[Rank Eight: The Vanguard – The Descent into Ironhold]
The transition from the void to the reality of the Eighth Rank was not a fall; it was an execution. When the Entity cast me through the threshold, the world didn't just change—it collapsed upon me. There was no transition of light or sound, only a sudden, violent reintroduction to physics that felt like being fired from a cannon into a wall of solid lead.
"CRACK!"
The sound of my body hitting the floor was sickening—a wet, dull thud followed by the unmistakable snapping of bone. I didn't land on a floor; I landed in a gravity well.
The moment my skin touched the cold, obsidian-like stone, I felt it. The weight. It wasn't just the atmosphere; it was as if the earth itself had grown hands and was trying to pull my organs through the floorboards. My lungs, once capable of screaming for a hundred and fifty years in the White Corridor, now struggled to perform the simple task of expansion. Every breath was a battle against a thousand invisible pounds pressing down on my ribcage.
The gravity in this place—the Vanguard world—was a living, breathing predator. My blood didn't flow; it struggled. I could feel my heart laboring, a frantic drum behind a wall of lead, trying to push sludge through my veins. The air was thick, tasting of sulfur, coal dust, and the metallic tang of ancient, dried blood. It was air meant for creatures with iron lungs and stone hearts.
"Move..." I hissed, the word barely a rasp. My tongue felt like a piece of dead meat in my mouth. "Get. Up."
I tried to push myself up, but my arms buckled. My radius and ulna—already fractured from the impact—shattered again under the sheer atmospheric pressure of my own weight. I heard them go. Snap. Crunch. A sound that should have been followed by a scream, but all I could manage was a ragged, bloody cough.
Then, the Grand Reward sparked to life.
I felt it deep in the marrow. A white-hot heat surged through my broken limbs. The shards of my bones didn't just knit; they fused with a violent, unnatural speed. The torn muscles reconnected, weaving back together like frantic serpents. The pain was excruciating—an agonizing itch of cells multiplying at a thousand times their normal rate—but it was there. Eternal Regeneration. My body was refusing to die, even as the gravity tried to grind me into a stain on the floor.
Through the haze of pain and the oppressive dimness of the cavern, I heard it.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
It was a heavy, industrial sound. Rhythmic. Measured. Cold. It wasn't the sound of a beast stalking prey; it was the sound of a machine approaching a problem.
I forced my head up, my neck muscles straining as if they were lifting a boulder. Coming out of the shadows were figures that defied my understanding of the "humanoid" form. They were short, barely reaching my waist, but they were wide—built like anvils. Their armor was a dark, matte gray, etched with glowing blue runes that hummed with a low-frequency vibration. They didn't have faces, only T-shaped visors that bled a cold, azure light.
They surrounded me, their spears leveled. The tips were not made of steel, but of a crystalline substance that crackled with blue electricity.
"Look," a voice rumbled. It was deep, sounding like two tectonic plates grinding together. The Tongue of Existence kicked in, the System translating the guttural vibrations into my mind instantly. "It fell from the Accursed Ceiling."
"Impossible," another replied, his voice tinny behind his helmet. "Nothing survives the fall from the Ceiling. The pressure alone should have turned his bones to powder."
The one in the center, sporting a crest of iron spikes on his helmet, stepped closer. He poked me with the blunt end of his spear. The impact felt like being hit by a sledgehammer.
"He has no armor," the leader noted, his tone filled with a mix of awe and deep-seated disgust. "His skin... it is soft. Like a newborn's. And his limbs... gods, they are so long. How does he even move without snapping in half?"
"Is it a Sky Demon?" a third soldier asked, his spear tip trembling slightly. "The legends of the First Era... they spoke of giants with soft skin who would fall from above to feast on the marrow of the earth-dwellers."
"It's breathing," the leader observed. "It's breathing our heavy air. Take him. The King must see this. If the Sky is vomiting its monsters upon Ironhold again, we must know if the Great Gear has finally broken."
I tried to lash out, to grab the nearest soldier's throat, but my movements were sluggish, like I was moving through a sea of mercury. The leader didn't even flinch. He simply slammed the butt of his spear into the side of my head.
