"What the fuck!"

  Dae-Won had barely taken three sips of the potion when, yeah, his severed leg stopped bleeding, but the pain that followed was excruciating. His muscles clenched so hard it felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside. "I'm dying," he growled.

  What the hell was this stuff? His wound was healed, yet he was still kicking the bucket?

  Speaking of dying, my own life was slipping away with every drop of blood spilling onto the stage floor. I pressed my hand against the stab wound in my stomach. The one Sin-Joo had given me. My only friend. No clue what the poison was doing to me, other than setting my insides on fire.

  "Vow of Faith," Nihilith declared solemnly. "No healer in the world could save him now. His body and soul are burning, slowly consumed. Who loves him enough to save him? Who is truly selfless? Could you live with the guilt, my dear? Could you send your beloved’s soul to the Abyss? One sip, that’s all it takes. And your bond will remain unbroken."

  Nihilith danced effortlessly across the stage, a hulking beast of a figure, yet eerily graceful. His four elongated arms sliced through the air as he leaped from place to place, one hand casually adjusting the top hat on his head.

  "Two hearts. One fate."

  Hye-Rin glanced expectantly at our Paladin, still frozen in place, unable to move. What the hell were we supposed to do? Once again, it all came down to him.

  But he remained silent.

  The Vital Rupture debuff was bleeding him dry. Time had lost all meaning. How long had we been in this fight? Five minutes? Six? I had no clue. But if it had been much longer, the Paladin would already be dead.

  All I knew was that he was running out of time.

  And everything was unraveling too fast.

  "Vow of Faith is a Blood Oath debuff," Ryn Valen stated flatly. "That means it binds two people together. One must drink, and the other’s fate is linked to theirs. The outcome is completely random. It could mean life or death."

  He paused. "You have exactly twenty seconds to choose. Eighteen. Seventeen."

  I shut my eyes.

  In the darkness, pain and raw terror twisted together in a cruel waltz.

  Focus, Takuya.

  Think.

  This is Romeo and Juliet, I realized. He wants us to play it out. Romeo takes the poison. Juliet follows, unable to live without him.

  Everything on this stage is a lie. His words. His promises. The roles he’s forcing us into. The question wasn’t trust. It was whether we could break the script.

  "Give the potion to Ryn Valen!" I shouted at the last second. "You’ll die if you drink it. The monster is lying to us. If Ryn takes it, he and your fiancé have a chance to survive. And all of you need the Paladin to defeat the Puppeteer."

  All of you.

  I wasn’t including myself in the party anymore.

  Because I knew I was dying.

  I was nothing but dead weight.

  "Do it, Hye-Rin!" I shouted. "Ryn could die at any moment. If luck is on your side, the Blood Oath debuff could save two lives."

  Hye-Rin froze. What was she supposed to do? It was the life of the man she loved.

  "Twelve seconds. Eleven. Ten..." Ryn Valen’s countdown echoed in my skull.

  "Hurry!"

  Hye-Rin tried to rush toward him, but mid-step, she froze. Completely motionless. As if time itself had stopped around her.

  No. Not time.

  Nihilith’s threads had wrapped around her, locking her in place.

  "That would be too easy," he mused. "That would be… an unsatisfying ending." His voice dripped with amusement. "This is your tragedy, my dear. You decide the finale. Life or death. Two simple choices."

  To drink or not to drink. That was the question. The only problem was that a fifty-fifty gamble went wrong ninety percent of the time.

  "Three..."

  Hye-Rin trembled, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

  "Two..."

  She could have let her fiancé die so that she could live.

  "One..."

  Instead, she raised the flask to her lips. And drained it in one gulp.

  Nihilith’s grotesque, hollow laugh filled the chamber.

  "The faithful know the truth. The Abyss is not a place. It is not a prison, nor a passage. It is the end of all things. Everything you are, everything you fight for, is already unraveling. Your struggles are ripples on the surface of a bottomless void. No hero can defy it. No light can outshine it. You may stumble forward, blind in your arrogance, but the Abyss has already swallowed you whole."

  The flask slipped from Hye-Rin’s hands. Glass shattered against the floor. Her gaze turned vacant. Then, as if the strings holding her upright had been cut, she collapsed onto her knees.

