Erika's boots dragged across the spotless tiles, forcing his battered body to keep pace with Lynus.
The Blue Cloak walked with a loose, careless stride. The near-manic frenzy from the white room earlier had completely evaporated, replaced by a chilling indifference. He moved ahead, spine straight, steps even, treating the one-armed boy trailing behind him as nothing more than a piece of luggage to be discarded at will.
They navigated a labyrinth of intricate, identical, sterile corridors.
These halls were too pristine to be meant for the living. The walls were blindingly white, devoid of a single stain, scratch, or speck of dust. The overhead lights emitted a flat, temperatureless glare that illuminated every corridor like high noon, leaving absolutely no shadows to hide in. Every few steps revealed a closed door—identical in color, identical in their handles, identical in their suffocating silence.
Erika didn't know how long he had been walking. Left turn. Right turn. Another left. The corridors felt like an endless loop, each turn merely leading into another identical passage.
"May the Father—"
A voice drifted from an intersection. Out of the corner of his eye, Erika caught a flash of white—a passing nun. The moment she spotted Lynus, she froze as if nailed to the floor, bowing deeply, her hands clasped tightly before her chest in a posture bordering on absolute subservience.
Lynus didn't even glance at her.
He merely waved his hand—a lazy, dismissive flick of his pale fingers that instantly severed the nun's greeting. The gesture was as casual as shooing away a fly.
The nun pressed herself against the wall, head bowed, not daring to lift her eyes. Her shoulders trembled slightly, whether from fear or the terrifying realization that her interrupted prayer signaled a fatal mistake, she didn't know.
Erika kept his lips sealed, remaining utterly silent.
He didn't need to speak; he only needed to follow.
This he had learned. In that white room, trembling beneath the chess table, through countless desperate promises of "I will be good," he had learned the truth: speaking only invited pain. Silence, obedience, and following—that was the only way to survive.
—
After several winding turns, the monotonous white walls abruptly ended.
Replacing them was a massive door constructed from seamless industrial metal panels.
Lynus stopped. His boots gave a sharp clack against the tiles, then fell still.
Erika halted at a respectful distance behind him.
"Eyes on the ground," Lynus commanded, not even bothering to look back.
Erika didn't hesitate. He lowered his head, locking his gaze onto his own boots. The blood soaking the leather had already dried, turning a dark, rusted brown.
The heavy metal door slid open.
The mechanism moved agonizingly slow, as if deliberately drawing out the suspense. As the pneumatic seals released and the gap widened, a wave of stale air rushed out—a suffocating cocktail of acrid disinfectant, the cloying sweetness of decay, and an indescribable stench of rusted iron and damp fabric.
The air hit Erika's face—warm and clammy, like countless invisible tongues dragging across his skin.
Keeping his head down, he watched Lynus's immaculate shoes cross the threshold into the dimness.
Then, his own boots followed. One step. He crossed the threshold.
Inside was a vast bunker, illuminated by the same pale, sterile light. But unlike the dead silence of the outer corridors, this place was loud.
A chaotic hum of voices filled the air, underscored by a low, oppressive vibration of machinery. There was the faint clink of glass, the dull thud of heavy boots on metal grating, and occasional bursts of unnervingly exaggerated laughter.
Keeping his eyes glued to the floor, Erika saw Lynus's boots pause for a fraction of a second before continuing forward. As Erika followed, other boots entered his narrow field of vision—black, scuffed, and functional, similar to Lynus's but lacking the aristocratic polish.
A gathering of Blue Cloaks.
"Lynus! You haven't suffocated in there yet?!" an overly enthusiastic male voice barked from the left.
Erika sensed a microscopic falter in Lynus's stride before the Blue Cloak instantly shifted into a different persona.
"Get lost," Lynus shot back casually. "Stay away from me, bitch."
Erika kept his head down, but he could feel the weight of their gazes—some locking onto Lynus, others crawling over himself with morbid curiosity and cold scrutiny.
He didn't dare look up.
But he couldn't stop himself.
It was pure instinct. After countless hours of being commanded to keep his eyes on the ground, the primal urge to survey his surroundings snapped back like a tightly coiled spring.
His gaze shifted up an inch from his boot tips—the frayed hem of his grey straightjacket, stained with blood and sweat. Another inch—his knees, his right leg still trembling uncontrollably.
Then, utilizing the angle of his bowed head, he tilted his peripheral vision as far left as he dared.
To his left was a gigantic, floor-to-ceiling reinforced window.
