A dark cold chill ran down Alric's spine.
'What the hell?!' Alric's heart began to pound rapidly as he strained the sixth sense that he had recently acquired to try and find whatever was left of the magical trail but of no use.
The labyrinth was a prison and he had just walked inside.
"No..no.. this can't be happening." I was supposed to go in, follow the trail, get a cool sword, or something. Not…this." His fingers clenched into fists, "I'm not turning back. I'll find a way out. I have to."
As he shuddered, he forced his legs to move. As if the labyrinth was responding to him as if it were alive, it began to relish in the fact he was in the palm of its hands. The shadows whispered tugging away at what confidence and sanity he had left.
With his palms profusely sweating, he wiped them only for the dampness to return almost instantly.
'Focus, damn it.'
The fear was consuming him just like the darkness was. All he wanted to do was just run away and leave but he couldn't.
Not yet at least.
Alric forced his feet to move. Dragging one foot forward, then the other.
Windows tinted black somehow only reflected him. He stared at the black-tinted window and his reflection stared back warped, as if space was separated from there as well.
His gray hair that hung over his eyes seemed normally dull and unremarkable shimmered closely to silver through the black-tinted window. His steady blue eyes, but upon closer look, looked more hollow consumed by the unnatural shade of his reflection.
Empty.
The tint stole some of his warmth causing him to not look like a boy but a shadow of one. A ghost in someone else's skin.
That face...wasn't his.
It was Alric's.
Yes...Alric's.
Kalen's breath turned shallow. When had he begun to think of himself as Alric? The weight of the body he possessed felt familiar. Too familiar, as it was his, but it wasn't.
He was in someone else's flesh, someone else's bones. He stood there, fingers trembling to understand what he saw in the reflection.
No...he wasn't Alric. He was someone else entirely instead.
The body felt natural but alien, the true possessor of the body lay dead on the Forgotten Plains.
He had no memories of Alric.
No ties to him.
No claim to his past.
Alric's body was lifeless, forgotten. And him?
He was Kalen.
"I'm…Kalen."
The name tasted so foreign on his lips, yet it was his name. His identity felt more real than Alric's. The boy who died. The boy who no longer existed.
He snapped out of his daze, parting away from the accursed reflection of the black-tinted glass window. The cold air was infused with the thick scent of dust and decay.
His steps quickened. Then-
Snap!
A bone snapped underneath his foot.
He froze as his eyes darted downwards as he witnessed the ground littered with bones.
Some broken, some scattered, or some even too big to even be a human's. His stomach began to churn.
Then he saw it.
They weren't just bones. They were marked.
Runic symbols that look burnt into the bones, blackened like scares that refuse to fade even after death, were carved onto them. They glowed slightly, and those words were somehow translated for him.
[Skara, an adventurer wrongfully killed by the Tyrant.]
The second set of runes glowed faintly above, containing a line.
[Ashen Pilgrim.]
'Ashen Pilgrim? What could that mean?'
The words stared back at him from the spine, carved in a jagged script. It was a silent testament to their cruel fate.
Kalen clenched his jaw.
How many had died, ridiculed, and marked?
Was this how they had died, or a cruel echo of their past lives?
His eyes landed on a sword, buried at the hip of a fallen soldier.
Yanking it from its sheath, revealed a sword that had been dulled by time but still intact.
He wrapped his fingers around the sword with the weight sending chills down his arm. As he turned it over in his hand, his gaze fell upon the markings along the blade. Runic symbols were etched into the steel.
"Lucian."
The name whispered to the back of his mind, uninvited. A weapon, a relic of another lost soul.
But right now, it didn't matter. It was now his.
A weapon meant survival.
The door creaked open, revealing a shadowed chamber beyond. As he entered, silence swallowed him whole. Before he could react, the door slammed shut, sealing him inside.
And that's when he heard it.
Slam!
"Shit."
A low, metallic rumble echoed through the chamber.
His breath hitched. His grip on the sword tightened, his knuckles forming white.
From the depths of darkness, a towering figure emerged. About three meters tall, clad in dark armor that seemed to drink the light, its presence was suffocating.
