Level “ ? ”: The Meadow of Silence.

  The scene was Dantesque. Corpses hung from exposed cables or lay strewn across the floor, utterly dismembered; some still twitched in their final death throes. The runes of each murdered soul floated in the air like brilliant garlands, drawn towards Lilith as if she were a cosmic magnet. They adhered briefly to her skin, forming complex luminous tattoos, only to vanish as they merged into her body. The entire room was a bloodbath, merely a small sample of what her unleashed power was capable of.

  Despite Harold holding the power of his Gravity rune with all his might, Lilith's brutality could not be contained. No matter how much they attacked her, everyone ended up smashed against the walls or whipped against the floor with a force that pulverised bones.

  Many soldiers clutched their heads trying to keep their sanity; the effect of the Sunflower Seeds that some malicious individual had scattered in the bar was still fresh in their minds. In a crisis like this, it was a lethal distraction.

  It was then that Ryan, the conceited Leader of Barracks B, decided to make his move. He activated his rune of Spikes, generating an attack of hundreds of sharp thorns that embedded themselves all over Lilith's body.

  — Just die already, you damn monster! — Ryan shouted, with his voice cracking with hatred.

  Lilith did not respond. She merely looked at him with a coldness detached from any human emotion. In a desperate surge, TJ raised his hand and his rune of Chain ignited once more. Chains of energy coiled around Lilith's neck, arms, and ankles, binding her with supernatural strength while Harold's gravity continued to pin her down. Instantly, Luke activated his rune of Open Wounds. Countless gashes opened in Lilith's flesh, tearing her apart once more as the attacks from other soldiers joined in a chorus of violence.

  Stefan shielded Commander Nastacia with his own body, while Commander Chan kept his hands raised, using the rune of Earth to prevent the debris from burying them all.

  The combined assault seemed to work… for a second.

  Lilith closed her eyes, indifferent to the pain. Her wounds began to knit shut as if time itself obeyed her will. TJ's chains vibrated, groaned, and crumbled into golden dust. Without a word, TJ's neck snapped at an impossible angle. A dry crack echoed through the silence. He fell dead before he could even understand what had happened.

  Bella, at his side, tried to scream, tried to help him… but it was in vain. Her own body began to come apart. Not just arms or legs; finger by finger, joint by joint, she was undone by an invisible force. What remained of her was only a stain, an unrecognisable puddle.

  Ryan shrieked in horror and launched another burst of metallic spikes into Lilith's torso and neck. But she did not fall. The runes of TJ and Bella, now luminous tattoos, slithered across the floor like spectral snakes, climbing Lilith's legs until they merged into her chest. Her eyes glowed with an intense, lethal purple.

  Ryan backed away, trembling as he watched his spikes evaporate. With a simple thought, Lilith snapped both of Ryan's arms in the opposite direction. The leader slumped to the floor in mute agony, spared from death only because Commander Chan hurled a massive block of debris at her, distracting her for a fleeting moment.

  At that moment, two figures burst through the threshold at full speed: Captain Ronko and Commander Volkov, followed by a heavily armed platoon. Their faces, hardened by decades of warfare, froze. The scene before them was a nightmare: the laboratory awash in blood, walls splattered with viscera and, at the centre… her.

  Harold, pushed beyond his limits, could no longer endure the strain. He slumped unconscious, finally releasing Lilith from the gravitational weight.

  She stood with a terrifying calm, the vertebrae in her neck clicking. Naked. Still. Unshakable. Her eyes were closed and her bare feet still bled from walking over shattered glass. The runes flickered on her skin as if the souls of the dead were still screaming within her.

  Commander Volkov could barely whisper, his weapon trembling in his hands:

  — My God…

  Then, Lilith opened her eyes. Slowly. She looked at them with an abyssal depth.

  Now… it was her turn.

  The Nightmares inhabiting Level Lambda continued to swarm every corner of the base, massacring anyone in their path. The transformation was almost instant: the fallen soldiers did not just die; their bodies were reclaimed by the level’s flora, rapidly sprouting into sunflowers amidst the metal and blood.

