With practiced, brutal grace, Rolin conquered the final stretch of the massive wooden trunk. He drove the Dagger of Likath deep into the obsidian surface, twisting the triple blades in a violent, spiral motion. The ancient fibers groaned and splintered, carving out a circular opening. Bracing his core, he slammed his shoulder upward against the severed wood, forcing it open.
A choked, violent wave of gray dust—accumulated over centuries—exploded directly into their faces.
Instinctively, Selen buried her face into his solid shoulder, seeking refuge from the suffocating debris in the fabric of his black clothes. Rolin, bearing her weight while wrestling the ceiling, took the brunt of the filth straight to his eyes and lungs. A surge of irritation flared within his pragmatic mind as he felt her close breath against his neck.
*'Damn it,'* he thought, his golden eyes watering. *'Have I officially become her personal dust rag now?'*
With a sharp leap, Rolin vaulted through the gap and landed heavily onto the upper platform, with Selen sliding off his back a moment later. Here, the terrain was sickeningly different. The floor wasn't clean timber; it was coated in a viscous, ink-black fluid that clung to the soles of his boots, letting out a wet, repulsive squelch with every step.
*'Tch. This texture... it brings back foul memories of the gutters in The Kennel.'*
Selen stepped away with her usual mask of frigid indifference. Simultaneously, a streak of crimson fire erupted from Rolin's chest as Likath materialized, shaking his flaming mane. The three of them scanned their surroundings, but there was no horizon to speak of. An absolute, oppressive darkness swallowed the space, broken only by the colossal trunks of *Heaven's Strings* extending upward into an invisible sky.
"This place is deeply unnatural," Selen broke the silence, her low voice entirely devoid of emotion. "It feels ancient. And hollow."
Rolin shot her a sharp, venomous glare. His mind was still bitter, calculating how easily he had been reduced to a pack mule and a shield against dust for her sake. They began to march forward. Likath held the vanguard, his crimson flames cutting through the gloom, while Selen took the center. Rolin guarded the rear, his golden eyes scanning every inch of the void. Nothing. The place was an endless, empty wasteland of rotting wood.
Then—the wood shattered beneath his boot.
By sheer combat instinct, Rolin leapt backward, his hand instantly tightening around his black chains. He leveled his gaze, preparing for an ambush.
He froze.
There was no one there. Likath was gone. Selen was gone. The forest had fallen into a dead, absolute silence.
A sudden, paralyzing panic gripped him. Discarding all caution, he roared into the dark, "Likath! Selen! Where the hell are you?!"
Only the shattered echo of his own voice returned, bouncing off the hollow infinity.
His frame trembled, but the raw instinct of survival forced him to take a halting step toward the small fracture his boot had left behind. He leaned over the edge, peering into the abyss.
His breath hitched.
What lay beneath the wood wasn't the forest floor. It was a churning sea of liquid purgatory. A massive ocean of boiling, roaring magma swarmed with grotesque monsters. They possessed razor-sharp bony fins, rows of jagged black teeth, and eyes that burned like smoldering coals, staring up at him with unadulterated hunger.
Rolin tumbled backward in sheer terror, his lungs gasping for air. "Damn it... damn it, damn it! What is this?!"
He slammed his eyes shut and forced them open again. The fracture was gone. The magma was gone. He was back on the solid ceiling, though the dark had grown even thicker. Before he could process the shift, a wet, rustling sound echoed from the dark. He spun around, his golden eyes widening in horror.
Hundreds... no, thousands of small, mutated beasts were crawling out of the shadows, encircling him. They were three-headed abominations with long, pointed ears, stubby limbs tipped with skeletal claws, and slavering jaws packed with rotten fangs. Their dark fur reeked of decay.
Rolin loosened his grip, letting his black chains lash out in a wide, sweeping arc to tear through the pack. But the result sent a chill down his spine—the chains sliced through their torsos as if cutting through smoke. They didn't hit a single thing.
The horde pounced simultaneously. "Get off me!" he screamed, slashing wildly with his daggers, but his blades bit into nothing but air. The moment the first beast made contact with his flesh... everything vanished in a fraction of a second.
Rolin hit the ground again, drenched in a cold sweat, his chest heaving violently. "What kind of madness is this? Where am I?"
