The violet eye bored into him, vast and ancient beyond comprehension.

  Riven's breath caught in his throat as a crushing pressure slammed into his consciousness—not physical. This was deeper, a force that pressed against his very core, against something he'd never known could be touched.

  His body locked in place. Muscles froze mid-twitch, tendons pulled taut to snapping. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

  Something reached inside.

  It moved through him without touching brain or bone, but something more fundamental—rifling through memories as though turning pages, exposing fears he'd buried beneath years of caution, uncovering secrets he'd kept even from himself. Every fragment of his being was pulled forth, examined, weighed, judged.

  Everything laid bare beneath the gaze of that single, monstrous eye.

  Seconds became eternities, minutes indistinguishable from months. There was only the endless, crushing present of being seen.

  The pressure mounted until Riven was certain his mind would crack like an egg.

  His hand trembled. A millimeter. Another. Every fraction of movement cost him more effort than lifting a mountain. Inch by agonizing inch, his hand rose toward his face. Sweat beaded on his brow from the exertion of this simple motion.

  When his fingertips finally touched his skin, he dug them in like claws. With desperate strength, he wrenched his head downward, forcing his gaze away from the eye. The tendons in his neck stretched to tearing, burning as if set aflame.

  His eyes found the ground covered with black, gnarled roots.

  But the reprieve was hollow. The pressure remained, and the examination continued unabated.

  He didn't need to see the eye for it to see him. Whatever force it exerted required no line of sight—it pierced through skull and soul regardless of where he looked. The invasion persisted, that alien presence sifting through the essence of his being, discarding and selecting pieces of him for reasons he couldn't comprehend.

  Then, without warning, the pressure vanished.

  The sudden absence hit him like a physical blow.

  Riven gasped, a violent inhalation that burned down his throat as air rushed back into starved lungs.

  His legs trembled beneath him, knees threatening to buckle with each passing heartbeat.

  He hadn't even had time to gather himself when the world around him vibrated. Snapping from stillness to chaos in an instant. Reality itself shuddered.

  He lifted his gaze, still fighting the instinct to look directly at the titanic corpse. Instead, his focus fell on the space between the colossal obsidian spikes that impaled the monstrous carcass—a space that had been empty moments before.

  Energy coalesced there now. Violet, like the eye, but different. Raw and Chaotic.

  The core of it formed a concentrated mass about a meter in diameter, so dense it seemed almost solid. But its edges dispersed outward, tendrils of power radiating in a wider perimeter.

  Its violet light cast everything in an unnatural glow, transforming the chamber into a grotesque shadow play. The obsidian spikes appeared to writhe in the flickering illumination, their shadows dancing across the walls and floor like living things.

  A sound emanated from it—a vibrating rumble, like a storm compressed to the size of a man

  Ten meters separated him from the energy. Close enough to feel the wrongness of it radiating outward.

  Then, another sound.

  From the far side of the chamber, a sound cut through the silence—metal scraping stone, mixed with ragged breathing.

  Every instinct in Riven screamed—danger.

  Riven spun around, heart slamming against his ribs. His hand clenched reflexively around his sword hilt.

  A silhouette emerged from the darkness a hundred meters away.

  Despite the distance, its presence was crushing. Overwhelming.

  Standing easily three meters tall, the knight's once-magnificent armor now hung in ruins.

  Metal plates corroded and cracked, entire sections missing to reveal what lay beneath. Blackened, decomposing skin stretched over fibrous muscle that had dried and warped like ancient leather.

  Black smoke leaked from the cracks in the armor, coiling around the metal like something alive, sentient, before finally dissipating into the air. The same violet energy from the source pulsed between the armor plates, running like corrupt veins through the exposed sections of ravaged flesh.

  The helmet was twisted, broken in places, but what drew Riven's eye were the horns—two obsidian spikes erupting from where eyes should have been. They extended at least half a meter, curved slightly upward, sharp as blades. They glowed faintly with the same violet energy, as if they were the true eyes now.

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  Most horrifying was the third arm that jutted from its back, between the shoulder blades. Larger than the others, longer, and grotesquely muscled.

  The hand of this third arm was empty for a moment—then a fissure opened in the air beside it. Violet light leaked from the edges as a massive sword materialized, the hilt forming first, followed by the blade, centimeter by centimeter, as if being pulled from another dimension entirely.What the hell.

  The weapon was enormous, but the third arm held it effortlessly. The sword's edge pulsed with violet energy like a disease.

  The knight took another step forward, metal scraping against stone as it dragged the great blade behind it. His presence pressed against Riven like a physical force even from a hundred meters away.

  Riven’s mind raced, struggling against rising panic. Fight? He glanced down at his sword—the blade that had served him well against beasts and monsters, now laughably inadequate against the corrupted knight. The creature's violet energy alone made his hands tremble from mere proximity. To face it in combat would be suicide.

  Run, then? His eyes darted toward the portal, now far behind him. Too far. The knight stood between him and any escape route. And even if he managed to reach the exit, every instinct told him the creature would be faster, stronger, and relentless.

  Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. No strategy. No clever solution.

  His muscles coiled with tension. Sweat slicked his palms, making the sword hilt slippery in his grip.

  There was no way out.

  Then something changed.

