Once again, he was yanked into another random place. This time, he was hovering in the sky, like some knockoff god forced to watch the world tear itself apart below.
The landscape looked like it had gone through the worst day imaginable.
Trees were engulfed in fire, lighting them up like giant torches.
The ground was cracked and dry, stained dark with blood.
Bodies littered the land—human ones. Some without heads. Some missing limbs. Some… unfinished, like whatever killed them had gotten bored halfway through the meal.
It was horrific.
Gruesome.
Alongside the human bodies lay countless monsters—none of them anything he'd ever seen before. And he'd seen plenty. Eaten plenty, too. But these? He wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole.
Their skin looked like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Some of it was slick and black, like it had been dipped in tar. Other parts were pale and cracked, splitting open to show muscle underneath that still twitched, even though the rest of the body was very much dead.
Limbs bent the wrong way. Too many joints. Not enough joints. A few had arms growing out of places arms absolutely should not be growing out of. Jaws were stretched too wide, packed with crooked teeth that looked like they'd just kept growing until no one stopped them.
And the eyes—those were the worst part. Too many, or not enough. Some stared in opposite directions. Some were half-formed, like the monster had given up halfway through installing them.
They weren't monsters the way monsters were supposed to be.
They looked corrupted. Twisted. Like something had taken normal creatures, shoved them through a nightmare blender, and called the result an upgrade.
Ugly.
Less beast.
More mistake.
Pure abominations.
His gaze drifted farther—and he froze at the mere sight.
Giant bones lay scattered across the ground, unmistakably humanoid. Each one was massive—so large their size didn't make sense.
He had never seen a beast like this before. Not even close. His mind struggled to process it, like it was staring at something that broke the rules simply by existing.
And there wasn't just one being.
There were many.
At the far end of the battlefield, he noticed the armored knight standing in the distance.
He drifted toward the beast without hesitation and landed in front of the armor.
His fingers brushed against its cold surface, and he could feel the last of its sorrow leaking through the plates, thick and suffocating.
Its eyes slowly dimmed, like its pulse was weakening as well.
Beside the heavily damaged knight lay a man. He had long black hair. His back was pressed against a boulder, like it was the only thing still keeping him upright.
He looked pale—deathly so—like someone who had been fighting for days without rest. Maybe longer. His chest barely moved. His eyelids trembled, slowly losing the strength to stay open.
The man looked like he was about to fall asleep.
Not for a few hours.
Or days.
But for eternity.
For reasons he didn't fully understand, frustration burned in his chest. Not at the man—but at what he represented. The way he lay there, broken and spent, waiting for the end like he'd already accepted it.
It felt uncomfortably familiar.
The man noticed the look in Shiro's eyes. His lips twitched, forcing a weak, crooked smile as his breathing hitched.
"Stop looking at me like that. I know I look pathetic."
"So are you the one behind everything?" Shiro asked coldly, his gaze cutting as he looked down at the broken man. "All these ridiculous trials. Me being trapped in that cursed well—or whatever this place even is."
The man chuckled again. It sounded thin. Worn down. Like the laugh had been confirmed dead a while ago but hadn't gotten the memo.
"I guess he trained you well," the man said. "Though that anger still needs some work." He paused, drawing a breath that clearly hurt. "Then again… you are a version of me."
Shiro froze. "What? You know the voice that's been guiding me?" He lowered himself to meet the man's eyes. "Who is he? And why did we cross paths?"
The man looked away for a moment before answering.
"Sorry," he muttered. "I can't answer that."
Shiro let out a tired sigh. "Useless."
He pushed himself up and turned away, ready to leave this war-rotted place behind. The air reeked of iron and decay, the kind that stuck to the back of his throat and refused to let go.
Two steps in, he stopped.
He didn't know how to leave.
Slowly, he turned back to the man. "How do I get out of this place?"
"I'll send you back," the man said quietly, "once everything here is finished."
Just then, he felt it—the last bit of the knight's presence disappearing.
He approached the knight one last time. His fingers brushed against the armor.
Nothing.
There was no menace left.
Just metal.
Just an empty shell, standing where it used to be.
He hated that feeling. The entire situation felt wrong.
Anger flared in his chest, sharp and sudden. He didn't even understand why, but it burned all the same.
Angry at the man—for letting it die.
"He'll be okay," the man said quietly.
Shiro looked at him, and it didn't take long to understand.
The one the knight had been waiting for… was the man in front of him.
"So who are you?" Shiro asked bitterly.
The man didn't answer right away. He tilted his head up instead, staring at the sky.
There wasn't much to look at.
The sky was ruined—dark, heavy, stretched thin like it might start bleeding at any second. And yet the man watched it like he was searching for something hidden in the wreckage.
Then he looked back at Shiro, eyes tired in a way that went deeper than exhaustion.
"Who am I?" the man asked softly. "Some called me a god. A hero. Some called me a king. Others, a tyrant."
Shiro just stared at him.
For a brief moment, he regretted asking anything at all. Every question just earned him a worse answer, like straight explanations were against the rules here.
"…How about crazy? Why not add that one to the list," Shiro offered.
The man smirked and reached out a hand. For a split second, Shiro thought he was asking for help getting up.
Then their hands met—and the man clamped down.
His grip was iron-tight. His eyes flared with a dark purple glow.
Panic spiked through Shiro. He tried to pull away, but the man didn't budge. He didn't even flinch.
"Let go of me, you crazy old man!"
Purple figures tore themselves out of the man's body.
One after another. Too many to count.
They kept coming until Shiro felt a cold touch land on his shoulder.
His eyes burned instantly. At the same time, something flowed out of the man and into him—aggressively.
His body was barely able to handle this much energy. His veins bulged like they were about to burst, swelling under his skin like overfilled water hoses. Pain ripped through him, sharp and overwhelming, and he screamed.
So did the spirit-things.
Their cries echoed together, human and inhuman overlapping until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
Then—just like that—it stopped.
The burning in his eyes faded. His vision cleared.
He looked around, and his breath caught.
The figures had formed a perfect circle around them—starting at the man, ending at him. Every single one of them looked exactly like the statues he'd seen earlier.
Same faces.
All of them were glowing. Sticky-looking, like light itself had weight and didn't feel like letting go.
Their gazes slid toward him.
They smiled.
Then, all at once, they were ripped back into the man's body, vanishing like they'd never existed in the first place.
At the same time, the man loosened his grip.
Shiro stumbled backward, barely keeping his balance, heart hammering so hard it felt like it was trying to punch its way out of his chest.
His eyes were wide as he patted himself down in a rush—arms, chest, sides—half-expecting to find holes, missing pieces, or something worse.
Nothing seemed… wrong.
Which somehow made it worse.
He snapped his head back up, staring at the man like he'd just been personally offended by reality itself.
"…What the hell did you just do to me?" he demanded.
As the man's body thinned and slowly crumbled away, he met Shiro's gaze one last time. His expression was calm. Unsettlingly so.
"We all played our roles," he said. "Every sacrifice was made so the road ahead wouldn't break you."
A faint smile crossed his face.
"Now it's your turn to walk it."
"What the hell are you yapping about."
As the man vanished, the faint smile never disappeared.
Before Shiro could process the chaotic event, something elastic wrapped around his arms and body, coating him, swallowing him, then dragging him deeper into the darkness. He tried to scream, but his mouth was sealed shut.
It slowly wrapped tighter around him until everything went black.
And then—
He was back in his body.