The night fell heavy, bruised purple against the glow of the Rift. Shitsubo hadn't stopped walking since seeing Dagon. His boots tore through ash and broken glass, his body running on silence and instinct alone.
Then, it came—the pull.
Not hunger. Not exhaustion. Something deeper. The Authority in his bones shivered, and the world buckled like wet paper. His feet struck cracked asphalt, but when he blinked, it was gone.
No Osaka. No ruins.
He stood in a cavern that pulsed with firelight, the air thick with the stink of metal and sweat. For a heartbeat, he thought he had stumbled into hell.
Rows of anvils lined the stone, each slick with rust and something darker. Chains clattered overhead, swinging without rhythm. The silence followed him, but it didn't protect him here—it felt smothered, choked by the heat.
Then came the voice.
Not loud. Not sharp. But heavy, like molten lead poured into his ears.
"Another thief at my forge."
Shitsubo turned. A figure hunched near the largest anvil, hammer in hand. Not giant, not god, but something worse—a dwarf, though not the kind children read about. His body was stunted, warped by labor, his skin gray from smoke. His beard was a nest of iron filings, his eyes yellow and sharp as coins.
"Name yourself," the dwarf rasped, teeth grinding with every word. "Or be smelted into the chain you covet."
The Insight flickered across Shitsubo's vision, jagged and reluctant:
> [Trial Detected: Authority of Dvalinn, the Greed-Forged]
Forge or be forged. Resist the curse of hunger. Endure the weight of envy.
The dwarf—Dvalinn—dragged the hammer across the floor, sparks bursting where it struck.
"Do you know me, boy?" His voice was gravel. "They cursed me, once. Said my name would cling to rot and envy, to the crawling hunger that steals from another's plate. And so it does. But tell me—why should I not curse you the same?"
Shitsubo's throat itched. He tried to speak, to throw his defiance back at the creature, but silence clamped down harder than ever.
Dvalinn sneered. "Voiceless. Hollow. Good. The greedy do not need words—they only need hands."
The dwarf lifted the hammer, and the cavern lit with molten veins. From the cracks in the stone floor crawled figures—twisted silhouettes, not corpses, not Aggressors. They were men. Humans. But wrong. Their faces warped into shapes of want, their hands stretched into claws grasping for Shitsubo's chest.
Each carried the stink of desperation.
The first lunged. Shitsubo dodged aside, knife in hand, but when he slashed, black smoke poured out instead of blood. The creature didn't die—it only grew hungrier. Its mouth stretched wide, whispering in his ear.
"Give me what you stole."
Another voice joined it. "Why do you have it? Why not me?"
They circled him, five, then ten, then more. Each face melted into the next—Daigo, Genji, Arita, Odo—each twisted with envy.
The silence faltered. For the first time, it wasn't armor. It was a cage, holding him still while the whispers clawed through.
Shitsubo's knees buckled. He stabbed one in the chest, but the smoke spread, wrapping his arm, digging into his skin. It hissed into his head: You don't deserve it. You never did.
Dvalinn's laughter shook the cavern. "You see, boy? Authority breeds hunger. The more you carry, the more they want it. The more they want it, the heavier it becomes. Can you endure it? Or will you drown as so many before you have?"
Shitsubo's breath caught. His vision blurred. He saw Hung Chu's calm smile, Yunki's unseen blade of judgment, the Aggressors' colonization. All of them wanted his silence broken. All of them wanted what he carried.
The whispers pressed harder. Give it up. End it. Let us carry it.
And for a flicker, he wanted to.
But the silence inside him cracked—not broken, but shifting. It wasn't armor anymore. It wasn't meant to shield him. It was meant to swallow.
Shitsubo opened his mouth. No sound came, but the silence poured outward like a tide, drowning the whispers. The hungry faces twisted, clawed, then dissolved into ash.
Dvalinn's eyes flared yellow. His hammer struck the anvil with a shriek that echoed in Shitsubo's bones.
"Good," the dwarf rasped. "You did not give. You devoured. You are filth, like me. You will last."
The cavern shook. Chains snapped overhead, crashing like thunder.
> [Trial Survived]
You have received: Authority of Dvalinn (Greed-Forged Resilience).
You may absorb the envy, curses, and debuffs of enemies and convert them to strength.
Each absorption erodes your humanity further.
Hunger will never leave you.
The dwarf faded, hammer and all, leaving only the echo of his laughter.
The cavern collapsed into light.
Shitsubo gasped awake in the ruins of Osaka, sprawled across cracked stone. His body trembled. His silence pulsed thicker now, layered with something new. A gnawing hunger.
And when he stood, he realized the whispers hadn't fully gone. They lingered at the edge of his hearing, waiting.
The Rift had given him another weapon. And another curse.