The clash of Kael's living blade against the chain-wolf split the cavern with a thunderous shockwave. Chains snapped, the Choir's whispers spiraled into shrieks, and Kael felt the world buckle beneath his feet.
Then—silence.
The air rippled. His companions' shouts blurred into echoes, pulled away as if carried by water. Lyra's cry of his name. Moro's guttural snarl. Even Reina's sharp voice fading into nothing.
The ground cracked beneath him, and Kael's body was yanked downward by an unseen force.
He roared, clawing at the stone, but the chains seized him—not on his body, but on his shadow. They dragged him screaming through the floor, into a pit blacker than night.
When Kael hit ground again, it was somewhere else.
The cavern was gone. The air was different—heavy, humid, choking. He stood in a tunnel of jagged stone, lit by faint veins of crimson glow, pulsing like veins beneath skin. The ground was slick with blood that wasn't fresh, but ancient, staining the dungeon itself.
And he was alone.
The living blade in his hand twitched, almost eager.
Kael's breath came in ragged bursts. His body was still wolf-like—fur bristling, claws sharp, fangs pressing against his lips—but something felt… different. He touched his chest. His heart beat in rhythm with the dungeon's pulse.
A voice slid into his skull. Not the dungeon's booming resonance. Not the whispers of hunger. This was sharper, more intimate.
So you've come here, Kael.
His blood froze. He knew this voice.
From the shadows stepped a figure—familiar, yet twisted.
It was him.
Not the small boy pulled from his shadow before, but the opposite: a towering beast, a feral wolf-man draped in darkness, muscles swollen, claws dripping with gore. Its fangs gleamed, its eyes wild with endless hunger.
The Feral Shade. The Kael that could have been if he'd surrendered fully to the dungeon.
It grinned, jagged and wrong. "I am what you fear. What you fight. And what you crave."
Kael raised his blade instinctively, his claws tightening around the living weapon's hilt. "You're not me."
The Shade tilted its head, laughing. "Not you? Who clawed his way through bone when he was starving? Who sank fangs into flesh just to live one more night? Who tore through chains until blood soaked his hands? That was me. That was you."
The cavern pulsed. The crimson veins brightened.
The Shade lunged.
Kael barely brought his weapon up in time. The living blade screamed as it clashed against the Shade's claws, sparks flying. Kael staggered back, his beast-form straining under the force.
The Shade fought like him—but stronger, freer, unshackled by hesitation. Every strike was brutal, instinctive, hungry.
Kael countered with blade and claw, slashing wide arcs, his weapon wailing with each swing. He fought like the survivor he was—quick, vicious, desperate. But every time he struck, the Shade seemed to laugh.
"You're weak," it hissed, its claws gouging sparks from the stone as Kael rolled aside. "You leash yourself to children, to companions, to golden chains like Reina. You deny what you are, and so you starve."
The Shade's fangs dripped with saliva as it circled him. "Let go. Be me. Tear, devour, and the dungeon will kneel."
Kael's chest burned. He staggered, his blade shaking. He could feel it too—how easy it would be to stop thinking, to stop doubting, to give in to hunger. The blade in his hands pulsed, its whispers thick and heavy.
Feed me. Embrace me. We will never starve again.
Kael's knees buckled. His memories surged—flashes of himself as a boy, gnawing on raw bone, crying in the dark, begging for someone to come. No one had. Only the hunger had answered.
His eyes blurred. The Shade's form seemed clearer, stronger.
"Don't fight," it crooned, its voice almost gentle now. "Fighting is chains. Hunger is freedom. Kill. Feed. Become me."
Kael sank to one knee. The blade pulsed faster, its voice deafening in his skull. Choose. Hunger or chains. One must break.
Then—another voice cut through.
"Kael."
Not from the Shade. Not from the blade.
From the boy.
The child-self, the one ripped from his shadow earlier, stood just beyond the glowing veins. His eyes were wide, fearful, but steady.
He whispered, "Don't forget me."
Kael's breath caught. He remembered the terror. The loneliness. The despair. But he also remembered something else—the nights he survived not by feeding, but by clinging to the hope that one day he would be more than a beast.
The boy's voice cracked. "If you give in now… I'll disappear forever."
Kael gritted his teeth, claws digging into the stone. He looked up at the Shade, its fanged grin widening, saliva dripping onto the ground. He thought of Moro's stubborn loyalty. Lyra's soft defiance. Reina's piercing challenge.
And for the first time, he realized—he didn't want to be free through hunger. He wanted to be free from it.
His voice broke into a growl. "You're not me."
The Shade lunged.
Kael rose with a roar, his blade shrieking as he drove it straight through the Shade's chest.
Chains erupted from the wound, not the dungeon's, but his own—binding the Shade, locking its claws, silencing its laughter. The cavern pulsed violently, the veins splitting open, blood spraying across the stone.
The Shade snarled, eyes blazing. "You cannot kill me… I am you!"
Kael shoved the blade deeper, fangs bared. "Then I'll chain you myself."
The Shade shrieked, its body unraveling into smoke and hunger, dragged screaming into the blade. The weapon pulsed once, twice—then fell silent, quivering in Kael's grip.
Kael dropped to one knee, chest heaving.
The child-self stood before him, trembling. Slowly, he stepped closer, placing a tiny hand against Kael's furred arm.
"You didn't forget me."
Kael's throat tightened. "Never again."
The boy smiled faintly, then dissolved into light, flowing into Kael's chest.
For the first time, Kael felt his heartbeat steady. Not free of hunger—but no longer its prisoner.
The cavern rumbled. The walls split, crimson light spilling brighter. The dungeon's voice thundered:
So you bind even yourself. Very well, Kael. But chains, once forged, cannot be broken without cost.
The ground collapsed beneath him.
And Kael fell deeper still