The silehat followed was suffog. Only the dim torchlight flickering against the stone walls remained as a wito what had just occurred.

  Rael steadied himself, f himself to move. He reached out, but there was nothi—no trace of the portal, no lingering energy, no blood or remains. The vilge elder had been erased from this ptirely.

  Gale let out a slow breath, rolling his shoulders as if trying to shake off the utling over them. "That just happened, right?" His voice was steady, but his grip on his axe was tight. "That wasn't some kind of illusion?"

  Rael's mind raced. It had been real. The elder had been taken. But why?

  "Someone—or something—cimed him," Rael said at st, still staring at the empty space where the portal had been. "The deal he made… it didn't end with him simply betraying the vilge. It was never going to let him go."

  Gale sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Shit. What now?"

  Rael turned his attention back to the altar, where the dark crystal remained embedded in stone. Even with the portal go still pulsed, an abyssal core drinking in the faint light of the shrihe whispers surrounding it had softened, but they hadn't disappeared.

  "This crystal," Rael muttered, stepping closer. "It's not just a remnant. It's still ected to something."

  Gale tensed. "You saying that thing—the one he made the deal with—is still here?"

  Rael's fingers hovered just above the surface of the crystal. The energy radiating from it wasn't just residual—it was alive, shifting like something aware of their presence.

  "He awn," Rael said. "And whatever he was serving… it hasn't left."

  * * *

  Stepping back outside, the chill of the night was far more noticeable than before. Or maybe it was just the weight of the situation sinking in.

  The vilge remained deathly quiet, save for the distant howl of the wind. Earlier, when they had arrived, people had peeked from behind shuttered windows, too fearful to step outside. Now, those windows were closed. The vilge had retreated inward, curling into itself like a wounded animal.

  Rael could uand why. Even without knowing the full truth, the people felt it—something was wrong in their home.

  It wouldn't be long before fear turo panic.

  Footsteps ched against the dirt path as a figure approached. A padin, silver armor that gleamed uhe moonlight, strode toward them. His sharp gaze swept over the se before settling on Rael and Gale.

  "You there," he called, his voice firm but measured. "I was sent to iigate the disappearaell me everything you know."

  Rael met his eyes. "You're with the Order?"

  "Sir Aldric," the padin introduced himself with a short nod. "I arrived earlier today, but the vilgers had little to offer beyond rumors. If you have something crete, I want to hear it."

  Rael didn't waste time. "We came to this vilge because of the missing people. At first, we thought it was a simple case of disappearances—maybe bandits, maybe a cult at work. But we found something worse."

  Aldric's expression remained unreadable, but Rael could see the tension in his stance.

  "The missing vilgers weren't taken," Rael tinued. "They were turned."

  Aldric's brow furrowed. "Turned into what?"

  "Demonic creatures," Rael said grimly. "Twisted, inhuman. We fought them ihe temple."

  The padin's grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. "How many?"

  "Not sure," Gale answered. "Could've been all of them, or just the unlucky ones. Either way, they weren't people anymore."

  "They didn't speak," Rael added. "No sign of memories, ation. Just instinct—kill anything that wasn't like them."

  Aldric exhaled sharply, his face hardening. "And the source?"

  "There was an altar ihe temple," Rael expined. "Hiddeh the main shrine. A dark crystal was embedded in it, pulsing with corrupted energy. It wasn't passive—it was feeding something. That's what ged them."

  Aldric let out a slow breath, his expression grim. "A crystal like that doesn't appear on its own. Someone pced it there."

  Rael nodded. "The vilge elder. He knew about it. He'd been keepis."

  Aldric's expression darkened. "Expin."

  "When we fronted him, he admitted to making a deal," Rael said. "Something offered him power, aook it. But it wasn't doh him yet."

  Aldric's gaze sharpened. "What do you mean?"

  "A portal opened," Rael said. "Right behind him. Something reached through and pulled him in. He didn't resist, but it wasn't his doing. It took him, and then it was gone."

  The padin remained silent for a long moment before finally speaking. "I had reports of disappearances and u, but nothing about the elder's involvement. If he was making deals, it means this corruption has deeper roots than I thought."