A true predator.
The plates of armor groaned as they moved, each step sending a dull thud through the stone floor. A crimson light flickered under its visor revealing embers that lighted even in the darkest of places.
In its hand, it wielded an enormous obsidian axe, twice the size of Kalen's body. Embedded at the base of the axe's head was a single ruby, pulsating like a dying heart.
Kalen swallowed hard.
Every instinct, every fiber of being told him to run.
But there was no escape. The chamber had sealed him in.
This wasn't an opponent.
It was a judge, an executioner.
A Titan.
"What…the..hell?"
His strength was draining with each second, his knees almost buckling, and then it hit him—
The realization had struck like ice in his veins.
'Wait… this wasn't just weight. It was magic. It's pressing down on me.' His fingers tightened on the sword. "Oh, that's just great. Of course, I get stuck with a gravity-wielding nightmare."
The Titan had not just been stalking Kalen. It was pressing down on him, smothering him under the invisible yet tangible force.
It moved deliberately slowness, relaxed with its eyes gleaming with a deep, sinister light. It... it was controlling the space. The pressure was real. It was manipulating the space around him, forcing him down.
'I have to move. If I stop moving now, I will die.'
"So, this is the one who dares face me?" the Titan's voice rumbled, the sound vibrating through the ground causing the air to grow even heavier.
Kalen struggled to stay upright, his knees trembling as if the Titan's weight pressing was directly on his legs.
But something...something was off.
Sure, he could feel it everywhere but the density was more focused on his upper body. It was a small detail, but one that could change the tide of this situation if used properly.
'That's it..'
His mind raced, the Titan's weight oppressing him even further, clouding his thoughts. 'I have to move. I can't just sit and wait for this chunk of metal to move.'
There was a weak spot. He had to—
Before he could react, the Titan threw away his axe as if deeming him unworthy, and reached a hand out in the air, pulling Kalen off his feet, and yanking him into the air. The world spun, and his body was getting closer to the Titan's large frame.
"W-wait-!"
Then, it happened. The Titan's fist collided with his stomach with bone-shattering force.
Crack!
The impact drove away the air from his lungs, and before Kalen could react, his body betrayed him.
Bleghhhh!
His stomach burned as he vomited, the blood and bile searing as it surged up, splattering against the ground. His vision spun and blurred as his knees buckled, with the Titan's pressure threatening to crush him.
The Titan took a step back to avoid being splattered with the vomit mixed with blood. "Pathetic," he sneered, his voice thick with mockery. "I've crushed those much stronger than you."
The pressure from the Titan was suffocating, but it wasn't as much as before. Then he felt it, a faint release of pressure on his legs. The weight was still there, but not as heavy.
'I can't face him head-on. I can't go for his chest either, but if I go low...'
Kalen wiped his mouth, gripping Lucian by the hilt again. He forced himself to his feet, his mind focused.
The Titan smiling cruelly, leaned down, his shadow swallowing him. "Pick up your sword. This trial won't end until you dare to defeat me."
But he didn't care about the Titan's words. With what little strength he had, he charged at the Titan. The Titan stepped back, the pressure decreasing around his chest weakened just enough. Kalen rushed to the Titan's legs, sword low.
The Titan's eyes flared wide as Lucian met flesh. The sword bit deep into the Titan's leg with a sharp crack resounding in the chamber. Blood spurted out from the wound, a few drops going onto his cheek. For the first time, Kalen saw a flicker of uncertainty show itself in the Titan's eyes.
The Titan swung his fist down, but Kalen was already moving. He ducked, rolling under the Titan's attack, barely dodging the fatal blow.
The titan growled, frustrated, not as tall as before. "You think this changes anything?"
Ignoring the Titan and swiping its black blood away from his face, Kalen gasped for air, muscles aching but he wasn't finished.
Not yet.
The tides have shifted.
Now the hunter had become the hunted.
He gritted his teeth as he tightened his grip on the hilt of the sword. With inky blood falling onto his arms, his muscles screamed yet Kalen stood firm brimming with resolve.
This time he wouldn't run.
He grinned, bloodied sword in hand.
"Your move."