The void quaked.
Not from the maw, not from the System, but from the unseen weight pressing against Je's skin. His limbs stiffened as if bound, yet no iron touched him. Invisible coils wrapped tighter with every breath he dared to take.
— Breathing is permission.
The whisper was not the maw's, nor the System's. It was older. Its cadence carried the rhythm of forgotten prisons, cages that once held titans of silence and fire. Je's chest burned as if every inhalation was feeding the chains instead of himself.
He clawed at his throat, but there was nothing to tear away. Only the tightening presence.
The System flickered in protest:
> [Interference Detected.]
[Entity Classification: UNKNOWN.]
[Countermeasure… Failure.]
The words faltered, stuttering into static. The System could not name what bound him.
Je fell to his knees, nails digging into the ground until black ichor seeped from stone. His hunger surged, demanding he devour, to break the unseen leash — but the chains tightened faster, almost alive, pulsing with every heartbeat.
He realized with a cold clarity: the chains were alive. Each link throbbed like a lung, breathing in tandem with him, stealing his rhythm until he could no longer tell if he was breathing — or being breathed through.
And then, through the crushing silence, a final message whispered through the suffocating dark:
— All who devour must one day be shackled. All who hunger must one day be starved.
Je screamed into the void. Not in defiance. Not in surrender. But in recognition.
---