[The Green Valley – The Moment of Truth]
An absolute, suffocating silence descended upon the valley. Even the rhythmic rush of the waterfall, the melodic chirping of the birds, and the soft rustle of the silver leaves seemed to wither and bow in reverence to the gravity of the moment. The old man's gnarled finger, looking like the weathered branch of an ancient, dying tree, remained pointed with terrifying precision at my face—specifically, at my eye sockets.
"Sin?" I repeated the word, my voice emerging as a ragged, heavy rasp, as if the syllables themselves were too weighted to escape my throat. "The System called them the 'Eyes of Sin.' I assumed it was merely a dramatic title, a label designed to intimidate the uninitiated."
The old man laughed. It was not the warm, grandfatherly chuckle I had grown accustomed to. It was a dry, hollow sound, devoid of mirth, resembling the crunch of dead autumn leaves beneath a predator's heel.
"The System does not incline toward drama, my boy. The System is a machine, and a machine favors literal, clinical precision." He lowered his hand slowly, casting his gaze toward the pristine sky as if he could perceive something beyond the horizon—something ancient, dark, and festering that hid behind the innocent veil of blue.
"Sit, Rai. And do not interrupt." He took a deep, deliberate drag from his pipe and exhaled. This time, however, the smoke did not dissipate. It began to coil and churn in the air, weaving themselves into shimmering, grey cinematic forms. "The story I am about to tell you... Kai never heard it because he was too preoccupied with the physics of this realm. Gor never heard it because he was too busy laughing at the superstitions of the elderly." He snapped his gaze back to me, his eyes sharp as obsidian shards. "But you... you need to hear it. Because you do not merely carry a skill. You carry a cursed legacy within your skull."
1. The Fall of Arus (Pride that Devoured the World)
"A hundred thousand years ago, in a distant galaxy whose stars have long since turned to cosmic dust, there existed a planet called Arcadia." Within the smoke, a magnificent world took shape, surrounded by shimmering golden rings and cities that floated atop iridescent clouds. "It was a pinnacle of existence. Its inhabitants had achieved the ultimate fusion of sorcery and technology, becoming little more than minor gods. And they were ruled by one man: King Arus."
A face formed in the haze—handsome, powerful, with eyes that burned with a limitless, predatory intelligence. "Arus was not born evil. He was a seeker of absolute perfection. He reached the summit of physical prowess and the zenith of intellectual wisdom. The galaxy knelt before him." The old man paused, his expression darkening. "But he struck a wall—the wall of mortality. He realized that no matter how high he climbed, he was still governed by the laws of the universe, and ultimately, by death. He hated being limited. He hated being a 'creation'."
The old man exhaled a thick cloud of smoke that turned an oily black. "In his obsession, he unearthed forbidden, pre-primordial rites. Texts written before the birth of the stars. Rites that summon entities from 'Beyond Existence,' from the Void that preceded Creation itself." He leaned forward, the firelight casting long, dancing shadows across his face. "To complete the ritual, he did not sacrifice an army, or a city, or even himself. He sacrificed the 'Heart of his Planet'."
"He drained the entire life essence of Arcadia—billions of souls, the nature, the magic—he siphoned it all to tear a microscopic rift in the fabric of reality. And from that dark fissure... he stole those eyes."
The old man looked at me with genuine horror, as if Arus himself were standing in the clearing. "The moment Arus opened his new eyes, he no longer saw the world as we do. He saw no people, no emotions, no beauty. He saw 'Strings.' He saw 'Symbols.' He saw the structural vulnerabilities in the fabric of the universe that could be erased or rewritten. He became the Sovereign of Death. He would look at rebelling armies, and their hearts would stop in unison—a cosmic cardiac arrest. He would look at towering mountains, and they would crumble into atomic dust. He annihilated his own civilization, not out of hatred, but because he enjoyed the experiment of his power. He enjoyed 'liberating' them from existence."