  Rael folded his arms. "If the transformation was strong enough to ge people, it didn't start with the elder. He was just a piece of it. Something is still out there, and it hasn't stopped."

  Aldric's grip tightened on his sword. "I was going to request reinforts from the church, but if portals are involved, we don't have time to wait. We need answers now."

  Rael already knew where this was going. "You want us to iigate."

  The padin nodded. "If you're willing. I'll still send for reinforts, but I don't know how soon they'll arrive. In the meantime, if you track down the source of this corruption, the Order will pensate you."

  Gale sighed, rolling his shoulders. "And here I thought we'd just be hunting demons."

  Rael g him before turning back to Aldric. "Where do we start?"

  Aldric gestured toward the eastern side of the vilge. "There's an old house at the edge of town. Acc to reports, the elder was seeering it multiple times over the past month, but no one knows why. The vilgers avoided it."

  Rael exged a look with Gale before nodding. "Then that's our stop.

  Without another word, they turned and made their way toward the outskirts of the vilge.

  The structure stood alone, isoted from the rest of the vilge. It was smaller than most houses, its wooden frame darkened with age and exposure. Uhe other homes, its windows were covered—not with shutters, but with thick, tattered cloth. The door, however, was slightly open.

  Rael and Gale stopped a few feet away, sing the area. There were no signs of life. No movement in the windows, no dlelight flickering from within.

  Gale tightened his grip on his axe. "This is a trap."

  "Probably," Rael muttered. He approached first, sword draushed the door open.

  The air inside was stale, thick with the st of dust, wax, and something faintly metallic—blood, long since dried. The single-room interior was cluttered with stacks of books, melted dle stubs, and part scattered across a wooden desk. In the ter of the room stood an ornate mirror, its frame twisted into unnatural patterns.

  Rael stepped inside cautiously, eyes flig from the desk to the mirror. The gss was dark, almost pitch bck, but when he moved closer—

  The surface shifted.

  For the briefest moment, a shadowed figure stared back at him. Cloaked in darkness, featureless yet undeniably aware. Watg. Waiting.

  Then it was gohe gss returo a normal refle, showing only him and Gale.

  Gale let out a low curse. "That's not normal."

  Rael's gaze fell to the desk. He stepped forward, sing the scattered notes. Many were written in a rushed, uneven hand. But one, smudged with ink and dried blood, caught his attention.

  The pact is sealed. The gate will opehe stars align. The price will be paid in blood.

  Beh it was a crude map. A loarked just outside the vilge.

  Rael traced the ink with his finger. A ritual site.

  "Looks like we have our destination," he said.

  Gale cracked his knuckles. "And here I thought we were just pyiives."

  Rael turo face the mirror o time. Whatever had taken the elder… it wasn't do.

  And now, they were on its trail.

  The deeper they went, the more the air ged.

  Dark miasma g to the forest like an oppressive fog, curling around the gnarled roots and pooling in the spaces betweerees. The grouh them felt wrong—damp, yet not from moisture, as if something else had seeped into the very soil.

  Gale exhaled sharply, adjusting his grip on his on. "You feel that?"

  Rael nodded. It was more than just a feeling—it was wrong. The very essence of the pawed at his senses, like a pressure creeping under his skin. The trees were twisted, their bark peeling in jagged, unnatural patterns. Shadows stretched in ways they shouldn't, ing the light of their torches.

  Then they saw it.

  Beyond the miasma, past the deaderees, stood a ruiructure—half shrine, half prison. Bed stoted from the ground like jagged ribs, enclosing a space suffocated by pulsating energy. Thick s, covered in engraved symbols, coiled around the stone walls, rattling with an unseen force.

  And there, kneeling in the ter of it all, was the elder.

  His back was to them, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. His robes, once simple and , were now torn and stained with something dark.

  Gale took a cautious step forward. "Elder…?"

  The man flinched, his breathing uneven. Slowly, he turned his head—not fully, just enough for them to see the glisten of tears on his wrinkled cheeks.

  "I… I never wahis," he whispered. His voice was thin, fragile, barely carried by the stagnant air. "I only wao save them… I—"

  Then his breath hitched.

