The place was dark, wet, and filled with a strange, metallic smell that clung to Arty's throat.

She didn't like any of it. Cold droplets dripped from unseen depths, pattering into shallow pools that coated the uneven floor.

A dim sourceless glow pulsed along the walls, just enough for her to see vague shapes but not enough to feel safe because she didn't know where those lights came from.

The space felt like a corridor. It was narrow, damp, and stretching endlessly into shadows.

Arty felt fear curling inside her chest. She didn't know where she was or how she arrived here, but she forced her legs to keep moving.

Eventually, the corridor opened into a wide chamber.

The room's architecture twisted unnaturally as if angles bent in ways they shouldn't be. Just looking at them makes Arty's head throb painfully.

Black and red walls rose around her, sharp and smooth at the same time, forming patterns that looked almost alive. The chamber felt wrong like a place built to unsettle anything that entered.

Arty kept moving. She didn't know why. Her mind screamed for her to stop and turn back, but her legs and body carried her forward as if something unseen tugged at her bones.

The pull was strange and faint yet undeniable. The force was guiding her deeper into the structure.

She climbed narrow stairways slick with moisture, passed under archways that bent at impossible angles, and walked through corridors where the walls seemed to pulse as if breathing.

Strange shifting and writhing symbols crawled across the surfaces, never still. Her every step echoed with a hollow sound that made her feel as though the entire place was listening and watching her.

Higher and higher she went, ascending spiraling steps that clung to the outer wall of a massive tower-like structure.

When she finally reached the upper level, she hesitated and looked down.

Her breath froze.

Below her, the structure extended downward without end. Black and red layers twisted into each other, stretching into a bottomless pit of darkness.

Her stomach dropped, her knees weakening under the weight of her fear. The realization felt suffocating. She was in something vast and alive, something wrong. This structure feels like it doesn't belong to the world she knows.

But the pull urged her on and she had no choice but to keep walking.

She didn't know how long she moved. It was minutes, hours, or maybe days? The fear in her heart never loosened. It only grew heavier, sharp and cold like a blade pressed to her ribs.

Eventually, she reached a tall window carved unnaturally into the wall. She approached it slowly, her breath trembling, and looked outside.

Her eyes widened in horror.

Below, an entire city sprawled across the land. At first, she recognized the shapes. The familiar square rooftops, the tall stone towers, the clean, stacked layout of Qomore Kingdom's architecture.

The city she had lived in for months. The city that had almost become her home.

But now everything was wrong.

Every building, every tower, every street was wrapped in black and red growths. Tendrils clinging tightly, pulsing as if feeding on the structures beneath. It looked like the entire city had been swallowed alive.

"No… no… no…" Arty whispered, her voice shaking violently.

The city she knew was gone, consumed by something monstrous. Fear and desperation spiraled through her chest, threatening to crush her as she stared at the nightmare stretching endlessly before her.

A voice rose from the darkness behind her, smooth and low, curling through the chamber like smoke.

"This is your city."

Arty gasp. She spun around and instantly staggered back.

A creature stood there.

His face resembled an octopus twisted into something humanoid, pale red skin stretched over writhing tendrils where a mouth should have been. His eyes were pitch-black like polished obsidian and their malice pierced straight through her.

A long robe draped over his body in black, gold, and red woven together, but now gold dominated the fabric, gleaming in the dim light.

His hands hung at His sides. He has long, gnarled fingers that end in sharp claws.

Terror stabbed through Arty. She tried to step back but hit the cold wall behind her. Her eyes widened and her breath shook violently.

"How does it look?" the creature asked as he walked slowly toward her. "Do you like it?"

Arty tried to speak, tried to scream, tried to run. But her body refused to do all what he wanted. Something held her still, locking her limbs in place.

She could only watch helplessly as the creature approached her.

Her voice finally broke free, thin and trembling. "W-what do you want?"

"I want to devour the world and make it mine," the creature replied casually. "There's your answer. Are you satisfied?"

Arty's mouth opened, but no sound came out. Fear choked her. She fell silent again.

"I was a slave too," the creature continued, its voice deepening. "Until I claimed this power for myself. And now it feels good to do anything I want."

She didn't need to see a mouth to know he was smiling. She felt it. Felt the pleasure dripping from his words.

"But your brother," he said softly, "is in my way. That's why I have to kill him."

A spark of anger cut through Arty's terror. Her heart pounded, heat rising in her chest.

She forced her muscles to move. First was just a twitch, then more. And finally she managed to break free enough to lunge forward, rushing at the creature in blind fury.

But the creature didn't flinch.

The creature watched her with amused disdain and let out a cold, echoing laugh.

"You will be my tool to destroy him," he said.

Darkness swallowed her before she could reach him.

Arty gasped awake.

She sat upright in her bed in Sylmira's tower, drenched in sweat, her breath ragged and fast.

The room was quiet and safe. But the terror still clawed at her chest as the memory of the creature lingered in her mind.

—