  "The grand finale," Nihilith declared, tugging at the invisible puppet strings in his hands.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  I could no longer see what was happening to Dae-Won and Hye-Rin.

  Then, suddenly, Sin-Joo moved. His paralysis broke.

  How did I know?

  Because he drove his dagger straight into my shoulder.

  "Aaaah!" I screamed, pain exploding in my gut as I barely managed to twist my torso.

  Sin-Joo’s dagger came down fast. Too fast.

  I wrenched my own dagger free, raising it just in time to catch his blade. The impact sent a shockwave through my arms, nearly making me drop it.

  An endless rage consumed me.

  Was it the puppet master pulling my strings? Or pure survival instinct taking over?

  It didn’t matter.

  Sin-Joo was no longer my friend.

  He wrenched his dagger back, stepping in for another strike. I had no time to stand. No time to dodge.

  So I did the only thing I could.

  I lunged froward, low and desperate, slamming my shoulder into his legs. He staggered, his balance breaking just for a second. That was all I needed.

  With every ounce of strength left in my body, I swept my arm behind his knee and pulled. His footing collapsed.

  Sin-Joo toppled forward, his chest barreling toward me.

  I raised my dagger and angled the blade upward, positioning it directly in his path. If he fell, he would impale himself.

  Except he didn’t.

  He hovered. Suspended in midair.

  The Puppeteer must have been holding him up.

  But no.

  Not him.

  It was Ryn Valen! The Paladin had grabbed Sin-Joo by the collar from behind. Nihilith must have released the stun on him—but why?

  Then, without a second thought, Ryn tossed Sin-Joo to the floor beside me, as carelessly as I used to drop my school bag after class.

  Back when life was just games, anime, and pickled beets.

  That place felt a million miles away now.

  "I can’t let you die," he said coolly, stepping toward Nihilith.

  Who did he mean? Sin-Joo?

  Each step left silent questions on the floor, like footprints in the dust.

  "You think you can stop me, noble knight?"

  "I have to kill you, monster. There is no other way."

  "Good," Nihilith said. "You are the embodiment of corruption. Your role was set from the beginning. You are the one who brings truth into the world. The one who sets the inevitable in motion. The witness to the end. The living seal that proves all things lead to a single point: the fall."

  He twirled his four hands in a hauntingly elegant motion. His puppet strings shimmered under the stage lights, casting shadows across his face.

  Then, the threads shot toward the Paladin, wrapping around his chestplate and legs, cocooning him in an unbreakable hold.

  Nihilith’s wicked grin stretched across his face again, slicing from ear to ear like a blade through flesh.

  I thought of Dae-Won’s leg. How effortlessly the thread had severed it.

  The same thing was about to happen to Ryn Valen.

  He was too weak. OOM. No way to resist. He would be cut into a thousand pieces.

  Nihilith’s grin widened as he pulled the strings tight.

  I braced for the horror about to unfold.

  But my imagination was nowhere near reality.

  Nothing happened.

  Nihilith’s grin vanished. He yanked the strings again. Harder. Then with all his might.

  Ryn Valen exhaled sharply, squared his shoulders, and tore through the threads like they were nothing but cheap twine. He was breathing heavily, his body ravaged by wounds. The debuff would kill him at any second. Every step could be his last. And yet, he staggered forward, straight toward the boss.

  And me? I coughed up another mouthful of blood.

  Damn it all. That dagger had torn straight through my stomach lining. My knees buckled. My fingers clawed at the floor.

  It wasn’t looking good for us.

  Nihilith didn’t laugh. He didn’t need to. His voice alone was a frozen wasteland stretching into eternity. "What is victory, oh noble, god-fearing knight? Tell me, does your righteous path still shine so brightly when walked in the shadow of the Abyss?" His voice dripped with venomous amusement. "What is life? A fragile intermission on a stage already swallowed by darkness. Everyone will die. You fight because you believe it matters. But everything you have ever achieved will turn to dust, devoured by the Abyss from which it came."

  "Then let order drown in the blood of the dying," Ryn Valen declared. He took another step toward the towering figure. "The Void does not claim me. I carve a path for it to follow… Here and now!"

