Two new figures finally emerged at the top of the tower, their bodies completely encased in enchanted armor, masked faces hidden behind glowing visors, weapons gleaming with arcane power.
As they stepped closer, the sands within the hourglass began to rise, flowing upward instead of falling. Time was reversing.
Then it happened.
A scene began to form, hazy at first, like a memory replaying through smoke. A couple appeared on a modest bed—laughing, flushed, and close. It was Beauty and her fiancé.
"Hehe, no, stop! My parents are next door—they'll hear us," Beauty giggled, cheeks burning red.
Her fiancé grinned, gently pinning her to the bed.
"So what? I'm your fiancé. In a few days, I'll be your husband. I want us to be happy… to start a little family."
But the warmth shattered.
The door creaked open. A boy stepped in. A knife glinted in his hand, catching the torchlight like a blade made of moonlight.
"Ah—Arghh! What the hell is this kid doing?!" He screamed.
Footsteps echoed and scattered across the area as they approached the towering hourglass.
"Odd… I went through the system manuals. This dungeon was supposed to be built around the memories and life energy from the first person to enter the game," the voice said. "Shouldn't it be Longs' memories we're seeing? Why does it show Beauty and her fiancé from from that evil bastard's past?"
It was Shari. She had survived.
"Yeah… but something about this feels off," Longs added, stepping into view. "I don't remember it like this, I was there when it happened."
Both had climbed the tower—wounded but alive.
Longs wore heavy armor, every plate forged from the charred bones and claws of Grimhounds—those monstrous wolf-dog hybrids that had nearly torn this world apart. His greatsword, strapped across his back, shimmered with dried blood and sinew, its hilt wrapped in coarse Grimhound fur. A massive shield hung on one arm, its surface scratched and cracked from fending off hundreds of gnashing maws. His face remained mostly hidden behind a steel mask, the only glimpse of humanity shining through the sharp, battle-hardened eyes beneath his helm.
Shari's armor was lighter, built for speed and precise killing. It clung close to her form, crafted from the same beastly remains—Grimhound leather and hollowed claws strung across her belt like trophies. Her crossbow, slung over her shoulder, reeked of gunpowder and burnt fur. The wooden stock had deep bite marks, a reminder of how close she'd come to being overwhelmed. Her shield, though smaller, bore fresh dents and savage scratches. Her face was scarred, a new wound slicing clean across her throat—jagged and red, like something, or someone, had tried to silence her.
And then came something else.
The glowing figure, known only as Light, floated down beside them with a cheerful hum. She ducked beneath Long's arm, lifting it—and his bloodstained sword—like a victorious gladiator's salute. Despite the blood, the horror, and the bruises… they couldn't help but laugh at this tiny, radiant being.
"You were being controlled," Cydal said, standing over them. "That's the curse of weapons forged from Grimhounds. They give you strength… but feed off your hatred. Twist it. Control it.""Where the hell is that devil?" shari muttered, voice still shaky. "If it weren't for this little beacon of hope, we'd have been ripped apart by those monsters because of that traitor."
They gestured toward Light, who was now gleefully spinning Shari's shield in circles—until it slipped from her hands, clattering loudly against the stone. Startled by the noise, she squeaked and darted behind Longs, peeking out from behind his leg like a spooked child.
Selphonie rose from her seating, boredom finally melting away—just as these two finally decided to show up.
"You are late," she said it casually, "Your partner already won and left."
Her gaze locked onto Longs as she stepped closer, her finger trailing across the heavy plates of his chest armor.
"Wow… you. You must be huge," she whispered, eyes wide with mock admiration. "What's your size?"
"Uh… what?" Longs blinked, completely lost—still too pure for whatever this was.
"I'm talking about your height," she smirked, poking his armored side. "You've got to be, what, 6'4? Not that I care… but I guess that's how you managed to survive this lovely little game."
Her attention never wavered. As far as she was concerned, the other two didn't even exist.
"What you're about to face," Selphonie began, her voice eerily calm, "is a very important challenge. The system needs to decide… if you're even worth being selected as players."
