Wrenching free from the brief, distorted sensation of transit, Loren stumbled into a space saturated with the stench of death and devastation.
The first assault was the suffocating, nauseating thickness of dust, hanging in the air like a recently settled grey blizzard, slowly churning from the disturbance of his arrival. Then the smells hit—scorched metal, molten substances, and the sharp, coppery tang of fresh blood—blending into a complex, unsettling odor that rushed straight to his brain, stinging his tear ducts and churning his stomach.
Underfoot was no longer the platform's smooth surface, but a thick layer of ash mixed with metal shards, charred paper, and unidentifiable viscous matter, crunching with an unnerving rasp beneath his weight.
There was no mistake.This was the place.
"Erika!" Loren's shout tore from his dry throat, heedless of the dust he inhaled. The sound stirred a brief echo in the vast, chaotic space before being swallowed by heavy, absolute silence. He waved his arms, trying to clear the murky air from his line of sight.
As the dust parted, his vision cleared. The first thing that leaped into view was the mangled Golem—the same construct that had radiated lethal threat moments ago, driving them to the brink of despair.
Yet the scene before him was utterly unlike any catastrophic ending he had imagined while plunging into the fissure.The shock surpassed fear itself.
The Golem stood frozen in place, as if all motive force had been instantly drained, transformed into a black statue locked in a grotesque pose. Its twin razor arms—once screaming through the air in pursuit of life—now hung limp, one blade-wheel half-buried in the ground. The dark red glow in its single eye-sensor was completely extinguished, leaving behind nothing but a depthless black pit.
But the most viscerally shocking, the most incomprehensible sight, lay at its chest—a crude mass of metal and cooled slag.
At its center gaped a horrific, irregular hole the size of a washbasin.
It looked as though the cavity had been violently blasted open from within, metal peeled back and fused by heat. But what made Loren's pupils constrict was what grew from the torn edges and interior—dense clusters of golden crystals, radiating outward like cruel blossoms.
They glittered with a cold, razor-edged golden light—akin to Sanctum Mark energy, yet purer, more unstable. They stabbed deep into the Golem's wreckage, spilling from its fractures, as if drawing something out… or declaring something claimed.
They were utterly alien to the Golem's original dark red, chaotic energy.
The thought flashed through Loren's chaotic mind, igniting a surge of disbelieving elation.Erika did it? He defeated this thing?And left… this behind?
The elation froze, instantly replaced by a deeper chill.
Then where is he?!
Loren's heart plummeted. He swept the battlefield like a searchlight—behind toppled racks, within the shadows of debris piles, through the dust-choked air.
Nothing.Nowhere was that familiar figure.
Beyond the wreckage of battle, the space was terrifyingly quiet. Only his own ragged, panicked breathing, and the faint hiss of settling dust.
"Erika! Answer me! Where are you?!"His voice trembled. He staggered forward, clawing through debris, heedless of the sharp edges that could cut him. Fear coiled around his heart like icy vines, tightening relentlessly.
He circled to the Golem's back—an angle unseen during the fight.
Then, he saw it.
An arm.
Or rather, a severed limb—forearm and fist clenched tight—embedded, or more accurately impaled, into a relatively intact section of the Golem's back plating by some horrific, desperate force.
The chalk-white stump of shattered bone was clearly visible, along with dark red fragments that might have been flesh, internal components… or both.
The rest of its owner—from the shoulder up—was gone.
No torso.No other arm.No head.
As if erased by some invisible, brutal hand.
There were no matching remains nearby—only a spray of half-congealed dark matter and suspicious fragments staining the Golem's cold metal and the ash below.
"Gods…"
All of Loren's strength, all his hope, all his mental preparation drained away at once. His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the cold, filthy ground, kicking up a small cloud of dust.
His eyes were wide, but unfocused—staring blankly, uncomprehendingly, at the lonely severed arm embedded in the Golem's corpse, and the horrifying emptiness around it.
Won?
Perhaps.The Golem was certainly stopped.
But the cost…
The stench of scorched metal, blood, and the cold energy resonance from the golden crystals blended together, forming a silent, brutal elegy.
