[Ironhold City – The Lower Strata]
The pain did not cease for a single heartbeat. The journey as I was dragged through those jagged stone corridors felt like a slow, systematic flaying of my skin. The heavy metallic netting draped over me pressed down with the weight of a mountain, and every protrusion in the rocky floor sent a jolt of electricity through my nervous system. But worse than the physical agony was the humiliation. I, who had stood before the Entity and survived the White Corridor, was now being hauled like a diseased carcass through the back alleys of a buried civilization.
I forced my eyes open, though they were weighted by the crushing gravity, to witness the world I had fallen into. "Ironhold." The name was perfect. It wasn't a city; it was an industrial fortress carved into the very bowels of the planet. The buildings weren't constructed; they were hollowed out of colossal stone pillars that braced the distant, unreachable ceiling. Suspended bridges made of massive black chains linked the residential districts, which resembled stone beehives. The only light came from the distant rivers of magma flowing in the abyss below and the pale blue fungi cultivated in glass jars at the thresholds of the homes.
I saw the inhabitants. Hundreds of dwarves—no, they weren't dwarves in the traditional sense. These were "compact masses of muscle." Their faces were the color of granite, their eyes wide and black without any whites, and their hands were as gnarled and rough as sledgehammers. They paused in their labors to watch the prisoner's procession. I heard no shouting, no cheering. A dead, heavy silence reigned, as thick as the gravity itself. Their eyes tracked me with a mixture of fear and visceral loathing. Mothers pulled their children away, hiding their faces in coarse aprons. Men gripped their hammers tightly, as if I were a beast that might break its chains at any moment and devour them.
"Sky Demon..." "Look at his disgusting length... how do these giants walk without their spines snapping?" "His scent... the scent of the void."
I heard their whispers. And here was the surprise: the System did not translate the words as text before my eyes. Instead, I understood them directly in my mind. It was as if their grinding, gravelly language was my "mother tongue."
[Passive Ability Activated: Tongue of Existence.]
I smirked inwardly with bitter irony. At least I would understand my death sentence before they executed it.
[The Throne Room – Heart of the Mountain]
The humiliating journey came to a halt before a gargantuan gate constructed from the bones of a prehistoric leviathan, reinforced with black iron. The gate groaned open with a sound like the mountain itself was screaming. They dragged me inside.
The hall was... suffocating. The ceiling was intentionally low to heighten the sense of pressure. The pillars were immense, carved into the likeness of warriors holding the sky on their shoulders. And at the far end of the hall, upon a raised dais of black basalt, sat Him.
King Gorath. He wasn't much taller than the other inhabitants, perhaps a meter and sixty centimeters, but his "presence" filled the entire hall. He wore armor that seemed to have grown from his very skin, made of a dark red metal that glistened with strange oils. Upon his shoulders sat the skulls of two unknown creatures with double jaws. His gray beard was braided with heavy gold rings that reached his knees, and his eyes... his eyes were entirely white. Blind? No. He saw—but not with light. He saw through vibrations. He saw the "Weight."
The guards threw the net violently before the steps leading to the throne. I tumbled onto the hard stone and struggled, with great difficulty, to push myself up onto my knees, leaning on my trembling hands. The gravity here felt twice as strong as outside, as if the King possessed a device to manipulate it just to bring his guests to their knees.
"My Lord King..." The captain of the guards bowed until his forehead touched the floor. "We have brought the Fallen. We found him in Sector Seven, unconscious. His bones are soft, but... he regenerates."
King Gorath did not move. He sat with the stillness of a boulder, his hand stroking the hilt of a massive war hammer leaning against his throne. Then, he spoke. His voice was like a distant avalanche—deep, slow, and terrifying.
"His scent disturbs me," the King said coldly. "The scent of an open sky. The scent of lightness... and weakness."
He turned his blind face directly toward me. I felt an invisible pressure slam into my chest. "You... you who possess the long limbs of a spider. How dare you desecrate the Land of Weight with your presence?"
Silence. I did not answer him. I was busy trying to regulate my breathing and analyze the situation. Guards around me, a King before me, and my body still adapting. Speaking now was a waste of energy. Furthermore, I wanted to know: what did they know about me? Did they know the Entity?
"I am speaking to you, freak." The King's voice rose slightly, and the hall trembled with it. "Who sent you? Are you a spy from the Surface Demons? Or just refuse cast away by the gods?"