  Hundreds of inhuman creatures emerged from the rubble, gliding through the ruins with the efficiency of a hungry swarm of ants. The remaining soldiers opened fire, but their bullets were useless against the entities' translucent skin and strange physiology. The creatures tore through them effortlessly, biting into necks and ripping away flesh with sharp claws and lethal speed. The screams of agony were cut short by the sound of slaughter.

  — This way! — Katrina shouted, raising her hand in desperation.

  She activated her rune of Sand, and a storm of golden grains erupted, dissolving the walls that blocked their path in a frantic attempt to find an exit from the inner corridors. Sand filled the air, temporarily blinding everyone.

  Then, chaos broke loose from the shadows.

  A Nightmare pounced on Katrina from an impossible angle. Before she could react, the creature tore into her neck with brutality, ripping away chunks of flesh and knocking Bealuna and Virellian to the ground. Katrina's blood splattered her friends' faces as she collapsed under the monster's weight.

  Mirko reacted instantly, activating his rune of Knife. Hundreds of steel blades appeared in the air and were unleashed like a gale upon the entities swarming them. The soldiers fired their weapons with blind desperation, but the creatures' voracity was fierce; for every one that fell, two more emerged from the ceiling. Amidst the carnage, the rune of Compass shone with an intense light on Virellian's arm.

  — Follow me! The rune marks a path! — Virellian shouted, guiding them towards an air duct that remained intact.

  Bealuna followed quickly, driven by panic. But just as Mirko prepared to jump after them, the ceiling gave way. A deafening roar shook the corridor and tonnes of concrete collapsed onto him, crushing him completely.

  Inside the duct, the silence was terrifying, broken only by their own ragged breathing. Virellian looked around, bewildered. They were trapped in a cramped space, blocked by rubble at both ends. There was no visible exit and the air would soon run out.

  — It can't be... — Virellian whispered, staring at his arm as the compass light stopped flickering —. Why...? Why would my rune guide us to a dead end?

  Bealuna huddled into herself, trembling in the darkness. The luck that had protected them until now had become a death trap.

  Under Captain Ronko's command, a hail of bullets was directed at Lilith. The roar of rifles filled the laboratory, but she didn't even seek cover. She simply raised a hand. Her voice, calm and cold, echoed for the first time in the foul air, not as a plea, but as a death decree:

  — Betrayal, wars, hatred… everything you touch, you contaminate; everything you touch, you destroy… None of you deserve to return to Earth — she sentenced —. You do not deserve your lives back. You are loathsome. Everyone must die here.

  The bullets stopped dead in the air, suspended by an invisible force. They trembled violently for a second... and then they turned. The whistle of steel cutting the air filled the room as the ammunition tore back towards its owners with lethal speed, striking down the soldiers who failed to find cover.

  Stefan turned his head at the sound of footsteps. His eyes lit up briefly as he recognised Dante, Alan, and Niku emerging from the shadows of the corridor.

  Nastacia, meanwhile, groaned as she tried to pull herself up. Her leg was a ruin of dust, exposed bone, and raw flesh. She coughed up thick blood, but her authority remained:

  — We have to… protect... Captain Ronko — she gasped —. If he falls… the entire base will collapse.

  Dante noticed then that the Celestial Ring of the Fifth Virtue on his finger began to pulse with light. A shiver ran down his arm and he felt his mind expand suddenly. Ideas snapped into place with immense clarity; escape routes and combat tactics drew themselves in his consciousness. His Strategist Capability was at its peak.

  Without hesitation, he opened his Dimensional Storage and withdrew several Lunar Fruits. He threw them with precision to Alan, Niku, and Stefan.

  — Alan, give it to Nastacia! Niku, take one to Commander Chan! — Dante ordered, his voice now carrying a gelid authority —. It's only a matter of time before Chan reaches his limit. And you, Stefan, eat one and give the other to Leader Ryan!

  Dante pointed towards Ryan, who was writhing on the floor in mute agony. His arms, twisted at unnatural angles by Lilith's psychic power, were a gruesome sight. The arrogant Leader of Barracks B, who moments before had been full of hubris, could now barely breathe from the shock. They needed every leader on their feet for a chance at a distraction.

