Here, darkness was not merely the absence of light; it was a presence with substance and will. It flowed over David's body like warm, viscous crude oil, a near-caress that entangled his limbs, clogged his mouth and nose, and gently tried to squeeze the last, thin wisps of upper-world air from his lungs. The concept of time dissolved, melted into an endless torture measured only by the muffled thud of his own heartbeat and the dull ache emanating from deep within his bones.
He lay still on the fungal mat, its sweet, cloying scent of humus a constant companion, having abandoned all struggle. The wreckage of his consciousness drifted on a dead sea of despair. Elias's face, twisted by fear; Landon's divine, chillingly compassionate mockery; the countless pairs of numb or relieved eyes in the square—these were not mere memories. They were living things, grotesque fish that swam in the darkness of his skull, gnawing at his soul. The taste of betrayal was far sharper, far deeper than the pain of any fractured bone. He hadn't been defeated by Landon's schemes, but pushed into this bottomless abyss by the very humanity he had tried to save. This realization was an invisible tombstone, falling from the top of the world to crush his ideals and will into dust.
"ROAR—"
A low growl, a geologic rumble that seemed forced from the earth's mantle, violently dragged him from the mire of his self-pity. It was the beast. Landon's final, merciful "gift."
David painfully turned onto his side, a sharp pain in his ribs forcing a stifled gasp from his throat. In this pitch-blackness that could devour all sound and form, the pair of dark red eyes, like two embers smoldering in thick ash, was the only landmark he could discern. A silhouette so massive it blasphemed against the human form was slowly rising from the dark, casting a shadow that seemed to stain the abyss a deeper shade of black. With its every step, the ground beneath resonated with a muffled, suppressed tremor, as if the planet itself was groaning in agony at its passage.
The stench of death washed over him—an indescribable, potent mix of old blood, decaying protein, and some unknown mineral. A self-mocking smile twisted David's lips as he simply closed his eyes. So be it. Better to die under the claws of a pure, honest beast than to perish amidst meticulously woven lies and tender-hearted betrayals. At least this monster's killing intent was frank and undisguised.
However, the anticipated agony of torn flesh never came.
Instead, the hot, foul wind stopped abruptly in front of him, as if it had hit an invisible wall. The heavy breathing, like a broken bellows, was close, yet it now held a hint of… hesitation?
David opened his eyes in confusion.
He saw the beast's massive head tilted at an unnatural, almost childlike angle. Deep within its red pupils, which should have held only savagery and hunger, a chaotic fog of bewilderment was swirling. Its gaze bypassed David's body, drawn like iron filings to a magnet, and locked onto the pocket of his shirt. There, a faint wisp of ethereal blue light, so weak it was nearly a hallucination, stubbornly pierced through the rough fabric. Like a fragment of a fallen star, it seemed utterly out of place in this abyss ruled by red and black, yet its presence was jarringly, breathtakingly conspicuous.
It was the moss. The last small sample he had collected to save Lina.
"Grrr... grrr..."
A strange sound rumbled from deep within the beast's throat. It was no longer a threatening roar, but a whimper suppressed for centuries, a mixture of boundless pain, profound longing, and intense confusion. Its massive body began to tremble from some unspeakable, violent emotion. Beneath its rock-like carapace, it was as if another, entirely different soul was awakening, struggling, trying to tear free from the monster's cage.
Tentatively, with a caution that utterly belied its ferocious appearance, it extended a razor-sharp bone claw toward David. The tip of the claw hovered beside his cheek, its chilling aura potent enough to easily crush his skull like a ripe berry, but it stopped.
David's heart hammered in his chest, but this time, it wasn't driven by pure fear. A thought—absurd, insane, yet holding a sliver of light—struck his muddled mind like a bolt of cold, black lightning.
Old Mara's husband, "exiled" for his defiance… the so-called "Beast from the Core" in the Abyss of Penance… Landon's inscrutable, unchallengeable divine authority… and this blue moss, capable of curing the "Grey-Rot" yet branded "unclean" by Landon…
All the seemingly unrelated clues were now violently twisted together by an invisible force, pointing to a truth so horrifying it made his very soul shudder.
This beast… was no monster from the core. It had once been a man! A "dissident" like Elias, like Karl, like himself, twisted into this form by some unimaginably evil means, then discarded into this abyss like trash—a living prop to terrorize the "flock" and solidify his godhood.
The chill from this realization was more piercing than the threat of death itself. It ignited the embers in David's heart, which had long been doused by the cold rain of betrayal. Fury, mixed with a scientist's intense curiosity and thirst for unknown truths, brutally overrode his despair.
With all his strength, using his one unbroken arm, he trembling pulled the faintly glowing blue moss from his inner pocket, holding it open in his palm as if presenting a sacred relic. The blue light was faint, yet it was like a depth charge dropped into the dead sea of the beast's consciousness, setting off a monstrous wave in its soul.
"NGHAAAAA—OHHHH!"
A piercing, agonized howl erupted from the beast's throat. The sorrow, regret, and boundless despair contained in that sound seemed capable of moving the very walls of the abyss. The giant claw snapped back, and its massive body staggered backward as if the small piece of moss in David's hand was not moss at all, but a holy flame of judgment that could burn it to ash. It began to slam its head violently against the rock wall, the dull thuds echoing as if trying to use extreme self-harm to expel the sudden flood of memories—memories that did not belong to a "beast."
Watching this, David's theory received its bloody confirmation. The fire in his heart was, in that moment, fully detonated by a new, more resolute will.
Landon, you are not a god. You are a monster, a demon who uses human flesh as clay and souls as playthings to create more of your kind.
He did not shrink back. Instead, enduring the agony of his battered body, he struggled to sit up. He looked directly at the beast, still locked in its frantic self-mutilation, and his voice, though hoarse from weakness, cut through the dull thuds with unnerving clarity:
"Hey! Look at me! Look at this!" He held the moss high. "You remember something, don't you? You are not a beast! Do you remember… who you are?!"
The beast's movements froze. It slowly turned its massive, hideous head. The savagery in its red eyes was receding like a tide, replaced by a bottomless chasm of chaos and pain. It looked at David, then at the moss in his hand, and a broken, guttural sound escaped its throat, like a drowning man vainly calling a name long forgotten.
David knew he had won his gamble. This abyss was not his grave. It would be the prologue to his counterattack. And this monster, forgotten by the world and imprisoned within itself, would be his first, and most unexpected, ally.