  A sword strike.

  It cut through the air like a streak of light.

  The stage froze.

  The demonic audience in the seats fell silent, collectively holding their breath.

  So did we.

  And then, the blood sprayed.

  A jet of thick, black demon blood erupted from the monster’s gut, drenching Ryn Valen from head to toe. His entire armor was soaked in it.

  With a single strike, the final boss of the Everland Dungeon had fallen.

  And yet, I had more questions than ever before.

  Questions I would never get answers to.

  Nihilith collapsed, his massive form crumpling onto the stage. One trembling hand pressed against the blood-slicked floor, fingers twitching as if trying to grasp something already slipping away. The river of blood from his torn belly slowed to a sluggish trickle. His breath came in ragged, hollow gasps. "Everything that breathes exists in error," he rasped. "You struggle in the illusion of control while the Abyss already grips your souls with greedy fingers..." His voice wavered, growing fainter. "You are not fighting me, little heroes. You're fighting the certainty that all of this was meaningless... long before your existence even took shape in this dying cosmos..."

  A shudder ran through his body.

  His mouth parted one last time.

  "And the rest... is silence."

  Then, he died.

  The moment the boss was defeated, golden light swirled around the Paladin.

  For a second, I thought I heard a fanfare. Or maybe I was just so close to death that I mistook it for the trumpets at the Pearly Gates.

  Then again... was I imagining it?

  Because suddenly, the Paladin stood taller than ever before. Healed. Restored. Overflowing with mana. A golden aura surrounded him.

  I was too out of it to process what was happening.

  I understood nothing anymore.

  Questions.

  More questions.

  Endless loose ends.

  Think, you useless idiot.

  My heart raced. Skipped a beat. Raced again. Skipped again. My vision blurred. A hollow ringing filled my ears. I was done. Finished. My mind was shutting down.

  I collapsed onto my stomach, my fingers weakly clawing at the ground. The pain in my gut flared, white-hot and unbearable. I gasped, choking on my own breath. Instinct took over—I twisted, rolling onto my back, desperate to relieve the pressure.

  That was when I felt it.

  The floor was trembling.

  Castle Elsinore was dissolving.

  The stage lights flickered out, the ornate ceiling cracked apart, and everything around me crumbled like stale biscuits.

  I turned my head, scanning the surroundings for Hye-Rin and Dae-Won. Their bodies were nowhere to be found.

  Why did I assume they were dead?

  I turned my head in the other direction, and then I saw him.

  Ryn Valen.

  A silhouette, moving away from me, heading toward the Abyss.

  Beside him walked Sin-Joo.

  My friend.

  The otherworldly mark above his head still pulsed, its presence heavier than before.

  We had won.

  And yet, something gnawed at me.

  That mark.

  Had it always been just a symbol? Or had it been watching us all along, waiting for its moment?

  Maybe.

  Maybe that force has always been there. An unseen thread running through the universe, twisting everything in its path.

  The Nexus.

  It was never just a place. Never just a rift between worlds. It is a will. A hunger. A force that seeps into existence itself.

  What if even the madness we call mental illness is just another echo of its corruption?

  The Nexus doesn’t just twist reality.

  It shatters our minds.

  And in that moment, I had a dreadful premonition.

  I had read about forces like this before. Stories buried in the pages of my magazines. Wild theories. Conspiracies. The kind of thing you roll your eyes at… until you’re staring it in the face.

  The Renegade Paladins. That was what they were called. They had succumbed to this force. And maybe, it was only a matter of time before the others did too.

  Like Valgarem.

  Like my friend, Sin-Joo.

  Like... Ryn Valen?

  I let my neck relax, my gaze drifting upward. Castle Elsinore was losing its form, its existence unraveling. Above me, the ceiling crumbled away. And the roof of the world opened up.

  A night sky. A stunning, endless night sky. The Milky Way.

  A shower of wild shooting stars. A lone satellite drifting across the void in silence.

  Was this sight our reward for clearing the dungeon?

  This incredible sense of relief.

  This beauty.

  It was worth it.

  That was my last thought before everything faded to black.

  And then, there was only silence.