The night was as dark as ink, and Eli's consciousness was dragged into a deep and chaotic dream.

He stood in a place that felt both strange and eerily familiar. The ground beneath his feet seemed to tremble faintly, and the air was thick with the acrid stench of burning.

The sky above was dyed an unnatural crimson, like an endless blaze consuming the heavens, casting blurred outlines of nearby buildings.

Squinting, Eli strained to make out his surroundings.

In the distance, a shattered glass dome and massive arched structures faintly resembled Grand Central Station, but they were grotesquely distorted, unrecognizable.

Fractured stone columns jutted from the ground at awkward angles, and shadowy figures darted frantically through the thick smoke.

Some of the figures froze suddenly, collapsing stiffly to the ground, while others vanished into an invisible abyss.

A shrill alarm blared in his ears, slicing through his nerves like a blade.

The screams of panicked crowds, metallic crashes, and disembodied wails blended into a horrifying cacophony.

Amid the chaos, a strange, guttural growl reached Eli’s ears.

He saw some of the shadowy figures abruptly turn toward others, their movements stiff yet alarmingly fast as they lunged.

He couldn’t tell if those attackers were human—their figures were simply too blurry!

The attacked figures screamed, then vanished as if swallowed by the darkness.

Suddenly, Eli felt an icy gaze fix on him.

He couldn’t make out a face—only a twisted outline gradually emerging from the suffocating smoke.

The figure dragged its uncoordinated steps closer, accompanied by the unsettling sound of grinding bones.

Eli's breathing quickened, as if something was pressing down on his chest, making it hard to breathe.

“They’re watching me…”

The thought flashed through Eli's mind just as the shadow lunged at him!

Its movements were bizarre and unnaturally fast, nothing like a human’s.

Instinctively, Eli turned and began to run, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.

The blaring alarm and guttural roars behind him grew sharper, stabbing into his ears.

He ran with all his might, but the footsteps behind him closed in relentlessly.

Those twisted shadows pursued him with an eerie, inhuman speed.

Eli could hear his own ragged breathing mingling with the thunderous pounding of his heart. Each step felt like it landed on searing ground, propelling him forward in desperation.

He dashed through a blur of ruins, the crimson glow stretching his shadow into something grotesque and distorted, like a twisted monster chasing him.

Suddenly, his foot caught on something, and he crashed to the ground, sending up a haze of dust and shadowy particles.

He tried to get up, but his legs felt as though they were bound by an unseen force, no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t move an inch.

Rolling onto his back, he looked behind him.

A mass of twisted darkness, like dense smoke, was closing in on him.

Its outline was indistinct, yet it exuded an oppressive aura that made it hard to breathe—a stench of rot and death hung thick in the air around it.

The shadow split open into a massive "mouth," as if it intended to swallow him whole.

Eli couldn’t make out its teeth, but a sharp, menacing gleam flickered in the darkness.

"Stay back!"

Eli instinctively raised his hand to shield himself, only to find his arm moving sluggishly, as if trapped in an invisible quagmire, weak and powerless.

A cold, suffocating breath swept across his face. He couldn’t even close his eyes—his pupils reflected nothing but a murky chaos.

His sanity began to fracture, like a broken mirror shattering piece by piece, leaving only an overwhelming terror filling his mind.

Just as the creature was about to touch him, the scene around him began to quake violently.

The monster’s outline seemed to be torn apart by an unseen force, breaking into fragments that scattered into the air.

Then, as though swept away by a raging wind, the entire figure disintegrated into nothingness.

The ruins, the flames, the shadows...

Everything unraveled like a damaged painting, twisting and dissolving rapidly until all that remained was pure, impenetrable darkness.

The fear didn’t dissipate; instead, it imprinted itself even deeper onto Eli’s soul.

He sat frozen in the abyss, his own ragged breathing echoing in his ears, the oppressive weight on his chest lingering like a shadow.

Glancing around, he tried to push himself to his feet, only to find his limbs unbearably heavy, as if filled with lead.

As soon as he lifted his head, Eli's gaze was drawn to a faint light in the distance.

It was an enormous, antique clock, suspended mid-air as if it had materialized from the void.

The clock face was riddled with cracks, and its hands were frozen at 9 o’clock, as though time itself had stopped.

The cracks radiated outward from the center of the face, spreading like a spiderweb, accompanied by a low, oppressive hum.

