Morning came, though the sky outside still wore the bruises of last night's storm.
Samuel was already awake. He hadn't really slept—just drifted in and out of shallow dreams, haunted more by thoughts than visions. The kind of rest that left the body sore and the mind louder than before.
He dropped to the floor and started doing push-ups, slow and methodical. The motion didn't help much, but it gave his thoughts somewhere to go that wasn't madness.
One… two… three…
Anything to push away the weight of what Lyra had said.
Artificial gods. A fractured world. And an emperor—Ethan, she called him—who had torn open the veil between realities.
That part… that part stuck with him.
Ethan.
A man from Earth. Like him. Like the others. Someone who had risen high enough to be worshipped… and then disappeared.
Lyra said he died.
Samuel's gut said otherwise.
He didn't have proof. Just that quiet instinct whispering in his bones—the same one that had kept him alive this far.
The emperor hadn't died.
He had gone back.
Back to Earth.
Samuel paused mid-pushup, his breath caught between disbelief and something else.
Hope? No. Not quite.
Curiosity, maybe. Obsession, more likely.
Still, even if Ethan had returned... what would that change? What was Earth to him now? Just another place to be alone. Another room with no doors.
Here or there, the silence followed.
He stood up and wiped the sweat from his face.
No matter, he thought. Temple or not, I'm leaving.
He wasn't interested in playing their games. Their trials, their blind worship, their rules.
He'd disappear. Like smoke. Just another nameless refugee on a continent filled with broken things.
And maybe… just maybe… he'd find the trail Ethan left behind.
Because if someone found the door out once—then it existed.
And Samuel planned to kick it open.
Even if there was no one waiting on the other side.
Lyra stirred beneath her cloak, eyes half-lidded, strands of silver hair clinging to her cheek. She blinked blearily, then squinted at him.
Samuel stood shirtless, sweat clinging to his back, steam curling from his skin in the morning chill. He was stretching his shoulders, breathing steadily.
She raised an eyebrow.
He just grinned.
"So," he said, voice dry, "shall we find that cathedral and go home?"
Lyra yawned, then nodded slowly, still not fully awake. "Mm. After breakfast."
Soon, they washed by the stream—cold water, sharp and clean. The forest mist curled around them like the breath of a sleeping giant.
Lyra worked quietly, her fingers deft as she chopped the strange, pulpy fruit they'd gathered the day before. The soup she made was simple, sweet, and a little sour. It smelled faintly of honey and ash.
They ate together in silence, sitting on damp stone, steam rising from the crude wooden bowls in their hands.
It was a rare moment. Still. Almost human.
Then, with the quiet reverence of two people who knew better than to get too comfortable, they packed their things and moved on—deeper into the forest, where the trees grew darker and the air thicker with secrets.
The cathedral waited somewhere ahead.
And so did whatever came after.
***
The forest held its breath.
Rain dripped from the canopy in rhythmic, hollow notes. Mist hung low across the roots like the ghost of something long buried. In that silence, Samuel stood alone—mud caked to his boots, Moonblade in hand, blood already drying on his ribs from a wound earned hours earlier.
They were coming.
Three of them.
The same kind of beasts he had encountered before—twisted wolves, corrupted by something dark and ancient. Their fur clumped in patches, skin marred with bone protrusions, and their breath stank of rot. Rank 1, low-grade… but in numbers, they were more than lethal.
Their eyes glowed faintly. Not with hunger, but with purpose.
Samuel crouched low, back against a massive root, heart pounding.
Up above, hidden in the crook of a tree, Lyra said nothing.
She was only watching.
No help. No guidance.
Just eyes.
This was his trial. His blood.
A branch cracked. Then another. They were flanking.
Samuel felt the weight of every scar, every bruise that the world had pressed upon his flesh and soul. Moonblade in hand, slick with mud and old blood, a pale glint in the twilight, he stood alone against the coming storm of claws and teeth.
The first wolf lunged—a projectile of rage and death. Samuel twisted, pain exploding as claws raked down his ribs, breaking skin, breaking bone, breaking hope.
He spat blood, bitter and metallic, and smiled darkly.
"Well, isn't this the welcome party."
His fingers clawed into the wet earth, pulling up a handful of sludge, thick and clinging like the memories he couldn't shake. With a curse, he shoved it into the beast's glowing eyes. The wolf screamed—a sound cracked and broken—and flailed wildly, blinded by the muck.
Samuel hissed, tasting the mud and decay in his mouth.
The second wolf bit into his calf, teeth sinking deep enough to draw fire. He twisted hard, striking its snout with a savage elbow. The creature yelped and snarled, frustrated and bleeding.
Three predators closing in on a single, desperate man. The forest seemed to lean in, waiting.
Samuel staggered back, breath ragged, chest burning like a furnace. Pain was a cruel companion, but he welcomed it—it meant he was still alive, still fighting.
His eyes caught a patch of soft earth ahead—mud pooled in a shallow hollow, treacherous and deep.
A trap.