  His body vulsed.

  Rael stepped forward, instincts screaming at him, but before he could react—

  A siing crack split the silence.

  The elder's head twisted unnaturally, snapping backward at an impossible angle. His mouth curled in a grotesque, frozen grin, while his eyes—flipped downward, pupils rolling into the back of his skull—stared blindly ahead.

  A deep, gurgling noise rumbled in his throat.

  Theransformation began.

  Boore through flesh like breaking gss.

  Skeletal arms—too many, far too many—burst from his back, stretg unnaturally as they cwed at the air. His once-human form twisted and stretched, ribs breaking and ref into jagged protrusions. Flesh bed, peeling away in patches to reveal something far worse underh—a body held together by raw malice, sinew and darkness woven into a grotesque shape.

  His fingers elongated into talons, his spine arched back, snapping into a monstrous posture. A thick aura of corruption poured from his body, drowning the air in suffog miasma.

  Then he roared.

  A notification fshed across Rael's interface.

  [WARNING: Hostile Entity Detected]

  Anxas, The Forsaken - Level 38

  "He sought salvation, but found only damnation."

  Gale scoffed, taking a step back as he sized up the grotesque abomination before them. "This was supposed to be an easy turn-i," he muttered, shaking his head before breaking into a dry ugh. "I swear, every time we take a job, it turns into some cursed nightmare."

  Rael didn't reply. His focus was entirely on the creature. The boss's jagged form pulsed with corrupted energy, skeletal limbs twitg erratically as if struggling to tain the sheer malice fueling its existehe grouh it withered, bck tendrils creeping outward like veins iing the earth itself.

  The air felt wrong.

  A heavy, oppressive weight settled over them, thick as tar. Breathing was harder, eahale burning slightly, and Rael could already tell—this wasn't just some ominous aesthetic. His muscles felt sluggish, reas dulled just enough to matter. His stamina wasn't rec as fast as it should. And worst of all, there was something gnawing at the edges of his mind, whispering doubts he knew weren't his own.

  Some kind of miasma effect. Debilitation through attrition. If they stayed ioo long, it wouldn't just be a physical disadvahis thing would start crawling into their heads.

  The creature's body vulsed, skeletal arms twitg at unnatural angles. Its jaw hung open, eyes burning with eerie blue fme. But it was the voice—the overpping whispers, yered with pain and accusation—that truly uled him.

  "You left me… you let them take me…"

  "I wao be saved…"

  "Why didn't you stop them?"

  Then the creature moved.

  Its cw sshed toward him, and he barely sidestepped—

  Theerimage followed.

  A fra of a sed ter, a sed attaded where he had dodged to. An unavoidable staggered strike—randomized dey.

  Rael Soulstepped out e, but Gale wasn't as lucky. He had reacted to the first attack, bringing his sword up to bloly for the sed ssh to cut into his side a heartbeat ter.

  Gale stumbled back, cursing. "What the fuck was that?!"

  Rael's mind worked quickly. Uable attack patterns. Deyed strikes that don't match the initial swing. If it's random every time, I 't preemptively dodge.

  The creature lunged again, but instead of attag—it bent backward at an impossible angle.

  Its chest split open, ribs unfolding like a grotesque maw. From within, something dark coiled, shadows weaving into tendrils that slithered outward, reag for them.

  Rael sshed through one, but the severed tendril didn't dissolve—it moved, crawling along his bde like a parasite. He flicked it off before it could reach his hand.

  Gale wasn't as fortunate. A tendril ed around his ahen yanked.

  "Shit—!"

  Gale drove his sword into the ground, barely keeping himself from being pulled forward.

  The creature's chest opened further, and this time—Rael saw what was inside.

  Faces.

  Twisted. Screaming. Wailing.

  And then—bck, spectral haed from the void within its ribs, g at the air, reag fale.

  Rael moved. His sword fshed, severing the tendril around Gale's leg just before the grasping hands could take hold.

  The creature twitched, its body vulsing violently. The fmes in its eye sockets flickered—

  And suddenly—

  The world ged.

