Darian remained motionless before the pedestal. His father’s voice echoed in his mind, but the reality before his eyes weighed far more heavily than any childhood tale. That phrase he had uttered seconds before—“It isn’t a myth… it’s real”—now carried a physical weight that nearly robbed him of breath. The amber crystal on the book’s cover—that closed eye that seemed to pulse—emitted a heat Darian felt deep in his own bones. Unable to resist, driven by an attraction that defied his fear, he extended his hand and touched the cold surface of the book.

  The world stopped.

  It wasn’t an explosion, but a violent immersion into someone else’s memory. Darian found himself standing on barren ground beneath a sky choked with black clouds that suffocated any trace of light. The air smelled of ash and crackled with an electric energy that made his skin prickle. Before him, a nightmarish figure rose like a tower of shadows: the Demon King. But what truly stopped Darian’s heart was the man facing him.

  He wasn’t human. Fine, dark horns sprouted from his forehead, and his skin held a lunar pallor that contrasted sharply with the blood staining his tunic. He was a demon, but his posture was not that of a villain. Rather, he stood like an exhausted warrior gripping a cracked staff.

  “Why?” the Demon King’s voice thundered, making reality itself vibrate. “You are the greatest of our lineage. Why did you betray your own kind for these inferior races, Sarion?”

  Darian tried to scream, but the vision dissolved into threads of energy that coiled around his chest. He felt a violent tug at the center of his being, as if his soul were being sewn to something immense and ancient. When he opened his eyes, the chamber’s silence struck his ears like a hammer blow, leaving him momentarily deaf and disoriented.

  Darian fell to his knees, gasping. The pedestal was empty. Aria stood at his side, clutching her left shoulder with a grimace of pain. The impact against the column on the upper level had left her badly wounded, though she still held her short knife drawn by pure instinct.

  “Floor five,” she said with icy urgency. “We fell too deep. Don’t ask questions. Don’t speak. If we stay here, we’ll never get out.”

  Darian rose to his feet, feeling his senses strangely heightened. The tunnel ahead, shrouded in darkness, seemed to vibrate before his eyes. They hadn’t gone far when danger materialized. A Shadow Stalker slid down from the ceiling—a writhing mass of translucent claws and fangs. Aria stepped in front of him, but her movements were slower than usual because of her injury.

  Darian then felt a sharp prick in his chest. Acting on pure instinct, he whispered:

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  “Flow Perception…”

  The world lost its color. Darian saw a trail of blue energy marking the monster’s trajectory toward Aria’s neck. At the same time, at the base of the creature’s skull, he spotted a faint knot of light—its weak point.

  “Aria, down!” he shouted, launching himself forward.

  Darian’s sword intercepted the knot of light in midair. It wasn’t brute force that stopped the monster, but absolute precision. The creature let out a piercing shriek that broke into a wet gurgle and dissolved into shadows, crawling erratically through the cracks in the ceiling until it vanished into total darkness.

  Darian immediately dropped to his knees. A piercing pain shot through his skull, and he felt warm liquid running from his eyes and ears. Blood. His senses screamed from the strain.

  “How did you…?” Aria didn’t finish the sentence. She hauled him up by his uninjured shoulder, pulled a handkerchief from her belt, and tossed it to him without quite meeting his eyes. A mix of suspicion and pragmatism colored her voice. “Wipe your face. You look like a corpse. We can’t enter the city like this.”

  The exit was an odyssey through shadows. They moved in silence, hiding in crevices as monster patrols passed mere meters away. Aria guided them with expert precision, though Darian noticed her glancing at him from the corner of her eye with a question she didn’t dare voice. Every time he wiped away the fresh blood trickling from his ears, he could feel her unspoken doubt.

  Finally, they reached the surface. The night air of Low Mountain greeted them with sepulchral silence. As they walked toward the edge of the forest, Darian paused and looked back. There, atop a high crag, he thought he saw a silhouette wrapped in a dark cloak watching them. It radiated a frigid, hostile intent.

  “Aria…” Darian murmured, stopping. “I think I saw something up there.”

  Aria spun around instantly, tensing into what remained of her combat stance. She scanned the crag, but the silhouette had already vanished.

  “What? What did you see?” she asked, voice sharp with alertness.

  Darian blinked. The crag was empty.

  “No… nothing. I think my eyes are playing tricks on me… it must be from the blow.”

  Aria stared at him for several seconds before sighing and continuing to walk.

  “No wonder. Let’s keep moving. I don’t want to be here when the rest of the dungeon wakes up.”

  The journey to Arkania passed in an exhausted blur. When they reached the city gates, the nocturnal atmosphere—lit by magical crystal lanterns—felt strangely alien, as if the world he once knew had changed forever. Despite Aria’s handkerchief, his face felt sticky, and a partial deafness reminded him of the price of his new power.

  They entered the Guild under the stunned gazes of everyone present. Aria, her silver rank badge stained with dust and blood, reported the anomaly: the Spectral Knight on an upper floor and the subsequent collapse.

  “It’s a miracle you’re both alive,” grunted Garrick, the instructor, eyeing Darian’s wounds with clear suspicion.

  Darian said nothing. He remained silent, feeling the warmth pulsing in his chest. In the darkest corner of the hall, the Imperial officer continued taking notes in silence. Feeling watched, Darian turned his head. His eyes met those of the man in gray. The officer held his gaze for what felt like an eternity—a silent, chilling challenge—before calmly returning to his notes.

  Darian touched his chest. Sarion’s secret throbbed in his soul, while the shadows that had watched them in the dungeon seemed to stretch out toward his future.