It kept saying the same thing.
At first, it was just a whisper—like wind slipping through a cracked door, like a moan echoing from the depths of a rotting cellar.
"Mom... I'm hungry..."
Then the volume began to rise.
Over and over, endlessly.
"Mom... I'm hungry... Mom... I'm hungry..."
Its voice was hoarse, twisted, as if something were clawing, tearing at its throat from the inside.
The moans quickly turned into mad, frenzied screams.
"I'M HUNGRY!! HUNGRY!! HUNGRY!!! FEED ME!!!"
I thought its throat was going to burst.
I thought my eardrums would rip apart from that grotesque sound.
And I knew...
The thing screaming at me—it had once been a child.
But now, only a monster remained.
Without warning, it lunged at me.
Its mouth wide open, saliva flinging in strings, that horrible voice rasping through ragged breaths:
"Food... it's here...!"
I barely managed to dodge—instinct saving my body.
From the other side, Kai shouted:
"Run, Mira! Go find Ashen!!"
He didn't hesitate—shoving the burning torch into the creature's body.
The stench of scorched flesh filled the air, but it didn't scream.
It simply turned to Kai, eyes twitching with madness.
I didn't stay another second.
I ran.
Ran past the corpses I had seen when we first arrived—still lying there, unmoving, unrotted, as if death still clung to their skin like a second breath.
I just ran—toward where I knew Ashen would be.
Toward the place where he was studying the colossal spear that had pierced through that creature.
Behind me, the sounds of chaos erupted: struggling, screaming, something being slammed against stone walls...
I clenched my fists and forced myself not to look back.
And then—I saw Ashen.
He was running toward me.
I stopped, panting.
He asked,
"What happened? What are those noises?"
I could only breathe out broken words:
"Kai… monster…"
That was enough.
Ashen understood.
He nodded and ran past me, heading straight for the danger.
"Find somewhere safe, Mira. I'll be right back."
"I'll be right back"...
I'd heard that before.
The last time Ashen and Kai fought the Elderwood Beast.
I remembered just standing there, watching as they fell into that pit.
Back then, I was useless.
Back then, I was weak.
And because of that—we ended up in this place.
But not this time.
Not again.
I looked around.
And then I saw it—a sharp horn sticking out from the corpse of a fallen beast.
I ran to it, grabbed it with both hands.
Pulled.
It didn't snap easily—but I didn't stop.
Finally, it tore free—still sticky with dried blood and reeking with the stench of death.
I gripped it like a weapon, and ran toward Ashen and Kai.
But as I ran, something caught my eye—something strange.
I stopped.
Just for a second.
Not now.
I had to reach them first.
Meanwhile, elsewhere—far beyond the screaming, beyond the blood, beyond the frantic footsteps—
Elarith walked in silence.
In her hand was Mira's bloodstained shirt—the one she'd used to trick the Elderwood Beast.
The blood had darkened, soaking deep into the fabric like a message left on purpose.
She stopped before a horse-drawn carriage standing in the middle of a wasteland—strangely out of place, like a blot of ink on a blank page.
Its frame was ornate, almost royal, but belonged to no known kingdom. Vines carved into its wood twisted into thorned roses, sharp as fishhooks.
The creatures pulling it were monstrous: horse-bodied, bird-legged, bat-winged, with shattered horns sprouting from their heads.
Their armor, dulled and dented, clanked softly as they snorted.
A voice spoke behind her—calm, deliberate, with a cadence like an ancient song:
"You've returned, Elarith."
The speaker was a young man—not handsome exactly, but unnervingly striking.
His skin was pale, untouched by sunlight; his silver-white hair fell across his forehead like morning mist.
He approached, bowing with the grace of a servant trained in long-forgotten courts.
Elarith didn't look at him.
She kept her eyes on the shirt in her hand and answered quietly, voice like ashes caught in the wind:
"Have you waited long, Luna?"
Luna bowed with flawless precision—as if each movement had been practiced before a mirror a hundred times.
His hair shimmered faintly as he spoke, slow and melodic:
"Not long at all, my Lady."
Then he looked up—his eyes blood-red, same as Elarith's, but within his pupils, a faint "X" shimmered like a curse branded in silence.
That gaze flickered with something restrained... something bitter.
"And yet... I still struggle to understand why someone like you—noble, brilliant, and powerful—would stain your own hands in a place like this."
A cold smile flickered on his lips:
"Truly... the stench of dirt, blood, and failure does not suit you."
Elarith replied, calm and emotionless:
"I came to visit a friend."
Luna arched a brow, his mouth curling like he'd been served cheap wine in a golden chalice:
"Him again... that human?"
Elarith looked up at the sky—nostalgia glinting faintly in her gaze.
"Yes."
Luna chuckled, this time with a bitterness he didn't try to hide:
"I still don't understand, my Lady. How many times now? The first time, you saved him from death. Then again. And again... Every time he falls, you appear."
He ran a hand through his perfectly styled hair.
"And then what? He turns his back on everything... On you, on the Deeper Realms where you reign... just to drift to this rotting edge of the world, where the weak disguise fear with pathetic prayers."
His crimson eyes glowed more intensely now, the "X" inside them pulsing like a silent fury.
"And yet... you still watch him. Still care for him—that traitor."
Realizing his outburst, he immediately bowed, voice laced with guilt.
"Forgive me, Lady Elarith. It was foolish of me to let anger cloud my reason, to speak so rudely in your sacred presence."
Elarith shook her head gently, her tone soft as midnight wind:
"It's alright. I understand the anger in your heart, Luna."
She looked up at the sky—where the glowing trails from Mira's fall still lingered.
"But now is not the time to speak of the past. I have just received a summons..."
She paused—her voice now sharper, tinged with gravity:
"From the The Blooded Seven of the Night Clan."