  The shrihe cracked stoh them, the corrupted remains of the altar—all of it vanished.

  They stood in a void, surrounded by shattered fragments of the vilge—floating debris, ed remnants of houses, a distorted ndscape of what once was.

  Gale exhaled, gripping his sword tightly. "I really take back everything I said."

  The creature stilled. Its hollow gaze fixed on them. And then, slowly—deliberately—it smiled.

  The real fight was only beginning.

  The creature's ribcage cracked open, widening like the jaws of something unspeakable. From within, a torrent of bck miasma erupted, flooding the battlefield in a rolling wave of decay. The thick fog g to their bodies, sapping their strength. Rael felt it bite into his muscles—a sickly, numbiion crawling along his limbs.

  His stamina regen slowed further. His grip on his sword felt just a little heavier.

  Across from him, Gale spat on the ground, shaking his head as if trying to clear his thoughts. "This stuff's getting worse."

  Rael didn't answer. His eyes were locked on the boss. The way it twitched—a jagged, unnatural motion like a marioh severed strings. It let out a low, distorted whisper, words overpping in a chorus of voices:

  "You will join us."

  Then it moved.

  Rael barely had time to react before the creature surged forward, its multitude of skeletal limbs g through the air. He parried the first swipe, twisting his body to avoid the uable afterimage strike that followed—

  But the moment he did, another arm extended from its back, too fast to dodge.

  The cw smmed into his torso, sending him skidding across the stone.

  Rael gritted his teeth, rolling bato his feet. The momeeadied himself, he saw it—

  A bck sigil had burself onto his armor. The momeiced it, a pulse of pain shot through his body. His health dropped—not from an attack, but as if something had taken it directly.

  A curse.

  "Shit," Rael muttered.

  Gale had his own problems. The sword-wielding warrior was fighting toe-to-toe with the monstrosity, every heavy strike f the creature back. But it didn't react like a normal oppo—it twisted, arms bending at unnatural ao dodge when it shouldn't be able to dodge.

  And theerimage attacks.

  Gale barely brought his on up in time as a deyed ssh from nothing raked across his armor. He staggered, eyes narrowing. "You seeing this? It's like it doesn't even follow its own rules."

  Rael's mind raced. Uable attack patterns. Curses. Miasma weakening them over time. We're on a timer here.

  He couldn't afford to py this defensively.

  His fingers ched around his on. Then, in a siioepped forward—

  —and vanished.

  Rael Soulstepped into the creature's blind spot, reappearing behind it in a blur of speed. His sword fshed, cleaving through corrupted flesh. The creature shrieked, staggering forward as a k of its body disied into bck ash.

  He pressed the advantage, sshing again—and then his bde met resistance.

  Then Anxas caught his sword.

  It didn't move like something that had been injured. It simply stopped reag. Its many limbs stilled, its chest cavity snapping shut with a siing crack. The blue fmes in its hollow sockets flickered, narrowing like a thing with i.

  Rael immediately Soulstepped back, instincts screaming at him.

  And just in time.

  The moment he moved, the creature unleashed something new.

  A low, distorted hum filled the air—a sound that didn't belong in this world. A pulse of sickly light gathered in its ribcage, twisting, expanding—

  Then, with a guttural roar, it released it.

  A sphere of pressed void energy exploded outward.

  Rael barely mao cross his arms in front of him before it hit.

  The impact sent him flying.

  He crashed into the stone floor, skidding before finally grinding to a stop. His health dropped—a solid k ripped away in a single instant.

  But that wasn't what made his breath catch.

  It was the crag sound.

  Slowly, he looked down.

  His sword.

  Thin, jagged fractures ran along its length. A single, ominous crack ran from the base of the bde to the tip, spiderwebbing out like shattered gss.

  For a moment, he just stared.

  Then, with a sharp snap, the bde shattered.

  Rael sucked in a breath. "Shit."

  Across from him, Anxas straighteself. More miasma leaked from its chest, its unnatural whisperiurning in a chorus of overpping voices.

  "Break. Fall. Shatter. Despair."

  His on was goheir health was still draining. And the boss was at 72%.