Zayn could barely think as the swarm of monsters bit into his flesh. Mandibles snapped and tore at his body, shredding his skin and muscle with relentless precision. Every bite sent fresh waves of searing pain coursing through him, each one distinct and excruciating, as though his entire body had become a canvas for agony. His blood mixed with the viscous liquid oozing from the monsters' sacs, creating a grotesque cocktail that soaked him as he was buried beneath their writhing forms.

"This... is bullshit!" Zayn snarled inwardly, his thoughts raging against the situation. He cursed the monsters, the guards, and the entire world he found himself trapped in. He didn't have time for despair—his fury kept him alive.

With every ounce of strength he could muster, he drove his exposed finger bones into the nearest creature, stabbing into its pulsing crimson sac. The sac ruptured, showering him in the acrid fluid that seemed to stick to his skin like tar.

He twisted and writhed, his muscles screaming in protest as more monsters piled on top of him. Their collective weight pressed him down, forcing him flat against the floor of the hole.

The surface was wet—slick with a thick liquid that made it impossible to get any traction. Zayn barely registered it at first, too focused on stabbing, clawing, and surviving. But as he kept fighting, the liquid rose, creeping up his body like an unrelenting tide.

"What the hell...?" Zayn thought, confusion piercing through his haze of pain. He drove his fingers into another monster, cracking its exoskeleton and spilling more blood.

The level of the liquid rose again, now lapping against his cheek. He gasped for air, his mind racing. Is this... their blood? No, this can't be right... there's no way...

But it was undeniable. The hole they had dug—the massive, cavernous space—was filling. The sheer volume of liquid shouldn't have been possible, but as Zayn stabbed another creature, spraying yet more blood into the rising pool, he realized the horrible truth.

"They knew. Those bastards knew this would happen!" he thought, his rage burning brighter. The guards, that royal council shit, whoever planned this... they wanted this. They wanted this outcome.

For what purpose, Zayn had no idea. But the realization gave him no solace. He was still fighting, still drowning, still dying in a hellhole filled with monsters and blood.

The tide continued to rise, and Zayn's head dipped below the surface. He struggled desperately, trying to keep his mouth and nose above the thick, viscous liquid. His limbs thrashed, his fingers clawed at the monsters, but he couldn't rise. The weight of their bodies and his own exhaustion kept him pinned.

The blood swallowed him completely.

The world around him became muffled, the sound of chittering replaced by the dull roar of his own heartbeat. His chest burned as he held his breath, his lungs screaming for air. His movements slowed, his arms and legs growing heavier with each passing second.

"No... no... not like this," Zayn thought, panic clawing at the edges of his mind. His senses dulled, the sharp sting of pain replaced by a cold numbness that seeped into his bones. He felt the monsters still biting, but their attacks became distant, almost dreamlike.

He couldn't hold his breath any longer. His mouth opened involuntarily, and blood rushed in, filling his throat and lungs. The taste was vile, metallic, and suffocating. Zayn convulsed, his body rejecting the invasive liquid, but it was no use. He was drowning in the monsters' blood.

His vision blurred, the dim light of the surface fading into darkness. His thoughts grew sluggish, but his fury burned on, even as his body began to fail.

"Fuck this... fuck them... fuck... everything!"

He cursed the guards who stood above, safe from the horrors below. He cursed the royal council, which he didn't even know had orchestrated this nightmare. He cursed the Librarian who had thrown him into this Story, this cruel mockery of life. He cursed the monsters that ate at his body at this very moment. At the Empire where he had been forced to live a meaningless, the friends he never had and enemies who had shaped his suffering. He cursed the Story itself, this hellish narrative that seemed designed to break restrain, and destroy him.

"I refuse to die... like this. Not here. Not now."

But his curses were swallowed by the blood filling his lungs, and his body grew still. His thoughts fractured, his consciousness fading like the dying embers of a fire.

Zayn's world became dark, but even in that darkness, his anger burned on, a final, defiant spark against the Story that had consumed him.

Meanwhile,

Lain moved with a speed and precision that seemed impossible for someone of his age, dodging the snapping mandibles of the monsters and striking back with calculated efficiency. His skinny limbs moved like extensions of his will, as though they hadn't just been pushed to their limit hours ago.

He ducked under a lunging creature, its beetle-like shell gleaming under the sparse light, and drove his bony fingers into the exposed crimson sac beneath its thorax. The sac burst, spraying blood in an arc as the creature thrashed violently before falling limp.