The sound was unlike the typical ticking of a clock; it was more like a pulsating rhythm emanating from deep within the earth, each pulse making Eli’s chest feel heavy and constricted.

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He felt as though his breath was being blocked by some invisible force, and even his heartbeat seemed to sync with the hum, as if the strange clock was redefining the rhythm of his life.

He tried to stand and step back, but his legs felt glued to the ground, unable to move an inch.

The hum grew heavier and heavier, gradually filling the entire space like a proclamation of judgment rather than a warning.

Eli opened his mouth, wanting to scream, but his throat felt tightly locked.

All he could do was gape soundlessly, his chest heaving violently, unable to produce even the faintest sound.

His eyes remained fixed on the clock as the cracks spread faster and faster, the edges of the fractures crumbling away.

Each fragment disintegrated the moment it separated from the clock face, vanishing into the endless void as if devoured by an unseen force.

The scene before him began to distort, the outline of the clock collapsing until only a silent shadow remained.

Eli’s consciousness was also ensnared by the clock’s collapse, as if an invisible force was dragging him into the bottomless abyss.

When the final piece of the clock disappeared, the low hum ceased abruptly, and the entire space was swallowed by an eerie, suffocating silence.

Eli felt as if he had fallen into endless darkness, the fear in his heart coiling around him like a venomous serpent, leaving him completely paralyzed.

The silence was like an invisible veil, trapping Eli in an endless abyss of darkness.

His consciousness floated aimlessly in this void without boundaries, his gaze met with nothing but suffocating blackness.

Suddenly, an indescribable force surged into his mind.

Without warning, pain struck like a blade piercing his thoughts.

He could not resist the intrusion, as though something was being forcibly embedded into his very soul.

The information was fragmented and indistinct, yet it felt overwhelmingly real.

“Failure... failure... failure after failure…”

The voice was deep and raspy, laced with gritted agony and an irrepressible despair.

Each word hammered into his mind like nails, igniting waves of sharp pain.

Suddenly, images flashed before his eyes—a chaotic swirl of countless broken fragments.

Under the scorching red glow, these fragments formed into an unrecognizable nightmare.

The burning earth churned violently, flames scorching the shattered stone pillars as the outline of the skyline wavered.

A castle loomed into view, hazy and surreal, as if assembling itself from thin air.

Its spire reached impossibly high, vanishing into the twisted skyline.

Flickering light danced atop the spire, as though an unnamed force swayed and blurred in his vision.

Suddenly, a shattering noise pierced through his eardrums—something had broken!

Eli looked up and saw countless falling shards of glass, each resembling a gleaming blade.

The blades shimmered with a cold light as they descended, striking the ground and piercing into a mass of indistinct shadows below.

The scene flashed by in an instant—a colossal figure loomed not far away, slowly collapsing amidst the raging flames.

That thing was clearly not human, yet its form resembled a humanoid shape.

Its shell was fractured, and fiery light burst forth from the cracks, accompanied by deafening explosions.

It extended a massive arm, as if desperately trying to grasp something, but ultimately, it fell helplessly to the ground, disappearing into a haze of shadows.

The scene flickered again.

Eli saw a lone figure wielding a longsword, the blade’s brilliance piercing the heavens and cutting through the endless darkness.

But in the next moment, the sword’s light vanished without a trace, swallowed by a surging deep blue current.

Beneath the depths of the water, faint shadows glided past, emanating a dim red glow like countless crimson eyes abruptly opening.

It felt as though something enormous lurked in the depths, its tendrils twisting through the water, ready to breach the surface at any moment.

The vision began to distort.

The original image was torn apart by an unseen force, and new fragments emerged within the cracks.

A blurry silhouette stood in the void, its feet resting upon an infinite sea of stars.

With a slight movement of his fingers, the entire starry expanse began to tremble, countless lights flickering to life.

The distant darkness was torn apart by a massive streak of violet lightning, its radiance erupting with a chilling brilliance.

But immediately afterward, the depths of the sky split open, resembling the maw of an abyss.

The heavens trembled violently as the gaping "mouth" silently expanded, deep and dark, like an abyss devouring all light.

From its depths, an indescribable, dazzling radiance began to form, rippling with an eerie, unnatural rhythm.

Though the light was blinding, it offered no hope—only suffocation and despair.