I raised my head slowly. I looked at him with my glowing crimson eyes—a gaze devoid of fear, filled with cold defiance. I used silence as a weapon. Silence unsettles tyrants. It makes them doubt their own power.
The guards froze. The captain fidgeted in his place, terrified of the King's wrath. "He... perhaps he does not understand our tongue, my Lord..." the captain whispered.
"He understands," the King cut him off sharply. "I hear his heartbeat change with every word I say. He understands me perfectly... but he chooses insolence."
The King stood up slowly. As he rose, it felt as though the hall shrank. His fist closed around his hammer. "In my kingdom, silence is not gold. Silence is a declaration of war."
He descended one step from the throne. The sound of his metallic footsteps echoed like thunder. "I will ask you one last time... before I turn your soft bones into a paste to feed the fungi of my garden." He stopped directly in front of me. He wasn't looking at me; he was "sensing" me.
"What... are you?"
I stared at him. The words were on the tip of my tongue. I could have said "I am Ray," or "I am a Candidate." But I remembered one thing. In the world of animals... and in the world of monsters... justifying yourself is a sign of weakness. The predator does not explain himself to the prey. And a King does not offer reports.
I smiled. A small, bloody smile broke the stillness of my exhausted face. And I remained silent.
A vein throbbed in King Gorath's neck. "Arrogance..." the King snarled in a low, dangerous voice. "The cursed arrogance of the Sky." He turned and returned to his throne, as if I were no longer worth his time. "I was going to interrogate you to learn the plans of the Surface... but it seems you are just a stray animal."
He sat on his throne and waved his hand with callous indifference. "He is useless. His bones are too weak to work in the mines. And his mind is empty."
"Send him to the Arena."
The guards gasped audibly. The Arena? "My Lord..." the captain intervened with a trembling voice. "The Arena? For the Royal Guard? He... he will be finished in a single second. There won't even be a show."
King Gorath laughed—a dry, short sound. "Exactly. I don't want a show. I want a cleansing." He looked at me with a sadistic grin. "My guards are hungry, and they haven't trained in a while. Throw him to the Crushers. Let us see if his silence continues when his head is separated from his body."
[Arena Gate – Minutes Later]
I did not resist when they dragged me away again. The Arena. A public execution. This was exactly what I needed. The King thought he was throwing me to my death... but in reality, he was throwing me into the only place where I could break these chains: Combat.
They threw me into a long, dark corridor that smelled of old blood and rusted iron. They unfastened the net and pulled away the chains, then quickly slammed the gate behind me, as if they were more afraid of what was inside than I was. "Good luck, demon..." the guard whispered from behind the door before running away.
I stood up. For the first time since my arrival, I stood on my own two feet without assistance. My bones cracked and rearranged themselves. My muscles had adapted slightly to the crushing gravity. I still felt like I was carrying a car on my back, but I could move. I could fight.
I walked toward the light at the end of the tunnel. The sounds of the crowd began to rise. It wasn't cheering... it was the sound of "pounding." Thousands of Vanguard were striking their hammers and shields in a single, terrifying rhythm.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
I stepped into the light. The Arena was a colossal circular pit, surrounded by stone tiers rising dozens of meters high, filled with thousands of silent gray faces looking down in anticipation of blood. And in the high royal box sat King Gorath, waiting for the sound of my bones breaking.
I looked to the opposite side of the Arena. The massive gate across from me opened slowly. And out stepped the "Execution."
They weren't Vanguard. There were three of them. Giants. Each of them stood over three meters tall. They wore full suits of armor that covered every inch of their bodies, made of steel plates so thick they looked like moving walls. They carried primitive, brutal weapons: a massive iron ball on chains, a double-headed axe the size of a man, and a hammer the size of a barrel.
But the most terrifying thing about them wasn't their size. It was their "faces." Their helmets weren't fully closed. They were designed to show their faces... massive, distorted human faces, with wide eyes that didn't blink... and a broad, fixed, ear-to-ear grin. A mad smile that never changed.
The Crushers.
They advanced toward me with steps that shook the arena floor. The middle giant, the one with the hammer, tilted his head at a strange angle, his smile widening even further as if he were a child who had found a new toy to tear apart.
I raised my hands. I extracted two bone-daggers from my wrists (courtesy of my regeneration). I looked at the King above, then at the smiling giants.
"You want a show?" I whispered, my eyes burning a deep crimson, the blood boiling in my veins in preparation for the explosion. "I'll give you a show you'll never forget."
The first giant lunged. The hammer swung toward my head to split it in two. The party had begun.