Loren sat unmoving, as if he too had become a statue abandoned among the ruins. Only his slightly trembling shoulders and blurring vision betrayed the storm raging within—one more devastating than the scene before him.
Cold air, laden with dust and blood, stabbed into his lungs, bringing pain and suffocation. Loren slumped amid the wreckage, unable to tear his gaze from that solitary arm lodged in metal.
Every wound, every fractured inch of bone, every smear of dried dark red screamed silently—reconstructing unimaginable agony and struggle from the final moments.
If he's alive…
The thought hooked into his gut like a poisoned barb.Alive—and enduring this?Or was this itself a more final end than death?
Betrayal.
The word seared his soul like a red-hot brand.He should have been here. Fighting together. Falling together. Or at the very least—not sitting here now, unscathed, facing the possible remnants of his comrade's annihilation.
He had escaped—flung back to "safety" by Quinn like discarded refuse—while Erika stayed. Alone against steel and death.
The shame and regret carved deeper than the Golem's blades, flaying what remained of his sanity.
He wished—so fiercely it became physical pain—that time could be reversed. To stand side by side, even if only to throw futile punches, even if the end was still destruction. At least it wouldn't be this—separated by the chasm of life and death, bearing the torment of the survivor.
Loren bit into his lower lip until he tasted blood. He shut his eyes—then snapped them open.
One last time, he looked. Deeply. As if to burn the image into his marrow.
Then he forced himself to look away.
Tears welled, but he crushed them down.Now was not the time to break.
Grief, fear, self-recrimination—these were luxuries. Traps of weakness.
Whatever this meant—
A mysterious disappearance after a pyrrhic victory?The intervention of some incomprehensible force?Or the worst possibility—that this was all that remained?
This was not over.
Quinn's words. Erika's struggle. The Sanctum's threat. The Black Tower's strangeness.All bound by an invisible thread—and he, Loren de Witt, was now irrevocably tied to it.
Run? Hide? Wallow?No.
That path had been sealed the moment he stepped back onto this level and saw the truth.
Only one drive remained—stronger than the desire to survive:
Where is Erika?
Alive, he would find him.Dead… he would find all of him.
This wasn't just about answers. It was the only redemption left for his betrayal—the sole anchor keeping him from shattering completely.
To find answers, he needed power. Information.He needed to stay in the game.
Loren planted his hands on the ground and pushed himself upright—slowly, but with unyielding resolve. He brushed the cold ash from his clothes. His fingers still trembled, but his spine straightened.
The arrogance, hesitation, and fear of the noble youth sloughed away like impurities burned by fire, leaving only cold, hollow determination.
He understood now.
He had to make himself useful.
Useful enough that Quinn would keep him.Useful enough to earn scraps of information.Permission.
He would become a willing pawn of the sorcerer.
The decision settled in his chest like a block of ice, bringing numb calm. He would surrender autonomy, dignity, unnecessary thought, unnecessary emotion. He would be a tool—an extended limb—to execute, observe, and wait.
Until the day Quinn deemed him worthless…Or until he had gathered enough strength and leverage to buy the answer he sought—to trace Erika's fate, whether it led to hope or finality.
He took one last sweeping look at the battlefield, engraving the golden crystals, the Golem's wreckage, and that horrifying void into memory.
Then he turned away—without looking back—and walked toward the section of wall where the pale fissure had appeared and vanished.
His steps were unsteady at first, but they grew firmer. His face held no expression—only the blankness of execution. Deep within his eyes, a single cold flame burned for one purpose alone.
Return to the platform.Find Quinn.Then become whatever was required—
Assistant.Servant.Test subject.Or obedient walking corpse.
Until he found him.
The flight and struggle that began in the Sanctum and intensified within the Black Tower had, for Loren, undergone a silent metamorphosis. It was no longer about survival.
It had become a lonely, obsessive expedition—with self-sacrifice as its wager, and the search for another lost soul as its destination.
And the first step of that expedition was to walk willingly into the sorcerer's cage—and fasten the shackles himself. He would make himself useful.