The portal to Floor 9 sealed behind them with a soft hiss, and everything went still.
No shifting lights, no sudden ambushes. Just a smooth obsidian chamber, empty save for a low hum beneath their feet—a vibration felt more than heard. Then came the split.
Without warning, the world fractured.
Kai vanished in a shimmer of static. Aria blinked and found herself alone. Roger turned, mid-sentence, only to feel the air collapse inward as the space around him folded like a curtain.
Each one was pulled into a trial, tailored to break them.
---
**Aria**
She stood in an open pit arena, the sky above a blank dome of darkness. Across from her: a brutish orc, its tusks stained red, wielding twin cleavers. No shadows. No mist. No room for deception.
"No tricks," a voice whispered in her ear. "Only strength."
Aria's blade gleamed in her hand, but her heartbeat betrayed her. The orc roared and charged. She dodged the first strike, but the second cleaver slammed into her ribs, shattering bone.
Pain. Real pain. She hit the dirt coughing blood.
Then—darkness.
The trial reset.
Again. Again. Again.
She died dozens of times, then hundreds. Each death more brutal. Each reset more cruel.
In her 163rd death, her sword snapped against the cleaver's hilt. A voice in her mind: *What are you without the mist?*
On the 188th death, the orc pinned her. Its snarling breath hot against her cheek. Large, bony hand rough against her body as it growled, "You're mine."
Her body went rigid. She trembled. Tears welled. Its hand glided up her thigh, dirty nails scraping her bare skin, foul breath thick in her nose. She screamed, clawed, bucked—anything to break free. Its strength overwhelmed her. His laughter rumbled like thunder.
He pinned her fully, legs spread beneath his weight. His free hand began yanking at her clothes.
Her mind shattered.
With shaking fingers, slick with blood, she grasped the jagged remains of her blade and drove it into her own throat.
Blackness.
Reset.
The next time, she couldn't stop shaking. Her scream echoed into the empty sky.
She punched herself to numb the fear. Again. Again.
She died again. And again.
On the 204th attempt, she dropped low, pivoted on a wounded knee, and drove a broken blade into the orc's thigh. The beast howled. It struck her across the face—but she didn't fall. She roared back.
On the 207th attempt, she disarmed it. On the 208th, she stabbed it through the eye.
On the 209th attempt, she won. Not cleanly, not with finesse—but with rage, with grit, with everything she had left.
---
**Kai**
He blinked into a stone courtyard surrounded by nothing. His bracer sparked once and died. Runes—gone. The magic script that danced in his mind was empty.
An orc emerged, twice his size. Its club dragged grooves through the stone.
Kai stumbled backward, hands trembling.
The club swung.
Black.
Again.
He died running. Died crawling. Died sobbing, trying to scratch symbols into the dirt with bloodied nails. On the 83rd death, he screamed, "Just let it end!"
On the 94th, he stood motionless. The club shattered his ribcage.
On the 115th, the orc caught him and bit his shoulder. He felt his arm rip from the socket. Blood sprayed. The orc laughed.
On the 127th, it swallowed him whole. He suffocated in the monster's belly.
On the 130th, it didn't swallow him whole. It ate him.
It started with his shoulder—bitten through flesh and bone. His left arm hung by tendons until it was torn away. His screams echoed as the orc crushed his ribs with its jaws. It gnawed off his fingers like candy, one by one. His right eye popped in the creature's mouth like a grape. He stayed conscious, screaming, gurgling as the beast chewed through his thigh, sucking blood and marrow. His remaining eye rolled loose across the floor. For one haunting second before the reset, he saw himself: half a head missing, jaw detached, chest hollowed, legs gone.
On the 132nd, he leapt off the cliff edge to escape.
On the 135th, he drove a rock into his own temple, begging the world to let it stop.
*What are you without your mind?* the voice asked.
He shook. He trembled. He bled.
Then a voice from memory:
Roger: *"If you can't cast, you better swing."*
Aria: *"Combat isn't just powers. It's survival."*
Kai stood. No runes. No crutches. Just a sharpened bone.
He moved differently now. Feet balanced. Eyes reading the orc.
On the 137th death, he didn't die.
On the 144th, he stabbed the orc's eye. On the 145th, he broke its leg. On the 146th, he brought it down.
He collapsed beside its body, whispering, "I survived. I survived."
---
**Roger**
He opened his eyes in a field of high grass. The sky was warm. Familiar.
His hands were small.
He was a child.
An orb hovered beside him, pulsing faintly, but weak. His body's strength—gone. No flame. No muscle.
A goblin shaman stepped forward. Its staff pulsed with runes: Flame. Gravity x10. Temporal Drag.
He died.
Boiled alive.
Screaming, his skin bubbled and split open. The cauldron hissed. The shaman cackled, stirring Roger's screaming body like soup.
He stayed alive for minutes. His skin fell off in sheets. Eyes boiled, lips peeled, nerves burned. He begged. Screamed until his throat split open.
Reset.
On the 92nd death, he screamed for the Director. No one came.
On the 146th, he laughed manically before the fire engulfed him.
On the 174th, he cried like a child, clutching the orb and muttering, "Please, stop... I don't want to die anymore."
On the 209th, he ran into the flames willingly.
On the 222nd, he stopped running.
He picked up a stone. Inscribed a crude rune: Reflection.
The next blast split. Half missed.
He added more. Propulsion. Anchor. Rune of silence.
He became a tactician.
On the 278th death, he laid ten runes in the grass. The goblin advanced.
Boom.
The goblin died.
Roger—shaking, burnt, a child still—stood victorious. His small frame held an expression that did not belong to a child. It belonged to a survivor.
---
**Together**
Simultaneously, across their fractured trials, they changed.
Not through power.
But through suffering.
Through agony.
Through endless death.
When they returned, it was not with cheers.
Kai collapsed to his knees, hands trembling.
Aria vomited, clutching her arms to her chest.
Roger sat down slowly, blank-eyed.
They had changed.
The wall behind them glowed.
Runes shimmered. A message from the Director:
*"This floor had no external threat. The enemy was within. I left it that way so you could grow. You survived because you adapted. The next floor won't be so forgiving. Remember this pain. It forged you."*
*"Just remember—we survive by adapting. Never rush strength. It must be earned."*
The next gate pulsed open.
Roger stood, face pale but eyes bright with fire. "Let's go. No more dying."
Aria gave a curt nod.
Kai whispered, "Together."
And they stepped forward—not healed, not whole—but stronger.
A family broken, reforged by death.