy with tension.

  “Was it an illusion...?” Veil whispered, lost.

  Alynia slowly shook her head, her gaze still haunted by what she had seen.

  “I don’t know. I saw them too... and those screams—I heard them,” Alynia replied, troubled.

  She leaned back against the wall and extended a hand to Veil. He took it without a word and rose to his feet, though his mind still reeled from what they had just experienced. His eyes instinctively drifted back to where the last face had been.

  But there was nothing left.

  Only his dagger remained—still lodged in a small stone button embedded in the wall.

  He frowned. Everything pointed to the idea that the face had never truly existed… that the illusion had merely masked this mechanism.

  But if it was truly an illusion… what about his wound?

  He looked down, uncertain, and carefully unwrapped the bandage Alynia had applied. Where the blackened, smoking injury had been only moments ago... there was nothing.

  Not even a scar.

  He flinched slightly and turned his leg toward Alynia.

  “Look,” Veil said, uneasy.

  Alynia stepped closer, narrowing her eyes. She had seen the wound. She had treated it. And now, there wasn’t a single trace left.

  “That’s impossible…” she said, voice firm.

  But they didn’t have time to dwell on it.

  A deep sound echoed through the corridor, and a section of the wall opened with a slow, grinding noise.

  Before them—like always—stood a spiral staircase, torches flickering along the walls, descending into the darkness below.

  But this time… there was something else.

  Just in front of the first step, a stone pedestal rose from the ground, square and unadorned. At its top, a hollow recess shaped with precision—as if waiting for a very specific object to be placed inside.

  Veil and Alynia approached slowly, weighed down by uncertainty.

  “None of the previous floors had this,” Veil noted warily.

  Alynia didn’t answer right away, her eyes fixed on the pedestal. Then suddenly, her gaze hardened.

  She turned to Veil slowly.

  “Do you remember the Temple of Judgment?” she asked, voice grave.

  Veil winced slightly.

  “Yeah… I was trying not to think about it, but—why?” he sighed.

  He followed her gaze to the hollow carved into the stone.

  His blood ran cold.

  “…Wait,” he whispered, stunned.

  The carved recess matched exactly the shape of the box that had vanished after their failure in the Temple.

  He slowly turned to Alynia, a knot forming in his stomach.

  “What does that mean...? That without the box, whatever comes next is going to be even worse?” he asked, uneasy.

  Alynia stared at him for a moment, then exhaled slowly.

  “I don’t know. But if this place was expecting that box… then we just lost something important,” she said plainly.

  A heavy silence fell.

  Fatigue weighed on her limbs, and she knew—whatever awaited them beyond that staircase could be far worse.

  She closed her eyes for a moment.

  Veil, meanwhile, kept staring at the pedestal, his heart pounding. He had thought the lake floor and its creatures were already a nightmare.

  But if all of that… had been considered normal—just a prelude…

  Then the words spoken by the woman in the temple didn’t bode well at all.