  Alan and Niku watched in awe as Commander Chan, in a display of immense power, raised several stone walls simultaneously with his rune of Earth, bearing the weight of the base and Lilith's siege.

  Alan reached the Commander's broken body. — Commander Nastacia, hold on! — he shouted with genuine concern.

  The few flickering lights played over cracked walls and lifeless bodies. The air smelt of ozone, blood, and despair, but the glow of the fruits brought an impossible hope. Nastacia recognised the Lunar Fruit and devoured it immediately. The luminous energy was absorbed into her body, knitting open wounds and weaving bone and muscle back together in seconds. At the same time, Stefan's bloodied head began to heal, erasing every trace of his injury.

  Stefan exchanged an awkward look with Alan, giving a slight nod. — I'm fine, it's nothing... — he muttered, finishing his fruit.

  It was then that Dante, with his strategic vision still active, looked up and saw Lilith in the distance for the first time in this timeline. And there, at her feet, Harold lay unconscious. Dante remembered a vital detail: Harold must not die in this battle. He could not allow the rune of Gravity to be lost.

  — Commander Chan! — Dante shouted, with his eyes fixed on Lilith —. Is Harold still alive?!

  Chan, with his arms trembling from the effort of holding the walls, affirmed without being able to articulate a word, making clear with his gaze that he needed urgent help.

  Stefan steadied himself, feeling vigour surge through his veins, completely renewed by the power of the fruit. Meanwhile, Alan helped Commander Nastacia to stand up, who looked at him with a mixture of bewilderment and renewed respect.

  A few metres away, Ryan remained still on the floor, but his screams of agony had died down. He looked at his arms with absolute amazement; there where before there were only splintered bones and flesh twisted by psychic force, now the skin was smooth and the bones welded. He sat up slowly, flexing his fingers and looking at Dante with an expression that oscillated between gratitude and the blow to his own pride: his arms had been completely restored.

  Commander Nastacia, already standing but still shaken, observed the panorama of butchery with amazement. — How are we going to stop that monster? — she murmured, more to herself than for the others —. She is invulnerable.

  Alan stepped forward with a resolve that caught her off guard. His fingers brushed the rag doll hidden against his chest, beneath his uniform. The touch seemed to grant him a courage he had never known.

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  — Are you ready, Alan? — Dante asked. It wasn't a question, but a confirmation.

  — I'm ready — Alan affirmed, staring at Lilith's silhouette.

  Commander Nastacia and Leader Ryan looked at him with absolute incredulity. For them, seeing Alan take that step forward was a suicidal madness; they could not process that Dante would send someone everyone considered rubbish from Barracks D into the heart of a battle against an apocalyptic entity.

  — Ready for what? — Nastacia muttered, with a voice that oscillated between confusion and a prickle of annoyance for feeling displaced in command.

  Without responding, Alan took two more steps towards the front, entering with a firm step into the zone of absolute danger. His advance also took Stefan by surprise, who observed him with total bewilderment, and Commander Chan, who from his critical position behind the earth walls looked at him askance with a mixture of concern and genuine wonder. The boy who always sought the shadows to hide now walked, without his legs trembling, straight towards the heart of the nightmare.

  A new psychic pulse from Lilith tore through Commander Chan's walls like paper, kicking up a dust storm that momentarily blinded her.

  — Commander Volkov, now! — Captain Ronko roared.

  The Russian commander needed no further prompting. He activated his rune of Ice, thrusting his arms skyward. A pillar of frost erupted from the ground and, in a flash, a massive ice coffin encased Lilith. A collective sigh of relief swept the room, but Ronko did not lower his guard. He knew death was not so easily stayed.

  — That won't hold her for long! — he shouted, as the tattoo of his rune of Steel ignited on his arm. With a roar, he raised his hand and began to forge a sharp and massive steel disc to finish her off.

  Suddenly, the horror changed shape. A Nightmare jumped over the back of a soldier, sinking its teeth into his nape; other entities began to emerge from the shadows, throwing themselves over the few men standing. Luke, paralysed with fear, managed to crawl under some debris to hide, clenching his teeth while the screams of his companions filled the air.