"What are you talking about?" Shari snapped, voice rising in frustration. "We don't care about your system—we just want to go home! Tell us how to—"
But before she could finish, a thunderous force slammed into her chest.
Her armor shattered like glass, splintering into pieces. A cursed wave of energy surged past her like cannon fire. Her breath caught. Her eyes went wide. Blood spilled from her lips. Her legs buckled beneath her, and she collapsed without a sound.
"S-Shariii!!" Longs shouted, catching her before she hit the ground. His hands trembled as he held her broken form. "Shari, quick—eat this! It's the last candy dropped from the Wispods… it'll heal you, just take it!"
"I already hate that bitch," Selphonie muttered, sulking. "I don't take orders—especially not from someone who thinks they can boss me around in my own domain." Her voice dripped with venom. "I run this place. Anyone who forgets that doesn't get to speak twice."
Suddenly, Light moved—fast and full of purpose. She cradled Shari in her arms, her body glowing fiercely. A surge of pure energy rushed into Shari's broken form.
With a violent gasp, Shari jolted upright, coughing hard as if dragged back from the brink of death itself.
Longs stared in disbelief, relief flooding his face. He and Light turned their furious eyes toward Selphonie, who stood above them, completely unmoved.
"Don't take this lightly," she said coldly. "If you're still confused, allow me to revise the rules."
"You were summoned here by the game itself. It sees potential in you—potential to become a part of the system. And so far… you've survived. Even with her help," she sneered, shooting a venomous glare at Light.
"But now comes your final test." She motioned toward the massive, reversed hourglass. "Defeat it, and you'll be the winners."
Longs stepped forward, anger burning in his voice. "And if we lose? What then?"
Selphonie smiled darkly.
"Then you will be punished… severely. The likelihood of your death?" She tilted her head, eyes gleaming. "Inevitable."
"Well then," Longs said, his voice steady despite the tension. "We should start, i want this to be over so we can go home."
The hourglass pulsed—and then flickered to life with haunting images.
Flashbacks danced within its glass, fragments of a past soaked in pain.
Beauty's fiancé hovered above her, their bodies intertwined in a moment of intimacy. Skin met skin, mouths locked in desperate affection. The room was thick with the illusion of love—until it wasn't.
His hair was yanked back—harsh and sudden by tiny determined hands.
A gleam of steel flashed. A sharp knife sliced clean across his throat.
Blood erupted in a violent spray as his head detached, hitting the floor with a sickening thud. His body collapsed over Beauty, staining her in crimson.
Behind the corpse stood a child—Cydal—his small hands drenched in blood, his embroidered tunic ruined, dripping with guilt and violence.
Beauty's scream shattered the memory, echoing from the hourglass as if the past still burned in its depths.
Shari stood frozen, her hand clamped over her mouth as the vision faded.
Light trembled beside her, shrinking behind her shield as if the scene had physically wounded her.
"God…" Shari whispered, her voice barely holding together. "Even at such a young age… he was a monster."
But Longs didn't move at first—until he did. One step back. Then another. His wide eyes never left the hourglass.
"No… something's wrong," he murmured. "I don't remember it like that."
Shari turned to him, confused, her brows furrowed. "What are you talking about? That was Cydal's memory. He did that. The entire village talked about this tragedy for years. How could you not believe it?"
Her voice cracked with hurt and confusion. "I can't believe I ever trusted him over them."
"No…" Longs muttered, shaking his head. "You're wrong."
Shari blinked. "What?"
"I was there," he said firmly, eyes locked on the hourglass. "I was with Cydal that night."
He looked between them, his voice steady but heavy with something deeper—memory, maybe guilt.
"Miss Beauty brought him to the village that day. My ma had taken me to her house, I don't remember why—but I met him. He was small, quiet… shy as hell. He barely spoke at first but became friends. We ended up playing together. Just two awkward kids. And then…"
Shari's expression twisted, unsure whether to believe or defend herself.
"He didn't even recognize me when we crossed paths at the school," Longs added, almost to himself. "I guess… it had been twelve years so he forgot our one night encounter."