The world went black, but even as I lost consciousness, I felt my skull begin to knit itself back together.
[The Ironhold Prison]
"Wake up, freak."
The voice was accompanied by a splash of freezing, mineral-rich water. I snapped awake, gasping, my lungs burning as they expanded against the crushing gravity. I was no longer on the stone floor. I was in a cage.
But "cage" was a generous word. It was a dollhouse made of obsidian and iron.
I was curled into a ball, my knees pressed against my chest, my head tucked down. The ceiling was so low that my hair brushed against the cold stone. If I tried to sit up straight, I would break my own neck. The walls were so close that I couldn't move my elbows more than an inch.
This was a prison built for the Vanguard—creatures half my size. To them, this was a standard cell. To me, it was a coffin.
I shifted slightly, and the movement sent a jolt of pain through my spine. The gravity here felt even heavier, localized within the cell. I looked at the bars—thick, square rods of black iron. Outside, the corridor was lit by blue torches that didn't flicker, casting a sterile, haunting glow over the rock.
In the corner of my cramped space sat a small metal plate. On it was a circular piece of "bread." I picked it up with two fingers; it was the size of a coin to me. I bit into it and nearly chipped a tooth. It wasn't bread. It was a compressed mixture of moss, minerals, and something that felt like dried bone. It tasted like ash and iron.
"Where am I?" I croaked. My voice sounded deeper, distorted by the pressure.
"In the bowels of Ironhold," a guard replied. He was standing outside the bars, leaning on his spear. He had his helmet off now. His skin was the color of granite, his eyes entirely black—no whites, no pupils—just two voids reflecting the blue torchlight. His beard was braided with copper wires, and his face was a map of deep, industrial scars. "The last bastion of Order in a world of rot."
"Why am I in this... birdcage?" I asked, my voice dripping with venom.
The guard laughed, a dry, hacking sound. "Birdcage? You're in the High Security ward, Sky Demon. We don't get many of your kind. Usually, the Ceiling just leaves a red smear on the rocks. But you... you hit the ground and stayed whole."
He leaned in closer, his black eyes narrowing. "The King is curious. He's been praying to the Great Gear for an hour, asking if you're a messenger or a curse. Personally? I think you're just a mutation. Something the Sky spit out because it couldn't stand the sight of you."
I reached out, my hand moving like a strike of a snake, and gripped the bars.
"BZZZZZZZT!"
A massive surge of blue electricity ripped through my arm. My muscles seized, the smell of burning ozone and singed flesh filling the tiny cell. I was thrown back against the stone wall, my heart stopping for a terrifying second before the Eternal Regeneration forced it to kick-start again.
I looked at my hand. The skin was blackened, the fingernails charred. But even as I watched, the blackness peeled away like dead bark. Fresh, pink skin bubbled up from beneath. Within five seconds, my hand was perfect again.
The guard's jaw dropped. He gripped his spear so hard I heard his gauntlets creak. "What... what are you?"
I looked at him through the bars, a slow, predatory smile spreading across my face. The pain was still there—regeneration didn't stop the pain, it only erased the damage—but the look of pure, unadulterated terror on the guard's face made it worth it.
"I told you," I whispered, the gravity no longer feeling like a weight, but like a challenge. "I'm Ray. And your King is keeping me waiting."
The guard stepped back, his hand shaking. He fumbled for a horn at his belt and blew a low, echoing note that rumbled through the stone floors.
"The Sky Demon is awake!" he screamed down the hall. "And it... it won't stay burned!"
I sat back in my cramped, iron coffin, the tiny piece of mineral-bread still in my hand. I felt the "Eyes of Sin" beginning to pulse behind my eyelids—a rhythmic, crimson heat. The Entity had said this world was a machine built to grind me down.
I looked at the black iron bars, the blue torches, and the terrified guard.
"Let them come," I muttered, crushing the stone-bread into dust between my fingers. "I want to see if their King is made of the same fragile stone as his walls."
The floor began to vibrate. Heavy machinery was moving. The interrogation was about to begin, and for the first time in a hundred and fifty years, I wasn't the one being experimented on. I was the experiment that was about to go horribly, bloodily wrong for its creators.