  — What the hell is this?! — exclaimed Commander Volkov, throwing ice daggers against a swarm of creatures.

  Commander Chan managed to draw another swarm away from Dante's group, using his rune of Earth to summon a rain of heavy rubble, while Ryan covered him with bursts from his rune of Spikes.

  — The perimeter walls are gone! Level 25,201 — the edge of the SIEN base — and Level Lambda — the Meadow of Silence where these Nightmares inhabit — have merged into one! — Chan shouted with desperation.

  — Dammit! Why do these things have to come just now?! — roared Ryan, watching in despair as the military structure crumbled around him.

  Niku, straining with superhuman effort, activated his rune of Crystals to raise a barrier. The clawings of the entities echoed against the crystalline surface while the group was pushed dangerously, closer and closer to Lilith.

  — This won't stop them for long — murmured Niku with his face pearled with sweat and concern.

  Dante took advantage of that total chaos to run towards Harold, dragging his unconscious body out of the reach of Lilith. From his vantage point, Captain Ronko with the attack of his rune of Steel still active, launched the metal disc with all his forces against the ice coffin. But just before reaching its objective, the steel stopped dead. The disc shrank and wrinkled like wet paper before an invisible pressure. A shiver ran through the Captain: even trapped, Lilith continued having full control of the battle.

  Stefan, desperately seeking space, activated his rune of Bombs. The resulting explosion pushed the creatures away, but the shockwave was so powerful that it made Nastacia and Alan lose their balance. Both rolled down a pile of debris, landing dangerously close to the ice coffin.

  In that instant, Lilith opened her eyes. The ice didn't break; it simply evaporated like mist under a black sun. She was free.

  At her feet, Commander Nastacia looked at her with a catatonic horror. Two soldiers threw themselves valiantly with knives to defend her, but in a second they were gutted in the air by an invisible force. A spray of hot blood stained the face of Nastacia, whose mind broke before the brutality, leaving her immobile, not even knowing if she still breathed.

  Lilith murmured with gelid indifference as she stepped over the pieces of glass: — No matter your tricks... you won't be saved this time.

  She took another step, the glass crunching under her bare feet. Her skin, veiled only by shadows and blood, showed no pain. She walked slowly through human remains and shattered equipment towards the Commander, stopping only a few steps from her. She raised her arm, ready to launch a devastating psychic attack over the defenceless Nastacia, but then the unthinkable happened.

  For the first time, her attack was blocked.

  A barrier of greenish energy intercepted the blow. Alan approached from behind the Commander, with his hands outstretched, placing himself between the monster and its victim. He had activated his rune of Shield with a resolve no one knew he had. The protective field trembled violently with each wave of hatred that Lilith threw over him, but miraculously, Alan resisted.

  Dante, with Harold unconscious in his arms, barely breathed from the distance. His mind prayed in silence for that act of pure courage to have been enough for Alan to be summoned to the Trial of the Fifth Terror: Valour.

  — Could this be enough for Alan… to be seen by that entity? — whispered Dante, while observing the emerald shield tremble under the psychic pressure, waiting for destiny finally to play in his favour.

  Lilith clicked her tongue, annoyed by the persistence of the shield, and began to channel an even more devastating attack using the power of the countless runes accumulated in her body. The air around her began to distort from the pressure. But Alan did not move. Taking advantage of that brief respite, he dropped his emerald barrier and, in a last leap of faith, took out the object he kept against his chest.

  The rag doll. Broken, faded and old, it appeared between his trembling hands.

  — Do you remember it? — said Alan, with his voice cracked —. Do you remember how much you loved it? It was your anchor, Nancy. Your only joy in this ocean of sorrow…

  Lilith's arm lowered slowly. Something broke in her gaze; the psychic storm weakened. The silence became heavy.

  — I know it was horrible what they did to you — continued Alan, taking a step towards her —. If you accepted being part of this, if you surrendered to Nullaria… I can imagine how deep your pain was. I'm so sorry for not having seen it. I'm so sorry for not having been there when you made the decision to stop fighting to return home.