Before their conversation could even reach an end, the hourglass cracked.
Then it shattered.
From the swirling sand and glass stepped Beauty's fiancé—at least what was left of him. His skin was rotted, peeling in places, his head dangled unnaturally, barely connected to the ruined neck. In his decaying hand, he held the knife—the same one that ended his life.
Shari let out a bloodcurdling scream. "W-What?! What's going on?!"
Light backed away in terror, clinging to Longs' arm, her glow dimming as fear overtook her.
The corpse didn't wait. It lunged.
Longs barely had time to react before the undead figure was already in front of him, its movements unnaturally fast. The blade came down—hard.
Longs caught the knife with both hands, muscles straining, but it wasn't enough.
The cursed weapon pushed closer, slicing through his armor like it was paper, the tip driving into his chest. Blood ran down the front of his plate as he grit his teeth, screaming through the pain.
"Shari!" he roared. "A little help?!"
Shari snapped out of her panic, yanking her crossbow from her back.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
Bolts flew—one straight through the creature's skull, the head finally snapping clean off and thudding wetly to the floor.
But it's body didn't fall.
It jerked unnaturally, still standing, arms twitching—and still holding the knife.
Shari fired again—chest, legs, arms—each bolt burying deep, but nothing slowed it down.
Then it turned to her.
Before she could reload, the corpse moved with horrifying speed. Its decaying hand slapped her with brutal force, sending her crashing to the ground. Her armor cracked, a sharp pain flaring in her ribs.
Still, she got up—blood on her lip, trembling—but ready.
Longs rejoined her side, sword raised. "Together!"
They dodged the swipes of the blade, working in sync—Shari distracting while Longs came in with heavy strikes. But every hit from his sword just scraped uselessly against its iron-like skin.
"What the hell is this thing?!" Longs yelled through clenched teeth, swinging again.
Selphonie didn't even flinch at the chaos behind her. She stepped forward, heels echoing against the tower floor, eyes locked onto Light.
"Well, well… what are you doing here, little bitch?"
Light trembled under her glare, shrinking slightly.
"The Creator didn't even know about your reincarnation," Selphonie hissed, circling her like a predator. "And you just waltzed in. Made it so easy for us to find you."
She reached out to Light's long tendril of magic shimmering hair—only to recoil with a look of pure disgust.
"Ugh. Filthy. Even your light stinks of humanity now."
Selphonie smirked cruelly. "The so-called Goddess of Creation. The Vessel of Light." She leaned closer, her voice venom. "You've grown so weak. I could crush you right now, smear you across this tower floor like nothing."
Then she turned away, a mock sigh in her tone. "But… my Creator would want that joy for himself."
Back in the chaos, Longs and Shari were barely holding on. The corpse took every hit, every strike, and came back more monstrous each time—its movements faster, its strength impossible.
Light cried out, flying to him, gripping his cheeks with trembling hands. Her glow flickered with desperation.
"No—Not now, Light," Longs growled, pushing past the pain. "We have to fight—this thing!"
But before his next breath, everything shifted.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Then—
He opened his eyes to the basement.
The air was still. No screams. No Light. No Shari. Just silence.
"What…?" Longs stumbled to his feet. "I'm back? Was all that… a dream?"
The room was exactly how he remembered it. The massive statue loomed above, the five lesser statues still surrounding it like guardians. Nothing had moved.
He stepped forward, reaching for the central statue—only to see his own hand glowing faint blue.
It passed through the stone.
"What the hell—?!" His voice cracked. "I'm… dead?!"
Panic rose in his throat.
"No. No—it can't be. She was trying to show me something. Why did Light bring me here? What did we miss?!"
And then he noticed it—
The door at the far end. The one they opened before. The one word Time written on it in backwards.
"Wait—the doors!" Longs suddenly gasped. "There were words on them…"
His eyes darted across the room, scanning the gates one by one. The one they entered—it had said Time. He remembered now. Each door had something written on it, but backwards.
He ran to the next one, squinting through the blue haze. "Come on… what does this say…"
One by one, he began to rearrange the letters, whispering the words aloud as he unscrambled them.