It was so massive it consumed the entire wall. The metal frame was painted dark grey, and the glass was so flawlessly clean it was nearly invisible. At first glance, he didn't even realize a barrier was there, until his peripheral vision caught his own blurry, one-armed reflection ghosting across the pane.
On the other side of the glass was absolute, pitch-black nothingness.
Erika's pupils contracted.
He strained to see what lurked in that void, but the room's harsh glare only reflected his own silhouette and the distorted outlines of the Blue Cloaks standing behind him.
"—Tell me about it! The 'materials' are arriving too slowly. My progress has been delayed by three whole days!"
A voice yanked him back from the glass.
The exaggerated banter among the Blue Cloaks was in full, feverish swing. Their voices rose and fell, each dripping with a forced, manic enthusiasm, as if competing to see who could sound the most unhinged.
"Three days? I really need to control you tightly—"
"I want to eat!"
"Right, right, right! I heard you've been playing with that… that thing lately?"
A burst of laughter erupted. It was too loud. Loud enough to make Erika's eardrums throb.
Lynus laughed along with them, his tone perfectly calibrated to blend into this toxic, artificial camaraderie. "I am the only one! You all are nothing."
More manic pleasantries, more grating laughter.
Erika kept his head down.
But he couldn't resist glancing left one more time.
That darkness was still there. Motionless, like a gaping, bottomless maw that would never close. He couldn't see what was hiding inside it.
—
"Still playing with that boasted 'unbreakable toy' of yours?" Another pair of boots, heavy with metal buckles, stepped dangerously close, almost touching Erika's toes. "Shaking like a leaf. Throw it into the shallow zone, and it probably won't even last ten seconds."
Another round of unrestrained, mocking laughter echoed through the bunker.
"Shallow zone?"
Lynus's voice suddenly dropped, turning ice-cold. Then, his voice violently exploded, stabbing into the artificial liveliness like a brutal, jagged blade:
"'Deep Dive'! I said I'm doing a 'Deep Dive'! Are you all deaf?!"
In a fraction of a second, the room went dead silent.
The silence hit too fast. So fast it was as if someone had severed all their vocal cords with a single stroke.
Erika couldn't help but look up.
The abrupt quiet was as physically jarring as a heavy hammer slamming against his skull.
The Blue Cloaks, who had been loudly exchanging pleasantries just a second ago, were now entirely paralyzed in place. One had a cup suspended mid-air; another had his mouth hanging open, forgetting to close it; a third was half-turned, caught mid-gesture—all completely frozen.
Aside from Lynus, who stood right in front of him, every single Blue Cloak in the room had their eyes locked onto Erika—or Lynus.
Those gazes were terrifyingly complex. Some showed genuine shock; others, confusion. But the eyes that landed on Erika carried an appraisal that made his spine crawl. They were looking at him not as a human, but estimating the value of an item, confirming the existence of a rare, doomed specimen.
"You really are willing to part with it, Lynus."
A Blue Cloak finally broke the silence. His voice was hoarse, laced with a theatrical, sadistic playfulness. His gaze shifted from Lynus to Erika, then back to Lynus, the corner of his mouth twisting into a dark, ambiguous curve.
"I said I'm hungry—"
Another Blue Cloak's voice rang out, louder and more piercing than before, carrying a provocative madness that directly mocked Lynus's earlier roar:
"Are you all deaf?!"
"It's a deal, then, Lynus."
A third Blue Cloak chimed in. His tone was perfectly calm, as if commenting on the weather. But beneath that eerie calm, Erika detected a ravenous impatience, as if the man was finally getting the bloodbath he had been waiting for.
"I'm out."
A fourth voice. Incredibly soft. Squeezed through clenched teeth. The voice came from a Blue Cloak in the far corner who had been silent the entire time. Keeping his head down, his expression unreadable, he calmly placed his cup on a nearby console, turned, and walked straight toward the exit.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
His boots struck the metal floor, the sound growing fainter until he disappeared beyond the heavy doors.
What did that mean?
Erika stood there, his mind completely blank.
Deep Dive? Willing to part with it? A deal? Out?
The words fluttered through his mind like strange, omen-bearing birds, leaving only blurry shadows he couldn't grasp.
He only knew that the surviving Blue Cloaks were still staring at him.
And in those eyes, there was excitement, cruel scrutiny, impatience, and a kind of raw, undisguised hunger that froze him to his very core.
He didn't know what kind of hell he had just been brought to.
He only knew that beyond that gigantic window, the pitch-black void seemed to have grown just a little bit deeper.