  Alan breathed deeply, with tears blurring his vision. He could not avoid feeling reflected in her; both were the broken ones of Barracks D.

  — I wish I could have helped you. To tell you that you still mattered. I can't change the past now, but please… if there's anything left of you, Nancy… forgive us. Forgive me for not being strong enough to be there for you.

  Lilith shuddered violently. The aura of hatred that enveloped her flickered. She extended an unsure hand towards the doll, taking a clumsy step towards Alan. Her voice, when it emerged, was not that of an entity of Nullaria, but that of a young woman speaking from the bottom of an abyss:

  — Y-You… were that boy… the one who was always beaten… — she murmured, with her eyes recovering for an instant their human brightness —. And even so… you… you try to defend them? Why?

  For a brief, fleeting moment, her humanity surfaced again. Alan's emotional connection had achieved the impossible: stopping the monster.

  However, from his elevated position, Captain Ronko did not see a tragedy, nor a miracle, nor a young woman suffering. He only saw a vulnerable objective. In his mind there was no space for redemption, only for opportunity. He decided that that instant of vulnerability was the perfect moment to save what remained of the base and, incidentally, take all the glory. Nothing else mattered. Neither the life of Alan, nor the last vestige of humanity of the girl.

  With a gelid smile, Ronko activated his rune of Steel to the maximum of its capacity. The metal screeched while it materialised in the air, forging several sharp spears of solid steel, designed to pierce anything in its trajectory. He did not care that Alan was a few centimetres from the objective; the unfortunate boy would be an acceptable collateral damage.

  — Die at once, you damn error of nature — whispered Ronko with contempt, aiming his spears.

  But Lilith, even with her humanity peeking out, had not lost her instincts. Without taking her gaze off Alan, she reacted before the spears could be thrown. She vanished in a blink, leaving only a trace of distorted air, and reappeared right in front of Captain Ronko, who still held the ambitious smile on his face. The surprise in the eyes of the Captain was absolute.

  In that instant, while Alan stood in the void Nancy had left, something caught his eye. Hidden behind a wrecked machine, he saw it.

  An absolutely black cat with white paws, observed them in a deathly silence. Its eyes, deep and fixed, did not blink; it seemed to be processing each death, each betrayal and each drop of blood spilled. Alan frowned, bewildered for a second. There were no animals in the SIEN base. But reality hit him again with a scream of pure agony.

  Captain Ronko let out a shriek of horror that chilled everyone's blood. Lilith had pierced the Captain's chest with her bare hand, using a monstrous force that made his rib cage crack. With the other hand, she caught in the air one of the steel spears that Ronko himself was about to fire and that Lilith had left frozen in the air with her mental power.

  — Now you shall feel it much more… — she murmured with a gelid seriousness, devoid of any trace of the Nancy that Alan had just invoked.

  With great brutality, she plunged the tip of the spear directly into the eye of the Captain. The steel pierced the eyeball and sank deeply into his skull with a wet and metallic sound. Ronko's body arched violently while his limbs trembled in a last agonic spasm. He remained suspended in the air for an instant, sustained only by Lilith's arm embedded in his chest; then, she withdrew her hand with a sharp movement, letting the corpse begin to fall. But she did not allow it to touch the ground. Using her mental power, she moved the rest of the spears frozen in the air so they pierced the body of the Captain everywhere, pinning him with a thundering force and leaving him crucified over the debris.

  An absolute silence took hold of the place, only broken by the rhythmic sound of the drops of blood hitting the metal.

  A spectral crack was heard: the Steel rune bound to Ronko’s soul was torn from his soul, becoming a brightness that merged into the skin of Lilith. The maximum authority of the SIEN base had fallen, and with him, the last shred of order.

  Commanders Chan and Volkov, who still struggled to contain the monstrous entities, shouted with a mixture of rage and horror. But then, as if something beyond that hell awoke, everything stopped dead.

  The sky cracked.

  As if reality itself broke into a thousand fragments, from the firmament threads of electric blue smoke were torn that rushed down like violent jets. Level Lambda collapsed.

  Lilith looked up in total bewilderment for the first time.