He pushed himself up onto his knees, but the wooden floor buckled. A massive shadow loomed over him, blotting out what little light remained. Towering over him was a *Butcher*—a colossal, humanoid monstrosity with deformed fangs dripping with old blood, wielding a massive, rusted cleaver meant for skinning cattle. Or humans.
Before Rolin could even blink, the Butcher raised the colossal blade and brought it down with apocalyptic force. Instinctively, Rolin threw his arm up to shield his head.
*Splact!*
His arm was sheared entirely in half. A localized explosion of agony—worse than anything he had ever endured—shattered his mind. "AAAAAGHH!" he screamed, a raw, guttural sound tearing from his throat as he writhed on the floor, trying to stem the torrent of crimson. But the Butcher offered no reprieve. The cleaver swung again, burying itself into his left shoulder and ripping it from the socket.
The agony spread like wildfire through his entire nervous system. The brutal, rhythmic hacking continued without mercy. Right leg. Right hand. Left thigh. An ear. The Butcher was systematically dismantling him alive, treating him like a worthless piece of meat in a slaughterhouse.
His screams died into wet gasps. Rolin lay still, a butchered torso swimming in his own blood. The sensation of being conscious while being carved to pieces was a horror beyond comprehension. The Butcher raised the cleaver one final time, aiming for his neck. Rolin closed his eyes, accepting the void. A final, cynical thought drifted through his fading consciousness: *'What a fitting end for a kennel rat like me...'*
The blade fell.
One second passed. Then another. The steel never bit.
Rolin snapped his eyes open. The Butcher was gone. The blood was gone.
He scrambled backward in a frenzy, desperately feeling his own torso. Everything was intact. His hands, his legs, his shoulder. How?!
"How?! I felt it! It was real! I was hacked to pieces!"
Before the words could fully leave his lips, the ground split open again. A leviathan emerged from the depths, swallowing him whole and snapping his spine. Then, he found himself burning alive, his flesh melting off his bones in sheets. Then, he was drowning in stagnant, freezing water that choked the life from his lungs. Then, a pack of rabid beasts tore him apart, fighting over his organs.
Rolin suffered hundreds of agonizing deaths. Hundreds of variations of visceral torment, but at the end of every nightmare, he was violently yanked back to reality—standing in the dark, physically whole, but mentally fractured.
He stood up once more, panting like a dying animal, his body shivering in anticipation of the next horror. Suddenly, the wooden ceiling beneath him collapsed entirely. With the last vestige of his strength, he hooked his fingers into a rotting, splintered ledge. Looking down, he saw millions of the three-headed beasts, their skeletal claws clicking, their tiny, hateful eyes fixed on him, waiting for him to drop.
He tried to pull his body weight up, but his muscles were completely spent, locked in a state of traumatic paralysis.
In that moment of absolute despair, a figure materialized over the ledge.
It was a man. He wore a strange, flowing cloak embroidered with shifting, lifelike depictions of monsters, and an obsidian helmet that completely masked his features. A suffocating pressure radiated from him—an aura of pure, unadulterated power that made the very air too heavy to breathe. He was strong. So monstrously strong that the concept of resisting him felt like a bad joke.
The cloaked man looked down at the trembling Rolin, his voice echoing through the void like the strike of a funeral bell:
"Mortal filth... what business do you have in our sacred domain?"
The words spun lazily in Rolin's shattered mind. *'Mortal filth? Sacred domain? What does that mean—'*
Before he could answer, before his brain could even process the syllables—everything vanished.
Rolin drew in a massive, ragged gasp of air, like a drowning man breaking the surface. He collapsed backward onto the sticky, ink-slick wooden floor, his hands frantically clawing at his chest, his arms, and his legs, ensuring they were still attached to his body. He was soaked in a cold sweat that drenched his black clothes, his golden eyes wide with a lingering, feral terror.
Directly in front of him, Selen was walking calmly. A few paces ahead, Likath continued to lead the way, his crimson flames illuminating the endless trunks.
The two of them paused and glanced back at Rolin, their expressions a mix of confusion and mild annoyance. To them, Rolin hadn't changed at all. He had merely paused for a single second, his eyes going slightly vacant. They had no way of knowing that within that single, fleeting second... Rolin had lived through centuries of slaughter in a waking hell.