Light shimmered all over the realm—soft at first, like dawn struggling to crawl out of a dream—then blooming into vast sheets of molten gold that rippled across the horizon.
The river flowed beneath them, incandescent and impossibly smooth, as though every particle of water had been polished by a god's hand. Its surface didn't merely reflect light; it radiated it. Shards of brightness danced across the banks, weaving around Yuri and Luna's silhouettes, bathing the two in a warmth that felt unreal… almost borrowed.
They sat side-by-side at the water's edge, neither speaking.The river whispered, humming in a low, melodic chime—gentle and patient, as if washing the remnants of hell from their bones one heartbeat at a time.
The silence wasn't heavy nor awkward. It was a silence earned.A silence that said: We survived something we shouldn't have.
Yuri let out a slow breath, watching the golden glow flicker in and out of the air like a dying candle. His shoulders gradually eased, tension melting the same way the river's glow melted into the distance.
Yet something inside him held on. A knot that refused to loosen.
"Hey…" he murmured, his voice barely touching the air.It sliced through the stillness like a hairline fracture.
Luna didn't turn, but her posture stiffened. The light shimmered over her like a thin veil. She looked drained, hollow in a way exhaustion alone couldn't explain.
"…is it okay if I ask you something?"
A pause.A long one.Long enough for Yuri to second-guess why he'd spoken at all.
She finally gave the smallest nod—tight, restrained.
"When I first woke up… when you—" his throat bobbed, remembering the moment she'd kicked him out, thrown him into that brutal emptiness, "—you know. After that."
He turned to her, trying to read her expression. The river cast her in gold, but she looked made of stone.
"I tried to find you," he said. "I really did. I went back. Or… I tried to. But it was gone. Everything. I couldn't remember anything at all for a while."
His voice faltered.
"I couldn't even remember your face."
That struck her.Hard.
Her eyes widened—not dramatically, but in a small, involuntary twitch that revealed far more than she likely intended. A flicker of shock. A hint of confusion. And beneath it all… relief. The kind that came with guilt sharp enough to draw blood.
The river hummed, its melody thinning into something brittle.
Silence returned—this time suffocating.
Luna rose slowly to her feet. Her expression pulled itself back into neutrality, but the rigidness of her shoulders betrayed her.
"Yuri," she said quietly. "We need to get moving."
He blinked up at her. "What? Why?"
"We have to move on."Her voice was flat—emotionless in a way that felt forced. Like she was holding back something that would shatter them both if spoken aloud.
She inhaled."Before we go… what's your current rank?"
Yuri tilted his head. "Rank?"
The word felt foreign on his tongue, like he had picked it up wrong.
Luna watched his confusion unfold. She exhaled a sharp breath through her nose, frustrated—at him, at herself, at the universe, he couldn't tell.
"…It's nothing," she muttered, looking away.
But the moment she said it—something snapped.
The air changed.
A sudden, catastrophic pressure slammed down on them like a falling mountain.Both of them collapsed to their knees, their hands clawing the shimmering ground as the world around them curdled.
The light dimmed.Then darkened.Then suffocated entirely.
The sky cracked into black, swallowing every trace of gold.
The golden river quivered… then began bubbling—tiny tremors at first, as if whispering a warning—then violently churning, glowing brighter and brighter until the surface erupted into a boiling frenzy.
And in that instant, Luna understood.A horror so profound her face drained of all color.
"Yuri," she breathed, stepping back. "This… this isn't Level Two."
Her voice shook—something Yuri had never heard before.
"Shit… shit—SHIT—SHIT—SHIT!! SHIT!!!"
The curse tore out of her throat in raw, broken screams.Her composure shattered like fragile glass.
Yuri stared at her, paralyzed."Luna—?! What—what's happening—"
His sentence twisted into a gag.
BWAH—
He lurched forward, vomiting violently as a thick, sour stench filled the air. The world spun. His skull throbbed like something inside was clawing to escape.
Luna was vomiting too—black, viscous sludge trailing from her mouth like ink pulled from the bottom of an ancient well. Her eyes rattled in their sockets, unfocused.
"LUNAAA—WHAT IS HAPPENING—"
He choked mid-shout.
Because Luna—
—was gone.
Gone.As if erased.No sound, no flash, no trace of her shadow.She had simply vanished.
Silence swallowed the world whole.
A silence so loud it cracked Yuri's thoughts open.
Then—He felt it.
A presence.Thick and cold, slipping around his spine like a hand.
Yuri dragged himself to the riverbank, his fingernails tearing against the trembling ground. His body spasmed as another wave of black sludge erupted from his throat, burning, tearing, scorching.
He coughed blood—bright, metallic, and steaming in the overheated air.
The river's gold dimmed into tarnished bronze… then deepened into a rotten, choking black.
Yuri's eyes widened.
He could barely breathe.
And then—
Hands burst through the surface.
Not human hands.Not corpse hands.Hands shaped like his, yet wrong in every way—longer fingers, warped knuckles, nails jagged like shards of obsidian.
They grabbed him—one around his wrist, another digging into the soft flesh beneath his jaw—and yanked him into the boiling river with a force that cracked bone.
His scream was swallowed instantly.
AGONY exploded across his body.The water scorched his skin, peeling it back like melting wax. He thrashed, tried to kick, tried to surface—but the hands held him in place, trapping him just beneath the surface.
He could see the open air.Feel the coolness inches above him.But he couldn't reach it.
His throat convulsed.
COUGH—! COUGH—!
Boiling water flooded into him, searing its way down into his core. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth in a furious stream, turning the water around him into a cloudy red stew.
His vision blurred.Pain drowned out thought.His lungs felt carved open.
Through the haze—just as the darkness crept in from the edges of his sight—
Yuri saw it.
A face staring down at him from the surface, as if reflected in a warped mirror.
His own.
Expression twisted.Disgust curled into a smile that was far too delighted.His reflection watched him suffer with a joy so deep it chilled the boiling water.
Yuri's body trembled.His consciousness slipped.
He sank.Down, down, down.
To the very bottom.
Helpless.Weak.Pathetic.
And utterly alone.