  The level began to corrupt, as if something much larger and older than her was descending.

  One by one, many of those present began to disintegrate mysteriously into shining blue particles.

  Commanders Volkov and a handful of soldiers were the first to vanish. Bealuna and Virellian, trapped in the darkness of the ducts, were the next to disappear. Luke, who trembled hidden among the remains of the laboratory trying to flee from the entities, was the next to vanish without leaving a trace.

  Harold, still unconscious in Dante's arms, vanished like sand through his fingers. Stefan looked at Niku with pure terror before disappearing in front of his very eyes.

  — What the hell is happening? — Ryan managed to shout before disintegrating also into countless bluish particles.

  Dante, completely bewildered, understood it. It was him. The Fifth Terror: Valour. But this was not supposed to happen yet; in his past life, the entity was only summoned after Lilith's defeat. A new variable had altered the course of destiny once again.

  Lilith teleported once more in front of Alan, seeking some explanation in his gaze, but her eyes only found the boy’s absolute confusion before Dante, Nastacia, and Alan himself vanished before her in a flurry of countless, shimmering blue particles.

  The rag doll hit the floor with a dull thud.

  Suddenly, the roar ceased. Everything was plunged into a deathly silence.

  The Nightmares continued their assault, entirely oblivious to the cataclysm that had just occurred; they hunted the remaining soldiers who had not been chosen, chewing on human remains while others vomited over the corpses, turning them rapidly into sunflowers that began to bloom over the debris of the base. They ignored Lilith completely, as if she were no longer part of their reality.

  Niku ran to hold Commander Chan, who was completely shocked.

  — Where did everyone go…? Now there really is nothing we can do on our own to stop her — the commander murmured, watching Lilith.

  — I no longer believe she is a threat — Niku whispered, gripping him tightly and moving away from the area, carrying the commander over his shoulder.

  The light of dawn began to bathe the ruins of what was once the powerful empire of the System of Intelligence and Exploration of Nullaria.

  It was a pale sun. Cold. Merciless. It brought no warmth, only ruthless clarity over the butchery

  Lilith remained standing. Alone. With her gaze fixed on the sky, which strangely had returned to normal, plunged in a deep confusion. She looked down and saw the rag doll on the floor. She picked it up with an almost reverential slowness, holding it delicately between her blood-stained hands.

  And for the first time, she smiled slightly.

  The doll emitted an almost imperceptible golden glow. As if it still held, trapped between its old threads and broken seams, the spark of the girl who was once happy.

  Far away from there...

  Alan fell on his knees over a rocky and dry terrain. The dimensional jump snatched the air from his lungs. He breathed with difficulty, while a blue mist, dense and electric, enveloped him completely.

  There were no traces of Lilith. Nor the roar of combat. Nor the metal walls of the SIEN base. Only a spectral silence that seemed to devour every sound.

  He looked around, bewildered, trying to find Dante or the others through the mist, but he saw nothing. Suddenly, a flicker blinked on his retina, a system notification that chilled the little that remained of his courage:

  [Level (?): Axis -Y. Class 5 — Survival Difficulty: Inferno]

  Records of this level are scarce or almost non-existent.

  Documentation found to date is unreliable and contradictory.

  Access is restricted to certain souls, and it is rumoured that only those with exceptional abilities can reach it.

  For now, the only known method of reaching it is "an act of Pure Courage."

  Death is practically guaranteed. It is unknown if an exit exists.

  Alan felt the cold of the ground seeping into his bones. The system's description left no room for hope.

  — W-what…? Difficulty Inferno? — Alan murmured, with his voice broken with horror, as he recoiled clumsily over the damp stones beneath the mist.

  — Shit… Now I’m truly fucked… — he managed to say, realising with terrifying clarity that he had been dragged to one of the most dangerous and unknown levels in all of Nullaria. A place where the logic of survival shattered, and where his death was practically certain.

  End of Chapter Twenty-Two.

  Nullaria watches patiently, waiting to see who bends, who breaks, and who truly learns.

  Fifth Terror, how will they face a trial that judges the very soul?

  Nullaria ever truly fades.

  — Alberto Báez