Lain didn't pause to catch his breath. Another monster scuttled toward him, its claws clicking against the slick, blood-coated floor. He sidestepped its attack, pivoting smoothly, and kicked its underside with surprising force.

The monster flipped onto its back, legs flailing uselessly, and Lain plunged his sharpened digits into its vulnerable sac, ending its struggle.

If Zayn could see him now, he'd find it odd—almost unnatural—how fluidly Lain fought despite the hours of grueling labor they'd endured. His movements were sharp, precise, and carried an almost eerie grace.

But Lain didn't have the luxury of pondering his own condition. His focus was on survival, both his own and that of the other Lower citizens. Between attacks, he shouted orders to them.

"Go for the sacs! It's their weak spot! Don't waste your strength hitting the shells!"

For a while, the strategy worked. The Lower citizens, despite their earlier hopelessness, followed his lead. Together, they managed to take down more monsters than before.

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There was a brief moment where Lain thought they might actually hold their ground.

That illusion shattered when the first Lower citizen fell.

Lain caught it in the corner of his eye—a man desperately trying to fend off two monsters at once. One of them clamped its mandibles onto his arm, snapping the bone like a twig. The man screamed, his free hand flailing uselessly as the second monster lunged for his exposed neck. Blood sprayed in torrents as the creature tore into his throat, its sac inflating grotesquely as it fed.

Before the man's body even hit the ground, more monsters swarmed him. Mandibles shredded flesh, claws ripped into his torso, and his screams faded into wet, guttural gurgles. Within seconds, there was nothing left but a mangled husk surrounded by chittering creatures.

Lain felt a chill run through him, colder than the blood soaking his body. He had seen death before—plenty of it—but there was something uniquely horrifying about this.

The effect on the others was immediate. The fire that had been kindled in their eyes dimmed, replaced by terror. They hesitated, their movements slowing, and in that hesitation, the monsters pressed their advantage.

"Keep fighting!" Lain shouted, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Don't stop! If you hesitate, you're dead!"

But his words barely reached them. Fear had taken hold, and it was a fear Lain couldn't dispel with mere commands. The loss of a single fighter turned the tide, and Lain found himself struggling to cover the gaps left in their defense.

As he fought, he suddenly felt his footing falter. His ankle twisted slightly, causing him to stumble, but he recovered quickly. Glancing down, he saw that his feet were submerged in a thick, dark liquid. At first, he thought it was just the area he was standing in, but then he saw another Lower citizen slip and fall, blood splashing around them as the monsters didn't miss the chance to dogpile them.

It wasn't just where he was standing. The entire hole was filling with blood.

Lain's mind raced as he stabbed another monster, crimson fluid spraying into the rising pool. This doesn't make sense. How is this much blood possible?

He fought on, his strikes becoming more frantic as the liquid rose past his knees. The monsters' sacs—there's no way they should be able to fill a hole this size, even with how many we've killed.

Then it hit him. The realization came like a dagger to his gut.

This is why they made us dig these holes. The council, the guards—they knew. They wanted this.

The purpose was clear now, even if the reasons weren't. The royal council had orchestrated this massacre, and the guards had been complicit. Lain's stomach churned as he continued to fight, his strikes becoming less precise as his thoughts threatened to overwhelm him.

The blood level rose faster now, reaching his waist. He realized with growing horror that the death rate of the monsters hadn't slowed. If anything, it had increased. He noticed how the creatures, in their frenzy, often tore into each other while fighting for corpses or simply from overcrowding.

The carnage was so brutal that the monsters were contributing to their own slaughter, but the unintended consequence was the flood of blood that now threatened to drown them all.

Lain's breath came in ragged gasps as he struggled to keep fighting. The weight of the situation bore down on him like an iron shroud. He didn't know what the council's endgame was, but he knew one thing for certain: if something didn't change soon, they were all going to die.

He drove his fingers into another monster's sac, his movements slowing as exhaustion and dread set in. The blood was now at his chest, and with every second, the situation grew more dire.

What the hell do I do now?

But there was no answer, only the rising tide of blood and the unending swarm of monsters.

Elsewhere,

The lead guard stood at the edge of one of the holes, his arms crossed as he observed the chaos below. The Lower citizens inside fought like cornered animals, their bare hands swinging wildly as they tried to fend off the relentless tide of monsters. Despite their desperate struggle, they were dying in droves, their bodies torn apart and discarded into the rising pool of blood.

