The cavern's light thinned to threads of pale blue. Alpha moved slowly through it, each step stirring the dust of ages. The air hummed faintly, like a breath drawn through stone, and far beneath his feet something pulsed. Not life—something older.
He had not slept since the Knight spoke his name.
Feylith.
The word still echoed inside his ribs, each heartbeat repeating it in silence. When he had tried to rest, the scar had burned again, faintly alive, like an ember buried in skin. Every time he whispered the name aloud, the world seemed to listen.
The Labyrinth had changed since then. The corridors were no longer ruins; they were veins. The walls glimmered faintly with essence, and the floor was slick, as if something had begun to bleed beneath the stone. Alpha knew this place was growing. Reacting. Shifting to something closer to what it remembered.
The Veyres window flickered before him.
[ Veyres System: Unstable ]
[ Essence: 3 / ? ]
[ Dreamstones: 6 ]
[ Flaw: ??? ]
[ Status: Observation Active ]
It vanished before he could touch it. He wondered if it mocked him.
He stopped before a great door half sunk into the ground. Black chains crossed its surface, humming faintly with unseen force. They glowed with a light that was not light—gray, cold, and endless. The stone around the hinges bore runes older than language, curling like smoke.
"Chains," he murmured. "So this is where it begins again."
His fingers brushed one of the runes. The air shivered. A whisper drifted from the crack beneath the door.
—'Fateless.'
Alpha froze. The voice was neither male nor female. It was the sound of dry pages crumbling. He stepped back, but the door trembled at his touch, and the chains began to move, sliding through the runes as if pulled from within. One snapped, its fragments vanishing into vapor.
The door creaked open.
A rush of cold air poured out, and with it came the smell of grave soil and burnt incense. The room beyond was vast and circular, lined with statues that leaned toward the center like mourners around a grave. At its heart stood an altar, and upon it—a sphere of crystal blacker than night, its surface crawling with faint lights like trapped stars.
The whisper came again.
—''You took from us, thief of dreams. Come to return what you stole?''
Alpha's eyes narrowed. "No," he said quietly. "I've come to understand."
He stepped closer, each footfall echoing strangely, as if the sound were swallowed before it could fade. The nearer he came, the heavier the air became. The sphere pulsed, and the statues seemed to breathe.
Chains erupted from the altar—silver, rusted, spectral—lashing toward him like serpents.
Alpha moved, barely. The first chain slammed into the ground where he had stood, cracking the stone. He rolled aside, blade flashing as another came for his head. When steel met chain, sparks of pale essence sprayed like blood.
The voice hissed around him.
—'You should have remained nameless.'
The air convulsed. The statues began to stir. From their mouths spilled the same gray light as the chains, forming vague shapes—faces, hands, fragments of what once were people. They screamed without sound, their forms unraveling as they reached for him.
Alpha cut through the first shade. It fell apart like smoke, but where it touched his arm, frost spread across the skin. He hissed and stepped back. The Veyres flared across his vision again, unbidden.
[ Flaw Reactivation: 13% ]
[ Warning: Essence Overlap Detected ]
[ Adaptive Combat Mode — Instinct Override ]
He didn't know what that meant, but his body moved before he could think. The shadows around him lengthened, twisting like living smoke. His own shape blurred, his eyes turning darker than the room itself. Each breath burned, but the pain steadied him.
Another chain whipped forward. He seized it with his left hand. The metal burned his flesh, but his shadow tightened around it, crushing it until it broke. A faint cry echoed, distant, fading into nothing.
The sphere pulsed again, faster now. Its surface cracked, and a figure stepped out. Cloaked in torn fabric, flesh like dried parchment stretched over bone, it carried no weapon—only a crown of black veins that pulsed across its skull. Its eyes glowed faintly red, not alive, not dead.
"Necromancer," Alpha whispered.
The figure tilted its head. "So that word remains," it murmured. "And yet you do not understand it."
The ground shifted. The statues melted into the air, their essence swirling toward the Necromancer. It lifted a hand, and their souls fused into new chains that coiled around its arm.
"You walk with a name unbound," it said, voice low and soft as falling ash. "Feylith. The shadow that devours its own reflection. You are not meant to breathe."
Alpha's grip tightened on his blade. "And yet, I do."
They clashed. The Necromancer moved like a whisper through mist. Each swing of its arm sent waves of chained essence across the floor, tearing stone as if it were cloth. Alpha dodged, slid under a strike, cut upward—his sword slicing through air that solidified mid-swing, forcing him back.
A chain wrapped around his leg. He fell, yanking free before the second caught his arm. The third did not miss. It coiled around his throat, tightening. The world blurred. Shadows pressed in on his vision.
The Veyres screamed.
[ Critical Threshold — Exceeding Limits ]
[ Flaw Awakening: Stage 1 Manifestation ]
Darkness poured from his back like liquid fire. His shadow erupted outward, taking shape — a figure identical to him, eyes glowing white, blade made of void. Together, they struck.
The Necromancer recoiled as both Alphas attacked, one physical, one spectral. The shadow's blade carved through chains as if cutting silk, while Alpha's own steel found the creature's chest. It staggered, hissing, voice fracturing into a hundred echoes.
"Fateless," it spat, clutching at the wound. "You carry what should not exist."
Alpha's shadow moved again, thrusting its sword through the Necromancer's chest. Light and dark erupted together. The chamber shuddered. The chains screamed, tearing apart. The sphere cracked once more, splintering into fragments that hovered in the air like glass dust.
Then, silence.
Alpha stood shaking, blood seeping from his arm, breath ragged. The shadow lingered a moment longer, its eyes meeting his own. Then it dissolved, fading back into him.
The Veyres window appeared again, clear for the first time.
[ Name: Alpha Omega ]
[ Veyres Name: Feylith — The Fateless Shadow ]
[ Veyres Rank: Wisc ]
[ Liberance Rank: Cindrel (Step 1: Complete) ]
[ Essence: 7 / 50 ]
[ Flaw: Bound to the Shadow Self ]
[ Dreamstones: 12 ]
[ Status: Liberance Stable ]
Alpha stared at it, chest heaving. His scar burned brighter than ever. The chains were gone. The altar was dust.
And somewhere deep in the unseen dark, the Labyrinth laughed.