They asked again.
"Who… who are you?"
Their voices shook now. The courage they had entered with was gone, crushed beneath the invisible weight pressing down on their souls. Still, the figure on the throne did not reply. He did not even move.
Silence.
A silence so heavy it felt alive.
Then—
Snap.
The sound was sharp, casual—almost careless.
For a fraction of a second, nothing happened.
Then the world collapsed.
A blinding flash tore through the chamber, swallowing everything in white. Noah felt as if his mind had been ripped from his body. His ears rang violently, and his vision burned.
When his sight returned—
Hell had replaced reality.
Bodies lay everywhere.
Not fallen—destroyed.
Some had been torn clean in half, their insides spilled across the ancient stone floor. Others were twisted into unnatural shapes, bones bent backward, limbs ripped from sockets as if they had been pulled apart by something inhumanly strong.
Blood flowed like shallow streams between the cracks of the floor, pooling beneath shattered armor and broken weapons.
A hand lay nearby—still twitching.
A face stared blankly at the ceiling, frozen in an expression of pure terror, the eyes wide open as if death had come too fast for even a scream.
It wasn't a battlefield.
It was a slaughterhouse.
Noah's stomach churned violently. His breath caught in his throat as the smell hit him—iron, decay, and something far worse. The air felt thick, heavy, as if the chamber itself was choking on death.
There were no wounds from blades.
No spell marks.
No sign of struggle.
It was as if an unseen force had reached inside their bodies and torn them apart from within.
Like prey caught by a demon.
From the throne—
The man finally moved.
He stood.
The sound of his movement echoed louder than thunder in the silent chamber. Each step he took was slow, deliberate, crushing what little hope remained.
He walked past corpses without a glance, stepping through blood as though it were nothing more than water.
Ahead of him lay the captain.
Barely alive.
The man's chest rose weakly, ribs shattered, blood spilling from his mouth with every desperate breath. His eyes trembled as the shadow fell over him.
He tried to speak.
No sound came out.
The figure stopped before him.
Slowly, almost gently, he reached out.
His fingers wrapped around the captain's head.
For a brief, horrifying moment, the captain's eyes met Noah's.
Begging.
Then—
Crush.
The skull burst instantly.
Blood, bone, and fragments exploded outward, splattering across the floor, walls, and the lifeless bodies nearby—like a fruit smashed beyond recognition.
The body dropped.
Still.
Dead.
Noah couldn't move.
He couldn't breathe.
His heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand. This wasn't cruelty fueled by anger.
This was worse.
This was indifference.
As if lives meant nothing more than dust beneath his feet.
The figure slowly turned.
Though his face remained hidden, Noah felt it.
That gaze.
It pierced through his soul, locking onto him alone.
In that moment, Noah understood something terrifying—
This being didn't just kill.
He erased existence.
And somehow…
Noah had been allowed to witness it.