"Dammit, this is harder than Cydal made it look," he muttered, sweat forming on his ghostly brow. "How the hell did he do this so quickly?"
Each door resisted his effort, their secrets clinging to ancient tongues and riddles he couldn't fully grasp. There were no other clues—only those cryptic names carved in forgotten scripts.
Frustrated, he turned back to the towering statue in the center—the one holding a planet in its colossal stone hands.
And then he saw it.
The planet.
It was glowing.
Brighter than before.
Longs narrowed his eyes. "If the doors had words… maybe the statue does too."
He had already checked the other statues—nothing. Just hollow shapes. No glow. No guidance.
But then his eyes lifted—higher, above the central statue. Just barely visible in the shimmer of the glowing planet, a sentence carved into the stone arch above its head.
Backwards.
"stcaf eht ot ton ,dnim eht ot sdneb tsap ehT"
He frowned, lips moving silently as he tried to piece it together, tracing the letters with his glowing fingertips.
Then, slowly, he rearranged the phrase:
"The past bends to the mind, not to the facts."
"I see, hmm…" Longs squinted, mouthing the words again slowly.
"The past bends to the mind, not to the facts."
Then he snapped, brushing his hair back with both glowing hands. "But then what?! What does that even mean?!"
He turned in circles, pacing like a lost ghost. "Ughhh! I'm not a genius like Cydal! Back in the dungeon, Shari did all the puzzles! I'm the guy who smashes stuff and yells a lot!"
His voice echoed through the chamber, frustrated and raw.
"This is bad. So bad. Why did Light send me here? She should've sent Shari! She would've solved this already and probably insulted me in five different languages while doing it!"
He stomped his foot through the floor like a dramatic toddler—his ghostly form phased slightly through the stone.
He paused, blinking.
"…Wait. Am I even real right now?"
"Wait... real!" Longs blinked, eyes wide.
"That memory—it's not real! That's what the riddle meant!"
His heartbeat echoed in his ears—or whatever it was he had now.
"The past bends to the mind… not the facts."
He looked up at the statue, piecing it together.
"We were just kids… so scared… we remembered it wrong."
But his smile faded. "Shit. How do I get back?!"
Suddenly—blink.
He was no longer in the chamber.
He stood on the battlefield again—right in the middle of chaos. Shari and Light were still locked in a desperate fight, dodging the undead fiancé, whose knife gleamed with corrupted memory.
"SHARI!" Longs yelled, rushing forward.
"This isn't real! The memory—it was fake!"
Shari turned, barely dodging a slash. "What?"
"We were both so young back then… terrified. We imagined it all wrong. Even when he was alive, he wasn't this strong—he was weak. We just… we saw him strong through the eyes of scared kids!"
Shari blinked, struck by the truth in his voice.
"This thing we're fighting—it's not him. It's what we remembered. Twisted. Wrong. That's why it won't die. It's not bound by reality!"
The corpse froze mid-step, the knife trembling in its decayed hand. Like the truth itself had struck it.
Selphonie tilted her head, eyes gleaming with twisted pleasure.
"Ah… finally. They're getting to the good parts."
Longs stepped forward slowly, his voice low but firm, eyes distant as the memories surged.
"Back when I was a kid… my ma was close with Beauty's family. One night, she took me along to visit. That's when I met the boy Beauty had brought in. So tiny, so timid. He flinched every time I raised my voice—guess I was a loudmouth even then. My mom scolded me for scaring him."
He smiled faintly, then frowned.
"But he trusted me. We became friends. Just for a little while."
He swallowed hard.
"We went upstairs. I wanted to see Beauty's room. The door was open... they were arguing."
His voice broke for a second.
"Beauty was bleeding… bruised. Her fiancé was yelling—'Why'd you bring that stray kid here?' He called her a liar, accused her of hiding the Devil's child. Said she'd disgrace their family."
Shari's breath hitched. Light's expression grew heavy with sorrow.
"He wanted her to throw Cydal out. When she refused—when she defended him—he snapped. He hit her. Slapped her. Pushed her on the bed…"
Longs hesitated.