"And then... the Entity intervened." The old man swallowed hard at the mention of the name, the ember in his pipe flickering nervously. "The Entity that manages the System, the guardian of the Multiverse's equilibrium. It did not send an army. It did not send a cataclysm. It descended personally."
"It was not a battle, Rai. It was a 'disciplining.' Arus stood with all his stolen divinity and cursed eyes before the Entity, and in a single heartbeat... he was stripped of everything. The Entity tore Arus's eyes from his sockets with its bare hands while the King let out a scream that shook the foundations of the galaxy. He was sentenced to live blindly in the Eternal Void, remembering every second of the power he lost, unable to die, unable to go mad—condemned only to remember and suffer forever."
"As for the eyes... the Entity did not destroy them. It turned them into a 'Curse.' A booby-trapped prize placed in the path of the desperate and the broken... to see who would use them with wisdom, and who would repeat Arus's sin and destroy themselves."
2. The Four Levels of the Curse
The old man knelt before the dying fire, his staff tracing four distinct circles in the dirt. The silence was heavy, as if the universe were leaning in to listen.
"Listen, Rai. Those eyes are not a gift. They are a 'Trade.' You buy power with a single currency: your memories." He drove his staff into the first circle.
I. The First Level: The Red Eye
The Power: "It grants the perfect vessel. Thermal vision that exposes every flaw, speed that outpaces human synapses, and strength that shatters granite. It turns you into an instinctive, invincible beast in close-quarters slaughter."
The Price: "Simple, yet agonizing. You lose 'The Moments.' Every time you invoke it, fleeting flashes of your life evaporate. The specific taste of a meal you once loved, a joke that made you laugh until your sides ached, the exact hue of a sunset you watched yesterday. Small drops... but eventually, the river runs dry."
II. The Second Level: The Blue Eye
The Power: "It shatters the barrier of Time. It grants 360-degree peripheral awareness and slows the world to a crawl. You analyze attack vectors before they manifest and control the momentum of every strike. It makes you a 'Master' of the battlefield, untouched and untouchable."
The Price: "The tragedy deepens. You lose 'Events.' Use it for a single battle, and you may forget an entire childhood summer. You forget a friend's birthday. You forget the very day you met someone dear to you. You will find entire white pages in the book of your life."
III. The Third Level: The Black Eye (The Void)
The Power: "Absolute darkness. The Eye of Judgment. This eye does not strike; it 'Erases.' If you focus your will on a target—be it a mountain or a battalion—existence itself rejects them. They vanish without a trace, without dust, without even an echo. Total annihilation."
The Price: "Catastrophic. You lose 'Years.' A single use might erase your entire childhood. Another might wipe out your adolescence. You will look in the mirror and see a man whose growth you didn't witness, raised by people you don't recall. You become a stranger in your own skin."
The old man went silent for a long time. His hand trembled as it hovered over the fourth circle, which he had left stark white.
IV. The Forbidden Level: The White Eye (The Sin)
The Power: "None can define its limits, for it transcends logic. It is absolute power that overwrites the laws of reality. It deletes anything in its path, regardless of its divinity or nature."
The Price: "Even Arus did not dare to use this. Not out of fear, but because he was 'incapable'." The old man looked into my eyes with raw dread. "Because the price here is... You. In the previous levels, you forget what you did, but you know who you are. In the White... you forget yourself. Your name, your identity, your principles, your very humanity—erased. The body remains, and the power becomes infinite, but 'Rai' vanishes forever. What stands there will not be a man. It will be 'Sin' walking on two legs. An entity without a soul, designed to destroy everything... including itself."
He wiped the drawing away with his foot, as if closing a door to hell. "So beware, my boy. You are selling your soul in installments. Do not reach the final payment."
