Drop. Drop.
Blood spilled on the floor.
Xin looked up, feeling the warmth of blood sliding down his face, a single drop landing just beneath his eye. His chest heaved, his breath ragged. The battle wasn't over, but something in the air shifted—a moment suspended between life and death.
Xin's eyes widened in fear, his pulse hammering. He saw the Knight of Chaos looming before him, its fractured armor still emanating a sinister glow. Its movements were slower now, unsteady, but it was far from defeated.
But his body moved before his mind could stop him.
With a guttural cry, Xin gripped the jagged diamond spear, his knuckles white and bloodied against the shaft. The shard embedded within it pulsed, burning hot in his grasp. He lunged forward, twisting his entire body into the strike, pouring every last ounce of strength into this final attack.
The spear shot out like a bolt of lightning, its jagged tip slicing through the air before piercing straight through the Knight's visor holes.
A sound unlike anything Xin had ever heard erupted from the creature—a choked, metallic gasp, followed by an eerie silence.
The Knight trembled, its massive frame convulsing as if in shock. The glow in its visor flickered, dimming, fading into empty hollows. Its enormous form stiffened, then crumpled to its knees before toppling onto the cold stone floor with a resounding crash.
The battle was over.
Xin stood over the fallen Knight, panting heavily. His arms ached, his entire body trembling from exhaustion, but he remained standing. His breath came in short, uneven gasps as the weight of what had just happened settled over him. They had done it.
They had won.
For a moment, he couldn't move. His mind struggled to process the sight before him—the once unstoppable force lying motionless, its armor cracked, its power extinguished. The scent of blood and scorched metal filled the air, mingling with the sharp tang of sweat and dust.
Footsteps echoed in the chamber.
Huey approached, his own breathing ragged, his form silhouetted by the dim light of the dying shard. He staggered slightly, his hands resting on his knees, but a relieved smile spread across his dirt-streaked face.
"We… you did it. You actually did it."
Xin turned to face him, his chest still rising and falling rapidly. He swallowed, trying to catch his breath, and then, finally, a slow, weary smile broke across his lips.
"Yeah," he said, his voice hoarse. "I did."
He could still feel the adrenaline surging through his veins, but now that the danger had passed, the pain began creeping in. His muscles screamed in protest, his wounds stinging like fire, but the relief washing over him was stronger than the ache.
Huey let out a shaky laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. "I thought you were done for."
"So did I," Xin admitted, rubbing at his sore arms. He glanced down at the fallen Knight, its once-imposing figure now reduced to little more than broken metal and silence. "I just… moved. I didn't think. I just knew I had to end it."
Huey exhaled deeply, stepping closer. "Whatever you did, it worked."
The chamber, once filled with chaos and destruction, now felt eerily quiet. The distant sound of dripping water was the only thing breaking the silence. The battle had left its mark—cracks in the walls, scorch marks on the floor, the scent of blood and steel hanging thick in the air.
Xin bent down, pressing a trembling hand to his knee to steady himself. His gaze drifted toward the shard embedded in his spear. It still flickered weakly, as if the power within it was barely holding on. He could feel its heat, its energy, but something was different. The raw, unstable force it once radiated had settled, as if satisfied.
Huey eyed it warily. "What happens now?"
Xin wasn't sure. He stared at the shard, feeling the weight of the question settle over him. They had survived. They had won. But deep down, a whisper of unease gnawed at the edges of his thoughts.
They stood there for a moment, catching their breath, the weight of their victory slowly sinking in. The knight was defeated, and the dark chamber that had once been filled with fear now felt… lighter. Almost peaceful.
But Roderic was dead.
Xin wanted to cry, to fall to his knees and scream, but now wasn't the time. He was exhausted, his body battered and broken, his wounds throbbing with each ragged breath. The stillness felt unnatural, wrong, like something unseen lurked just beyond the edges of his vision.
Then slight movement could be heard.
Water?
No, it was blood.
The blood seeped from the knight's fallen armor, dark and sinister, pooling across the cracked stone floor. At first, it was just a slow trickle, but then it spread, stretching outward with unnatural speed, creeping toward Xin and Huey like living tendrils of ink.
Xin's breath hitched. He stepped back instinctively, but his foot didn't move. A sudden, icy grip seized his limbs. Panic surged through him—his muscles locked, frozen in place as though invisible hands clutched him from below. The blood reached his boots, slithering over the leather like grasping fingers.
"No," he whispered. He willed his body to move, but the force holding him was absolute.
Then, the blood convulsed.
In an instant, jagged spikes erupted from the crimson pool, stabbing into Xin's flesh with horrifying precision.
His right leg. His thigh. His shoulder. His lower back. His stomach. His heart. And finally, his eyes.
Each wound came in rapid succession, an agonizing assault that sent white-hot agony searing through his nerves. Xin barely had time to comprehend the pain before his body jerked violently upward, lifted off the ground by the impaling spikes. He dangled like a lifeless marionette, his limbs twitching involuntarily as the blood-coated spires held him aloft.
Huey's scream shattered the air.
He watched in pure, unfiltered horror as Xin's body was hoisted higher, blood dripping from the wounds in thick rivulets. Xin's expression was frozen between agony and shock, his mouth open in a silent scream that never came.
Huey's thoughts scattered, twisted in panic, his mind betraying him. He thought of running, of turning away, but his legs wouldn't obey. His breath came in sharp, uneven gasps, each one shallower than the last. Then, the pressure snapped something inside him. His mind fractured under the weight of terror.
His scream cut through the chamber, raw and primal—
And then, abruptly, he collapsed.
His body hit the ground hard, convulsing, frothing at the mouth. His eyes rolled back, and his limbs twitched violently before he went completely still.
Silence.
The air thickened with something unnatural, something old and malevolent. A whisper, incomprehensible and jagged, slithered through the dark, twisting in and out of Xin's ears like a parasite burrowing into his mind.
<̴̼̂͌≮̭̀̑̑̆f̴̡̬̜̣̽ ̵̨͚̮́́͊͘͜Ḯ̴̢͛̏̏ ̷̠̥͖̍͋̕ṇ̵͑́͗̋ͅ ̷͈͓͔̀͋̾ȃ̵̠͉̓ ̷̪̙̉l̸͙̏̓͋͘ ̸̢́̄͐̅l̵̥͋̏ ̷̰͘̚y̴̞͎̍̑̋͜>̶̬͎̅̏̏͜͝ͅ>̵̡̒́̓
Xin's lips moved, but the words that escaped weren't his own.
The chamber shuddered. The light dimmed. And then, suddenly—
He blinked.
The pain was gone.
The spikes were gone.
Xin gasped, his vision swimming as he staggered forward, his body trembling violently. He looked down, expecting to see wounds, gaping holes where the spikes had torn through him.
Nothing.
No blood. No pain. No trace of the horror that had just occurred.
Had it been real?
His breath came in short, panicked bursts as he looked around. The chamber was the same, the lifeless body of the knight still sprawled in the center. His head pounded, his senses distorted, as if reality itself had cracked at the edges.
Then, he turned his gaze to Huey.
He was still on the ground, unmoving.
Xin took a shaky step forward, his heart pounding erratically. "Huey?"
No response.
He stepped closer. "Huey, wake up!"
Still nothing.
Xin dropped to his knees, his hands grasping at his friend's shoulders, shaking him gently at first, then harder. Huey's head lolled to the side, his lips slightly parted, his expression eerily frozen in fear.
A sick realization coiled in Xin's stomach like a snake tightening around its prey.
No…
He pressed two trembling fingers against Huey's throat.
No pulse.
The horror of it slammed into Xin like a tidal wave.
Huey was dead.