Several minutes had passed since the slaughter began, and the hole was filling rapidly. The blood level had risen significantly, nearly halfway up the massive pit. The surviving Lower citizens, now forced to tread in the viscous crimson liquid, were flailing to stay afloat. They fought with everything they had, but the monsters were relentless, tearing into them even as they clung to life.

The same scene played out in the other holes across the site. From his vantage point, the lead guard could see the faint glow of blood pooling in every pit, the remaining Lower citizens struggling futilely against the swarm of creatures. It was a grotesque, macabre spectacle, and despite his practiced indifference, a pang of worry crept into his chest.

"They're not killing enough," he thought grimly. The plan had been to use the Lower citizens to cull the monsters, to fill the holes with their blood and carcasses, but at this rate, there wouldn't be enough bodies to finish the job.

The lead guard flexed his fingers, his hand brushing the hilt of his blade. If the situation continued to spiral, the guards would have to step in. It wasn't what he wanted—sacrificing Lower citizens was one thing, but risking the lives of trained guards was a different matter entirely. Still, he prepared himself to give the order if it came to that.

That was when he felt it.

The ground beneath him trembled, a faint vibration that quickly grew stronger. His eyes darted up the slope of the half-mountain behind them, the jagged rock face looming ominously in the dark. At first, he thought he had accidentally activated the monolith somehow, but as the tremors intensified, he noticed something that froze him in place.

At the very top of the mountain—where its peak had long ago been sheared off, leaving a massive crater—a crimson-red light began to glow. The illumination spread like wildfire, spilling out from the crater and lighting up the night sky in a brilliant, bloody hue. It was like a flare in the darkness, impossible to ignore.

The other guards noticed it too, their attention snapping to the mountain. Murmurs of confusion and alarm rippled through their ranks.

The lead guard frowned, his mind racing. "What the hell is this? This wasn't supposed to happen yet."

Then he saw the cracks.

Bright red fissures snaked down the mountainside, glowing with the same ominous light as the crater. The cracks spread with terrifying speed, carving jagged lines into the rock and throwing debris into the air. The force of the tremors sent monsters tumbling down the slope, their bodies flung like ragdolls.

And then the swarm changed.

The monsters, which had been obediently following the purple threads from the monolith, suddenly abandoned their paths. They surged down the mountain in a frenzied stampede, no longer heeding the invisible pull of the threads. Their glowing red sacs pulsed in time with the cracks on the mountain as if they were responding to the same force.

The lead guard's heart sank. "This isn't part of the plan. It's too early, and it's far more aggressive than the council's predictions stated."

The first wave of monsters reached the guards at the base of the mountain. The soldiers, though shocked, quickly drew their weapons and formed a defensive line. Swords clashed against chitinous exoskeletons, and the air filled with the sound of battle.

The lead guard gritted his teeth, weighing his options. "We'll have to retreat soon. If this keeps up, we'll be overrun." He spared no thought for the Lower citizens still trapped in the holes. They were already as good as dead.

In the blood-filled pit, Lain was struggling to stay afloat. He had long since lost his footing on solid ground, the rising blood forcing him to swim desperately. Around him, the remaining Lower citizens were succumbing one by one, their bodies dragged under by the tide of monsters.

Lain's arms ached, his breathing was ragged, and his vision blurred from exhaustion. But he kept fighting, slamming his fists into the nearest creatures and forcing them back. He cursed his luck inwardly, his thoughts bitter.

"Damn it, Zayn. I thought you'd last longer than this. Now it's just me."

He could feel his strength waning. If he didn't do something soon, he'd join the others. His mind raced, considering the one option he had left. "Do I use it? If I don't, I'm done for."

His frantic thoughts were interrupted by a deep, rumbling tremor. The walls of the pit shook violently, and a faint crimson glow illuminated the night sky above. Lain squinted upward, trying to make sense of it.

Suddenly, he heard movement in the blood. It was a strong, deliberate motion, cutting through the chaos of thrashing bodies. His heart pounded as he turned, preparing for another wave of monsters.

But what emerged from the blood wasn't another creature.

A hand—slim and crimson, dripping with blood—rose slowly from the surface, its fingers spread wide as if reaching for something.

Lain froze, his breath catching in his throat.