3. The Test of Steadfastness
I recoiled, my back hitting the rough bark of a tree. The information was a physical weight, too heavy for my weary mind to bear. "Forgetfulness..." I whispered, a single tear burning a trail down my cheek. I imagined returning to Jean and not knowing his face. I imagined looking at my mother's photograph and feeling nothing but the coldness of paper. "To forget is the true death. It is worse than dying."
"Exactly," the old man said firmly. "That is why I warned you. Absolute power requires absolute sacrifice."
I gathered the shattered pieces of my resolve and asked, my voice trembling with confusion: "And what of this? What is the meaning of this strange symbol appearing inside my eye?"
The old man froze. He leaned in close, his face inches from mine. He gripped my chin, tilting my head to catch the dying light. He narrowed his eyes, peering into my pupil for seconds that felt like eons. A profound grimness settled over his features.
"This symbol..." he muttered, pulling back and shaking his head slowly. "It looks... incomplete. As if it were meant to be a letter or a word, but it has not yet been finished. Something is still missing for it to be whole."
"I do not know its meaning," he finally whispered. "But you will find someone who can tell you."
The old man stood and brushed the dust from his white robes. The sun was dipping below the horizon, turning the valley into a tableau of mournful crimson. "The time has come. Your rest has ended, and time in your world is a merciless predator. Every second wasted here is a life lost there."
He walked toward the thundering waterfall. With a low murmur of words I couldn't comprehend, the water parted like a massive stage curtain, revealing a dark cavern mouth. At the end of the tunnel stood a door. It was not wood or iron; it was a massive slab of grey stone, polished to a mirror sheen, devoid of handles or keyholes. It absorbed the light around it, a monument to gloom.
"The Sixth Door," I said, standing beside him as the spray of the water chilled my skin. "You said it wasn't about strength or intelligence. What is the test? How do I pass?"
The old man turned to me with the gaze of a father sending his son to an unwinnable war. "The Sixth Door is 'Steadfastness.' Inside, no beast will attack you, and no riddle will be posed. Inside... you will be stripped bare."
"The human 'Rai' will be placed on one side of the scale, and the 'Monster' you are becoming on the other. Your past will be pitted against your present. The danger isn't that your body will die; it's that your reality will collapse. You may lose the ability to distinguish truth from illusion."
His voice grew cold, a sudden edge of warning in his tone. "But be most careful of what lies beyond the door. I do not know for certain what awaits you, but I know you will enter a space inhabited by beings that do not bow to your senses. Beings you cannot touch no matter how far you reach, whose shadows you will never glimpse, whose very presence or 'aura' you will be unable to perceive. They are entirely beyond the borders of your perception. And yet, they are there. Beings that can erase you from existence and scrub your name from the annals of time with a single glance."
He placed his hand on my shoulder for the last time. It was warm and real, a stark contrast to the coldness of the world I was entering. "Do not try to conquer the door with your strength. Simply... hold on to who you are. Remember the pain. Remember the hunger. Remember why you started this journey."
"Go now. And do not look back."
I bowed to him, deeply and with a respect I couldn't voice. "Thank you. For the soup... for the truth... and for the warning."
I turned to the smooth stone door. I did not push it; I merely laid my hand upon its surface. It was as cold as polar ice. Sensing my presence—or perhaps sensing the 'Sin' in my eyes—the stone began to grind open. It revealed a darkness that wasn't merely the absence of light. It was a 'living' darkness, dense and whispering with the voices of a thousand forgotten memories.
I took a final breath of the valley's sweet air. "Steadfastness," I whispered, my red eyes igniting in the gloom, ready for the nightmare. "I am steadfast... because I have nothing left to lose but my mind."
I took the first step. SLAM! The stone door crashed shut behind me with the finality of a coffin lid. The valley vanished. The old man vanished. The sun, the water, the peace—all gone.
I was alone. Facing the final and worst enemy: myself.
[The Sixth Door: Mirror of the Soul] [System Alert: No active skills available in this domain.] [Time remaining in the outside world: Critical.]