The Scarlet Door split open, its surface exhaling black-red mist that rolled like living smoke. The air itself trembled, and the floor beneath their feet began to liquefy into flowing code that dripped upward into the dark like reversed rain. Lacolone's eyes burned with a pale glow as Whispercall registered what it called "infinite density." Maya's healing lattice flickered violently, her face paling.
Valgor's voice came low, almost resigned. "We've already crossed… haven't we?"
And then came the silence — heavy, absolute — before the world tilted.
They stepped not forward, but out of reality.
The corridor awaiting them was an endless hall of floating pillars, each etched with thirty-three sigils that pulsed in quiet rhythm. The floor, a smooth obsidian mirror, made no sound beneath Jessica's boots. Salah's heartbeat found itself matching the rhythm of a distant drum that came from nowhere and everywhere. Eden clutched his glyph, feeling it pulse like a dying star.
"Every breath here costs something," Maya murmured.
The air shimmered in reply.
The King's Realm fed on trespassers.
Their shadows began to move first. Each one detached, peeling itself from its owner and walking beside them. Lacolone watched as his own shade turned its head and grinned back. Jessica's pistols floated from her hands, spinning lazily in the still air. Valgor licked his lips, tasting iron. Salah whispered, almost reverently, "This is the field of Elito's soul."
Nothing here belonged to physics anymore.
The world fractured. Thousands of images flooded the corridor — shards of memory cutting into every surface. Maya saw herself dying in another life, giving up her body to save others. Lacolone saw himself kneeling before a crowned shadow. Jessica reached for a brother long gone. Valgor watched his city sink beneath black water.
The King weaponized memory.
A door opened in the air, and from it stepped the Child Saint, blades reversed, walking with quiet confidence.
"This is still the safe path," he said, voice clear as a bell. "Beyond this, there's no exit."
Lacolone's aura burned. "Safe? Or cage?"
The boy smiled, unbothered.
Salah shuddered — the pressure from that small figure felt heavier than ever.
The herald had become a sentinel.
Then came the impact.
Kid Saint drove both knives into the air itself. Reality cracked with a shriek. Scarlet lightning fell upward. Maya's Veilward barrier flared, faltered, flared again. Valgor countered with Riftquake, shattering the floor to hold the fracture. Lacolone steadied Jessica as her pistols buzzed violently in her grip.
The King's blood was moving through his disciple.
The chamber shook under the strain of two opposing forces. Sparks and sigils collided.
"He's awake now," the boy said, eyes glowing scarlet. "He's watching you."
Lacolone smiled. "Then let him."
Maya's eyes flicked back and forth, analyzing the currents. "There's a pattern in the scarlet stream…"
Salah nodded faintly. "She's decoding him."
Even within terror, a key turned.
Maya's pupils widened, galaxies folding inside them. "Scarlet King… or Scarlet Lie?" she whispered. Her healing aura spun outward, no longer gentle — now chains of radiant code binding the corridor.
Lacolone stepped forward. "Maya, what are you doing?"
"Anchoring us," she replied. "Otherwise we drown."
She tied them to existence itself.
Each hero was then torn from the corridor, trapped inside a column of blinding light. Their Pillars tested them — violently.
Thunderbrand surrounded Lacolone in storms of lightning.
Jessica's Driftform dragged her through phasing walls.
Valgor's Riftquake twisted geometry itself.
Salah's Whispercall filled with voices of the dead.
Only mastery could pass.
Kid Saint lifted his hand and cut the corridor in half. The left side collapsed into a roaring abyss.
Eden caught Jessica as she stumbled on the edge.
Valgor growled. "He's not killing us. He's trimming us down."
Maya's breath trembled. "No… he's preparing the King's entrance."
The storm before the throne had begun.
A throne of crystal bone and burning light appeared ahead, crowned by a blood-red sun. In its shadow sat Elito, silent, almost formless. His eyes opened slowly—two vertical scars of light.
Jessica whispered, "We're insects to him…"
"Then let the insect sting," Lacolone said, stepping forward.
For the first time, the King moved.
The corridor peeled away, its walls collapsing into screaming faces. The group ran toward the throne through a folding maze of space. Kid Saint dissolved into a glyph of light and vanished. Maya's chains strained to hold their reality together. Valgor roared, smashing the last barrier apart with Riftquake.
They chose forward over survival.
Below the throne stretched a spiral stairway made of floating data-stones descending into a pit of red light. Salah led the way, Whispercall guiding him through collapsing fragments of geometry. Jessica reloaded, sparks flying from her weapons. Lacolone's katana absorbed falling scarlet rain. Maya's tears rose upward, defying gravity.
Down was up; up was devotion.
As they descended, broken Saints floated inside glass pods along the walls, suspended in eternal prayer.
"He keeps them alive," Maya said softly, "to feed on their Pillars."
Eden clenched his glyph in horror.
"If we fall," Valgor murmured, "we join them."
"No," Maya said, her voice steady. "We end it."
Every fallen Saint was a warning.
Above the throne, thunderclouds of living blood formed, devouring the red sun. Lacolone felt his soul pressure surge, nearly intoxicating. Jessica's left eye glowed, Veilward syncing with Thunderbrand. Salah's hands bled where he held his glyph.
"This place is rewriting us," Maya whispered.
They were becoming what they hated.
Then the voice came — not sound, but invasion.
"I built you from your rage."
Lacolone's knees almost gave out. Maya's aura fractured, revealing scarlet light beneath her skin. Jessica whispered, "We're in his dream."
Valgor snarled. "Then wake him with a scream."
The King's first words cut deeper than any blade.
They reached the final glyph before the throne: five interlocked circles glowing in rhythm.
"This is a Soul Control seal," Maya breathed. "Five Pillars merged."
"The key to his cage," said Lacolone.
"Or the key to ours," Salah answered.
Jessica's pistols rose, trembling.
Every heartbeat became a drum of war.
The throne trembled.
Elito rose — a colossal form of scarlet crystal and endless eyes. A floating crown hung above his head, and in his right hand, he held a black staff shaped like the tuning fork of the universe. The heroes stood at the seal, their bodies trembling, their souls unraveling.
The air itself spoke, resonant and final:
"The Scarlet King no longer dreamed."
He was awake — and waiting.