He baited them with a faltering retreat, each step a calculated lie.
The second wolf lunged again—and vanished, swallowed by the mud's cruel grip. Its screams bubbled up, guttural and frantic.
Samuel's lips curled in a bitter smile.
"Enjoy your mud bath. Hope you drown in it."
The trapped beast thrashed violently, dragging the third wolf into chaos. Blood and mud mingled in a savage dance.
Without hesitation, Samuel lunged forward, Moonblade slicing deep into the wolf's exposed skull. The beast's death howl shattered the rain's quiet.
Two left.
The leader—the nightmare born from hunger and hatred—circled with slow, deliberate menace. His eyes glowed with cruel intelligence, as if savoring the kill.
Samuel wiped the blood and mud from his lips.
"Come on, then. Show me what makes you special."
The wolf attacked—teeth flashing like lightning. Samuel barely blocked, claws tearing his forearm raw. Pain exploded, sharp and white-hot.
The beast forced him against a tree—rough bark biting into his skin, stealing his breath. His vision blurred, muscles trembling under the weight of impending death.
Desperation became clarity.
He seized a jagged rock, smashing it hard into the wolf's nose.
Twice.
The beast staggered, snarling in rage, but far from broken.
With a guttural roar, Samuel pushed off the tree and tackled the beast to the ground.
They writhed—a brutal symphony of claws and teeth, flesh and blood. The wolf's jaws snapped close to his throat, a nightmare kiss of death.
Samuel's Moonblade found ribs. Bone cracked under cold steel.
The wolf's scream was raw—half beast, half something lost to madness.
It threw him off with violent fury.
Samuel hit the mossy ground hard, coughing, choking on the wet decay.
His limbs burned with pain and fatigue, every breath a battle.
One wolf left.
It melted into the shadows like a ghost—silent, patient, deadly.
Samuel forced himself up, every movement agony.
Then it struck—from above—a shadow falling like death incarnate.
Samuel braced, blade raised.
The wolf plunged down, impaled by the Moonblade's cold kiss.
Its dying weight crushed him into the mud, breath strangled in his throat.
When the last breath slipped away, Samuel lay soaked in rain, blood, and dirt—a living ruin.
From the branches, Lyra's voice drifted, sharp and cold as winter steel.
"You're an idiot."
Samuel groaned. Not from pain, but because she was right.
Again.
"Yeah…" he coughed, struggling to push the corpse off his chest. "But I really pushed myself this time."
There was a long pause. Then the sound of feet landing softly on wet ground.
Lyra stood over him, one eyebrow raised, arms crossed. Her silver-white hair was damp from the rain, clinging to her cheek like moonlight caught in thorns. She didn't even offer a hand.
"I can see that," she said flatly, glancing at the steaming pile of dead wolves around him.
"Pushing yourself, huh. by shoving mud in the eyies ? that's a toddler's tantrum."
He winced, flexing his torn arm. The pain flared in jagged pulses.
Lyra crouched beside one of the dead wolves, inspecting the blade wound near its skull. Her voice was casual. Too casual.
"You said you'd let the abyss guide you. Sink just deep enough. Touch it, and come back. But instead…"
She gestured at the battlefield around them.
"You keep pulling your punches, Samuel. You fight like you're still hoping to win. That's not what the abyss wants."
Samuel looked down at his hands. Bloody. Trembling.
"I used my mind. Traps. Terrain. Cunning."
"You used excuses," Lyra said, her voice low and cutting. "This was supposed to break you. That's how you touch it."
Samuel grimaced. The truth was ugly. Uglier than the pain.
He had promised her he'd try. That he'd take himself to the edge, dance on the blade of death. That's what it took to access the abyssal energy—the dark current that slept somewhere in the marrow of his bones, waiting to be bled out through trauma and surrender.
This was his second attempt.
And again… he had survived through tricks and desperation, not surrender.
"I wasn't ready," he said quietly.
"Then stop pretending you are."
Her tone wasn't cruel. Not really. Just indifferent. Detached. Like someone watching a bug crawl up a wall and wondering if it would reach the top before falling.
The rain deepened, washing away the blood slowly. The corpses bled quietly into the dirt.
Samuel clenched his fist.
"I want it," he said. "That power. I just…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Lyra looked at him for a long, unreadable moment. Then turned away.
"You're still afraid. That's all. Not of dying, but of changing. Afraid of becoming something you can't crawl back from."
She started walking again, deeper into the forest. No more words.
Samuel sat there, rain soaking him to the bone, wondering what part of him was still resisting. What part of him was still clinging to the illusion that he could walk through this world without being broken down and reshaped.
He could feel it sometimes—that abyssal pull beneath his skin. Like something whispering from the bottom of a black ocean.
But each time… he hesitated.
He looked down at the dead wolves.
Maybe next time, he thought bitterly.
Maybe next time, he wouldn't hold back.
With a grunt, he stood. Every joint screamed. Every muscle protested. But he walked. One foot after another.
Lyra didn't wait.
She never did.
And he followed her into the dark.