Day 8
Reality became optional overnight.
I woke, if you could call it waking, when you weren't sure you'd actually slept, to find the forest had rearranged itself. The path I'd marked yesterday led to a dead end. The tree I'd camped under was now fifty feet to my left. My own footprints circled back on themselves in impossible ways.
Day 8: The geometry here is having a breakdown. Or maybe I am. Jury's still out.
Time flowed wrong in the deeper Veilwood. I'd walk for what felt like hours, and the System would insist only minutes had passed. Other times, I'd blink and lose entire chunks of the day.
The illusions were getting worse, too. Not just memories anymore, but possibilities, versions of conversations I'd never had, futures that could never happen, moments of joy twisted into something painful.
I saw Nyx as she could have been if I'd failed to save her egg: a twisted, corrupted thing that blamed me for her suffering.
I saw the fairies dead, their grove burned, and a version of me standing over the ashes with ember-black flames still burning in my hands.
I saw Emma alive and happy, married to someone else, living the life I couldn't give her.
Each illusion hurt in its own special way.
[MENTAL RESISTANCE CHECK: PASSED]
[MENTAL RESISTANCE CHECK: PASSED]
[MENTAL RESISTANCE CHECK: PASSED]
[WARNING: PSYCHOLOGICAL STRAIN ACCUMULATING]
"Yeah, no shit," I muttered.
Day 10
The voices started today.
Whispers in a language I didn't know but somehow understood, speaking truths I didn't want to hear:
You were always going to fail her.
They'll die while you're gone.
You're becoming what you feared most.
The corruption is winning.
I told them to fuck off. They laughed and got louder.
The Veilwood was doing something to my head, peeling back layers of protection I'd built over the years. Every fear, every regret, every moment of weakness... it was all being dragged into the light (or the darkness, this place was confusing).
I fought a pack of Shadow Wisps today. They moved like smoke, impossible to pin down, and their touch left frost burns despite the warmth of the shadows here. I only survived by using my Earth Manipulation to create a series of light-stones that pulsed with brightness.
The Wisps screamed as they dissolved, and I felt nothing.
That was the worrying part. I should have felt something... satisfaction, relief, anything. But there was just... emptiness.
Day 10: I think I might be angry at everything... including myself. The voices say I'm losing it. They might be right.
Through the bond, distant but concerned: Knox?
Still here. Still fighting.
You sound different.
The dungeon's getting in my head. Don't worry about it.
That is the opposite of reassuring.
Then lie to yourself. I'm great. Everything's great. I'm having a wonderful time in the murder forest.
A pulse of affection, tinged with worry: Survive. Come home.
Working on it.
Day 12
Today I fought a tree that screamed my name.
Not metaphorically. It literally screamed "KNOX ASHFORD" at me in a voice that sounded like grinding stone and breaking glass.
I might have screamed back. Definitely louder.
The tree, something the System called an "Echo Oak," attacked by manifesting my own fears as physical entities. Shadow-versions of myself, each one representing a failure:
The Knox who couldn't save Emma. The Knox who abandoned his friends. The Knox who'd given up on living.
I had to fight myself. Multiple times. It was therapeutic in the worst possible way.
When I finally killed the tree by driving my spear through its core, it whispered: "You're becoming what you feared."
And I realized it was right.
My claws had grown longer, sharper. My horns had lengthened, the tips now glowing faintly with ember light. My eyes, I'd caught my reflection in a pool of still water, burned with that reverse-light glow, just like the Shade Stalkers.
I was adapting to the Veilwood. Becoming part of it.
[PHYSICAL EVOLUTION: MINOR]
[CORRUPTION LEVEL: MODERATE]
[WARNING: EXTENDED EXPOSURE TO PARADOX ZONES CAUSES PERMANENT CHANGES]
"Just add it to the list," I said to nobody.
Day 12: I fought a tree that screamed my name. I think I won. Hard to tell, I'm covered in sap and existential dread. Also, my reflection doesn't look quite right anymore. The dungeon's changing me. Not sure if I'm scared or just too tired to care.
Day 14
The end of week two came with a boss fight I wasn't prepared for.
The Eclipsed Matriarch.
I found her in a grove where the impossible happened: flowers of pure darkness bloomed on trees made of solidified light. The paradox was so strong it made my teeth ache.
She was beautiful and terrible... a towering figure grown from a massive black lotus, with a crown of petals that glowed in reverse. When she opened her eyes, they held the last light of dying stars.
"Child of shadow and flame," she said, her voice like silk and razors. "Why do you run from what you are?"
"I'm not running," I said, raising my spear. "I'm surviving."
"There is no difference." She raised one elegant hand, and the entire grove came alive. Petals sharp as razors filled the air. Vines with thorns that dripped void reached for me. The ground itself tried to swallow my feet.
The fight was chaos. She was Level 15, and I was 13, exhausted, half-crazy from two weeks of psychological torture.
But I'd learned something in the Veilwood: sometimes survival isn't about being stronger. It's about being more stubborn than whatever's trying to kill you.
I used everything, Earth Manipulation to create barriers, ember-shadow magic to counter her attacks, pure demonic rage to push through her defenses. My horns flared with power I didn't know I had. The air around me began to shimmer, to vibrate with wrongness.
[SKILL EVOLUTION: EMBER-SHADOW MANIPULATION → PARADOX FLAME]
[WARNING: HIGH CORRUPTION RISK]
The Matriarch smiled as we fought, like she was proud of me.
When I finally landed the killing blow, my spear through her lotus heart, she didn't seem angry. Just... satisfied.
"Deeper things wait for you, child," she whispered, reaching up to caress my cheek with fingers made of darkness. "Do not fear what you are becoming. Fear what you could become if you refuse to accept it."
Then she dissolved into falling white petals, the first true light she'd ever created.
[BOSS DEFEATED: THE ECLIPSED MATRIARCH]
[+1200 EXP] [LEVEL UP! YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 14]
[TITLE EARNED: LIGHT-EATEN SURVIVOR]
[FLOOR ACCESS: THE HOLLOW CROWN]
I collapsed in the sea of white petals, too exhausted to even celebrate.
Day 14: Killed a plant goddess. She called me 'child.' I don't know how to feel about that. The next floor is calling me down, down into caverns that shouldn't exist. I don't want to go. But I don't have a choice.
Through the bond, impossibly distant: Knox?
Still alive. Barely.
The bond is weakening. I cannot feel you clearly anymore.
I know. The dungeon's pulling me deeper. Nyx, if I—
No. Do not finish that sentence. You are coming back. I will accept no other outcome.
Stubborn dragon.
Stubborn human. Now go. Finish this. Come home.
The path opened before me, leading down into darkness that made the Veilwood look bright by comparison.
I stood, gathered my gear, and started descending.
Week three would be worse.
I could already tell.