As soon as the radiant light touched the soldiers of Durn, they became screaming. White mist began to pour from their bodies, their flesh cracking as if their very souls were burning away. Some dropped their weapons, writhing and clawing at their skin, while others disintegrated into glowing ash under the divine radiance.

Yet the other armies, Jul, and Ling Yan's forces stood unaffected. The holy light brushed past them like a warm breeze, gentle and harmless.

Reynold stood unmoving amidst the chaos, his sword still faintly glowing, his voice quiet but resolute.

"They were already corrupted," he murmured. "I only freed what was left."

"What, what is happening?!" a Jul officer shouted, his voice breaking through the chaos as soldiers stumbled back from the burning silhouettes of Durn's men.

Lina's voice calmed the unsure soldiers. "T-they are not human anymore."

Reynold's forces continued advancing with solemn precision. The runes etched into their silver armor flickered, then fully ignited, casting radiant sigils across their bodies. As one, the light from their armor surged outward, expanding into a vast dome of shimmering radiance. It rose like a rising sun, sealing the chamber in a resplendent shell of divine power.

The barrier hummed, a sound like distant choir song. Within it, the remaining Durn soldiers screamed as their forms flickered, and began to dissolve into mist.

All of sudden, the ground rumbled.

A low vibration rose beneath their boots, deep and primal, like the heartbeat of something buried far beneath the earth.

Cracks split across the ancient stone floor, spider webbing toward the far end of the chamber where the sealed gate stood.

The gate trembled violently, its carvings glowing with a sinister black light.

BOOM.

The gate violently shuddered, then split apart. The explosion of stone and runes was deafening; shards of ancient masonry burst outward like shrapnel, skittering across the ground.

From within that void of darkness, a monstrous hand emerged.

It was vast, each finger as long as a man was tall, its skin a swirling shadow of black miasma. Wisps of corruption dripped from its clawed tips, sizzling as they hit the holy light.

The dome shattered like thin glass, fragments of radiance scattering across the ground.

Reynold reacted instantly, moving in front of his soldiers.

His sword cut upward in a brilliant arc, a crescent moon made of pure silver radiance. The slash struck the monstrous hand and disappeared.

The divine energy was swallowed, absorbed into the shadowed flesh as though it had never existed.

Frowning, he commanded. "Fall back!"

But the hand did not come for them.

It moved with horrifying speed, sweeping across the chamber like a tidal wave of darkness. It seized the of Durn, grasping not only their bodies, but whatever fragments of soul remained. Their shrieks twisted into something inhuman as they were dragged toward the void.

But the hand did not chased them, its target was something else.

It swept across the chamber with terrifying speed. It seized the burning soldiers of Durn, enveloping their whole form, and pulling toward the gaping darkness beyond the gate.

There was a heavy silence in the hall. Just now that monstrous hand took the Durn soldiers and their remains, but they could not even see what it belonged to.

No one spoke. The remaining soldiers, Jul, and Yan forces, stood motionless, pale and rigid, hands clutching their weapons as if the faintest sound might summon the horror back.

Only the faint clinking of loose armor echoed through the chamber.

Then, from somewhere in the ranks, a whisper broke the silence.

"They… they were the ones," a trembling voice said.

"The Durns… they were the ones who attacked us in the fog."

The words spread like wildfire, whisper to whisper, soldier to soldier.

At first, disbelief. Then, grim realization.

Because when Reynold's holy light had burned the Durn soldiers, the mist that poured from their dissolving bodies, it wasn't smoke. It was the same pale fog that had engulfed them during the ambush earlier.

And that monstrous hand, the one born of miasma that had claimed them, it wasn't something a mortal could summon or withstand.

No human could control such corruption.

They had been corrupted. They were traitors.

But how and when?

The question rippled through every mind, unspoken yet heavy. In these ruins, all three empires had sworn to fight as one, to reach the heart of the ruin together. Rivalries and grudges were set aside. No one was foolish enough to turn on allies inside a place governed by ancient traps.

The Jul soldiers exchanged uneasy glances, whispering.

"They must have planned this from the beginning…" one muttered, eyes narrowing.

"So the attacks in the mist, those split formations…" another added under his breath.

"They lured us into their trap," a third growled, gripping his spear so tightly his knuckles turned white.

Near the center, the Yan generals gathered protectively around their princess. Ling Yan's expression, usually calm and unreadable, had hardened.

"I should've seen it earlier," she murmured, her voice low, filled with restrained anger.

The elder's tone was grave as he added, "The Durns weren't merely corrupted… they chose to side with the ruin."

Reynold said nothing. Standing a short distance away, he rested his blade against the ground, still and silent. The glow that once shimmered along his sword had faded, yet the cold sharpness in his eyes remained.

That hand made of miasma… it had withstood his invisible blades. There were few things left in existence he couldn't cut, yet that thing had resisted him entirely.

'How is the analysis?' Reynold asked silently.

At his side, the air shimmered faintly, and a human-sized silver mirror appeared, its surface rippling like water. A calm, ethereal voice echoed within his mind.

[Due to the illusory nature of the subject, analysis is halted at 20%.][Further observation is required for completion.]

'Can you mirror that thing?' Reynold asked, eyes fixed on the gate ahead.

[Affirmative.]

'I see,' he murmured.

The mirror remained beside him, tall, gleaming, and utterly invisible to the world around. No one seemed to notice it, not even the generals nearby. It stood silently like a loyal sentinel, reflecting nothing but the faint outline of Reynold himself, and the deep, suffocating darkness that loomed beyond.