Judge pressed his back against a jagged stone, breath ragged, blood still wet on his ribs. The air wasn't air anymore; it was the suffocating weight of silence thick enough to chew on. No birds. No bugs. Not even the wind dared to whistle. Even his own breath sounded intrusive, like it didn't belong in this world.

And yet he moved.

One step at a time, through trees that weren't quite trees anymore. Their bark had faces, eyes closed as if dreaming nightmares into the world. Their leaves shifted colors like bruises blooming in reverse, some curling inwards, whispering to one another in a hush of crackling tension.

A low, humming throb pulsed beneath his boots with every step, like the very soil had its own heartbeat — a rhythm he was not invited to join.

He gritted his teeth. "Alright. You wanted a real son? You get a real idiot with a sword."

The forest didn't answer. It just pulsed again. Like a heartbeat. Like it was alive. Or worse, like it was watching.

Golden Eagle was holstered, but it might as well have been a paperweight. Ether-dead bullets in an ether-dead gun in an ether-dead zone. A perfect recipe for survival, if sarcasm counted as ammunition.

He didn't bother checking it again. He'd rather not confirm that it was useless twice. Once was enough for disappointment. Twice was a hobby.

He walked. Slowly. Sword drawn, eyes sharp, paranoia bubbling just beneath his skin. The deeper he went, the more the path stopped being a path.

Roots like hands stretched across the earth, some twitching as if they remembered being limbs. Leaves above curled inwards like the forest was folding over him. A gnarled tree ahead had a hole in its trunk that looked too much like a mouth — with teeth.

Then came the smell.

Copper, rot. But worse — something oily. Chemical. Like burnt meat wrapped in plastic and left in the sun. His stomach turned. His instincts screamed. He crouched low. The moss under his fingers recoiled like it didn't want to be touched.

And then he saw it. Not a creature. A carcass. Something that once had legs, now dragged behind itself. Four limbs, fused into two. A tongue hanging from a jaw that didn't belong to its skull. Eyeless. Breathing. Dying, maybe. Suffering, definitely.

Judge didn't speak. Didn't move. The thing wasn't dead. It twitched. A single slow movement. It was dying. Had been dying for a long time. A prisoner of the flux.

Flux hadn't just killed its ether. It had scrambled its blueprint. Rewritten its code with insanity. And now it was waiting to stop existing.

He rose and moved past it, one eye on the warped beast, blade raised. But it didn't follow. Couldn't. A mercy of sorts.

He crossed into a clearing next. And stopped.

A mirror.

Floating, cracked, suspended between two trees. No frame. Just a jagged shard, hovering midair like some ancient judgment. Like the forest wanted him to see himself before he died.

His reflection looked back at him. Same cloak. Same blood-streaked cheek. Same haunted eyes.

Then it blinked.

He hadn't.

His reflection smiled. His heartbeat started to rise, and many thoughts clouded his mind, making him unable to think straight. But there was still instincts, and his thoughts couldn't cloud them.

He slashed, hoping to end a fight he didn't want. But the steel met nothing. The mirror vanished with a chime, like glass turning to dust.

"Right," he muttered, his thoughts turning normal. "Insanity level: mirror-based jump scares. We're in full horror territory now."

Something moved in the trees. He turned fast, sword up.

Too slow.

A shape barreled out from above — long-limbed, silent, no eyes, no mouth, just teeth around its neck, and two legs protruding from its torso. It slammed into him.

Judge hit the ground hard. His scar tore open again. He felt a burning sensation on his side, but there was no fire. The pain got more intense with each breath, getting unbearable.

He screamed, slashed upward, blade dragging through dense flesh. The thing screeched with a high-pitched gargle, black ichor raining down.

It lunged again. He rolled, coughing, slammed his foot into its chest to push it back. His sword arm burned from the earlier fight. His vision doubled.

But he stood. Bloody. Angry... and weak.

"You fluxed-up treehugging corpse-muffin," he growled, swinging again.

This time, his blade hit its leg. Bone cracked. The creature flailed, lashing out with its arms, fingers like quills. One raked across his shoulder. Blood again.

Judge shouted and drove his blade into its chest, pushing, grunting, driving forward until the thing thrashed, twitched, and finally dropped.

He stumbled back.

Everything hurt. His side was open again, worse than before. The taste of iron filled his mouth. His vision tilted sideways.

But he wasn't dead.

The trees shifted again. Subtle. Imperceptible. Wrong.

He staggered forward.

More trees. More paths that weren't paths. The world around him bent at angles that didn't exist. Sometimes he walked straight and ended up behind himself. He passed the same rock three times. Or three identical rocks. Or maybe they were watching him too.

Time didn't pass. Or passed too fast. Maybe it circled. He wasn't sure anymore. The forest didn't play fair.

But he was still chasing something. Somewhere, a purpose. A reason to move.

And then he saw it.

A clearing. Still. Humming. And in its center, hovering like a heart torn from the body of the world, was a crystal.

Dark. Iridescent. Rotating slowly, absorbing all light and giving none.

The Flux Core.

He wasn't sure how he knew. He just did. It called to something primal in him. Something old. Something scared.

A Flux Core. The origin. The singularity sucking in all the ether, disrupting the balance. Dangerous, yes. But also priceless. Flux Cores were the foundations of high-grade rechargeable catalysts. Extremely rare, invaluable.

If he could destroy it... or take it — the zone would collapse. Ether would return.

He took a step forward, teeth gritted and one hand clutching his blade.

Toward the core.

Toward the only hope he had left.