Ile Mortis held the blackened shard in his skeletal grasp, its sickly green glow casting eerie shadows upon the stone chamber. The silence that followed his theft of the artifact was deafening. The whispers had ceased, the torches burned in unnatural stillness, and the air hung heavy with anticipation. He could feel the weight of the relic, not in mass, but in presence. It pulsed with something alive, something that recognized him, that judged him.

  A test, indeed.

  He had passed. But at what cost?

  The ground beneath him trembled. Dust and small pebbles rained from the high ceiling as the tomb itself seemed to awaken from its slumber. A deep, guttural groan echoed through the walls. Ile had felt such disturbances before—wards unraveling, barriers collapsing, something long contained finally set free.

  The torches that had once burned in flickering orange flames snuffed out all at once, plunging the chamber into a suffocating darkness. The only remaining light came from the shard itself, pulsing in time with something unseen. Then, the silence was broken.

  A whisper. Not in his ears, not in his mind, but somewhere deeper. The voice of something ancient, something watching.

  "You have claimed what was left to rot. You take, and so you shall know."

  Ile did not reply. He had no patience for cryptic words, nor did he fear whatever intended to haunt him. He turned, stepping toward the tomb’s exit, his boots grinding against the dust-covered floor. The weight of the shard in his grasp was strange—it was not heavy, but neither was it light. It carried the presence of something that did not belong in this world, something pulled from beyond the veil.

  The moment he crossed the threshold of the tomb, the world changed.

  It was not a shift he could comprehend, nor was it one he had ever experienced before. One step had taken him from the crypt’s stone halls into something else entirely. Gone were the damp walls and the scent of ancient decay. Gone was the echo of his own footsteps. Instead, he stood in a place unnatural, unreal.

  The Dead Woods.

  The sky above was an endless void, not black, not grey, but something that made no sense to his mind. The trees were white, their bark smooth and unblemished, as if untouched by time. But where leaves should have been, there was something else—red, raw, something that pulsed as if alive. Flesh, hanging in grotesque imitation of foliage. The branches swayed despite the still air, moving in a rhythm unbidden by wind.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Beneath him, the grass was not green, nor was it dead. It was grey, brittle, as if caught between life and decay. When he stepped forward, the ground gave slightly, not like earth, but something softer, something that should not be.

  Ile Mortis did not know this place.

  And yet, it knew him.

  He felt it. A presence, watching from beyond the trees, lurking in the spaces between his sight and his understanding. It was not one being. It was many. It was all. The feeling was not unlike standing in the presence of a god, but there was no divinity here. No judgment. Only observation.

  His cursed blade pulsed against his back, the same way it did when danger lurked near. But there was nothing to fight. Nothing to kill. Only the sound of his own movement and the faint, wet rustling of the trees breathing.

  For the first time in centuries, something akin to unease crept into Ile’s bones.

  He turned sharply, expecting to see something behind him, but there was nothing. The tomb was gone. There was no entrance, no passage, no indication that he had ever walked through a door at all. The realization was not one that unsettled him, but it did make him aware that this was not simply an illusion.

  Something had taken him.

  Something had wanted him here.

  The shard in his grip pulsed again, and as it did, the world flickered. Not like light, not like shadow, but like reality itself stuttering, as if uncertain whether it should continue.

  The trees swayed, their red growths shifting in tandem. The pulsing quickened.

  Then, with no warning, the world snapped back.

  The crypt.

  The cold, damp air returned. The walls stood where they had always been. The torches burned once more, flickering in the stale, unmoving air. The ground beneath his feet was stone, solid, certain. But the feeling did not leave him. The presence did not vanish entirely.

  The shard had done something. Or perhaps, something had used the shard to do something to him.

  Ile Mortis slowly exhaled, though he did not need to. A habit from a life long lost.

  He glanced down at the artifact in his grip. It was still the same blackened shard, still pulsing faintly with its eerie green glow. But now, it felt different. As if something else had become aware of him the moment he took it. As if, by claiming it, he had been seen by something he should not have been seen by.

  He tightened his grip.

  Whatever had happened, he would unravel it. He had no patience for mysteries left unsolved.

  With steady steps, he moved forward, this time certain that he was truly leaving the tomb behind. As he climbed the steps toward the surface, the cursed blade at his back remained silent, but he could feel its presence. It had witnessed what he had. And though it did not speak, he knew it had questions of its own.

  The dead did not dream.

  And yet, Ile Mortis had seen something beyond death.

  He did not fear it.

  But he would not forget it.