[SFX: Blade cutting air ]
The swing was not fast.
It was inevitable.
Steel cleaved through empty air—then met the black ichor already crawling up Levi's knees. The substance thickened, coiled, and surged upward like living oil. The blade passed through it with a wet, sucking sound.
No resistance.
No blood.
Only a ripple that raced up the column of ichor—and made every crystal in the courtyard flare white-hot for a single heartbeat.
[ SFX: Crystals shrieking faintly ]
The stranger laughed.
Dry.
Brittle.
Like dead leaves dragged across stone.
"You swing at shadows," he said, "when the shadow is already inside."
Levi stepped back.
The ichor clung to his boots, heavier than water, colder than any rain he remembered. It didn't burn.
It pressed.
A slow, deliberate weight seeped through leather and into skin. Tiny black threads—thin as spider silk—crept up along the laces, testing seams, searching for weakness.
Levi shook one leg sharply.
The threads stretched.
Did not break.
They thickened.
"Charming," he muttered.
The stranger tilted his ruined helm. From the sealed eye socket, a single drop of ichor fell and struck the stone. A crystal erupted where it landed—taller than the rest, its facets catching nonexistent light and scattering fractured reflections across Levi's scarred face.
"Three doors," the figure said, softer now. Almost patient.
"Three truths you refuse to face."
Levi glanced at the iron doors ringing the courtyard.
They had changed.
The broken crown now curled inward—its points like grasping fingers.
The cracked hourglass bled sand upward, defying time itself.
The split line—a single vertical mark cleaved by a horizontal slash.
A wound.
Or a mouth.
[ SFX: Second heartbeat — stuttering ]
The second pulse in Levi's chest faltered—then surged, stronger than before.
The ichor responded instantly.
It pulsed once.
Twice.
Perfectly in rhythm.
Where it touched his calves, numbness deepened into something worse.
Absence.
Not pain.
Not paralysis.
Pieces of him were simply… gone.
Levi stepped back again.
The ichor flowed uphill after him, lazy and confident, ignoring gravity entirely.
The stranger raised his maimed hand. More drops fell. More crystals grew.
"You cannot outrun what is already growing in your marrow," he said.
"The blade drank me once. It will drink you slower."
Levi bared his teeth.
"Then let's see how thirsty it really is."
He lunged.
[ SFX: Blade accelerating — rising hum ]
This swing had intent.
The blade carved toward the stranger's neck. Midway through the arc, the steel began to hum—low at first, then rising into a single sustained note that made the crystals shudder and crack.
The stranger did not dodge.
He dissolved.
Armor and flesh collapsed inward like wet ash, folding into a column of ichor that lashed toward Levi in a single, whipping tendril.
Levi twisted at the last instant.
The tendril struck where he'd stood—flagstones detonated into powder. Razor-edged crystal shards screamed past his face.
One grazed his cheek.
He felt the sting.
Then nothing.
The cut did not bleed.
Instead, a thin black line appeared—and from it, a single thread of ichor emerged, tasting the air.
Levi snarled.
The ichor column reformed ten paces away. The stranger's shape returned—but less defined now, edges fraying, armor more liquid than solid.
"You fight like a man who believes he is whole," the voice said.
It came from everywhere.
Behind the doors.
Beneath the stones.
Inside Levi's skull.
"You are not."
Levi circled left, blade low.
The ichor at his feet reached mid-thigh. It no longer felt like liquid.
It felt like skin.
Tight.
Possessive.
Knitting itself to muscle and bone.
It probed deeper.
Sensation vanished in patches. His left calf twitched once—then went still.
Not paralyzed.
Erased.
Claimed.
[ SFX: Ichor surging ]
The stranger lunged.
A spear of black ichor extended from his hand, sharp as any forged blade.
Levi parried.
Steel met ichor.
[ SFX: Keening clash — metal on glass ]
Black and silver sparks scattered. Where they landed, crystals detonated in silent bursts.
The force hurled Levi back three steps.
The ichor surged higher in response—eager, greedy.
Something shifted in his chest.
Not pain.
Hunger.
A sharp, hollow ache spread from the second heartbeat—down ribs, through spine, like roots seeking water.
The blade thrummed.
Hot now.
Feverish.
The stranger tilted his head.
"You feel it."
Levi didn't answer.
He attacked again.
A low slash—testing.
The stranger flowed aside.
An overhead cut—full weight behind it.
This time—
The blade bit.
Not deep.
Just enough.
Black ichor welled from the cut—thicker than before. It did not drip.
It reached.
Tendrils lashed toward Levi's sword.
He pulled back.
Too late.
One tendril touched steel.
[ SFX: Reality collapse — silence ]
The world narrowed to a single point.
Sound vanished.
Sight tunneled.
There was only contact—cold, electric, intimate.
For an instant, Levi saw through the stranger's remaining eye.
A memory not his own—
A forge beneath a dying red sun.
Hammers striking screaming metal.
Black steel folded until light bent around it.
A hand—
His hand?
Driving the blade into something vast.
Winged.
Ancient.
Then the vision snapped shut.
Levi staggered.
The ichor receded—slightly.
Enough to breathe.
Enough to remember what breathing felt like.
The stranger regarded him with something like approval.
"You tasted it," he said.
"The first echo. The first theft."
Levi looked at the blade.
A thin film of black ichor coated the edge.
It clung.
Waiting.
The second heartbeat slowed.
Satisfied.
For now.
Levi raised the sword again—steadier.
"Again," he said.
The stranger smiled with half a mouth.
"Choose a door first," he whispered.
"Or the hunger will choose your flesh instead."
Levi glanced once more at the symbols.
Broken crown.
Bleeding hourglass.
Split line.
Then back at the thing dissolving and reforming before him.
He spat black-tinged saliva onto the stone.
"I'll choose when I'm ready."
[ SFX: Blade rising ]
"And not before."
He attacked again.