"He tore her clothes. Said she'd bear his children, whether she liked it or not. Cydal and I… we saw everything. We were just kids, frozen in the hallway, too scared to even breathe."
The wind around them stilled.
"That's when I saw Cydal… crying. Whispering to someone who wasn't there. Someone he called… 'ghost.' Then he disappeared for a second and came back with a knife."
Longs choked on the words.
"You know what happened after that…"
Silence.
Shari's voice cracked.
"God… that must've been… horrific. Why didn't you say anything before?"
Longs looked down, eyes heavy with guilt.
"After the incident, Beauty's parents decided it was true. That he was the Devil. They threw him out like garbage. I… I never saw him again."
Even the corpse seemed to lower its blade, like the truth had taken the fight out of it.
With a fierce yell, Shari struck the ghost one last time—her blade cutting through the air and shattering the corpse into fine black dust.
"Go to hell, you psycho," she spat, panting.
From the shadows, Selphonie clapped slowly, her voice dripping with mock admiration.
"Oh, what raw, delicious emotion… The way you unraveled your trauma, worked together… almost impressive."
Suddenly, a glowing interface shimmered in front of them, floating mid-air like a game screen:
[Congratulations! You have completed your Augmented Reality Training.]
[You may now select to play the real game.]
[Would you like to be part of this game?]
"Congratulations indeed," Selphonie purred, eyes narrowing.
"The system is now a part of you. When you're ready to become a player… just call for 'System.'"
She slithered toward Longs, body almost melding with his. She pressed against his chest, smothering him, lips inches from his.
"You can go home… or stay here… and play through the other towers with me. I promise you, it'll be so much fun."
Her voice was like honey laced with poison.
Before Longs could answer, Light stepped in, arms spread protectively between them. A soft glow surrounded her palms, shielding both Longs and Shari.
She looked at Longs—concerned, pleading.
"What's wrong?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.
Light slowly shook her head. Don't.
He looked at the system, then back at her. Then he gave a tired, crooked grin.
"Of course not. I'm not joining this madness. I just want this over with. I'm starving… and I think I need to poo."
Shari let out a half-snort through a laugh, but her gaze grew distant.
She saw it again—that tiny figure. A small boy. Alone. Reaching out for her.
She cried as she tried to pull him back from a glowing gate. She was screaming, trying to bring him back. But he slipped out of her hands and vanished.
But in the present… she said nothing.
Longs reached out.
"Come on, we're getting out of here."
Pixel by pixel, the two began to vanish, dissolving into soft fragments of light.
Moments later, they re-materialized in the real world, in the basement among other statues —breathless, blinking… and free. Finally it was over.
The Time Gate had reverted to nothing more than a dust-covered painting, faded and still. The statue beside it had returned to its original pose—bowing low in reverence, arms extended as it offered something unseen to the towering central figure, just like the other four lesser statues surrounding it.
"Huh?! Did we leave Light behind? Oh no! She must be scared and alone—we should go back!" Longs panicked, already stepping toward the gates ahead. But Shari grabbed his shoulder, stopping him gently.
"She'll be fine," Shari said, her voice calm but distant. "She seemed like someone who could move through this world—and others—with ease. I wouldn't worry about her."
"But... but my club members…" Shari's words trailed off as her mind spiraled into the haunting memories. She saw Kane's head explode—his body torn apart before Shaarmila's eyes. Then Shaarmila, screaming, shredded into pieces by a swarm of ravenous Grimhounds. The others followed—ripped apart mid-scream, raining down in limbs and blood like a storm of death.
Her legs gave out. She collapsed to her knees, broken. Tears streamed down her face.
"I'll never forgive Cydal," she whispered. "He left us there to die. He's a monster… just like they say. Selfish. Heartless. He only cares about his own damn gains."
Longs, usually the big guy with the big grin—the one who always held everyone together—said nothing. Seeing her like this shattered something inside him too. He quietly sat beside her, leaning against her shoulder, both of them grounded by grief, uncertainty… and the crushing weight of what came next.
To be continued