For around a day we traveled to the lighthouse and then took another break for the night before we entered. I obviously didn't sleep with them — being surrounded by Gunlaug's hunters and that priest would have been suicide — so I wandered off to explore the lighthouse instead.
It lay sideways, collapsed and sunken into the sand, forming a long tilted tunnel. Cold wind breathed through the cracks, groaning like something asleep inside. At the very end was a massive pit — a black circle carved into the floor of the world.
I'm stupid, sure… but not that stupid. I couldn't sense any blood down there. Nothing living. Nothing recently dead. Just a strange… pressure, like the air was trembling.
Still, curiosity is a disease, and I'm terminal, so I found a nightmare creature, cut its limbs, sealed its wounds, and tossed it down. I made sure to pick something durable — I needed something that should've survived the fall.
A few minutes later, I felt something wrong.
It didn't just die —
its soul twisted, pinched, folded inward like someone crushed it between two cold fingers.
"Interesting… very interesting."
---
Alucard smiled.
Not a human smile.
Not a smile belonging to any creature with a heartbeat.
It was a stretched, trembling thing — a smile carved too wide, too eager, as though his face had been waiting years for an excuse to split open like that. It didn't belong. It shouldn't exist. And yet it clung to him, refusing to die even as the last trace of warmth drained from his features.
He stepped forward and leapt into the pit.
Darkness swallowed him whole, but Alucard didn't fall — he descended, drifting like he was sinking through water. His eyes dilated, trembling with excitement at horrors only he could see.
When his feet finally touched the bottom, he found himself standing before an army of skeletons.
Rows. Columns. Endless.
A frozen crowd of empty-eyed soldiers waiting for a command that would never come.
Their hollow skulls tilted toward him, as if listening to his breathing.
And far ahead—
a mound.
Not of bodies, but of blood and flesh, piled like an offering to something ancient.
Alucard moved toward it.
The world warped in his vision — the floor bending, the air warping, shapes stretching at the edges of his sight as though reality was being kneaded by invisible hands. The canyon blocking his path wasn't a barrier. It was a challenge. And challenges were invitations.
He jumped.
He slipped.
He nearly fell into the abyss below — but even that didn't slow his steps. His pupils jittered, vibrating with a quiet frenzy. His arms twitched like they weren't entirely under his command.
Nothing mattered but the flesh.
He slid into the cave, the walls pulsing with veins of dried blood and threads of rotted muscle. Every breath tasted metallic. Every heartbeat echoed too loudly, as if it belonged to something standing behind him, not inside him.
He grabbed the first chunk of flesh—
—and was immediately thrown aside.
The entire cave shook.
From the shadows rose a mountain of bones.
Ribs scraping stone.
Skulls sliding and clicking into place.
Spines twisting like serpents made of ivory.
It had no blood, no organs.
But it had one thing.
A single, disgusting green eye lodged in the center of the mass.
Wet.
Blinking.
Focused entirely on him.
Alucard stared at it.
And something broke.
His eyes flooded red — bloodshot vessels exploding across his sclera like lightning. They began to bleed as runes formed in the air, twisting like worms, writhing like they were alive. The symbols weren't from the creature.
They were from him.
A screen of red runes slammed across his vision.
Runes that were not from the spell.
Runes he could not understand.
Runes he understood perfectly.
"FAIL SAFE ACTIVATED."
---
I snapped back like someone yanked a hook out of my brain.
The hex unraveled in an instant.
My head felt like it was full of smoke and broken glass.
If I didn't have the Stalwart enchantment, I would've bowed down to that thing the second i dropped down here. I didn't know what that… screen was, or why it saved me, or what the hell a fale safe was supposed to be.
But I didn't have time to wonder.
I had to run.
I sprinted, stumbling over my own feet as bones crashed behind me. The ground shook with every twitch of that monster's mass. I reached the canyon again and went for the jump — but this time I slipped.
I fell.
Only reflex saved me. My blood arm exploded outward, twisting into a crimson claw that dug into the wall. Bones rained down like hail. I had to climb — fast. I yanked myself upward, dodging falling femurs and jagged ribs scraping sparks off the wall around me.
When I reached the top, I realized something strange.
The skeleton army…
could move.
Their bodies strained and jerked, but they didn't attack me.
I didn't know why.
Didn't want to know.
Didn't care.
I just needed to leave.
I climbed back up the tilted tunnel of the lighthouse and collapsed once I reached the surface. Sweat poured down my face. My eyes burned like they were full of needles. I had to physically force them back to normal — literally push the blood back with my own will.
Finally, barely standing, I dragged myself back to the cohort.
I was dead tired.
Beyond exhausted.
I knew I had to sleep.
But not with Gunlaug's hunters.
Not with that priest watching.
I didn't want to wake up with my throat cut.
So I did the most rational thing possible.
I walked into Effie and Sara's room, lay down on the floor like a corpse someone forgot to bury, and promptly passed out.
I knew I'd get insulted.
Probably kicked.
Maybe punched.
Didn't care.
I needed sleep.