  A thought sliced through his panic—but not his own. It rose from somewhere deeper, something alien yet intimate, like an instinct he'd never known he possessed. Something buried in the depths of his mind whispered a single direction.

  The source.Run.

  Riven hesitated, eyes darting between the chaotic violet energy and the approaching knight. The energy source pulsed and crackled, its raw power obviously dangerous—potentially lethal. Each surge sent waves of wrongness radiating outward, a subtle distortion of reality itself.

  Then he looked back at the knight. It had begun to walk, slow and methodical. Its grotesque third arm held the great blade with casual ease.

  No choice.

  Riven bolted toward the energy source—ten meters that stretched into eternity.

  The path wasn't clear. Black roots erupted from the ground at chaotic angles, forcing him to weave between them. The ground itself worked against him—uneven, slick in places with the scarlet liquid that oozed from the roots.

  He couldn't stop himself from looking back. Over his shoulder, the knight was still distant, walking at the same unhurried pace. Not rushing. Not concerned. As if the outcome was inevitable, predetermined.

  Riven faced forward, pushed harder. His lungs burned. His legs ached.

  Another glance back. The knight maintained the same distance, moving with the same measured steps. The pressure never diminished, even at a distance.

  On his third look, he was nearly at the energy source. Just a few more strides.

  A momentary relief washed over him. He might make it. Whatever the energy source was, however dangerous, it felt that it was his only chance.

  Riven slowed as he reached the violet energy, stopping one meter from its chaotic center. If he extended his arm, he could nearly touch it.

  Up close, the energy was even more terrifying.

  Now.Touch this? What if it's worse than the knight?

  That foreign instinct pushed again, more insistent—Touch it. Now.

  He hesitated, hand trembling as he extended it slowly toward the concentrated center.

  Fuck it. Can't be worse than being slaughtered.

  Something made him look back one final time. Just to check.

  The creature should be distant. A hundred meters at least. Still walking that slow, methodical pace—

  The knight loomed behind him

  Within arm's reach.

  Its sword already raised.

  Impossible.

  There had been no sound, no warning. The creature had been far away a fraction of a second earlier.

  The blade plunged down.

  Cold came first. A shocking, icy sensation as the massive blade pierced his back, just left of his spine, driving through his abdomen with terrible precision.

  The tip burst from his stomach in a spray of crimson.

  Riven screamed—a strangled, raw sound that tore at his throat.

  His feet left the ground as the knight lifted the blade slightly, suspending him in the air like meat on a skewer. For one terrible moment, he hung there, impaled, the full weight of his body pulling against the sword that transfixed him.

  Then the knight wrenched the blade free with brutal force. The withdrawal was somehow worse than the initial strike—metal scraping against bone, tearing new paths through already ravaged flesh. Fresh waves of agony crashed over him as the blade exited his body.

  He collapsed, face-first against the cold stone. Blood pooled beneath him, hot at first, then cooling rapidly as it spread across the ground. His hand pressed instinctively against the gaping hole in his stomach, feeling torn flesh beneath his fingers.

  He sensed the knight looming above him. Its massive shadow fell across his broken body. The creature didn't strike again. It waited. Watched. Savoring his terror and pain.

  Riven moved. His free hand clawed at the stone floor. He dragged himself forward a few centimeters, leaving a smear of red in his wake.

  Each tiny movement was agony, tearing the wound wider, spilling more blood across the ground.

  Toward the energy source. So close. Less than a meter now.

  The effort was unbearable. Each pull forward sent fresh waves of pain radiating from the wound. His blood traced a crimson path behind him, a slick trail marking his desperate progress.

  With the last of his strength, he forced his body to roll over, now facing upward.

  The knight stood above him, impossibly tall from this perspective. Its silhouette was cut out against the violet light of the energy source behind it. The obsidian horns where eyes should have been glowed faintly in the darkness, fixed on him with implacable malice.

  The third arm raised the blade again—preparing the final stroke.

  No escape. No hope.

  But that instinct screamed one last time.

  TOUCH.

  Riven thrust his hand toward the energy source. His fingers made contact.

  The reaction was instantaneous.

  Violet energy exploded into his hand, surging with catastrophic force. Like a dam bursting, the torrent invaded his body all at once, overwhelming every nerve, every cell.

  The pain was beyond anything he'd ever experienced. Not burning, not tearing—both, and worse.

  His entire body convulsed as if every fiber was twisting, bones breaking and reforming simultaneously, muscles tearing away only to be restitched in the same moment. His blood boiled in his veins, superheated by the foreign power flooding through him.

  His body was being unmade and remade from within—reconstructed, reforged, rewired for some purpose beyond his comprehension.

  A scream ripped from his throat—raw, animalistic, barely human.

  His hand remained locked on the energy source, fingers frozen in a claw-like grip he couldn't release even if he wanted to.

  Through the haze, he saw the knight above begin to dissolve—edges blurring, smoke evaporating. But it didn't vanish completely. It remained, watching. Witnessing.

  Seconds stretched into forever, each moment pure torture.

  Riven fought to endure, but each wave of agony pushed him closer to the brink. He couldn't endure. Couldn't escape.

  Darkness crept in from the edges of his vision. The sounds—his own screams, the crackling energy, the sizzle of flesh being reshaped—grew distant.

  His last sight was the knight's silhouette above him.

  Then nothing.

  Blackness swallowed him whole.