The radiance surged forth abruptly, like a churning black tide from the abyss, carrying an oppressive force that devoured everything in its path.

The light expanded into countless ripples, each wave resonating with unsettling vibrations, as though some law of existence was being forcibly torn apart and rewritten.

The ripples traversed the void, sweeping over countless faint points of light in the distance, which seemed to be struggling desperately to resist.

The points of light were indistinct, each emanating a cold, metallic texture. As the ripples washed over them, they began to disintegrate.

Bit by bit, they broke apart and shattered, eventually dissolving into silent clouds of dust, vanishing into the infinite void.

Deeper within the radiance, larger points of light writhed in defiance.

One such light took on an indescribable geometric shape, resembling a drifting fortress.

When the ripples reached it, the colossal form was torn apart, as though ripped open by an invisible hand.

The walls of the fortress crumbled silently, and the core at its center was completely devoured.

In an instant, all the lights within the fortress extinguished, plunging it into total darkness.

The beam of light stretched rapidly across the void, its speed surpassing the limits of Eli’s comprehension, as if even time itself had been stretched into a blurred trajectory.

It wasn’t merely moving—it pierced through everything in an instant, like a blade tearing the fabric of the universe, traveling at a speed beyond any conceivable measure.

The beam surged through the void like an unstoppable flood, striking directly at a massive floating sphere deep within the darkness, as though destined to shatter it into fragments.

The massive sphere wasn’t alone; faint points of light encircled it, like the remnants of silent guardians offering their final resistance.

However, under the oppressive force of the beam, those lights disintegrated instantly, scattering into specks of dust, like fireflies blown apart by the wind.

The surface of the sphere shimmered with a faint blue glow, exuding an ancient and solemn rhythm, like a somber melody that had played for millennia.

Yet the beam of light was merciless, like a judgmental force, steadily eroding the sphere’s boundaries. The blue glow began to peel away strand by strand, revealing its dark gray essence beneath.

In the next moment, the first crack appeared—a hairline fracture, faint yet carrying an unmistakable depth, as if it sought to sever the sphere’s very lifeline.

The crack spread rapidly, crawling like a spiderweb across the sphere’s surface.

From within these fissures, dim light began to pour out, like an endless abyss surging forth, devouring the sphere’s remaining outline.

Each crack resonated with invisible tremors, and the massive shape of the sphere began to quake, as if it were crying out in agony—yet no sound escaped, muffled entirely by the oppressive silence of the void.

The beam of light accelerated, transforming into a spear of destruction, driving straight toward the core of the sphere.

For a brief moment, the sphere fell into stillness, its faint blue glow vanishing entirely, leaving only a lifeless dimness.

Then, an indescribable shockwave erupted from within!

The cracks collapsed instantly, and the entire sphere began to release countless dazzling shards of light.

Each shard seemed to carry fragments of countless memories, briefly illuminating the void before being consumed by the beam of light and vanishing without a trace.

Farther away, the void trembled, as if letting out a silent cry over this act of annihilation.

As the final shard disappeared, the core of the sphere disintegrated entirely, leaving behind a massive, black hole-like void in its place—so vast and absolute that not even light could approach it.

The surrounding void quivered gently, rippling with aftershocks, erasing every trace of what once was.

The beam of destruction continued its relentless extension, imbued with an unstoppable will to annihilate, fading into the unreachable distance.

Eli’s gaze was locked onto the destruction before him, his chest feeling as though an invisible hand was gripping it tightly.

In the silence of the void, he seemed to hear a deep sigh, the final echo of a receding tide.

The sound carried an indescribable weariness and heaviness, as if it came from a distant shore, yet felt so close it was almost at his ear.

"…From now on… it’s up to you…"

The voice, though slow and hesitant, was imbued with an unyielding resolve.

In an instant, Eli’s heart sank sharply, his chest feeling as though a massive stone had been placed upon it.

He couldn’t comprehend the meaning of the words, but he felt an indescribable force invading his consciousness, like chains being forcibly locked around him.

The void around him began to stir gently, the echoes of whispers resonating like a mournful elegy in the darkness.

Everything around him grew even more blurred; the sky and the ground began crumbling into black particles, cascading into the abyss beneath his feet.

The whispers gradually faded into the distance as Eli’s consciousness began to blur. At last, he could close his eyes.